Chapter X

The Doctor Strikes

'The Angel is just reaching the first armoured plate,' Shigeru announced.

'Good,' The Doctor said, ironically. 'Has Ritsuko given us a time-frame yet?'

'The MAGI will finish calculating it in just a few minutes,' Maya assured him.

'Fantastic!' the Doctor replied. 'Ha-haaa. I haven't said that in ages.' He fumbled around. 'Right, Pond, come with me, we're going to the TARDIS.'

'Why, Doctor?'

'I need some tools. Come on.'

The Doctor dashed off through a door, with Amy once again in pursuit.

'You know, I'm getting tired of running after you everywhere, Doctor.'

'Right, we just need to get down to the corridor with the TARDIS, but first...' The Doctor took a few turns to find Misato, Shinji, and Rei standing in a corridor.

'Right, you lot,' he said, stretching his arm out and clicking. 'Meet me in one of the meeting rooms here in about half an hour. Don't be late. Bring a map. And some biscuits. Jammy Dodgers if you can get them, anything else if you can't.'

The Doctor turned around and ran back down to the elevator.

'"Jammy Dodgers"...' Rei mumbled.

'Did you say something, Rei?'

'No, ma'am.'

'Right, you heard The Doctor, let's go.'

'We barely know him,' Rei attempted to reason, quite sincerely.

'Yeah,' Misato replied. 'But what do we have to lose?'

Misato swiftly went off to find her map of NERV HQ, which had the water closets marked out in red ink. 'It'll do,' she mumbled.

'Your power has been usurped, sir,' Fuyutsuki said, speaking for the first time in what felt like days. With little else to do, he busily worked out a sudoku puzzle. 'Are you angry?'

'Yes,' Gendo said, in a very monotone voice. 'But I do not wish to upset the Committee at this point. He may be an asset. As long as he gets rid of that Angel quickly and efficiently, there is no use in stopping him just yet.'

'Of course, sir,' Fuyutsuki replied. 'What do you think he'll do?'

'I have no idea,' Gendo replied, cracking his white-gloved knuckles. 'Let's hope he does the job right, or I may have to have him killed.'

'Yes, sir,' Fuyutsuki mumbled, trying to pretend he hadn't heard that.

'Tea, Professor?' Gendo said, producing a small kettle and some china. It seemed very out of character for someone as serious and firm as Commander Gendo Ikari.

'Oh, thank you,' Fuyutsuki replied, taking a cup. 'The old men will be most displeased if he does not use the Evangelions, you know.'

'I understand that,' Gendo said, calmly sipping the tea. 'But I'm sure that he will find a use for them somewhere.'

'I suppose,' Fuyutsuki replied. He stared up at the ceiling for a moment. The Tree of Sephiroth was painted delicately on to it. He calmly sipped away at the tea. He could see it vibrating. 'Should we be concerned if the Angel enters the GeoFront?'

'It depends,' Gendo replied, staring down into his cup. 'Just what are you planning, Doctor?'

The Doctor dashed through the corridors and into the lift, lugging the toolbox with him.

'Are you sure you don't need any help carrying that?' Amy asked.

'No...I'll be fine.'

'So, what do you need me for?' Amy asked. 'So far, you've got along just fine on your own.'

'That will become apparent later, Pond. Right now, just follow me.'

The Doctor waited for the elevator to get back up to Central Dogma, where he could access the meeting room. 'But what I can tell you is, this Angel is going to die.'

'Why do you want it dead so badly, Doctor?'

'Because, Amy, in that moment, that single, fragile moment, where I told Shinji to duck, I knew that he might have died, or been seriously injured. And then where would they have been? One pilot short. And I'm sure that just one pilot could not defeat that thing, not efficiently. You even try to touch an innocent, sentient, sapient, benevolent, life, no matter how small, like that, and you'd better run. Because I will find you, and you will be a dead man. Or, giant blue crystal octahedron, in this case.'

The elevator stopped.

'Right, first things first, Ritsuko.'

He darted back into the GeoFront and up to the main desk. 'Right, Maya, timeframe, now.'

'Estimated penetration time is midnight tomorrow.'

'Perfect. Right, amount of energy required to destroy the Angel?'

'Um...we're not sure yet, but the MAGI roughly guess something like 180,000,000 kilowatts.'

'Not so good,' the Doctor said. 'Right, thanks. Keep monitoring it and tell me if it tries anything shifty. Do not send anything up to surface, it will annihilate anything that comes near it. Tell civilians to go to the shelters or stay in them.'

'Yes, Doctor.'

'Right, now then, meeting room.'

The Doctor turned and ran back round to the meeting room. He opened the door quickly.

'Right!' he said, clapping his hands together. 'Shinji, Misato, Ayanami, how're we all doing?'

The three were caught off guard and did not answer. 'Good? Okay, right. Do you have the map?'

'Um, yes, Doctor.'

'Good. Biscuits?'

'We couldn't find any, Doctor.'

'Damn. Looks like I'm going commando for this one. Right.'

He sat down at the meeting room's desk with the map. 'This is an underground spherical cave.'

'Yes, that's right,' Misato said. 'It's a GeoFront.'

'And what does a spherical cave have? A dome. A great big roof. And look, NERV HQ is right in the middle. And if I'm correct, the Angel is boring down through here.' he pointed to the centre of the map.

'Right,' Misato replied. 'So now what?'

'We're going to turn this place into a giant crosshair for one great big weapon. Right, give me your phone.'

Misato passed it over, and the Doctor searched through the contacts for Ritsuko. He stood for a moment listening to it ring. 'Ritsuko, hello. Right, I need you to answer a question, quickly, with a "yes" or a "no". Right, the question is, "Is this place EMP-hardened?" It might be knocked out for a few minutes? Okay, great, thanks. Next question. Are the Evangelions? They are? Good. Right, okay. And thirdly: How much power do the NERV backup generators give out? Six million kilowatts? Okay. Thanks.'

He closed the phone and handed it back to Misato. 'Right, we have...' he looked at his watch. 'About 30 hours to get this planned before the Angel penetrates the GeoFront. Now, according to this map, the GeoFront has a rail system, is that correct?'

'Yes, it allows us to go deep underground.'

'Right. It has some rails up here, right?'

'Of course.'

'Okay! And how much would it cost to replace them?'

'Doctor?'

'How much?'

'Um...I don't know, 232 billion yen?'

'Right, that's not bad. Okay, so, I've got a plan, it's very crazy, but it just might work.'

'What is it?' Shinji asked.

'First of all, shut down every single rail system that is above NERV HQ.'

'Got it.'

'Tomorrow night, we're going to take down the angel with one-thirtieth the power the MAGI estimated.'

'What?'

'You'll see, Captain Katsuragi.'

The Doctor took a pen out of his pocket, and began noting things down on the map.

'This is the Japanese Government's Emergency Broadcast System. We are afraid to announce that for matters of security, you must stay in your shelters until further notice. We thank you very much for your patience during these trying times.'

'Damnit,' Toji remarked, sitting in the shelter with others from his school. 'Friggin' Angel. I was gonna have my favourite dinner tonight, too.'

'Is food all you ever think about?' his classmate and friend, Kensuke Aida, asked in the most condescending tone he could manage, while looking through the eyepiece of his camcorder.

''ey, shut up,' Toji replied. 'All you ever think about is gettin' videos of your precious tanks and stuff.'

'You take that back!' Kensuke hissed, protecting his camcorder fiercely.

'Geez, calm down,' Toji said. 'What, you on your period or somethin', Kensuke?'

'If I didn't know any better, I'd hit you one.'

'Yeah, but you do,' Toji said, leaning back and putting his arms behind his head. 'Still, I bet Shinji'll save the day.'

'Huh, you talk about him pretty heroically for a guy who punched him out the other day.'

'My fist is gonna meet your jaw in a minute, Kensuke.'

Kensuke coughed. 'So, uh, do you think they're going to be doing school inside this shelter, or will we just goof off?'

Toji looked at his watch. 'It's about eleven now,' he said. 'We should probably be gettin' some sleep.'

'Yeah, I guess you're right,' Kensuke replied. The two rolled over into their sleeping bags and got ready to go to sleep.

'This is the NERV backup generator, eh?' the Doctor asked. He whistled. 'I'd love to see what your main generator looks like.'

'What exactly do you plan on doing, Doctor?' Ritsuko asked, the card she had used to open the room still in hand.

'Yeah,' Amy agreed. 'What do you need me here for?'

'The Doctor turned. 'Right, Ritsuko, keep monitoring the Angel's progress. Pond, stay here. I've finally got a job for you.'

'Finally,' Amy reiterated.

Ritsuko nodded and left the room.

'Right, Amy, take that toolbox and follow me.'

'Okay, Doctor.'

The Doctor hopped up the steps to a door on the side of the generator. He got out his sonic screwdriver and attempted to open the door.

'Oh yeah,' he remembered. 'TARDIS technology. Damn.'

He thought for a moment.

'Pond, give me a screwdriver.'

'Oh, are you going to pick the lock, like a professional?'

The Doctor proceeded to stab the door in several times with the screwdriver.

'Or you could do that.'

'Spanner, please.'

The Doctor hit the door some more.

'You know what, just give me the whole toolbox.'

The Doctor charged at the door holding the toolbox and finally it broke open.

'Ahahaha, YES!' he excitedly shouted. 'Yes! We have a turbine in here. All right!'

'So, what help do you need, Doctor?'

'Okay, I'm going to enter this generator. It's going to be massively dangerous, but if done right it might just save our hides.'

'What are you going to do?'

'Spoilers,' the Doctor grinned, entering the machine's door.

'Oh, but in all seriousness, Amy, I'm going to need you to pass me tools when I need them.'

'That's it, that's what you need me for?

'I never said it'd be an exciting job. Besides, it'll help later.'

'What exactly do you mean by "later", Doctor?'

'You know, tomorrow.'

'So, I'm going to stay up here all night?'

'That's correct.'

'Right. When does the adventure start?'

'You'll find adventure in some of the smallest of places, Pond. Never forget that.'

Misato Katsuragi and Ritsuko Akagi stood at the bridge of the command centre. She looked at her watch. It was six o'clock in the morning. Eighteen hours left until the Doctor's plan came into action. She and the pilots still weren't sure what was going to happen. Suddenly, someone opened the door.

'Hello!' The Doctor said. 'Now, I have a full-on plan. Get Shinji and Ayanami—'

'Her name is Rei, Doctor.'

'—Rei into their Evangelions ready at five o' clock PM tonight. Then, tell them to follow my orders. I'll need a radio headset, by the way.'

'But, Doctor, you're not a commanding officer.'

'Well, okay, I'll give you the commands and then they'll follow your commands. As long as they follow my plan in some way, I'm happy.'

'But what is your plan, Doctor?'

'Well, if all goes to plan, then that Angel is going to be no more tonight. That's all you need to know.'

'But, Doctor.'

'Please, Misato.'

Misato sighed. 'Okay, Doctor.'

'Good. Now, then, get some rest. I can stay up for hours, you can't. Ritsuko?'

'Yes, Doctor?'

'Do the same.'

'Okay.'

The Doctor turned on his heel. Just a few more hours...

'The Angel is penetrating the seventeenth layer of armour,' Makoto announced. 'Just five left until it enters the GeoFront.'

The clock read "4:00PM JST". Just eight more hours left.

'Shinji, Rei, I'm sure by now you understand what's going on.'

'Actually, Misato,' Shinji said. 'I don't. What is going on?'

Misato sighed. 'Shinji, Rei, I am going to need your full support for this mission. When I tell you to do something, you do it instantly and without hesitation. Got that?'

'Yes, ma'am,' Rei responded in a monotone.

'Uh, yes, Misato,' Shinji replied.

I can't mess up this time. Do as she says. Or she'll be angry again.

'Wait, what the...!' Shigeru exclaimed. 'Target's drill is accelerating!'

'Sneaky bastard!' Misato shouted. 'Quick, Maya, have the MAGI recalculate our timescale.'

'Yes, ma'am!'

'Can you activate emergency radio to the backup generator room?'

'Certainly,' Shigeru replied, tapping a few keys on his keyboard. 'You're patched through.'

'Doctor!' Misato said. 'The Angel's speeding up.'

'Speeding up? Where are you? Is that emergency radio?'

'Yes!'

'Quickly, launch the pilots.'

'MAGI's results have returned! Timescale is now just up until nine o' clock PM!'

'Damn, it's cut the time down to just five hours,' the Doctor said. 'Send them out. Follow EVERY order Misato gives, carefully. Misato, as soon as they're in those Evangelions, come straight to me.'

'Yes,' Misato responded. 'You heard him, get to the Evas.'

'Pond, we're going to have to speed up—' The Doctor's radio was cut off.

'Yes, ma'am,' Rei responded once again. The two pilots ran off into the changing rooms.

'Ayanami,' Shinji panted as they entered. 'What do you think's going to happen?'

'I do not know,' she responded, sincerely. 'It could be dangerous.'

'What if the Doctor's plan doesn't work out? Will we die?'

'You will not die, Third Child. For I will protect you.'

'Evangelions! Launch!'

The lifts shot the two Evas up and into the GeoFront.

'Okay,' the Doctor said. 'Misato, are you getting a clear transmission from me?'

'Yes, Doctor.'

'Good. Let's get this show on the road, as the old cliché goes.'

'Right.'

'Okay, order number one: Find any rails that you can reach, and bend them into rings. They don't have to be perfect, just sort of ring-shaped. Get about ten of them, if you can.'

Misato relayed the order.

Rei and Shinji reached up and took down the deactivated rails, beginning the difficult process of bending them.

'Nineteenth armour plate is half-penetrated. Arrival is getting ever earlier.'

'Right, that's always good to hear,' the Doctor said. 'Once you've done that, stack them on top of each other.'

The two pilots bent the rails into position.

'How many so far?' Shinji asked.

'Fff...five...' Rei gasped, showing strain, something only seen in battle.

'Okay, here comes number six,' he said, grunting as he stretched it into place.

'Nineteenth plate is fully penetrated. Angel is advancing on to twentieth plate.'

'Hurry, Doctor!'

'Remain calm,' the Doctor said. 'Or, Keep Calm and Carry On, as my friend Churchill liked to say. Remember him, Pond?'

'This is not the time, Doctor!'

'Of course. Have you got ten yet?'

'We're on eight,' Misato replied.

'Okay, good,' the Doctor said, crawling into the generator and wiring up a switch.

'What are you planning on doing, Doctor?' Amy asked.

'Not long now,' the Doctor replied.

'MAGI has recalculated the timescale,' Misato announced. 'We don't have long.'

'Okay,' the Doctor replied. 'That's good. More action that way. Are we on ten now?'

Shinji bent one last rail into a ring.

'We do now.'

'Good. Right, now we wait.'

'We wait?' Amy asked. 'What?'

'The art of surprise, Pond. One of the main factors of war.'

'War, Doctor? I thought you were against war?'

'Okay, getting rid of big blue crystal things.'

'Angel's drill has reached its terminal velocity. Drill has penetrated the twentieth bit of armour and is boring into the twenty-first faster than ever before!'

'We don't have long at all, Doctor!' Misato cried. 'Come on!'

'OKAY!' the Doctor answered. 'Now for the dangerous bit!'

'Dangerous...?' Misato asked.

'Ask the pilots to disconnect their umbilical cables and connect them to the rings.'

'What?'

'But that will mean only five minutes of reserve power.'

'I meant on my mark.'

'Twenty-first bit of armour penetrated! Final stage reached!'

'Wait for it...'

'Doctor!'

'Wait for it...!'

'We can't, Doctor!'

'Okay, connect those cables to the rings NOW!'

Misato relayed the order. Rei and Shinji did so, and the clocks inside the Eva Units displayed 5:00, for five minutes of power.

'Right. Now, we have our superweapon. You're a fan of Biblical names here, so let's do that. Let's call it a Halo, no, let's call it the Halo of God. Because that's what this is right now. And the second that Angel enters, it's going to feel the full force of it!'

'What?' Amy and Misato cried.

'You see, Pond, Katsuragi, the second I flip this switch, the energy from these generators will be fired off at an incredible speed. But due to my tinkering around in here, with the right timing, it...should...'

'Last plate breached! It's entering the GeoFront!' Makoto shouted, removing his glasses, steaming up from the amount of sweat on his brow.

The huge drill bit came through the rock at the top. It hung there for a few moments.

'...REVERSE THE POLARITY OF THE NEUTRON FLOW!'

The Doctor hit the switch, and a surge of electricity exploded out of the backup generators, shooting through every single wire, up the umbilical cables and into the ring. A massive electrical surge exploded out of the ring and up the drill-bit.

The Angel hung there for a second.

'Target has gone silent!' Shigeru announced.

'My God, we defeated it!' Makoto replied, excitedly.

'Wait...' Maya said. 'Another high-energy reading has been detected...'

'No...' Misato uttered.

'This is wrong,' Ritsuko replied.

'It didn't work?' The Doctor said, with fear in his voice. 'NO!'

'It's aiming straight for NERV HQ!'

'We're going to die!'

'Ikari, quickly, turn your AT Field to maximum!' Rei, of all people, shouted.

'Why?'

'JUST DO IT!'

The two Evas turned their AT Fields incredibly high, decimating trees and damaging the characteristic metal pyramid of NERV HQ.

'What are you doing?' Misato shouted, but by this point, all radio had been knocked out. All electrics had.

The Angel fired off its particle beam down the long drill bit like a barrel, and into the Halo of God.

A huge, octagonal, honeycomb-like formation developed in the centre of the rings, as the beam hit it just above NERV HQ: In the centre.

Suddenly, with a blinding flash, the beam bounced back on itself and up the drill bit again.

The screen at NERV HQ turned back on.

The beam passed through the Angel's top for a moment. All was silent for a few seconds.

Then, a large crack appeared in the Angel's side. And another, and another. A long, oddly familiar-looking crack appeared along the Angel's body. The Angel did not sing.

The cracks glowed white-hot like some kind of reaction was taking place. Then, there was a deafening cry, like a woman's scream, yet unearthly, in a way.

'AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!'

For a moment, the NERV staff covered their ears. Was this another attack? And then they realised. The Angel was screaming. In pain. In terror.

It was a death scream.

The Angel exploded into sheets of white flame and chunks of blue crystal, bits of translucent corpse being thrown across Tokyo-3 as shrapnel, crashing into hills and lakes, boiling them and burning trees, steaming and smoking as they came into contact with the Angel's body.

And at the centre, there lay a dark-red, dead core, with a hole blown clean through the middle. This too, cracked, and also exploded, albeit into smaller pieces.

Shigeru Aoba was speechless for a few moments. 'Target...destroyed!'

There was a pause. 'HAHAHA, YES!' Makoto shouted, as the NERV staff began clapping and cheering. Misato clapped euphorically.

'Shinji? Rei? Can you hear me?'

There was a frightening silence for a few moments.

'L...loud and clear...Misato...' Shinji said, his face beaded with sweat,. He fell back into his seat, eyes closed. He was exhausted.

'Yes, ma'am,' Rei replied, monotone as ever, yet still sweating, pale skin flushed slightly and light cyan hair ruffled.

The Doctor scrambled out of the generator's hatch. Amy embraced him quickly. 'You did it, Doctor.'

'No,' the Doctor answered. 'They did.'

Author's note: So, that's a suitably epic conclusion to the Prologue Arc of "The Visitors". Whew. My hands hurt from all the typing. You'd better be grateful!

This story will now be taking a break for two to three weeks, one because I need to recharge my batteries after this, and two, because I will be on holiday with no word processor or Internet to work with. So don't worry, it's not dead (it's pinin' for the fjords).

In any case, I shall see you next time for the beginning of the Action Arc, Chapter XI, "The Errors of Man"!

And don't worry, I'll make sure there's lots of fanTARDIS in there too! (Tādisu, tādisu!)

All characters, settings, and boxes of a blue time-travelling nature are owned by Studio GAINAX and the British Broadcasting Corporation, and other affiliates. I own none of these things. Please don't sue me. I don't like being sued.