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

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

Chapter Thirteen: Prisoner

"Well, this is a real mess I've gotten myself into this time," Mana remarked to no one in particular.

The auburn-haired girl really had no idea why she was so calm right then. True, she had been in a number of extremely bad situations before, and she'd come out of them alive. However, this one definitely had to take the cake.

The Thirteenth Angel had leaped from Evangelion Unit Three to her armor as she'd pulled Toji out of the possessed EVA, and it had managed to seize control of the thing from her. The Angel was apparently either unable or unwilling to make use of the Steel suit's flight capabilities, because it was now running in the direction of Tokyo-3, easily going in excess of thirty kilometers an hour.

It was extremely weird to be stuck in a suit that was forcing her to go through the motions of sprinting.

"Emergency reboot!" she barked.

Her HUD flickered for a second, just long enough for her to get her hopes up that it would actually work, before the picture returned to what it had been before, namely a view of the outside world that was mostly obstructed by big red warning messages.

"Switch to full manual controls!" she commanded, hoping that the Angel wouldn't be able to continue hijacking her suit if she went to a less advanced control scheme like the one her previous suit had used.

Again, her screen flickered briefly, but otherwise, nothing happened. Mana, knowing a bit about computers, was aware that it was silly to assign things like motive or agency to them; they just did as they were told. However, she couldn't help but think that her suit's computer was trying really hard to obey her, only to have the Angel stop it.

"Fine," she growled. "Master override code! Kirishima seven three two six! Total shutdown!"

She didn't want to do this; shutting down the armor's systems entirely would leave her vulnerable until everything could finish restarting, but she didn't see how she had much in the way of a choice.

Her HUD flickered again, but the suit stayed mobile.

"Damn, I really thought that one would work," Mana muttered to herself.

Then she felt something cold and slimy brush against her wrist, and she knew it was the Angel. Letting out a yelp, Mana instinctively tried to pull away from it, only to find her movement completely impeded by the armor.

She swallowed. Either the damned thing was moving from where it had entered her suit, or it was growing. She wasn't sure which possibility was worse.

Okay, there's that terror, she thought, no longer having to wonder why she was so calm.

"Let me out, you damned Angel!" she yelled, struggling frantically against the armor, with absolutely no result.

She knew that she'd told Suzuhara that she couldn't abandon her suit, lest she leave herself helpless in the face of NERV. However, that was when she'd thought that she could take control of the armor back fairly easily. Now, as panic began to grip her, she just wanted out.

Finally, though, her terror started to expend itself, and she stopped her fruitless struggling. Panting, Mana looked around, glad that at least her HUD remained functional, warning messages or not.

Then a shadow fell over her. The auburn-haired girl looked to see what had caused it, and suddenly she found herself wishing that she had been blind to the world outside her suit.

"Wait, so the Angel just stopped?" Shinji asked, confused.

"Well, not exactly…" Lieutenant Ibuki said evasively, looking nervous.

The whole situation so far was one of the most bizarre, and the at same time most foreboding ones that the Evangelion pilots had confronted yet. Earlier that day, they had been ordered to scramble to their EVA Units, with NERV telling them that there had been some kind of accident during the Unit Three activation test in Matsushiro. NERV hadn't given them any details, aside from telling them that they'd detected a blue pattern, which meant that there was an Angel.

Now, there was this.

"Well, quit keeping us in suspense, already!" Asuka snapped irritably, causing Maya to cringe. "We're going to have to confront whatever's going on pretty soon, anyway!"

Having been on the receiving end of the redhead's acerbic remarks more than once, Shinji would've been lying if he'd said he always appreciated them. Still, there was no denying that there were times when Asuka's style seemed completely appropriate.

"Initial readings showed that the blue pattern was coming from Unit Three," Aoba spoke up, coming to Maya's rescue and shocking both Asuka and Shinji into momentary silence. "But Unit Three has deactivated and come to a stop, while the blue pattern's still moving. We don't know why, and there's no visual feed of the Angel yet. You'll probably get there before any of the satellites can get into position."

Even though he was relieved that Toji was most likely all right and no longer in the Angel's clutches, Shinji couldn't help the sinking feeling that formed in the pit of his stomach.

Why would the Angel just…let go of an Evangelion? He wondered. Wouldn't it want to try to control or destroy it?

Shaking his head, he continued driving Unit One forward. There was no good in worrying at this point.

"You should be within visual range of the blue pattern now!" Makoto announced after a few moments.

"…I don't see anything," Shinji said after a few seconds, looking around in confusion.

There was no giant monster nearby. No hulking, vaguely Godzilla-like creature coming to menace them. No floating blue diamond or zebra-striped sphere travelling serenely through the air. Aside from the Evangelions, the grassy area appeared empty and peaceful.

"All the instruments agree that the blue pattern's in your immediate area," Maya chimed in.

"Be careful," Aoba added. "For all we know, this Angel could be a microscopic threat like the Eleventh Angel was."

And what the heck are we supposed to do if it is? He wondered. How do you defend against something like that?

He was trying to figure out a diplomatic way to ask about that when Unit Zero abruptly pointed toward the ground.

"Look," Rei said.

Shinji immediately directed his gaze in the direction she indicated, seeing…something moving around on the ground. Quickly, he had Unit One's camera zoom in.

The Third Child inhaled sharply; Steel was running along the ground at a sprint, and the jerkiness of her movements (not to mention the fact that she wasn't flying) instantly made him think something was wrong.

The next words to come out of his radio almost weren't a surprise.

"The MAGI have confirmed that the blue pattern is coming from that armored figure," Aoba announced.

For a moment, the Third Child felt a hot spike of rage pierce through him. He was certain they were aware that "the armored figure" was known as Steel, but they didn't want to refer to her by her super heroine name, at least not in the presence of his father.

"If that is the case, then she is to be designated the Thirteenth Angel and a hostile," the Commander announced.

"What?! No, you can't do that!" Shinji exclaimed. "That's—"

He cut himself off abruptly, suddenly realizing that he wasn't sure whether or not he was supposed to know that Mana was the one in that metal suit. He'd lost track of what bits of information NERV knew that he knew and which ones were supposed to be secret.

God, I'm terrible at this spy stuff, he thought with a grimace.

Gendo Ikari chose to ignore his son's truncated outburst. "Try to apprehend the hostile if possible, but remember that she must not be allowed to reach NERV Central."

The unspoken implication was clear: killing her was acceptable. Shinji felt his insides twist as he realized how perfectly this was all unfolding for NERV. They wanted Mana under their control, or at least out of the picture, and fate had handed them an ironclad excuse to sic the Evangelions on her.

Shinji swallowed. He couldn't do it. Mana was his girlfriend. Even if he managed to capture her without killing her in the process—which was hardly a given, since Evangelions weren't exactly instruments suited for delicate work—she would find herself in the clutches of the very people she'd been struggling to avoid for so long. He couldn't do it, no matter what might happen to him for his insubordination.

He looked over at Units Zero and Two as he scrambled to figure out what he would do. And what his fellow pilots would do.

Asuka, he knew, was perfectly well aware of who was in Steel's armor and considered Mana a good friend. Still…she did love being an Evangelion pilot, and would hate to do anything that might jeopardize her status as one.

No, he thought. He and Asuka didn't always get along, but he couldn't believe she'd betray a friend like that.

Unfortunately, Rei was a completely different story. She had no relationship with Mana to speak of, and Shinji wasn't even completely certain she knew that it was Mana in Steel's suit. She'd have no real reason to disobey his father's orders.

I have to stop her, he decided.

Watching Unit Zero, he waited for Ayanami to make her move.

Steel dashed right past the prototype Evangelion, and Rei reacted with such incredible speed that Shinji almost missed it entirely, reaching down with one hand to grab Steel. Clenching his teeth, he threw Unit One into motion, aiming to grab the blue Evangelion's shoulder and pull it away from Steel.

Then, before he could touch Unit Zero, the oldest Evangelion's other hand lashed out and gave Unit One a hard shove, sending Shinji reeling. The Third Child was so shocked he almost wasn't able to get his Eva to regain its balance. Had Rei known he was going to try to stop her, or was she just that quick?

Unit Two made a belated, also lurching movement, probably to stop Rei, but Shinji knew that it was too late. Now all he could hope for was that Unit Zero didn't crush Steel like a soda can in its grip.

Then, just before the blue titan's fingers could wrap around the girl in the metal suit, the jets in Steel's boots abruptly fired, launching the armored superwoman into the air. Unit Zero tried to snatch Steel out of the sky, but she was just going too fast. In seconds, she was flying away from them at a far faster pace than an Evangelion could hope to match, even at a sprint.

He let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

Vaguely, Shinji was aware of his father ordering them to return to headquarters and telling someone off-screen that NERV would have to stop "the hostile" without the Evangelions. He heard it when his father curtly told him that there would be disciplinary actions for his disobedience, but Shinji barely registered it. Mana was still alive.

For now.

Normally, Tokyo-3 would begin evacuating civilians to the shelters and transforming into wartime configuration the moment NERV detected an Angel. However, since this one was so far off from the city that it seemed like the Evangelions would be able to engage it from a safe distance, they had put it off this time.

Now that the Angel had made it past the EVA Units, the city government and NERV were both scrambling to correct that mistake.

"All right, everyone, move briskly but stay calm! The announcements said that we should have a few minutes left at the minimum and the Angel's not headed directly for us anyway," Hikari chided everyone as they made their way into the shelter behind the school.

Mayumi Yamagishi refused to do something as immature as roll her eyes at the class rep, so she settled for pursing her lips tightly in annoyance instead. She wasn't sure whether Horaki's little speech was meant to calm everyone down or make them hurry up, but it didn't seem to be very effective at doing either one of those things.

I hate this, she thought sourly.

Of course, from the very first time she'd been forced to take shelter become of an impending Angel attack, Mayumi had loathed it. That there were threats to the people that she could do nothing to stop in spite of all her wealth, training, and equipment was something that had always driven her up a wall.

There was nothing to be done about it, though.

Suddenly, her cell phone went off, vibrating silently in her pocket.

It wasn't her "civilian" phone, which she kept turned off whenever she was in school. This was her private one, the one only Motomu had the number for.

After making sure that the class rep wasn't looking her way, she quickly pulled the phone from her pocket and opened it.

"What?" she demanded without preamble.

"Your house guest took her special outfit and went to deal with the latest issue," Motomu said, his tone giving no indication that he was talking about anything more urgent than a debutante having trouble with a ball gown. "I haven't been able to get in touch with her for a little while now."

The raven-haired girl carefully kept her face impassive, but beneath her calm exterior, she was suddenly furious. The phone in her hand creaked dangerously until she forced herself to loosen her grip on it.

"Did she reach her destination?" Mayumi asked, carefully schooling her voice.

"Yes," Motomu answered. "I'm not certain what happened to her afterwards."

Mayumi allowed herself a sigh of annoyance, which was a far cry from the growling and snarling she was severely tempted to unleash. "I'm coming back. Get the car and pick me up on the way."

"And the evacuation?"

"Forget the evacuation," Mayumi retorted, and there was no denying the satisfaction she felt in finally being able to say that.

"As you wish," Motomu replied, ever loyal.

Mayumi didn't bother to say goodbye before she closed the phone, slipping it back into pocket. Then, the bespectacled, ever unobtrusive girl melted into the crowd of students and disappeared.

There was no denying that Mana was in a bad spot. Quite possibly the worst one she'd ever been in, which, considering the way her life had been going ever since she'd moved to Tokyo-3, was really saying something. All things considered, she was quite proud of herself for not completely panicking.

"Let go of me, you damn Angel!" she shouted, struggling impotently against the grip her armor had on her whole body.

Okay, maybe she was completely panicking a little bit.

Something wet and slimy brushed against her body, and she shuddered, her mind's eye clearly painting the visage of the horrible gray ooze of the Angel's body climbing all over her. The stuff seemed to be growing inside her suit, and unless Mana missed her guess, the Angel seemed to be getting smarter the more it grew.

Figure out a way to use that, she ordered herself. Come on, Kirishima, you're supposed to be a genius. Find the answer.

Then she felt the Angel brush against her collar bone and shuddered again. She was not looking forward to finding out what would happen when it crawled up to her mouth and nose.

And yet, this is probably still better than what would be happening if I'd ditched the suit and let NERV snatch me up, she told herself, even though she was growing less certain of that by the minute.

The distinctive roar of jet engines in the distance interrupted her whirling thoughts, and Mana looked into the distance to see a pair of VTOLs approaching at a very rapid clip.

"Uh-oh."

She wasn't foolish enough to think that they were out practicing maneuvers.

As it turned out, neither was the Angel.

The suit banked sharply with no warning, and Mana let out a little yelp at the abrupt motion, her stomach roiling. Less than a second later, she could see the tell tale muzzle flashes of the attack planes' guns and hear the sharp report of the shots. The Angel had anticipated the attack, she realized. Not a good sign.

Of course, the VTOLs weren't about to give up that easily, and only seconds after the Angel managed to avoid the initial burst of gun fire, each of them unleashed a missile at the girl in the metal suit. Mana knew this because, even though she couldn't see the VTOLs or the missiles at the moment, thanks to the Angel's evasive maneuvers, a cacophony of alarms suddenly went off inside her helmet.

"Oh crap!" she hissed.

The suit abruptly turned, restoring her—and the Angel's—line of sight with the speeding missiles. A pair of reticules appeared on Mana's HUD, quickly honing in on the missiles, and the auburn-haired girl suddenly felt an entirely different type of dread than she'd been experiencing before.

My new targeting system, she thought. She had installed it to help her fight Metallo, if she ever crossed paths with him again, and now the Angel was using it against the JSSDF.

Her arms snapped up with quick, jerky motions, and the rivet guns in the armor's gauntlets sounded. An instant later, the missiles both blossomed into a pair of short-lived orange fireballs.

Naturally, all heavy attack VTOLs carried a payload of more than one missile a piece. However, the pair of aircraft that had come to meet Steel would never get the chance to use them. The moment the missiles were taken care of, the Angel focused the suit's targeting system on them.

"No!" she cried.

Her guns fired again, releasing exploding rivets now, and this time it was the fighters that erupted into fireballs. Mana felt like she was going to be sick, which would definitely be extremely unpleasant inside the confines of the armor, until she saw the parachutes. The pilots of the VTOLs had managed to eject in time. Mana breathed a sigh of relief at the discovery, then another when the Angel resumed its previous course, clearly uninterested in the pilots now that they were no longer a threat.

Which left her right back at square one, unfortunately.

I have to figure out a way to reduce its body mass, she thought. But how? I've completely lost control of the suit, and I can't even move!

Before she could come up with anything that even resembled a plan, she once again heard the distinctive roar of jet engines. The auburn-haired girl frowned. Had the JSSDF already managed to scramble more VTOLs? If they had additional fighters only moments behind the pair the Angel had just brought, why hadn't they had the first two hang back until the others could join up with them, rather than striking piecemeal?

The mystery was solved when the new aircraft came into view, and Mana realized that it wasn't one of the JSSDF's heavy attack VTOLs. Instead, it was a sleek, black stealth craft that she knew quite well but had never seen in flight before…mostly because it was usually parked in the Batcave.

Oh, Mayumi's here, she thought.

Mana realized that she genuinely wasn't sure if she thought that was good or bad.

The Angel, on the other hand, knew exactly what it thought about the big black aircraft, if the way the targeting system came back to life was any indication.

"No," she breathed as the reticule homed in on the Batwing.

She and Mayumi had not been getting along very well lately, but she was still the person who had saved her from what doubtlessly would've been a horrific fate, then taken her in and sheltered her, if not for entirely altruistic reasons. Mana certainly didn't want her to die.

And she wanted Mayumi's death to come from the weapon she'd made even less, but she didn't think the Angel was going to give her a choice about it.

"No!" she yelped as her arm went up again. Mana was powerless to resist it.

The rivet gun fired, but an instant before it let loose its explosive payload, the Batwing banked sharply, avoiding the projectiles. Before the armor could retarget the aircraft, Batgirl ejected, a black shape rocketing out of the Batwing. The aircraft itself turned and began to fly in the opposite direction, apparently heading back to the Batcave on autopilot.

Spreading her cape out so it acted like wings to catch the air, Batgirl ignited the jets that Mana had installed into her boots and went barreling toward the girl in the metal suit. Even with the armor's upgraded targeting system, the Angel couldn't lock onto something that small and fast in the span of two seconds.

Which was about how long it took Batgirl to reach Steel, crashing into the armored girl with enough force to leave Mana badly jarred. Obnoxiously enough, the dark lady didn't seemed fazed by the collision.

"Mayumi," Mana managed to gasp out, even as the Angel frantically tried to grab hold of the caped crusader..

"Shut up," Batgirl growled, evading the armor's grabbing hands with amazing ease. "And don't use my real name again."

Under different circumstances, Mana probably would've asked her who she thought would hear them, way up in the sky. Now, she just closed her mouth so quickly that her teeth emitted an audible click.

Climbing over her with movements that secretly reminded Mana of a monkey, Batgirl withdrew a batarang from her belt and headed for Steel's jet boots.

"What are you doing?!" Mana demanded, too late.

Batgirl stabbed the left boot of the armor with her batarang, and the jet inside it sputtered and quickly died. Mana let out a cry of surprise and fear as she fell a good hundred meters before the Angel could get them remotely stable, and even then, their flight became erratic. The Steel armor was damned heavy, and it simply wasn't supposed to be supported by one jet.

Apparently not satisfied with her work so far, Batgirl got behind Steel, gripping the armored girl's shoulders and positioning herself so the Angel couldn't reach her. Then, she pointed the bottoms of her feet skyward and ignited the jets in her own boots again.

The result was instantaneous. The armor's one good jet couldn't compete with both gravity and the pair of thrusters in Batgirl's suit; they started going down. Fast.

"You're going to get us killed!" Mana screamed.

"Even if I do, it'll still be mostly your fault," Batgirl snapped.

The ground rushed up to meet them, and Mana found that she couldn't blink, couldn't look away. She wasn't too proud to close her eyes as she met her end, she was just completely paralyzed.

A moment before she hit the ground, Batgirl released her hold, pulling up sharply. The Angel tried to follow suit, of course, but gravity and physics would not be denied. Mana screamed as she and her inhuman hijacker crashed into the ground together, the suit bouncing along the grassy land like a rock skipping over the surface of a lake.

Finally, Mana came to a stop, groaning. Her head throbbed. She hurt in places that she hadn't known she had places. She was amazed that she was even still alive.

Just as everything seemed to be ready to stop spinning, the armor began to move around her again. In other circumstances, she would've felt very impressed with herself for building something that could take so much punishment and keep going.

As the Angel got the armor (and Mana) back on its feet, Batgirl descended from the sky, touching down deftly a few meters away from Steel. The dark lady unleashed a flurry of batarangs which whizzed through the air, striking Steel and then exploding violently. Already feeling battered and beaten, Mana groaned as the force of the blasts jarred her further.

The Angel and the armor, however, seemed unaffected by the attack. Soon, the rivet guns were firing again, this time at Batgirl. The caped crusader went into a series of flips, deftly avoiding the projectiles until she could take shelter behind a tree. A second later she popped out long enough to fling one of her bolos at Steel. The whole mess of wires and weights quickly wrapped itself around the armored girl's upper body, pinning her arms to her side…only to have the Angel easily break the ropes, not even putting a strain on the suit's servomotors in the process.

It was only then that Mana realized the predicament that Mayumi found herself in. Use too little force, and Batgirl wouldn't even slow her foe down. Use too much, and she could kill Mana.

"Mayu…Batgirl!" Mana cried. "Quit messing around! I know you have more powerful explosives in your belt. Freaking use some of them!"

Batgirl hurled another batarang at Steel, and this one struck the armored girl's arm and then unleashed a blast of extremely potent coolant, encasing the appendage in ice. Mana gasped as the cold instantly penetrated the metal, so intense that it was outright painful. The Angel easily moved the arm and shattered the ice.

"Don't give me orders!" Batgirl growled. "I'm your employer, not the other way around."

Mana was about to tell Mayumi to quit being an idiot and break out the big guns already. She didn't want to die, of course, but she knew full well how great of a threat she represented. The Angel had to be stopped, and if something that might well kill her had to be done to end it, she was willing to take that chance.

However, she was never able to speak those words. Before the auburn-haired girl could utter a single syllable, she felt something cold and slimy brush against the bottom of her chin. She realized with horror that it was the Angel, which had been growing and expanding the entire time Steel had been clashing with the JSSDF fighters and then Batgirl. She hadn't noticed until now, but it had finally reached her face.

Mana reflexively opened her mouth, and the Angel struck with the speed of a viper, a tendril of its horrible body entering her mouth and plunging down the girl's throat. Mana released a few muffled cries as she desperately tried to disgorge the Angelic matter, gagging the whole time. Yet despite her best efforts, it just moved deeper and deeper into her body.

No! Mana thought in horror. No!

Her vision began to tunnel. She could feel consciousness slipping away, even as she struggled to hang onto it.

No! Not like this!

Her eyelids began to droop. She was vaguely aware of Batgirl shouting at her, demanding to know what was wrong, what was happening, even as the dark lady continued to dodge the attacks that the Angel was launching at her.

Mana couldn't have answered her even if she didn't have an Angel invading her; she felt so sick and woozy that she could barely think, let alone speak.

No, no, no, no…

Finally, she could resist no longer. Her eyes rolled back into her head, and her world went black.

The atmosphere in the NERV command center was tense, to put it mildly. Even though Commander Ikari gave no outward sign of it, everyone present knew that he was furious, both at his son's attempted insubordination and at the turn the battle had taken due to Steel's intervention. They could practically feel it radiating off of him in waves, and it made them scared to do or say anything that might set him off.

Unfortunately, it was their job to report any new information to the officer in charge of conducting the battle, and with Misato currently missing in action, that was Commander Ikari.

"Sir," Makoto spoke up timidly. "The MAGI have managed to pinpoint the current location of the Angel's blue pattern. We have an observation satellite in orbit over its position now."

"Put it on the main screen," Gendo ordered.

"Right away," Makoto said, quickly keying in a few commands.

Instantly, a satellite view of the battle taking place between Steel and the caped crusader appeared on the largest screen in the command center.

A moment of quiet shock passed through the room. None of them had expected to see Batgirl.

Though he showed no sign of it, the Commander's mind briefly raced as he considered his options, assessed risks, and weighed his desire to capture the younger Kirishima alive against the need to slay the Angel.

"Ibuki," Gendo spoke, reaching a decision.

"Y-Yes, sir?" Maya responded timidly.

"Contact JSSDF aerial command and ask what sort of firepower they can bring to bear on that area," Gendo ordered.

Maya hesitated for a moment, briefly thinking about raising the possibility of waiting and seeing if Batgirl could remedy the situation. Then she glanced at the Commander and thought the better of it.

"Yes, sir," she said, then picked up a phone in her terminal.

After a short conversation, she turned back to the Commander. "JSSDF command states that they're too close to civilian centers for use of nuclear or N2 weapons," she reported. "However, they would be willing to scramble a bombing run with standard ordnance."

"Have them do it," the Commander ordered.

"Yes, sir," Maya said and relayed the orders. "The JSSDF reports that there is an estimated five minutes until the bombs drop."

Author's Notes: Sorry about being late again. I'll get back into the swing of things again, I swear. Eventually.

Anyway, things just keep going from bad to worse for Mana with this Angel, with things now having taken a particularly disgusting turn. Can our heroine get out of this before the JSSDF carpet bombs the area? Only one way to find out.

Thanks as always to my readers and reviewers.