Author's note.

Yes, it's back! Sort of. -Ish. It's back as a token tribute to all of you reading this thing, just as a promise that I haven't forgotten this story! I will finish it, so help me God! Adam, Lilith, Yui, whomever! So yes, you're getting this here, and I might even give you the follow-up chapter pretty soon because I have a part of it already written as well. You'll note as well that I've decided to reduce the length of my chapters, after experience in other stories I've written. I just struggle too hard to squeeze 60k words worth of content into one chapter :/ But yes, here you go as I said! Hope you enjoy and forgive me for spending time on other stuff, and Please do leave a review if you like this, it really helps my motivation to continue this particular story.

End of author's note.

Chapter 11: The beast.

The entry plug hums quietly to him, and the warm LCL combined with the sparse illumination is making Shinji rather sleepy. He'd love to catch some shut-eye right now, but he has jokingly been threatened with an electric shock if he should fall asleep; he trusts Yui to not make good on that threat but not Ritsuko, so currently he's sitting counting bubbles float up from the bottom of the plug to keep himself stimulated.

They are holding a synchronization test in a facility designed for the purpose, located somewhere deep within the bowels of the NERV complex. It's a rectangular room easily large enough to fit a two-storey house family house for five, completely featureless exempt for two enormous hatches in the ceiling and one of the long walls where four entry plugs are rowed up, fastened to a socket in the LCL-covered floor and held in place by a robotic holding arm. There's room for a fifth, but that socket is unoccupied.

The majority of the short wall to Shinji's left is made up of a window behind which about a dozen people are sitting behind rows of large computer consoles. Yui and Ritsuko are pacing around the room like teachers during exam, occasionally exchanging a word or two or glancing through the glass towards the entry plugs, seemingly having about as much fun as the four pilots. I don't understand these synchronization tests. I mean, what are they good for anyway? Keeping an eye on how well we synchronize with the EVAs? How can that be so important, it's just a matter of synchronizing or not synchronizing right?

He shrugs to himself. They had been quite adamant about holding the tests at regular and close intervals, three times a week, so Shinji will just have to like the situation. He turns to the left, to Mari's plug; she's humming to herself, barely audible over the intercom. How she can keep herself occupied just humming for an entire hour, he wish he knew. It's been so much training of late, I've barely been to school at all… I wonder what Toji, Hiari and Kensuke think…

He notices sudden movement in the corner of his right eye, and turn to see Yui and Ritsuko rush over to the console Shigeru is occupying, talking to him and each other, looking both excited, confused and a little worried. Rei seems to have noticed it too -how she managed that sitting with her eyes closed he couldn't say- and calmly inquires, "Is something the matter, Miss Ikari?"

Yui snaps her head up, hesitates for a moment, and then exchanges a quick word with Ritsuko before walking over to Maya's station, bending down over the mic at the console. "Pilots, we have an odd and potentially slightly awkward situation at our hands. We have located an Angel, but not in the way you might think. We've found what we believe to be an Angel egg at the bottom of a volcano."

A clutter of alarmed and confused questions rise from the pilots, all but Rei obviously, but Yui waves a hand dismiss their questions, "We're ending the synch test right now, you all have to get to your EVAs immediately. Our data on this Angel is sketchy at best, and figuring out how to deal with the situation could take a while; the Angel might hatch before then. Come on, let's go!"

Now sitting in Unit-01's entry plug instead, Shinji joins the channel connecting the three EVAs to the cell phones of Misato and Ritsuko, as well as Shigeru, Maya and Makato almost little like a Skype call. "We're moving swiftly, pilots," Misato begins, "A modular command building is being prepared to be transported over to the volcano mouth, I want you three on site when we get there. If the Angel so much as sneezes you report it and get ready for combat. We are going to try and capture it alive, but we afford to take chances here."

Ritsuko follows up, "In order to retrieve the Angel one of you will equip your EVA with a specially-designed suit that can withstand the heat and pressure of being submerged in lava. The suit is being transported by helicopter to the site as we speak but will most likely be the last to arrive at the site."

"Right," Shinji replies, echoed by Mari. Then Ryan comes into the conversation: he's sitting in Unit-02's entry plug with Mari, the seat is designed to accommodate a passenger for the exact purpose of transporting both primary and secondary pilot around in the EVA. "How did you discover the Angel in the first place, ma'am?"

"A geological research team were analysing the volcano," replies Ritsuko, "and since all data collected in the region is filtered through the MAGI we were able to detect some faint energy readings that are indicative of Angels."

"Is the volcano unstable?" Rei asks, in her usual calm tone. Ritsuko replies, "No, not as far as we know. There are two pockets filled with lava and gas beneath the mountain, one which is enclosed and one with is open to the surface; this is the one the Angel is located in. We should have no worries with regards to disturbing it."

"What about the Angel itself?" Shinji can't help but ask. "We don't think there's any risk of it awakening on us," says Misato," but you can never be too careful. There's no way it can surprise us from down there, so once you've arrived at the site be sure to at least stick close to your EVAs, and have one of you sit watch with your scanning equipment online, alright?"

– –

–

–

– –

A shallow, crater-like depression surrounds the pit that Ritsuko had mentioned, made out of brittle charred rock and sand. Half of the crater is surrounded by sparse forest, the other half slowly goes over to a steep, rocky slope that falls down several hundred metres, progressively flattens out, and ends in a patch of green meadows before the outskirts of Tokyo-3 start popping up. You could easily fill four football fields within the depression, and the pit itself is wide enough for a relatively large house to fit inside, uneven and several hundred metres deep until you reach the sluggish, red-hot lava.

The Evangelions are positioned around the pit, on their knees and inactive for the moment. Rei is sitting on top of Unit-00's helmet, cross-legged, Shinji is standing by the fence erected around the volcano mouth and Mari and Ryan are nowhere to be seen. The little convoy consisting of three armoured cars and a wheeled tank pull up and stop at the edge of the clearing, and the majority of the senior NERV staff exit the vehicles; only Gendo and Yui remained at HQ.

Most of them make their way directly to the command module that was put down at the edge of the woods by VTOL a little earlier, a mostly featureless metal box the rough size of an apartment. Misato however decides to walk over to where Shinji is sitting, casually leaning herself against the -to her- chest height metal fence, "Fancy a swim?"

Shinji chuckles softly at the remark, to Misato's mild surprise; he's never seemed to have much over for humour. "Not without Unit-01, Misato," he replies and turns his head back forward, tapping the fence railing idly, "Is it weird that I'm genuinely curious about what Ritsuko and the others can find out if we manage to get the Angel up for study?" It's Misato's time to chuckle now, and she shakes her head, "Nah, not really. Curiosity doesn't kill cats as often as some would have you believe. I had thought you'd just want rid of it though, since you're the one who has to get up there and fight it if we mess up." Misato allows herself a moment's smug grin at Shinji's downcast expression, and pats him on the back, "Whatever floats your boat, Shinji. Where are Mari and Ryan, by the way?"

"Mari's still in the plug for some reason," he replies with a thumb hitched over his shoulder at the kneeling Unit-02, "Rei said she's keeping an eye on the Angel, so it can't be that. Ryan went into the woods, he said he'd stay within earshot." Misato makes a small frown and looks up towards Unit-02; indeed the plug systems are active, the EVA's top pair of eyes are glowing faintly green. "Well, carry on Shinji, and do call me if something comes crawling out of that hole will ya'?" Misato pushes off the fence with Shinji's only moderately amused acknowledgement behind her and walks up to stand beneath Unit-02's giant face, and she taps her knuckles against its foot; it seems enough to draw attention to herself from Mari, as the Evangelion's head tilts to the side very slightly and the speaker activates, "C'mon Misato, can't a girl catch some Z's around here?"

Misato shakes her head in amused disbelief and crosses her arms above her chest, "Sleeping in there? What happened to 'Time to face the day'?"

"Would you stop bringing that up?" Mari replies, outraged but not offended, and Misato can't help but chuckle. "Not any time soon, Mari. Just wanted to make sure I know where I have my Evangelion pilots in case the Angel becomes tricky."

"Fair enough," Mari replies, "Well, you have me here. I'll go back to napping now if you don't mind, hm?"

Misato sighs and shakes her head, arms falling to her side, "Alright, lazy. I'd thought you would be up and running with excitement. Take the chance to be social on the job." She smirks at the displeased and reluctant groaning sound coming from Unit-02 and how it very slowly shakes its head, the ultra-low synch ratio barely getting the EVA moving, "I much prefer sleeping on the job, to be honest," Mari replies, "EVA is enough company. Preach it to Rei instead."

Misato's shoulders slump as she looks over to Unit-00, with the blue-haired girl sitting on top of the Evangelion's helmet. How did she even get up there? She runs a hand through her dark purple fringe, sighing, "I guess I should. Has she been sitting up there the whole time?"

"Yup," Mari says dryly. Misato exhales sharply through the nose, something akin to a sigh, and nods, "Gotcha. Sleep tight, lazy. Don't come complaining to me later if the Angel shows up and Shinji steals all your glory defeating it." She turns on her heel and sets her pace towards Unit-00, looking up to where she from this angle only can see Rei's head on top of the Evangelion's helmet. She stops at the edge of the EVA's shadow, calling up, "Rei, what are you doing up there all by yourself?!"

She seems startled judging by the way her head snaps up, and after a moment the blue-haired girl comes looking down over the edge in what Misato can only call a very precarious position and calls back down, barely loud enough to be audible, "Reading, Misato. Why?"

"Don't you think you have better things to do than to sit on top of your Evangelion all day reading when you could come down and actually be social for once?"

Rei's reply doesn't come instantly. "There is no time for that; I am monitoring sensor readings."

"That's an excuse, Rei, and you know it just as well as I."

"Misato, are you really sure this is a good time?"

Misato opens her mouth to argue, but closes it again when she realizes that Rei may have a point; screaming at the top of her lungs up at someone who has to scream on top of her lungs to reply isn't the best way to hold a conversation. She makes a mental note of catching Rei at a better time and instead says, "Fine. On another note, we've decided Unit-00 is going down in the pressure suit when we're ready to retrieve the Angel egg. The moment the suit and hoisting equipment shows up we are sending you down there so be ready, okay?"

– –

–

–

– –

Rei gives the thumbs-up, and she shifts a little in the seat as Unit-00 is lowered down towards the fiery red surface of the magma. Between the immense and bulky pressure suit Unit-00 is wearing and the capture equipment it's carrying she can barely move the EVA at all, and it's making her feel uncomfortable. She feels vulnerable like this, exposed. Once again I have to relinquish my arms to another and trust in that 'it will be fine'.

She reaches the lava surface and slowly sinks in it, the sluggish liquid only grudgingly admitting the bulky Eva below the surface. Rei immediately feels the heat rising inside the entry plug and a protesting creak from the suit Unit-00 is wearing, but the warmth actually produces a smile on Rei's lips: it reminds her of the tube down in Terminal Dogma, a place deep down in the Earth that is naturally much hotter than on the surface.

The intercom bleeps to life, it's Misato, "Rei, how are you doing?"

"All systems are functioning properly, ma'am. I am descending towards the target at a rate of two feet per second; please confirm, over." She taps a button on her right handle which brings up a holo-screen and navigates to the advanced menu of Unit-00's sensor inputs. The magma outside has reduced her vision to almost zero so she has to rely upon special radars effectively capable of scanning through rock in order to see at all.

"Confirmed, Unit-00," Akagi replies, "Descending at a rate of two feet per second. You may accelerate to four feet per second, lava density isn't providing quite as great a hinder to your progress as assumed, over."

"Copy that, accelerating my descent." Rei opens a menu to her left and pulls a slider slightly to the right, "Expect to have target on scanners in a moment, over."

"Very good, Rei," says Misato, "We will keep this channel open in case there are any issues, as well as open to Unit-01 and 02. Keep close tabs on your suit, if it breaks we won't be able to retrieve you fast, over."

"Roger that, ma'am," Rei confirms, and turns back to the scanner data. Nothing. She nods to herself and leans back in the plug seat, toggling the scanner to raise an alarm is any new readings are measured, and closes her eyes. There hasn't been a lot of time to go down to Terminal Dogma to meditate lately, so this will have to do. She relaxes and gives herself fully to the warm LCL in the plug, relaxing until she feels almost disembodied from both her own body and the plug she sits in.

I wish I understood why Misato is so persistent with me socializing with the other pilots… When I go to them all they talk about is school and celebrities and the weather, and whenever I go to Misato to ask why it should matter to me she says that 'friendship is invaluable', how it can help you through any hardship and difficult time as well as being good to have when you are bored… She always says the same thing. If that's all there is to it then it really feels like I can spent my time better on more important things. It makes me wonder, though, if there's something more to it that Misato isn't mentioning.

Just then the scanner starts giving off pings, and the screen shows a large oval object down below Unit-00. There you are. "Command, I have located the target. Correct depth but it appears both larger and denser than initial scans, over."

A moment goes by where Rei can hear several voices arguing over at the command base module, and then Misato's voice comes through the intercom, "Rei, accelerate to six feet per second. If the target is growing we may not have as much time as we had wanted." While Rei confirms and does as she's instructed Mari breaks into the conversation, "Are you sure you didn't just get a bad reading the first time around, Misato?"

"It's possible, sure-" Misato begins, but is interrupted by a slightly more vehement Ritsuko, "We cannot take the chance, Mari. If the Angel is growing at such a rate that the difference is noticeable in just a few hours it means that in a worst-case-scenario it may awaken at any moment!"

"But you're sending Rei down into lava!" Shinji injects, exasperated, "Isn't the suit and the hoist strained enough without increasing the speed of her descent further?"

"Listen, you! Risks are a part of the job and Rei knows that a lot better than either of you!" Misato is growing heated as well, to which Mari replies, "Oh yeah, sure, I'll just ask Rei about that real quick-"

"Please, silence," Rei snaps, managing somehow to sound calm as well as sharp and commanding all at once, "I can hear something…" Everyone have gone dead silent and there's now a quite palpable tension over the intercom, not that Rei pays any attention to it; she had just heard a noise, something akin to female choir song, from outside the EVA. Now that she's listening to it however she can't hear it anymore, and decides it was just some trick of the Vessel. "…Pardon me, never mind. I am retrieving the target now, over." She lowers the cage down over the egg, navigating just by her scanner, and taps a button on her left-hand controls: the cage activates and traps the egg in a rectangular forcefield. "Target acquired, proceeding to-"

"This next challenge should be fairly straight-forward for NERV. Hopefully they'll be able to compensate for their earlier… Failure, in keeping a functional specimen for research."

"Yes. Finding the Angel down in the volcano went just as we predicted, and hopefully now we can jump ahead of our schedule. We need every advantage we can get for later."

"I think we can trust Gendo to handle things."

"Right. So guys, I heard about this thing called Murphy's Law earlier today…"

–

–

Images flash by her eyes and strange voices block out all other sound. She sees an endless amber ocean with a featureless red sky, and instead of a sun there hangs up in that sky a perfect black sphere with stripes of white in random patterns, and wherever Rei turns her eyes two white bands marks the horizon, its strings interwoven like the metal links on a necklace. She hears a feminine voice mumbling something and the words seem to distort the image of this world, and suddenly the red sky and black/white sun is replaced by a star-filled heaven both directly above and below her, the ocean turning translucent yet everything still seem to have that amber tint to it.

In the far distance she can see three shapes; a boy with ashen hair and a lean face standing in front of a glowing white shape, shaped vaguely like an EVA exempt for the lack of a throat and the black disc in its solar plexus region, and above these hangs something very similar to a bird, also glowing. She hears a voice again, male this time but still unintelligible, the vision distorts and disjointed images of crosses of energy, crimson red halos and white wings rising above an inferno flashes before her mind, and for a final moment she sees Tokyo-3, buried in grey ash, corpses burnt unrecognizable stacked high in the streets-

-She's back in her entry plug, everything is normal. Then she hears a sound, soft and dull and reminiscent of a heartbeat coming from outside. She can more feel than hear it this time, through lava and metal and the Evangelion's muscles. Then there's a terrible moaning sound like a crying child but darker and horribly distorted, and the cage starts shaking and twisting as if something inside was making a determined effort to get out. A red light start flashing next to Rei and a warning pop-up says that the cage's containment system is being stressed to its limits and won't be able to maintain integrity. Tight-lipped Rei lets go of the cage, and as the power batteries fail and the containment field disappears the cage disintegrates in the lava. Her scanners still gives her an echo down below her that begins to move erratically, and the AT field gauges spike up. Whatever's down there is not happy.

"Unit-00, report!" Misato shouts over the alarmed voices in the background, "What's going on?!" Rei begins keying in commands into the various screens before her in order to begin ascending from the lava and boot her EVA up into fighting condition, "The Angel is awake, it sensed my presence. The cage has been abandoned and I am ascending; I suggest we prepare to defend ourselves, ma'am."

"What about you, Rei?" Shinji injects, again, "Will you be alright? You can't defend yourself!"

"We'll just have to find out, do we not?" Re retorts, irritated at being constantly interrupted, and discards the last of the cage equipment to lighten herself a little, and more importantly to free unit-00's hands. "The Angel is keeping its distance for now, I may be able to retreat unharmed."

Then Unit-00 suddenly trembles and the pressure suit whines and complains, alarms going off all over Rei's screen: something has attached itself to her. The lava is too thick to see through, but her AT field gauges tell a clear tale:

EXTERNAL AT FIELD: BLOOD TYPE BLUE

FIELD SOURCE: 8TH ANGEL CORE

EXTREME PROXIMITY

–

–

The bulbous form of Unit-00 emerges from the pit, steaming and sizzling. Surgical charges detonate as Rei is set down and the suit falls off her to lay in a pile around Unit-00's feet; the EVA rolls its shoulders while the other two EVAs gather around. "What happened down there?" the holographic display of Shinj's face asks, being projected by an emitter at the front of Unit-01's face.

"The Angel grabbed onto me, I had to cut my coolant pump line and spray the Angel with it in order to make it let me go. I believe I managed to make it angry moreso than anything else, however."

Misato breaks in to the conversation at this point. "Cut the chatter, pilots, and get ready! We're having trouble locating the exact position of the Angel, but it seems fair to assume it'll emerge at any moment. Prepare to-"

She is interrupted at this point by the ground shaking, giving off a dull rumbling sound. There's perfect silence for a few moments, and then the ground shakes again, more violently this time. Now it's Maya that speaks up, and if she does so without relaying the info to Ritsuko first you know things are about to get bad, "The Angel is destabilizing the volcano! According to the MAGI there's an eruption imminent!"

This causes even Rei to blurt out a "What?!", but a third tremor cuts any further disbelief short. "How is it doing that?!" Shinji asks, audibly distressed, to which Ritsuko replies, "We don't know! It's possible it's able to increase the pressure on the lava and gas reserves below either with its AT field or radiating energy from its S2 engine."

"Can we take this later, Shinji?" Mari snaps at Unit-01, and then turns to the command module to Unit-02's right; people are already running out of the doors and into the various vehicles, "How do we do this, Misato?"

"If the volcano's gonna blow then the city will be in danger, its defences won't be able to deploy in time," Misato replies, "We were counting on a natural eruption that would give us more time to prepare, not something like this. EVAs, you need to head down the slope and use your combined AT fields to block off whatever comes pouring out of the mouth here, you all got that? I'll call for the JSSDF and see about stalling the Angel until the worst of the eruption has passed."

The three pilots respond in the affirmative, and the command module is abandoned altogether. Mari can see Misato and the others running out and entering the last of the armoured cars that then gun it into the woods and down the forested side of the mountain. Rei takes the lead as the EVAs in turn head to the slope on the other side, cautiously going over the edge and sliding down the mountainside. In their wake the mountain is suddenly rocked by an explosion whose heat and shockwave washes over the EVAs as they reach the bottom. Debris rain down over them, pebbles and rocks and human-sized boulders; a plume of dark grey dust is rising into the sky, the bottom glowing hot red. A warmth starts rolling down the slope, along with a fiery red glow coming from beyond the edge of the crater up on the ledge; then with a rumble a greyish black cloud comes rushing over the ledge, tall enough to reach an EVA's waist.

"It's a pyroclastic flow!" Rei shouts, "Deploy your AT fields, if it reaches the city everyone in it will die!" Only hasty nods are exchanged, the urgency in Rei's voice well understood, and the three Evangelions simultaneously spread their hands apart, palm outwards, and as one they announce "AT field, max power!" The air in front of the Evangelions blur and then a golden aura surround them all for a split second before the fields fully manifest, spreading from their palms to create a wide wall of golden light. Mari looks up towards the oncoming storm, racing down the slope many times faster than a car ever could. She grits her teeth and braces for the impact; even when Unit-02's AT field is up fully and the outside falls out of memory she can feel the tremors in the ground through how her EVA shakes, and even though she's trained piloting an Evangelion like this she's never experienced how it's like under extreme pressure.

The massive cloud of stone and superheated gas impact against their AT fields with an explosive crashing sound, Unit-02's feet digging grooves in the ground as it pushes back against the brutal force of the flow. "We have to re-direct it or else it will overwhelm us," Mari gets out, finding it hard to speak under the duress; she imagines this must be a little like how Rei felt during the battle against the 5th Angel back in Tokyo-3. She feels calm still, but her arms and legs ache. Rei is first to reply, "Stand by, I will shift my position." Mari glances to her left; the right half of her field of view is blacked out from the pyroclastic cloud bearing down upon their AT fields, but she can see Unit-00 taking one step back and tilting its field slightly, so the flow can escape into the ocean.

Then Mari hears an alarm, and she looks to her right.

EXTERNAL AT FIELD: BLOOD TYPE BLUE

FIELD SOURCE: 8TH ANGEL CORE

APPROACHING FAST

Fuck, the Angel! Is all Mari can think before she hears Shinji scream, in surprise rather than pain, and as she looks to her left again she sees how something akin to the skull of a dog but with three fleshy mandibles instead of a jaw reach out from within the pyroclastic flow, reaching through Unit-01's AT field and grabbing the purple EVA by the head in its jaw; a second later Unit-01 has disappeared within the dark grey cloud, the Angel gone with it. Mari and Rei both shout his name through the intercom, but only get static in response.

Rei's and Mari's AT fields spread further to compensate for the loss of Unit-01 but Mari can feel how her strength begins to wane. Dust and rock starts piling up against the AT field, lying there like weights as the flow continues to press against the two remaining EVAs. Mari sighs hoarsely, and leans back in the entry plug seat. Can't do anything but wait for the Angel to come for me or Rei now… I think we're done for this time.

But then an alarm starts blaring again, same as before, and Mari glances to her right expecting that the Angel is coming for her next but the message goes as follows:

CHANGED SENSOR VALUES

EXTERNAL AT FIELD: BLOOD TYPE orange/4subjYUIr/

FIELD SOURCE: EVANGELION UNIT-01 CORE

WARNING: PRIMARY NEUROGRAPH ANOMALY

SIGNAL LOCK FAILURE. BERSERKER MAINFESTATION IMMINENT

End of chapter 11.