Neon Genesis Evangelion: The Beast Inside
Written by abi2301
Chapter 10
v.01: 01/08/2005
Official disclaimer:
The Neon Genesis Evangelion anime and manga series are the intellectual and material property of Gainax Studios, ADVision, Inc., Shonen Ace magazine, Hideaki Anno and Yoshiyuki Sadamoto. All rights reserved. 'NGE: The Beast Inside' is a purely fictional series based upon the original NGE and written for entertainment purpose only. No money is made out of it.
Chapter 10: The Hidden Warrior / Walking Through The Gateways To Gehenna
Do your duty, and leave the outcome to the Gods.
Pierre CORNEILLE, Horace (1640) act 2, sc. 8
We pray for peace,
But not the easy peace
Built on complacency
And not the truth of God.
Alan GAUNT, We pray for peace (hymn)
Waste of Blood, and waste of Tears,
Waste of youth's most precious years,
Waste of ways the saints have trod,
Waste of Glory, waste of God,
War!
G.A. Studdert KENNEDY, More Rough Rhymes of a Padre by 'Woodbine Willie' (1919) 'Waste'
All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.
Edward GIBBON, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-88) ch. 71
Dull brown eyes turned to blazing crimson.
Unfathomable horror turned to unabated rage...
...And familiar uncertainty turned to newfound determination.
In the artificial womb that was the Entry-Plug of Unit 01 the main asset of the organization known as NERV a single word, or yet, more precisely, a name rang out through the murky life-sustaining liquid named the LCL. As soon as it reached the ears of the being sitting in its command throne, hidden mechanisms of sorts started to turn at an alarming speed. Unknown to the beings outside that monitored the status and doings of the combat staff, a new process was being born. No one knew yet that what had just happened was a perfect example of a chaos theory phenomenon known as the Butterfly Effect: a very little event that would trigger a series of greater ones, that would have much bigger consequences and importance.
In the fevered mind of the Third Child, Shinji Ikari, it seemed as if the gates of time had opened wide, pouring forth a torrent of images and feelings previously alien to him echoes of the past and memories of eons forgotten. He saw, flashing in front of him, eras where Man had to sacrifice their own people to communicate with the Gods, where brutality walked along with savageness. He saw towers long since destroyed rising from the murk of the past, shining anew in the blazing sun. He saw men scampering across grassy hills, running after their preys...before visions of old Babylonian cities appeared from thin air. He could behold the tower of Babel in all of its mighty glory, reaching towards their skies in a desperate attempt to build a path towards Heaven. He saw seas parting and continents crumbling, towns burning and skies smoldering suffering the anger of the Ones that dwelt in the lands of peace.
He could see beings of light soaring through the air, mingling with mere mortals, as if no boundaries existed between them. He saw green vales laden with trees and plants of all sorts, with animals of species uncounted wandering hither and anon. To Shinji Ikari, the feeling of loss and regret was clearly evident as he watched those scenes running through his mind. Times lost forever, destroyed by the folly of Man. An empty throne appeared in front of him, laden with jewels of impressive size and purest gold. He could feel the aura permeating from the object, yet he saw nothing between the diamond-covered armrests and the finely decorated seat. He knew that something was sitting on it. Something of tremendous power, one that he could neither understand nor imagine. One whose influence stretched farther than Man could ever comprehend. He was kneeling in front of God, he realized with awe and fascination. He recognized the area and the settings, as if it reminiscing an old, deeply buried memory. He had been there a long time ago, years so many he could not remember ago. As he realized it, the vision faded, replaced by others, more disturbing than ever. He saw churning rivers and sparkling streams, shimmering waterfalls, all of them drowning in a whirlwind of colors and feelings that he could not fathom for they were too numerous and too intense for him to get a hold of them and process them individually. In a part of his mind, he also felt recognition eliciting a word from his tired and breaking soul.
One he desperately longed for.
Paradise.
Eden.
He could hear whispers in a language he could not comprehend the inflections fair and terrible, the tones sooth and sweet and the accents full of peace and wonder. Yet he understood their meanings, as if an unknown being was translating them for him. He knew what they were talking of. The voices grew louder as the imaginary light around him receded. Darkness grew and the visions wavered, as like a little flame in a billowing wind.
Then all hell broke loose. He saw flames licking the skies, and shadows stirring from the ground, twirling like a vortex, destroying everything in its path. Forests were turned into ashes and cities thrown into ruins, peoples were chased from their abode or downright killed. Dead bodies of various forms littered the landscape, as torrents of blood seeped from the hills and poisoned the once pure rivers that adorned those sun-filled lands. He saw beings of darkness swarming through lands like a wind, spreading death and destruction in their path. Wars flashed in front of him. Civilizations falling, countries burning, conflicts unending...the apogee of a golden era, followed an excruciating decline that claimed countless lives and forever banished the hope of a perfect life down into the endless void of oblivion and fatality. The Rebellion of the Mighty. The War of the Higher Circles.
The Great Fall of the Morningstar.
Memories. Those were memories.
But not his
Yet...
...He could not but feel a wisp of familiarity, as if something inside him remembered them, raising from a deep slumber up to the path to awakening and awareness.
As he made that last reflection, Shinji Ikari sensed something stirring deep down in the innards of his soul, his very soul. A sense of dread and longing arose, followed by determination and a feeling of separation, of imprisonment slowly breaking. The barriers of his essence were fading. It was as if he was melting from the outside yet burning from the inside. Feelings and opinions that were not his thundered through his mind, causing various thoughts to flow through his vanquished psyche like a stream that would never abate. His vision slowly returned as the outlines of the Entry-Plug came back to his sight. They were blurred but he could clearly see in front of him his own hands clenched around the butterfly handles as he trembled from fear and horror. The smoking body of Unit 02 was sprawling in front of his own Eva, still unmoving, the grisly scene of the nearly ripped open chest sending tremors through his spine. Muscles tensed and nerves were set to fire as he took in the scene in front of him. His pupils narrowed to cat-like slits, as his irises turned CRIMSON. His jaw snapped shut as he recognized the wisps of anger stirring in his innards.
His gaze tore itself off the eagle-spread form of Unit 02 towards the standing figure of the Eighteenth Angel, who, surprisingly, had still not made any attempt to attack Unit 01 or even budged Time having seemingly suspended itself. Silence reigned around him.
Faintly but surely he could hear it, thumping in his body and hammering his eardrums: his own heartbeat, each muffle thump rising in intensity as milliseconds ticked by. His face burned up as red-hot blood blasted its way through his dilated veins and arteries, heightening his senses and feeding him with billions of sensations. His brains seemed to be set afire as the throbbing in his brain grew stronger. He could feel something rising from the inside of his mind, breaking its restraints like a maddened beast freeing itself from its cage. His mind faded...just as his eyes bore into those of Za'amiel, the Angel of Whirlwinds, the one that molds the winds into a fearsome weapon that can wreak havoc on hapless lands and people. He recognized him, as one of his master's followers and most faithful servants yet he sensed deep within him a hatred that could shatter mountains by its sheer intensity. Enemy. The word came back like a leitmotiv. He was an enemy.
As his mind finally gave way to the being that tore its way through the Third Child's mental control, a low growl rose from the throat of Eva Unit 01.
The Berserker was loose.
And the doors of Hell banged open.
A long time ago lived a people somewhere near Scandinavia, one that belonged to the Norsemen community. Its members strongly believed in the power of Nature and thus revered greatly those sprung from that mighty being, mother of all things. They particularly adored one of those creatures one whose strength was said to outmatch any other living beings': the wild bear. Animists by nature, they nourished the belief that the power of those animals flowed through their skin and stayed there even after death, along with their soul. They soon took the habit of wearing great mantles made of bear pelts, believing that they could draw strength from that vestment or armor of sorts and use it to fight in battle with greater efficiency, eliciting fear and dread from their enemies. In their own culture, the spirits of those animals then took abode in the bodies of the warriors and possessed them, rendering them fearless and invincible, imparting them with the insanity of a wounded bear. Bloody battles and horrific victories fueled that belief - making those fighters the most feared warriors in the lands of the Norsemen. Rituals and strong religions only served to secure that truth in the heart of many men. It is now also believed that that small piece of history is the source of the werewolf legend, as originally, traditions and other superstitions said that men who wore coats made of wolf fur would take the form of these blood-lusting animals and adopt their behavior. It was only centuries after that the 'bite of the wolf' appeared to complete the circle and make the earlier traditions disappear in the everlasting fog of History.
Those men, who hacked their way through battles with bloody axes and spears, were called the Berserkers - the men with bear shirts.
The word berserk, which came from the Icelandic words bern (bear) and serkr (coat) meant 'mad', 'furious'. 'Enraged'.
As centuries flew by, 'berserk' took the meaning of 'out of control', 'maddened'. The old word 'berserk gang', after all, simply meant 'anger' or 'rage'. But its original essence was still there, to bring the testimonies of the past to the last generations of men.
Other legends pictured the Berserkers as very quiet, laconic individuals. Some said that they could also be shy or taciturn. For others, they seemed unnaturally calm. Yet, when they were in danger or in battle, they would sort of...snap...entering a deadly frenzy that would render them cruel, powerful and above all, merciless. Unbeatable. A warrior hiding beneath a complacent, silent and deceptive disguise.
People throughout ages in European and North American territories had linked the howl of the wolf in darkness with tales of horror and superstition. The mysteries of Nature made such matters extremely appealing to the darkest parts of mind, most of all raw fear and fear of the unknown. The wolves being predators - even though they only attacked men when they were hungered for a reason or another and couldn't find either a sheep or a calf to feed upon - popular beliefs transformed them into soulless monsters that ripped innocent people apart with as much as a blink of the eye. Stories written through Middle Ages only aggravated the truth and what was made of it - that those beasts were evil and a reincarnation of the forces of darkness, lurking in the shadow and longing to rip the entrails out of children and women. Movies and novels made matters even more worse, as coincidences and shadowy events like the Gévaudan Beast Case took place aside them in a campaign to draw an evil picture of those beasts.
The howl of the wolf thus became the symbol of evil forces at work, hidden by the curtains of the night.
Yet there were things that were even more frightening.
Those beasts were known by Man yet feared.
What would happen if the thing one should fear most was something that was known to the world as innocent or incapable of harming people around? What if the so-called, proverbial beast was not what it seemed, but disguised as a lamb?
Or more exactly, something restrained for so many years, thought tamed yet still uncontrollable? Shoved deep inside a cage of sorts and held there for a long, agonizing period - let there to skulk until the hour of its release?
It would be worse than what one could ever imagine.
Like a angel of welfare suddenly turning into a demon of havoc.
In Tokyo-03, the beast inside once again awoke.
The jaws of the beast cracked open, the metal restraints finally ripping away by the tremendous strain. Out of its mouth came, low but powerful the scream of rage from a monster that stayed locked for years. Its teeth glowed red, as a roar shot from its throat and blasted away, shattering glass panes and windows in a two-mile radius. The earth beneath even shook from the bloodcurdling shockwave, and bits of dirt and rocks flew away as if recoiling in fear. The beast threw its head back and howled again - anger and bloodlust clearly evident in its tones. To the military personnel around the hills of Tokyo-03, some even related it to a war cry - a call for battle and blood.
The eyes of the behemoth dangerously narrowed to slits, a red hue permeating from them.
Unit 01 was going berserker once again.
The beast suddenly fell in a crouch, falling on all fours like an animal, its eyes never leaving the still form of Za'amiel. Its muscles bulged with great cracking sounds, as armor plates were ripped out of their flesh-embedded mounts. A ripple traveled through the hunched form of the Eva, like a wave of barely restrained power. The technicians down in the subterranean complex known as the Geofront could see the fracture lines spreading through the metallic suit, causing multiple debris to detach themselves from the tensing mass. Eva Unit 01 roared again - as if reiterating a warning of sorts against an opponent that had not complied to his earlier threat. Za'amiel, this time, made a movement - taking a step back as if flinching from the inhuman call. For a moment, it seemed to drown in indecision as the angelic being stayed frozen in place, one leg pulled backwards for a second step, clearly hesitating to either attack or flee from the awakened warrior.
Unit 01 growled loudly and began to advance, slowly regained a standing position, yet with arms hanging in a threatening posture. Claw-like fingers slowly rose to chest level, as if the mecha longed to rip the throat of its opponent. Once again, Za'amiel recoiled. Something was obviously amiss.
The howl of the Berserker tore the air.
"What is it doing?" whispered a frantic Misato Katsuragi as she watched the beast make its way towards a retreating Angel. No signs of hostility could be seen from the latter, as if it hesitated to attack its enemy...a gesture seemingly not reciprocated.
"Shinji?"
The loudspeakers only gave her silence as an answer. Worry and terror drove recklessly down the lanes of her heart, spreading her mind with a sense of dread, an eventuality she dared not consider. She had seen this seen a dozen times before if not less and each time it had turned into a massacre whose effects were hard to make disappear, as they not only left physical signs of their existence around them but also embedded themselves deeply in the soul of those who had beheld that particular occurrence.
"SHINJI, ANSWER ME!"
Unit 01 growled.
"Sh...Shinji...?"
Behind her, Sub-Commander Kozo Fuyutsuki repressed a sigh as he acknowledged the new development. The hands of time were spinning faster, as Gendo Ikari had predicted. A new step in their fate had been made, yet he found no comfort in that realization, as the implications of Eva Unit 01 going Berserker often brought dire news and problems along. So we've crossed the forbidden boundary - the last one. We called upon HIM. The Faithful yet now a Traitor. And we dared give him shelter in the form of a broken being. Yui would've been cursing by now - it was always hard to anger her, but I'm sure she would have snapped had she come to know up to which extent we have gone to secure our place in Heaven. But is she angry, now, in her vessel? His eyes turned back to Unit 01, as if trying to recognize something not blatant to common sight. Or is it merely HIM?
"Is it...is it...?" stuttered Misato as she turned towards Ritsuko Akagi who had the same look of horror-filled fascination plastered on her face. She pointed a shaky finger to the holo-screen, indicating the purple demon.
"It seems to...Maya, what is the status of the Entry-Plug and the command nexus?" she snapped at her protégé, who dove back to her command panel, hammering buttons and switches, browsing through countless windows and activating an equal number of diagnosis programs, live update databases and I/O sensors. Her eyes widened as she scanned through a chart and fell on one particular reading. Her breath caught before she murmured...
"...Unit 01's pilot is still in full control..."
Up in the command platform that towered above the operation bridge, Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki let out a sigh full of resignation. His shoulders fell as if a sudden weight had fallen on them just as his musings took a defeated tone.
So we finally succeeded - he has awakened Him.
The final link.
Behind him, the blue-haired Rei Ayanami stared, her eyes slightly wider, at the screen, her eyes boring into the image of the purple guardian, as if recognizing something that shouldn't be there.
Ikari, what has happened to you? Your soul does not feel the same anymore - how could such a change occur to you?
The slight change in the demeanor of the First Child, even if nearly undetectable to the unwary eye, however does not go unnoticed by the second-in-command of NERV. Fuyutsuki's worries were just justified by a quiet, withdrawn girl. No words were spoken yet a message beyond all type of communication just passed between the two.
Even Rei sensed it.
The final link, the last restraint to our condition is now awake.
In an explosion of dirt, Unit 01 sprinted towards its enemy, rage written all over its body. Before its opponent could even take a step back or bring up its arms in protection, the Eva lunged forward, catching the Angel by the throat, the momentum nearly sending the two sprawling away. Stress lines appeared all over the cartilage-covered skin, as the two hands closed with deadly determination. Za'amiel shuddered in pain and brought its claws around Eva Unit 01's forearms, trying to break off its grip but the gesture seemed to have no effect on the purple guardian, who still continued to choke the life out of the monster.
The eyes of the metal-suited warrior narrowed in ire and a deep growl came forth, just before, with great speed and in an obvious display of anger-increased strength, the guardian lifted the Angel off its feet, brought it over its head then slammed it back down on the ground, driving the head of its opponent deep below surface level. A cloud of dust surrounded the two, causing officers and technicians to squint in order to keep sight of the two combatants. Blocks of rocks could be seen scattered all over the battlefield, surrounding a small crater, pockmarked with smaller holes, courtesy of NERV's missiles and artillery shells. The entire area was unrecognizable.
Eva Unit 01 brought itself above the fallen being then lunged forward again, driving its armored fist into the bone-shielded chest of the Angel. The breastbone cracked apart, merely slowing the progress of the alien object inside the innards. With a roar, Unit 01 started to pummel the life out of Za'amiel, as if taken by a sudden frenzy. Punches landed over the prone from, shattering bones and limbs, while feet hammered away on vital areas, attempting to squeeze them or make the skin burst apart. Growls and screams of pent-up furor accompanied by sickening crunches and wet sounds permeated the battlefield, signs of an anger released and an ordeal at work. Fountains of blood rose towards the sky with each blow, just as bits of gore flew away, torn from the opened thorax, from which vitals could easily be seen. A single black, battered arm tried to rise from the ground but Unit 01 caught it deftly, before starting to pull at it. Soon, with a ripping sound, the limb was torn out of its socket, making the Angel scream in pain. The purple mechanic threw the limb away before returning to its grisly work, not hesitating to tore organs out of their cavities, squeezing them with its bare hands before severing them from the rest of the body.
"...I'm going to be sick," moaned Maya Ibuki as she clenched her hands around her mouth and tore her gaze off the screen. Even though she was a brilliant technician few could ever rival, she was not gifted with a hard, calculating and indifferent persona. Just the opposite. It was quite surprising that such a methodical individual had chosen to join a military-grade organization in disregard to the scenes that she might have to witness. She had chosen to enter the U.N. because of its nec plus ultra technology and research centers, hoping to find in there a place where she could put her intellect and knowledge to Mankind's service. And she had not failed to her endeavor. Two years after hard and fruitful labor in a biological complex near Munich, in Germany, she had been drafted by the newly born U.N. NERV, and more precisely its bioengineering division, which requested employees that had great experience and promises in that particular field. Unsurprisingly, she was one of the few select that were relocated to the Geofront and Tokyo-03. She found in there, in those top secrets programs like Project E, her own paradise, reveling in the challenges and mysteries of nature, knowing in a part of her mind, that she was contributing to that pagan god named Progress. But she was not military material. A firm believer in justice and sparing of life, she knew she couldn't bring herself to open fire on a human being, as she knew the effects of a bullet on this frail and deceptively strong organism. And the sight of a living being being disemboweled alive instantly made her guts turn into jelly. "...Good Lord...but how...could it...eurgh..."
"Shinji?" Maya Ibuki's eyes darted to her left, falling on a white-faced, red-clad individual. Misato Katsuragi.
"Once again..." murmured Ritsuko Akagi, knowing better than anyone that the events occurring outside were as much the doings of a divine being as the consequences of her actions. If only her old friend knew the answers to her own quandaries...
She wouldn't forgive her, this time.
She had grown to care for her charges like a surrogate mother, pledging a silent oath to keep them out of harm's way even though she knew that it was her and their destiny to run straight towards danger and death. It wouldn't be long before she would crack. But what would finally break the slowly disintegrating dam that was her resolve and sanity, she didn't know. Hopefully, it wouldn't be the loss of a dear one, like former Special Agent Ryoji Kaji.
"Shinji, stop! Stop it! SHINJI, STOP IT!"
Misato's hands were gripping the railing, as if holding on for dear life, making her knuckles as white as a sheet of paper. Her cries echoed without an answer inside the command center, the begging of an individual towards a storm that wouldn't hear and wouldn't stop.
"The hour of our freedom is coming," proclaimed quietly Gendo Ikari. "He has been awakened and freed for the first time."
He looked behind him and gazed at the empty cage, his eyes focusing on the thick rails that hung on the far end wall, where the Evas were normally kept restrained, half-pinned to the hangar itself. His eyes fell on the murky, red-colored liquid underneath, called the cryostasis. The freezing liquid, for some, had the exact consistency and look of freshly split blood, even though it wasn't as thick and sticky as the life fluid itself, a side effect of its alkaline nature.
"Soon, Yui, we will all be free from our mortal bounds and on the path to everlasting bliss. Soon."
Unit 01's rage seemed to recede for a moment as the mechanic rose from its hunched position, observing the limp form at its feet. Red eyes searched for a sign of life but found none but a slow heaving of the torn chest, the remnants of a life shattered away by the anger of a divine being, a lord of destruction scorned and claiming revenge.
The head of Za'amiel turned slowly towards its nemesis and the pair of warriors locked gazes.
Pain could be seen in the eyes of one.
Fury in the others'.
Unit 01 bellowed to the skies, screaming its anger to the entire world and proclaiming its victory. The ground rumbled under the air waves, the vibrations rousing them from their still state.
Za'amiel's eyes widened for a moment as if filling with horror...
...Just before a faint gleam appeared inside the black bottomless voids they were...
...A gleam that rapidly turned into a brilliant glow.
Inside the Entry-Plug, a lone being sat at its throne, dictating the new course of Fate. Through its crimson pupilless eyes, the world appeared as a kingdom, over which he had the right to govern, and to beget life or death on all those that dwelt or stood on it. Its features looked like that of a stone mask, for they were eerily unmoving, giving a unnerving impression of lifelessness and inhumanity. No words were uttered, yet messages of sorts seemed to flow through the artificial womb, as if carried by invisible wings.
Open violence could be sometimes more meaningful than a thousand rousing speeches.
And unabated cruelty spoke loudest of all in those times of turmoil.
He was in control.
He knew what to do for his path was written in the stars. He could readily read through those fields of diamonds the secrets of time and tales of old, last remnants of destroyed eras. All that would make the future and that made the past were written all around him, deeply chiseled in the features of Nature, but so subtly that no one saw them. In the Antiquity, oracles and diviners predicted future by the sounds of leaves, the flight of birds, the form of the moon and even by merely looking at the entrails of a freshly sacrificed lamb. Those people, who were thought to communicate closely with the higher beings called gods and spirits, could only see a facet of this arcane language while a greater majority of them usually made up predictions to impress commoners and instill respect in them, securing their place as a new source of decision and power in society. Very few had the true gift and even Raziel, the Angel of Mysteries who wrote secrets and lore in that great book of his in ciphers unheard-of, had trouble with it.
He sensed the orange fluid shift around it, the mere motion telling him more about the world around him than a few words would ever do. It was as if Nature itself spoke to him, in hushed tones, like a hidden confidant.
After all, hadn't he, eons ago, helped create it?
It was normal that he would share such a closeness, a deep bond with that ever-elusive yet omnipresent, mysterious entity.
He recalled those times, where Men walked among beings of light, mingled with them and even had offspring of those unusual unions. Those last individuals, of course, were cursed by the Almighty to suffer for those actions and were banned from the lands of peace, to dwell forever back, with their descendants on the half hell that was the land of the beings known as Lillims, the sons and daughters of Lilith the Cursed, the one who forsook her husband, her soul mate because she didn't want to fall under his dominion.
Those were tales that were as beautiful as they were sorrowful.
He had lived through them. He had seen those events taking place and had even taken part in their accomplishment, for some of them.
His crimson eyes focused in front of him, on the prone form he called enemy. His head hung for a moment, just as his eyes closed a clear sign of regret and remembering, a highly unusual gesture from that normally unfazed being that not even Armageddon could make blink in surprise. You were seated in His entourage, ye holy and faithful Za'amiel, yet you chose to carry out the tests. You openly chose to defy me, even though you stayed in His service, our greatest pride and happiness. You should be commended beyond reckoning for that honor, yet you should be cursed for standing in my path and scorn me. Hurt me. Kill me. Under the pangs of dark hair, two orbs of flame opened, boring deep into the bloodied face of Za'amiel, checking for signs of aggression.
You made a choice, brethren, but for everything must a price be paid, even if it is in blood.
Voices rose around him, like a chorus. Whispers turned into muffled screams, filling the Entry-Plug with an eerily noise that went crescendo. Among them he found one, full of pain and regret. Why do you stop me in my mission? Why do you endeavor to thwart His designs? The being remained silent a few minutes, closing his eyes as if in thought. You wouldn't understand. His designs stretch farther than one would ever imagine. Even our realm of understanding is not great enough to grasp the full meanings of His plans. There are more ways than you think. Everything must not end the way they are seemingly destined to be. His lips didn't move a iota but the message got through, like a whisper in the spectrum of existence. How can it be? The Lillims have to pay for their crimes! They thrive to force the gates of the Land of Light open, forsaking their own humanity, the last remnants of their purity all along! They are no more pure; they aren't worthy anymore to even set eyes on the Fields of the Light. How can you choose their side and go against His will?
The being's eyes narrowed dangerously. I have not forsaken my loyalty towards Him. I know where my allegiances lie. They are to Him only. My commitments nonetheless are more general that you would ever know; they are to make sure His will is carried out and to give a chance to those worthy of it. To give them what we don't and will never have: freedom of will. We are bound by Fate. We cannot interfere, that is, of our own accord. We must obey to the call of Destiny, no matter how terrible it is. I have not overstepped my boundaries, merely chosen my own path to put His designs to fruition. Tabris, the Free One, was the only one among us to fully get a grasp of that concept it is a pity that he had to pass away at the hands of the mortal I am currently living inside. As I said, you know nothing of how life works. You are not one of the Elders, Za'amiel. I trusted you to understand the subtleties of life, yet during all those eons we have gone through at His side, you still have not seen the truths behind the walls that are responsibility and choice. You are the thrall of your own illusions.
You are drowning in madness! screamed back Za'amiel, its divine voice laced with anger and hate. Those cavils are an insult to our existence and duty. I will not allow you to go against His will. I will carry out His will the way He has said us to do so! The Angel's voice echoed sinisterly inside the Entry-Plug. In the being's mind, regret left place to resignation and resignation to determination.
Then I will erase you.
He looked back up, tearing his gaze off his clenched hands and saw the eyes of the battered monster begin to light up in a mortal glow.
There are more than one path to a single destination, brethren. It's a pity you have never understood that.
"We've got energy readings rising from the Angel!" shouted Aoba. "They are converging!" On the black screen in front of him, white lines like the radiuses of a wheel seemed to gather towards an imaginary center. The words 'inner torus reactor' flashed brightly over the panel, just as a white blob appeared in the middle of the display. "It's going to fire!"
"What?" yelled Misato, whipping towards the long-haired tech. She had witnessed this scene a long time ago, during the Fifth's first assault. Shinji had just emerged from the launch pad when Ramiel had decided to go on a killing spree and take down any potential enemy with its particle cannon. Eva Unit 01 had suddenly found itself hit in the torso by an energy beam that had nearly torn off the whole ribcage, without giving the mechanic a chance to free itself from its locking bolts and find some cover. Shinji still had some nightmares from that particular experience. Without waiting for her subordinate to repeat his assessment, she turned back to the screen. "Shinji, get out!"
Behind them, Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki merely quirked the corner of his lips, neither smirking nor cringing. Time to show your power, holy one.
Rei Ayanami remained silent but a tinge of confusion stirred inside her crimson eyes.
Inside the two holes in the middle of the rotund, bony face, not only stood the organs called eyes but sinewy outgrowths that curled around the two orbs like eyelids of sorts. Those organic rings were made of a supraconductive matter that housed a high-temperature fluid that most scientists would compare to a plasma: a white-hot, highly ionized gas. Except for the fact that that colloid, which contained low-resistance metal bits like copper and lanthanum oxide, was maintained under a high pressure so that it would stay liquid and would not lose its power by being allowed more space to expand. Behind those strange, extremely unusual organic complexes stood an intricate nerve network, whose end was directly linked to the 'rings'. When Za'amiel's brain commanded its body to let loose another particle blast against his enemy, a flow of negatively-polarized energy ripped through the nerve channels and entered in contact with the positively-charged colloid. The electrons inside soon found themselves imparted with more energy and settled for a higher orbit around the atoms they were endlessly circling. But after two or three milliseconds, the little nucleons fell back to their original energy, relinquishing to their environment the force that they were given a scant millisecond ago. That release was followed by a discharge of luminous particles known as photons.
Inside the two rings, the metallic matter in suspension amplified the energetic concentration, transforming the torque-like recipient into a cyclotron of sorts, only that it didn't accelerate matter through an electromagnetic field but only pure light. The organs were, in short and in comparison to human technology, behaving like lasers. The photons rebounded endlessly against the inner walls of the circular tubes, before hitting nerve points that were ended by crystal-adorned outgrowths. The transparent beads collected the light and amplified it by changing its frequency, before sending it back to loop-shaped tendrils that behaved like fiber optics. The energy was brought to a point behind the eyes of the Angel, where it started to build up, before it was finally let loose. The insides of the ocular orbs were filled with a transparent, nearly-solid fluid that had the same consistency as crystal and gelatin. The waveform pattern of the surge changed, before it hit the crystalline lenses, the mass of energy reforming itself into a perfect beam.
The Angel's eyes flashed as the two particle beams shot up from those black wells, speeding towards their goal, the madly grinning face of a purple demon.
Time seemed to stretch unnaturally, as if the laws of physics had suddenly distorted the space-time continuum between the two beasts. As the combat staffs looked on, they could perfectly see two threads of light inching towards the armored behemoth, threatening to put an end to its existence...
Just before, as if Time had suddenly regained its original state, a glowing hexagonal barrier appeared out of thin air, just in front of the two beams.
The ensuing detonation caused once again the battered earth to soar towards the skies in solid-state geysers, as the shockwave spread outwards in a raging rush, but in the Angel's direction only, as the Eva's A.T. Field prevented the blast from trespassing the artificial boundary. Za'amiel's body suddenly found himself staring back at a mass of energy, the very one he had let loose milliseconds earlier. The barrier, in front of him, didn't even waver, unfazed by the show of power.
The mass of concentrated of heat expanded, finally hitting the giant's body...giving its owner the premises of the torments suffered in the place called Gehenna by the ancients.
Hell.
The holographic screen flashed red, just as multiple spotlights placed on the left and right sides of the command tower lit up, filling the control room with a blood red light. Alarms started to scream as the image displayed by the gigantic rectangle of synthetic glass drowned into static. Several technicians yelled in surprise and others in fear, mere seconds before the rumbling came - a slight vibration that was more felt by the individuals manning the upper tiers of the tower because of its height. "We've got damages on the outer layer of the Geofront's armor plates! We're losing contact with the integrity sensors in the forty-eighth sector of the upper dome!"
"ABADDON reports a 238 increase in heat in sectors thirty-one to fifty-nine! The ground is melting overhead!"
Fuyutsuki frowned then leaned forward, gripping the edge of the railing. "Set the shock compensators to maximum - they should keep the shockwaves at bay. What about the city?"
"We've got damages to armament towers twenty-six to thirty-two and a dozen more buildings. Two heavy-duty elevators aren't working and two Eva emergency doorways to the Geofront are stuck. There's a power outage on four automated defense complexes - landlines were disrupted. SHIELD system is partially disabled in the area of operations. Full extent of the damages is unknown," reported a nameless tech, looking at a MAGI System update.
Misato found her military self returning to full status as she heard herself mutter. "So we've got our pants cut down in that area. Great. Just great."
"Airwaves signal is dropping - we've got major EMP interference. MAGI System is switching to the landlines!"
"Integrity sensors are at orange alert in the forty-eight sector and its periphery is edging on yellow - shock dampers are yielding! We've got leaks in the hydraulic feed tubes, fourth network, forty-ninth sector. Contact lost with the forty-eighth!"
Damn! It's worse than I actually thought!
Just beneath the two titanic combatants, the world suddenly found itself reduced to its most primitive state: a infinitesimal amount of matter in a great volume of vacuum. The energy ball that formed on the surface of the fully-erected A.T. Field volatilized everything in its path, as it expanded exponentially, reaching to its world's confines in a desperate attempt to spread around and blend in the surrounding environment. The orb of pure heat and power grew at an impressive rate while its outer temperature level reached that of the sun's surface billions of Kelvin degrees, the ball of flames engulfing both frozen beings in a matter of milliseconds, just before the explosion reached ground level and began to devastate everything it entered in contact with. The very state of the touched atoms radically changed on both macroscopic and microscopic scales - turning from 'solid' to 'gaseous' in a hundredth of a second. Rock was turned into ash and billowing clouds of evaporating magma, while the shockwaves caused the nearby landscape to quake and rumble, messing the underground's stratification.
Ten meters beneath the surface, the first of the twenty-two armor layers of the Geofront's outer shell suddenly found itself privy to the disintegrating action of a mass of pure, hot-white energy that dug further downwards, driving its way through the protection plates. Ceramics, titanium, carbon and reinforced concrete disappeared in a blink of an eye, while the exerting pressure started to distort each five-meter thick layer, pushing them downwards - and causing multiple metallic reinforcement structures to either snap, bend down or crumble before succumbing, too, to the incoming wave of boiling plasma. Thousands of wires suddenly found themselves severed - thus cutting entire connections throughout the Geofront - or badly shake them. The hydraulically-commanded shock dampers finally gave in - their pressured fluids leaking out of the massive tubes, pushed backwards by the tremendous force. Even the water tanks set between every three layers failed to contain the shockwave as it sped downwards with unchanged determination. Electronic boxes broke down, creating dozens of emergency shutdowns in the upper levels of the Geofront and consequences that worsened NERV's current state. The monorail that shuttled between Tokyo-03 and Central Dogma was torn off its rail, as the whole construction was ripped of its suspension cables - causing the massive beams to become airborne and rapidly falling downwards, towards the lake. The 'collapsible' buildings that hung from the subterranean complex weren't spared either by the wave of destruction, as the resonance effect also made itself known to the suspended towers - the titanium frames surprisingly becoming mangled despite their legendary robustness, resulting in the destructive fall of multiple commercial complexes towards the vicinity of the HQ pyramid.
With rending crashes, the thousand-tons masses impacted on the artificial forest, creating wide craters and sending tremendous vibrations to spread through the underground Central Dogma. The shockwaves ripped through the ground - causing more damages underneath, mostly landlines and other constructs that caved in, under the instant pressure. Gas lines even erupted, before safety seals isolated the canalizations from the rest of the area, thus sparing the neighborhood from further devastation. An enormous dark cloud rose from the grounds, nearly hiding the pyramid from view and quickly spreading around thanks to the air currents that shifted the inner atmosphere and helped regulate the local micro-weather. Overhead, were four enormous 'light wells', as the city's designers called them, huge tubes filled with heavy prisms and massive optic fiber networks, that helped bring light down in the 3-kilometer wide cavern, after being redirected downwards thanks to tall, towering mirrors that also acted as photovoltaic cells and thus provided additional electricity current to the nearby NERV installations. Those 'lights wells' were now filled with a blinding light, a testimony to the hell that raged outside. The whole cave-like construction lit up as if in plain daylight.
Throughout NERV, alarms wailed urgently, signaling an emergency lockdown of the whole complex. Non-critical employees abandoned their posts and set out for their division's or team's gathering points before heading off to the deepest-dug shelters. Two entire sectors were then deemed by the MAGI as 'unsafe', a situation complicated by the sudden loss of information from the concerned areas - as the communication networks had gone down due to hardware failure. Even the authority figures assigned to the evacuation of the work crews found themselves at a loss as of what to do and how.
Disorganization seeped through NERV.
And high above, in the center of the blazing inferno, a being found its existence rapidly being obliterated by its own power - the otherwise indestructible organic matter reduced to a mass of cinders by the orb of fire. In a heart-wrenching shriek and a blinding flash of light, the Holy one, great among the greatest, the Angel of Whirlwinds, disappeared from all planes of existence.
Za'amiel, faithful warrior that fought against the rebellion staged by the Morningstar, was at long last vanquished.
Eradicated.
"Damn it, damn it, damn it!" Misato chanted to herself, her swearing becoming to her own opinion, an understatement to what was occurring at the moment above them. As the bridge shook with enough force to send some unsuspecting technicians sprawling to the ground, the overhead lighting flickered just as the holographic screen fizzled out for a scant second, before returning to its previous blank state. Red screens with the word 'ALERT' written in capitals over them flashed angrily through the entire room, while sirens screamed their message of fear all around, like a song of death. "I want a level three emergency status declared on the upper levels and a level four on Central Dogma - I also want an damage assessment right now, along with a list of every area that is either off the waves or offline, and I want it now!" she bellowed, gripping the railing tightly, holding on for dear life. The battle was turning worse by every passing second. What was that saying again? Ah yeah, to fall from Charybdis into Scylla. To fall from one evil into another, maybe worse. "AND GET ME THE BATTLEFIELD ON SCREEN AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!" she concluded her orders.
Behind her, she could hear Maya Ibuki screaming her terror while holding her head between her gripping hands, falling to a fetal position due to her belief that the whole ceiling would could down on her. Looking around her, the worried purple-haired Commander of Operations saw other individuals adopting the same behavior, some of them even flinging themselves under their desks or command panels to find shelter.
A dozen meters behind, an old Kyoto University professor found himself gripping the command tower's railing, while bearing a wry, almost resigned smile.
"I'm definitely too old for this."
Goddamn you, Ikari. Your madness will lead us to our own destruction! Leaving such an unbridled source of chaos fight around without even complete control can really be compared to having a desperate death wish, if it already isn't a redundancy, he corrected, smirking at his own pernickety nature even when in harm's way. But what is done is done. His eyes narrowed. We can only hope for the best, even if it only is but a fool's hope.
"...Ikari..." murmured Rei Ayanami while gazing at the still-blank screen, as if seeing something invisible to the individuals around her - a statement in which, surprisingly, resided a small part of truth. Her eyes were slightly widened but her extreme expertness at keeping her composure prevented her from showing any more signs of her unsettled state of mind. Strangely -though it was not much of a surprise to some people who knew what to expect from her - she turned out to be the only human being in the whole room that managed to keep itself on its feet without needing to hold on something near.
Nature something bestowed the strangest of gifts to the strangest of people.
But nobody knew if that was a good or bad thing...
...For overhead, another individual, sitting inside a liquid-filled tube, could have proved it to be more a curse than a blessing.
Hell.
As people often asked themselves whether there was an afterlife, many beliefs sprung from that very critical interrogation. As a result, many assumptions, opinions and fabricated stories made their way through the population's culture, instilling them with the promise of a better existence, after lifethus spawning the myth of paradise. Religion fueled that new belief, as a means to get hold of the ignorant people and weapon to hold against them when they would go against the clergy's decisions or way of thinking. Excommunication was, eventually, a refinement of that sort of weapons against those heretics. Otherwise, even if the motive of control and dominion only existed in advanced civilizations and not in small, undeveloped populations, the theme of heaven existed a way to comfort oneself against the inevitability and mysteries of death. Gods, spirits and other types of deities appeared to frame the myth, completing the circle. And as some individuals said a long time ago, Men not only invented gods to comfort themselves but also legends to get scared.
In many religions, to one entity, state, power or aspect of existence existed an opposite. To the light was opposed the darkness, just as good was paired with evil. And with Heaven came Hell. The place where those who were unworthy of the Gods' blessings or were guilty of some crime were condemned to pay for their felonies for eternity in terrible tortures and unending suffering. Being banned from the house of the God(s) was just another way of being thrown in the pits of Hell. Hell, in some religions and cultures, was pictured as a flaming land filled with the cries of the damned and inhabited by terrifying scourges, demons, succubus's, incubuses, evil spirits, ghosts or unimaginable monsters that were the complete antithesis of those who were on the 'light side'. Demons were born along with the Angels - as Mankind decided that nothing could exist without a counterpart, an opposite that could completely negate the other and restore the primordial state of equilibrium in the universe. That black/white paradox was found in nearly all countries and continents, with the two forces being impossible to dissociate from each other - giving birth in the same moment to the yin-yang system. Either were part of the other, impossible to part.
A flaming land, filled with fumes reeking of burnt flesh and resonating with the cries of damned beings condemned to burn slowly in a world of pain, atoning for whatever wrong they committed during their past life...
...Hell had come on the periphery of Tokyo-03.
Like a devil surveying his darkness-filled kingdom, a lone being stood, sinister and majestic, among charred ruins, gazing over a prone figure, sprawled at its feet.
Eva Unit 01, its armor unblemished and untouched, appeared from the mass of twirling smoke, its maniacally-grinning face held high and its eyes blazing with reined-in fury. Around the forty-story high guardian, the air, already fuzzy with slowly dispersing heat, crackled with electricity, as the orange outlines of the force field came back into view, eliciting from an eventual onlooker the feeling of complete protection. Invulnerability. Winds howled around, as air rushed back in to fill the vacuum created by the explosion, causing the local atmosphere to shift dramatically and air currents to wash in a miniature tornado, kindling the remaining flames that danced around.
A low growl rose from the chest of the titan, before turning into a full-fledged roar that tore its way to the Heavens, like the roar of a lion claiming the property of a hunting area. The black fog that surrounded the Eva receded for a moment, as if recoiling in fear, making the battle scene come back into view once again for the world to see.
Where once stood a pockmarked hill, its erstwhile perfectly plane surface ruined by artillery shells and antitank missiles, now stood, or laid, a smoldering crater, the blackened edges pointing outwards, filled by various molten debris inside which could be discerned some manmade constructions. Where once had laid Za'amiel now resided utter void.
Curiously, behind the Eva Unit, the landscape seemed to have been spared from the destruction, as the A.T. Field provided it with a barrier of sorts, preventing the heat and the shockwave from definitively ruining the already wracked-up ground. Less than a hundred meters behind Unit 01 laid, unmoving and intact (that is, from the explosion), the prone, eagle-spread form of Unit 02.
I am deeply sorry we had to go to this extent, Za'amiel. You did not deserve to end this way - your place was in His lands and not on this soiled world. Your fate was to continue your destiny at His side, to serve Him and love Him like we all do, the being said, looking inside the crater, at the very area where the Angel of Whirlwinds had once laid. The entity that currently possessed the body of the human teenager otherwise known as Shinji Ikari, however did not show any sign of grief, merely choosing to gaze on with calm and a tinge of resignation. The words were not spoken for the pilot's lips didn't move at all - the sentences somehow loudly echoing through the LCL-filled Entry-Plug without the need of sound waves. It was as if the uttered thought was so evident that Nature itself spoke it back, each word visible in the world around.
Sitting in his throne like a monarch of old, Shinji Ikari folded his arms across his chest, and closed his eyes, as if in sudden concentration. But what pains me most is that by refusing to hearken my calls to reason, you paved the path for those who will follow you. Therefore you condemned me, great among the greatest, who abides in the high chambers of His palace and who sits on His right side, to meet them all the way I met you. Ikari's CRIMSON eyes slowly opened back, set alight with determination. I will have to erase them all just like I erased you. For the greater glory of God and for the accomplishment of His designs.
His hands found their way back on the butterfly handles, the fingers closing around the pieces of plastic and gripping them tightly. The LCL suddenly shifted, as if something invisible was causing the fluid to move around, like a rising wind. Small crackles of electricity appeared around the pilot, eerily setting the whole 'cockpit' aglow. Please accept my deepest regrets and condolences, my brethren, but I am now bound to Fate because of the bigotry of those who were supposed to protect His will and give them existence. I will have to fight you.
Memories of billions of years came flashing through the being's eyes - images of times forgotten and buried under the dust of history, of a war that had sundered an entire people and set a whole universe aflame and spilt more blood than any other conflict. The war against the rebels. Visions of a landscape drowning in darkness and torn by lightning bolts came unbidden, cut by pictures of beings running towards each others, swords, axes and spears held high before being hurled, swung or plunged around in showers of red. Light fighting against shadow. Continents crumbling in ruin, palaces collapsing under the weight of corruption and evil, towns burning in crime, populations dying, killed by the plagues of Hell. A world that would never be the same again. He recalled walking on battlefields, making his way over mounds of dead bodies, made either of darkness or of luminous ether. Rivers of crimson liquid were strewn across the world, as lives were spent for a war caused by greed, pride, envy and stupidity.
Once again, we are torn apart. But united in our tasks and endeavors: the accomplishment of His will. I am sorry, my brethren.
His silent lament echoed through the polymer-coated walls of the Entry-Plug, eliciting no answer from the world around.
With a last sigh, one of a being finally releasing the tension in his mind and relinquishing himself to the soothing of peace, Shinji Ikari slumped in his seat, his body going limp for a moment, before starting to shiver. All around him, the video feed liquid crystal cells fixed on the fore end of the cylinder shimmered, the colors and outlines of the outside view blurring and ever-changing. The black, smoking hills around him disappeared, replaced by a miasma of colors and lines, of different pitches of the light spectrum, setting the whole plug aglow with a show of lights that would make a conscious onlooker to drop its jaw in amazement. Wafts of green, red and blue swirling around the boy, like waves crashing on a share, mixing together before twirling back again in an unending cycle. Lines appeared everywhere, filled with symbols long forgotten, eternally crisscrossing and meeting great circles full of cryptographs and runes - like a map of sorts. A map to a greater being. The drawing flashed for a moment, as if withering under an unknown power, before disappearing, leaving place to a single, glowing image: that of an inverted triangle, divided into two smaller triangles, with seven eyes on their borders. The seal shimmered for a second before, too, leaving the turmoil-filled Entry-Plug.
As if on cue, edged on by an unknown signal, Shinji's eyes went blank, the crimson irises fading to naught before becoming brown once again. At that moment, as soon as the transformation was solid, the shaking form of the Third Child tensed up, as if frozen in place by an unfathomable amount of pain. Every nerve of his body seemed to burn with a vengeance, wracking his worn-out brains with a suffering he never knew possible. Finally vanquished by that last blow to his mind, the teenager blacked out, his limbs falling to his sides, lifeless.
All around him, the sound of a massive heartbeat could be heard for a couple seconds - before silence abruptly took over, only slightly disturbed by the low hum of the life-saving vat built behind the pilot's seat in the bulky construction that housed the nerve connection computers.
Two seconds later, the blazing eyes of Eva Unit 01 lost their raging glow - just as the giant mecha slumped forward, shutting down at long last, its consciousness receding in the depths of its biomechanical body...until the next time.
The low growl of the Berserker disappeared in the wind, like the last warning of a departing savior.
The wind howled in response, the two sound being in perfect accord for a moment.
Then all that was left was utter silence.
"You served us well," smiled Gendo Ikari, staring straight into the darkened eyes of the silent Unit 01, a lone figure in the middle of destruction. His hands, gathered in front of his face lowered somewhat, unveiling his sinister-looking grin. A sense of dark satisfaction could be sensed through the small room, as the bearded scientist rose to his feet, shutting down the wall of screens in front of him. His hands danced on the keyboards, finally releasing the Entry-Plugs of its communication restraints, allowing the bridge to enter in contact with it. Shoving one hand in his pocket the one on which Adam was grafted and letting the other hang limply on his side, he turned towards the Eva containment hangar, stopping for a moment to gaze at the empty chamber, taking in the heavy silence around him.
He stared for a moment at the mirror-like surface of the cryostasis liquid beneath him, spotting his own reflection and looking at him for a minute. "All is going according to the scenario."
With that, he broke off his still position and strode over to the little elevator, stepping on the plate of metal and opening the command pad that stuck out of a safety handle beside him. He activated the device and pressed on a button. Two seconds later, with a small beep, the vehicle slowly rose from its position and started towards the ceiling, bringing the Supreme Commander of NERV towards his place of command the operations bridge.
"Your choice has been made, holy one. Whether you like it or not, you'll have to fight for us - and salvation will be ours. You're the Soul, just as he is the Vessel. With the Avatar in your hands, nothing will stop you."
He looked upwards, just as he entered in a small vertical tunnel, leading him to the command tower, gazing at the overhead lighting. Curiously, his travel of sorts couldn't but make him think of one he longed for - Ascension.
"Not even your creator."
His trademark smirk returned to him, as he devised the last turn of events, his mind already planning ahead his next decisions.
"God in His heaven, all's right with the world."
With that, he disappeared into the darkness, just as overhead, the commotion was coming to an end, and individuals coming back to their feet.
"Is that it? Is it over?" asked a frantic Makoto Hyuga, peering over the edge of his console, not daring to see for himself whether the situation had gotten better or worse. The other technicians were slowly getting back to their feet, fearing for some unknown reason, that the next attack might as well be the last and the one that would ultimately take their lives. The arrival of the Fourteenth, Zeruel, had badly shaken them, but this time had been scarier as it brought them with an additional feeling of insecurity and helplessness, probably fueled by the loss of Unit 00 and the deteriorating state of the pilots' minds. "My God" breathed Aoba, jaw hanging open at the screen, where the towering figure of Unit 01 could be seen. A resourceful member of the command bridge had had the idea of logging in the feed from a long-distance camera situated two kilometers away from the scene, which meant that the device had avoided the wave of annihilation - but not completely avoided it, as the picture was rather fuzzy due to the lenses being slightly deformed and out of proper alignment. The bridge crew had now an idea of what was going on outside. "...It's intact..." stuttered the long-haired tech, not believing that their unpredictable savior had somehow escaped the fate bestowed on his opponent, leaving the battle without a single scratch or even a square inch chip of paint scrapped off its armor.
"Unit 01's systems...report no damages. All readings green" announced a ghost-white Hyuga, his eyes darting left and right on his LCD screen. "...Eva Unit 02 is still offline."
Misato Katsuragi stood silent but was cursing in her mind as she found herself confronted with a dire quandary: should she feel happy, relieved, terrified or worried? There were times like this where she didn't know how to react, as it bode neither good nor bad for her. Shinji was safe, but the fact that he had snapped and somehow got berserk like the Eva she didn't even know if it was the Eva only who had gone mad or if Shinji still had, somehow, a notion of control on the massive robot and that alone was a reason to get dreadfully worried if not downright alarmed. Not only was he the pilot whose safety she had been entrusted to but also her surrogate son, even though she knew both of them would never really admit it. They would, probably, agree to a brother-to-big-sister basis but never to a son-to-mother, as the theme of parenthood was very sensible to both of them. Their makeshift family was already based on so shaky bases that she feared everyday, in the deepest recesses of her mind, to see it fall apart, after all the pain all its members had gone through to see that dream come true. And now, it seemed that a retake of somewhat fresh events was making itself known to her. Asuka was injured or ill and Shinji was nearly going mad. She couldn't believe it. It was happening, again. And again.
You've said it before and you'll say it again, whispered a nasty-sounding voice in her mind.
Some things did change but others didn't.
Its reasons did not came to her immediately, but she suddenly felt numb, as if the world was shutting apart from her, leaving her cold and empty.
Her gaze, overflowing with an unspoken pleading for someone to prove reality wrong, remained fixed on the holographic screen, her eyes nearly never blinking and slowly filling with unshed tears. Tears of a hurt she was losing control over. That she was tired to bridle. Her mind was breaking apart.
Beside her, Ritsuko Akagi looked on, her mouth slightly open, also seemingly torn between conflicting emotions. A part of her mind was scientifically processing the latest events and first results and begged for more data input while the other was screaming in fear and was pleading for a way to get out of the hell she had thrown herself into. But, even before that, tearing her soul apart in sudden and terrible realization, a sense of pure panic came crashing down on her tired being. What have I done, what have I created?
Fuyutsuki's face reminded those who spared him a glance of a stone statue, as his features seemed to have frozen into place, betraying no sign of emotion - only a mask of remote care and deceptive, composed calm, almost solemn serenity. His hands, gathered behind his back, were however tightly clenched, in a vain attempt to vent off some of his frustration and pent-up anger. Ire directed towards his own former student and now superior. His protégé of sorts that now completely ignored his warnings and paid no heed to his own predictions. You are bringing us to our doom, Ikari. The beast you are currently feeding from your hand will one day bite you, whether you believe me or not. It will not go as planned - schemes like this with such unknowns in its equation cannot be concretized without going out of hand. As Chateaubriand must have said it a while ago, one doesn't have power but the use of it. And it is but the illusion of power and not power itself.
His voice then made itself known to the other crew members, tearing them from their dazed state. "Make all recovery units converge on the scene - and I want the emergency state response teams scanning the Geofront for any sign of damages and commence the repairs. Alert level is to go down one notch."
The techs numbly nodded before going back the work, the noise level slowly coming back to normal after a long, uncomfortable silence, thankfully broken by the old man. The sounds of electronics finally retrieved its kinghood over the bridge, as the MAGI hastened its pace, restoring network connections with the rest of the sprawling complex, and radio messages flowed back in, flooding the cluster of communication officers with hundred of reports. Fuyutsuki looked downward, noting the recrudescence of activity before turning back to more pressing matters.
"What's the status of Eva Unit 01 and its pilot?" he asked aloud. "Do we have a link with the Entry-Plug?"
As soon as the words left his lips, a dozen officers dove on their consoles, typing furiously on their keyboards, reestablishing connections with the deactivated warriors. Outside, an enormous amount of radio waves suddenly tore through the electromagnetic spectrum, towards the slouched behemoth, before entering in contact with the multiple antenna arrays scattered all over its body but gathered mainly around the helm's horn. The coded signal were then sent through a first-degree relocation system, which acted both like a firewall and a router. The system acknowledged the encoded message and run it through a decryption program, which identified it as level one order. The router recognized the now decrypted message then sent it back towards the main control nexus literally the Eva's brains, where it was processed by the mix of organic matter and embedded supercomputers, before being transmitted back down the spine, towards the secondary nexus the input/output backpack set around the Entry-Plug cavity a mass of solid- and liquid-state electronics contained in the Eva's 'back hump'. The series of electric firings traveled down the gigantic nerves then hit the I/O port set in the back end of the Plug.
"We've got a response!" shouted a tech, raising his head towards the bridge. As soon as his message was heard from the senior personnel, a purple-haired Major went ballistic, running to the three 'bridge bunnies' to see for herself. "IS HE OKAY? IS HE WOUNDED? TELL IF..." Her desperate shouts were silenced by a hand clamping on her shoulder, jarring her from her frenzied state. The now-composed face of Ritsuko Akagi met her, compassion but firmness in her eyes. "Calm down, Misato. It won't help him if you started shouting."
"I'M NOT RUDDY SHOUTING, DAMN IT!"
"STOP SHOUTING!"
Misato Katsuragi instantly shut up, her face reddening, but the blond-haired doctor couldn't but discern if it was either of embarrassment, shame or anger. She knew she was pushing her over the edge and that she needed to blow off steam but having a crazy woman on your hands didn't do anything in your favor nor restored calm or peace. "Misato...just...let us do the job, okay? We'll do it the normal way, as best as we can, but don't start whipping us around, it will not do us any good," she said in a strong, quiet voice. The small nod she received from her friend was enough for her. She turned back towards the three technicians that were awkwardly looking towards them, as if expecting something. "So?"
Hyuga glanced back at his screen then faced his superior. "Firsthand stats show him in good state but the breathing and cardiac activity are under the normal level, but not beneath the danger margin. Nerve activity is close to null Pilot is unconscious, brain and thought patterns are in disorder, and decreasing. He's going into mental shock."
"Once again," muttered Ritsuko Akagi. She whipped towards the shorthaired technician, Maya Ibuki, waiting for her report. "Life systems are running at full power, we've still got six hours of energy until the safety pack goes out of power. Level three protocols are engaged first diagnosis show no body wounds or mental contamination but a full-sized examination should be carried out in the next twenty-four hours to ascertain the validity of those hypothesis's. Systole and diastole are in the safe part of the chart but heartbeat index has fallen by 08.64," the female officer replied, her hands flying over the keyboard at a quick pace an ability born of her constantly working with her mentor and the need to adapt to new abilities.
"What of Unit 02?" asked Fuyutsuki, as the dark figure of Gendo Ikari, unnoticed by the others, came back in the cavernous room. The old scientists greeted his erstwhile student with a silent nod, knowing that both of them would have a much more serious discussion later. One that would see many thoughts and opinions shared and fought over, in their eternal battle of wits. Battle of wits my ass! Rei, for her part, remained silent, unmoving. Her eyes were still set on the high-resolution screen and her face showed nothing. However, to an eventual bystander, it was apparent that she was troubled by something that was way over her. In more than one aspect.
"Contact still not established. Search and Rescue division is now onsite they're waiting for the heavy tools to cut in the Entry-Plug housing extension. It seems that the emergency release devices were damaged in the Unit's fall" answered Aoba, keeping a telephone's handset close to his ear. "It seems that we'll have some problems hauling Unit 02 back to the cage" groaned the long-haired tech. "I wonder how we're going to manage it this time the whole area is fucked up" he added to his two colleagues, both of which shared a sorry look. Long hours of work were ahead of them, and the trio knew what it basically meant. However, their own thoughts were interrupted by the clinical voice of one Ritsuko Akagi, taking over her role. "Tell the operative onsite to open the emergency I/O ports and plug in the mobile antennas we'll have access to the Eva's stat system that way."
"Yes, ma'am! Right away."
"I hope this is going to be the last time such a thing will happen to us" muttered Ritsuko Akagi, mulling over the violence she had seen firsthand.
And deep inside her, she knew that it was a fool's hope.
Destiny never answered their calls, for a reason they couldn't fathom.
And she knew that that was bad news for them.
On the hillsides surrounding the sprawling metropolis that was Tokyo-03, gigantic panes of concrete started revolving on hidden hinges sliding down oversized rails, their removal unveiling large, gaping orifices that seemed to lead down to the very confines of the underworld. The sound of sirens could then be heard over the stirring silence, breaking the tension thickening in the air. The sounds of bolts and enormous actuators followed the wail, just as blast doors slid apart, leaving room for heavy vehicles and aircrafts to pass through the doorways. 'Bullfrog' VTOLs and other helicopters were rolled off on their takeoff pads and became airborne, like an endless swarm of locusts filling the horizon. In less than ten minutes, the sky of Tokyo-03 was thick with military aircrafts and the ground drowned with tracked vehicles that sped towards the battlefield.
The advance was, however, quickly interrupted when the rescue teams encountered the first signs of damages that littered the outskirts of the capital: truck-sized craters that had destroyed or critically damaged roads, forcing the ground troops to find a way around which was no easy task because of the way Tokyo-03 had been built. The Japanese love of precision and architectural sternness had proved itself to be a curse for NERV. Overhead, helicopters found themselves trying to fly through a mass of deadly turbulences a result of the air moving in at high speed to fill in the sudden vacuum and destroying the atmospheric structure in the area. The SAR squadrons agreed to maintain themselves in a staging area before the commotion would actually die down, allowing them to safely reach their destination.
The Operations Officers, as soon as they were made aware of the new difficulties, started to curse their bad luck. Their efficiency rate was now compromised because of Fate's fickleness and capriciousness and if they didn't find a way to deal with the obstacles put between them and their goals, the Pilots' chances to survive would dramatically drop down in less time it would take to pronounce the word 'dead'. They gathered around for a couple of minutes then decided to cover the remaining distance on foot. Medics and workers dismounted their armored vehicles and began to run towards the two immobilized Evas. A few 4x4s even managed to climb the craters and go beyond but they had to stop a hundred meters after, as the terrain was becoming more and more rugged and unfit for cars.
Two hours after, the Bullfrogs, their fuselage laden with equipment racks and carrying large cutting and removal tools, finally were able to hover above the deactivated giants, as SAR crewmembers hurried towards the Entry-Plug insertion points, using excavators to remove the 'protection hump' to uncover the back end of the white cylinder. In Eva Unit 02's case, the task could be deemed as easy, as the spine extension was close to ground level and thus quick to access but the same could not be said for Unit 01, as helicopters had to be used to rope paramedics onto the Eva's shoulders, so that they could enter the emergency codes to eject the Plug. Surprisingly, the behemoth didn't answer the Geofront's orders anymore. It was, as a technician put it, as if the robot had gone utterly...dead.
Fifty minutes after, two individuals were extracted from their seats and carried away in gurneys, one of them physically unharmed but the second sporting stigmata of her ordeals. As the Red Cross Bullfrogs took off with their charges inside their armored bellies, the workers onsite let out a dry sigh. That was only the first task of their long list. Their true work had to begin in a few seconds. And none of them looked forward to it, as they looked around, scrutinizing the landscape and getting in the feel of the current situation.
Eva Unit 01 was sent towards its berthing place, the behemoth once again being bound to its cage's walls by metal-shod restraints, like a golem chained to its prison until its master would once again allow it to take life. The maintenance members made a dozen last checkups then scurried off, leaving the whole hangar to its solitude, closing massive doors behind them, effectively sealing the massive room shut. Then, with great rending clangs, gates opened all around the tremendous-sized walls, letting cascades of a red, murky liquid pour forth. An orange mist filled the cavernous jail as cryostasis started to fill the hangar, drowning the Eva under thousands of liters of cooling fluid - sending the artificial God into an induced lethargy, shutting down all body functions or keeping them down to their minimal level. Soon, the helmed head of Unit 01 disappeared under the crimson surface, the purple communication horn following it mere seconds after. Then with a great hiss of pneumatics locking in the gates and air conditioning finally kicking in to filter the atmosphere, all activity ceased in the cage.
Eva Unit 01 was in level one confinement.
Behind large panes of glasses, looking on with critical eyes, a blonde-haired scientist couldn't but reflect on the sense of déjà-vu she was currently feeling. The scene she was currently witnessing was still fresh in her mind, as she had seen it unfold before her countless times before, even when Unit 01 was officially deemed as 'non-functional', before Shinji actually came to - by means unknown, but some people had an idea as to how and why - tear it from its slumbering state. The voice in her head once again whispered the accursed statement she had come to tell herself these last few weeks.
Ah, you've said once and you'll say it again.
Some things did change but some others didn't.
Those who do not know history and learn from it are doomed to repeat it.
Endlessly.
"Drink this, but no more than two glasses."
Through her blurring eyes, she saw the doctor handing her a glass filled with alcohol. Surprisingly, the beverage didn't appeal to her. Her mind was elsewhere but she nonetheless accepted the recipient, bringing it to her lips with shaking hands. The liquid swayed inside it, threatening to leave the small cup. The lounge in where the two women were remained desperately silent, raking the Major's nerves. She wanted to scream, to wreck everything around her to let go of the pain but her body wouldn't respond. The hurt wouldn't go away. It still lingered there, in the recesses of her heart, wreaking havoc around and around.
"Aw, shit, Misato, watch out! You're spilling it?"
She didn't feel the droplets of sake fall on her blouse and her skirt - as if her nerves had gone silent, leaving her mind to mull over darker thoughts that came back to torment her endlessly, like an accusation uttered over and over. You sent them to their deaths. Your ideas of happiness are nothing. You sent them to their deaths. You failed to protect them. You sent them to their deaths. Then, as she took her first gulp, letting the drink burn its way down her throat and causing her mind to slightly loose its grip on her being, the unshed tears finally rolled down.
Then came the sobs. For the second time, in less than four months, she was crying. Not this time over a former lover that she finally lost to Fate but over an unofficial son that she was, too, starting to lose to a war she had made him wage. A battle he didn't want to fight. The guilt was there, overwhelming, finally breaking her last defenses. Kaji, Asuka, Rei, the Fifth Child, Shinji's accident and now this battle. Fate's blows were increasing in strength. She knew that the next time she wouldn't stand back up. She would definitively crumble down.
As watery pearls slid down her smooth cheeks, Ritsuko Akagi sat down beside her friend, taking the glass off her hands. The Major didn't object or made a sign to keep it, letting the grief spill out of her, breaking its last bonds. An apologetic and sympathy-filled smile appeared on the usually cold doctor's face, suddenly feeling sorry for her friends. Her own mental state wasn't better either. This war was taking the best out of them. But she was glad Misato had given up after herself. That was a sign of her hidden strength and ability to cope with the unbearable. Misato Katsuragi leant over her friend, burying her crying face in the scientist's shoulder, shaking uncontrollably. "Let it out, Misato. Let it all out. They're going to be okay, believe me..." she muttered, soothing the broken woman.
As her friend kept on crying on her, Ritsuko Akagi couldn't but think of something that made her lose her gentle smile.
"The curse of the Evangelion has once again hit home."
For once, they were silent.
In the ethereal room that served as a forum or just a haven for their gatherings had a solemn atmosphere, as if holding a burial ceremony. All members strangely held their comments to themselves, choosing instead to gaze at each other then at the screen built on the floor, in the center of the circle they were forming. The lifeless form of Unit 01 reflected on the ambience of the darkened chamber stillness and silence not consciously knowing that it was in fact the reason of that absence of words.
Lorenz Keele looked at the purple-colored robot, processing what had just happened. Once again, the artificial god had awakened and shown the extent of his own wrath - hampering further the plans of the twelve powerful members of SEELE. Their own tool was definitively lost to them - as it seemed to have gained a new level of power and free will. That was definitively not in the scenario and it bothered them. Ascension was a vital goal, as Mankind wasn't able to evolve further and reunion with Heaven was desperately needed. It was time for Man to go back at his true home, where he truly belonged. The rage of Unit 01 and the arrival of the Harbingers didn't do anything to speed up the hands of Time, but merely slowed time. Even made them go backwards. Their goal was slipping away, and they knew it. A standstill in Human evolution was a perspective completely unacceptable. Something had to be done and fast. More Angels would be coming and hours were ticking by with an infuriating fatality.
"The wheels are in motion."
Number three answered the statement with a voice filled of anger. "Indeed, but not in the good direction."
"That is an understatement!" piped up number six. "It's a complete disaster, even though we got what he wanted in the end. Unit 01 was not supposed to go berserk once again! Awareness should not be allowed to the Avatars!"
That affirmation sent the room in a frenzy, as comments were sent here and there. Order had lost its dominion over SEELE.
"I always said it was a mistake to hand NERV over to Ikari! Since he got our tool in his own hands, he used it for own purposes, not for ours!"
"Then who would have done the task of removing the other Angels? Who?" angrily answered number eleven. "Our pawns are as power-hungry as Ikari if not more!"
"And what of the other Angels? If it continues like this, it will not be ascension we will get but damnation! This is a madness that must stop!" hollered number nine.
"How but by using our own Avatars? The only way to restore our dominion over NERV is to storm the place and take Unit 01 away as the ultimate catalyst!" replied number eight.
"The time has not yet come! The scrolls didn't mention any of what has been happening - how are we going to cope with this?"
In his own corner, Keele remained silent, not taking part in the bickering of his counterparts. Even the shouts of the most radical members of his secret organization didn't faze him from his frozen state, as his mind was elsewhere.
"A new beast has been unleashed. Where did you get it, Ikari? What do you intend to do with it?"
Chaos only answered him.
And a day ended for many people.
To be continued...
A/N:
Okay, let me put this straight: I. HATE. QUICKEDIT. Yes. That piece of crap had me reformat and recheck the spelling for a ridiculous amount of time - honestly, who would try tohack that program together? I had to check it BEFORE uploading the file and AFTER that! Talk about being efficient...
And I just discovered that QuickEdit has once again butchered ALREADY FIXED SPELLING! RRRRGH! If you see words fused together, don't raise your eyebrows. You'll know what it is.
Ramblings aside, I kept my word. You got chapter ten. Oh, by the way, there were a couple reviewers who complained about my lingering on technical subjects. There are reasons for that- some of them ridiculous and others not. The Berserker and Hell parts here were put to show where the words comes from and the other aspect of the story. I was rather surprised to see how well the term 'Berserker' applied to Shinji. As for Hell, well...Angels, you know? Sorry if this was ridiculously long. Next chaps are shorter - I swear.
And this time you only got two miscellaneous notes and they're not about military technology :-)
Until better times,
ABI2301
01°) The Butterfly Effect is based on an image, that of a little butterfly, whose wings would create an air draft that would, in turn, cause a loss of equilibrium in the air stratification thus triggering a whirlwind. Even though it is not possible in real life and is but a metaphor used to picture a theory, the Butterfly Effect simply designates a sort of action that would trigger enormous consequences. Chaos theory studies mathematical cases where order does not exist or when extremely complex systems (like human beings or natural phenomena) would interact in an equally complex ecosystem, in order to see what would happen. It is thus quite unsurprising that chaos theory is deemed as one of the most complicated and improbable sciences in the world, even though it is considered top-notch in importance scale by scientific communities.
02°) The theory of the werewolf and the berserkers was taken from Daniel COHEN's The Encyclopedia of Monsters, 1991, Avon Books and the words Icelandic bern and serkr which make the word 'berserker' were taken from the Concise Oxford Dictionary, ninth edition, one of the three reference books found inside the Oxford Compendium CD-ROM, year 2000. While most of it stands, there are other facts that fueled that belief, like a phenomenon known as hypertrichosis or something like that genetically-caused hair outgrowths that make the individual look like his face is covered in fur - thus earning them the nickname of 'wolf-men'. It is also obvious that the fear of werewolves was fueled by Middle Age legends and superstition which promoted the fear of the unknown - dubbing each peculiar-looking people or animals as 'spawn of the devil' or the like. People who were born with genetic or strange physical problems like Siamese twins became outcasts and so on and were sometimes forced to go in circuses to be displayed to the public as 'curiosities' like Barnum did in the 1900s. The Gévaudan Beast is a mystery that runs back to 1764 in France, when a young peasant girl was savagely killed by, reportedly, a wolf-like beast, the beginning of a murder series that claimed the lives of at least a hundred individuals, most of them young women or children that were either found neatly dismembered, beheaded or disemboweled. The French King, Louis XIV, in response to the desperate call of help from that region (Gévaudan), sent countless hunters to track down the animal and as a result, dozens of wolves of surprisingly impressive size were slain by villagers and men-in-arms. It is also said that a strange, unheard-of specimen was also found amidst the lot of animals, but the body was soon burned and all records of where it was buried were lost - thus neither confirming nor denying the whole fact. Certain well-backed and documented conspiracies as well as testimonies from survivors of these attacks hint somewhat to the fact that those killings were not made by animals but maybe by something...of a more human nature. The beast witnessed by those people looked like a mix between a hyena, a wolf and a bear, and could walk on its two hind legs...much like a human being. One witness even reported that on its belly were small objects that suspiciously looked like buttons. Was it a suit made of pelts? No one knows and the mystery still remains. But the bottom line is (and most people agree since some material was found confirming those theories) that it may have been the work of a sect whose members disguised themselves as werewolves in order to spread panic in the Gévaudan region. Nevertheless, the whole case caused panic in the country as well as bad-placed fascination for those grisly tales.