Matters of Faith

by jclong

Gendo is out to do some good, in the only way that he can; by being the most magnificent, manipulative bastard that he can be. Rei is out to help us all, by doing SCIENCE! Please Read & Review! Thank you for reading and sharing your feedback.

36. Chapter 36

Disclaimer: I do not own anything. All IP belongs to its respective owner, ie, Anno, Gainax, etc. This is purely a fan created story for the purposes of entertainment and not commercialized in anyway. I am not making any money off of this.

Shinji trudged through the storm-ridden city, staring at the devastation supposedly wrought by him. The storm, with its cold rain and driving winds, no longer bothered him. The last time he had seen this city, bathed in the ever present golden light, it had been whole and complete, untouched by the ravages of war. Now the city had nearly been leveled, whole blocks reduced to ash while the ruins still smoldered in the rain. Lilith had told him the storm was because of him, but had made no mention otherwise about the sorry state the city was in.

He could only surmise that it was his fault. After all, he had never seen anyone else here, apart from the shadowy figures that still eluded him. If this place was some sort of astral projection, they might be people in the real world. He had been able to affect this place, so it was not beyond reason that he was responsible for the destruction that had occurred.

How was he supposed to find his way home? Shinji frowned at the thought, looking at the bombed out shell of Rosewater's, the fancy restaurant he had went on those dates with Rei. It still burned, the orange and red of the flames a brighter color than anything he had ever seen in the washed out world. The last time he had been trapped here, it was Lilith who had sent him home, to awake just in time to escape as he was being kidnapped.

Shinji stopped mid-stride through the wide avenue, going numb as realization hit him like a truck. He had killed those men...

Vier, Drei, Zwei, Eins!

"Don't do it kid!" The agent cried out as Shinji's hand closed around the pistol and pulled it free of the holster.

His eyes wide as he stared at the man who was reaching for the gun, Shinji hesitated, but was snapped out of it as the man's hand closed around his shoulder.

"NO!" Shinji screamed, thumb flicking the safety off as he squeezed the trigger. The agent shuddered as the rounds tore through him as the pistol barked again and again, his blood pumping out of him. Shoving himself to the side, Shinji shot at the man in the passenger seat, who was twisting around, tranquilizer in hand. He slumped over as the next shot tore through his face. The last shots ripped through the driver's seat, and as the driver screamed, throwing the car into a spin that took them off the road.

Covered in blood, Shinji jerked the door open, and half crawled and half fell out of the sedan onto the grass below. Sucking in great breaths of fresh air, he vomited, spitting blood and bile out of his mouth.

Overhead, Asuka's voice shook the air as she asked how he was. Still collapsed on the ground, he waved an arm at her, tears and vomit pouring from him.

Sitting back, he watched the red giant throw the car at the two figures battling in the near distance. The Angel was a squat hulking thing, and Rei's Unit-00 a lithe dancer. Burning fuel and shrapnel showered them as Asuka began to rush back into the fray. The Angel screeched, the awful sound igniting some half remembered urgent necessity in the boy.

Watching the three titans battle it out, he sat up on one leg, resting his stump on the ground. He didn't know why, but he knew that he had to get to Unit-01. He could feel, deep in his gut, a sense of terrible foreboding. A premonition of disaster.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Kaworu Nagisa hummed as he strolled through the abandoned halls of NERV-Central, making his way down towards the home of Lilith. These halls did not show the destruction that had visited the surface world, this part of the interface being under the influence of Lilith, the Great Mother. She was quite content to wait it out until the end, holding true to her part of the bargain struck between her and SEELE. His time here in the interface was short, but he couldn't resist the chance to gloat at the captive Angel.

He found her walking restlessly through the empty Evangelion cages, tall and pale, her face locked behind the seven eyed mask. She twisted as he entered the cavernous hall, her form shifting into that of the female Sub-Commander.

"What do you want?" she demanded, lifting her head high, imperiously. "You are not supposed to be here."

"I go where I wish." he replied with an easy smile. "I am not bound to my physical form, unlike you. I can go where I wish in the interface."

"This place is not your playground, little one." Lilith replied, changing into Gendo Ikari. "This is my realm. You are only a visitor here. I am the soul of this world. You are-"

"I am the one who will uphold the bargain. I am the one that will see SEELE's will fulfilled. I am the One-"

"You are meddling." Gendo shifted, shrinking down into Rei, dressed in a white lab coat, goggles over her eyes. "I will uphold my end of the bargain, but I will not allow you to intrude in my domain. That was part of the bargain."

Kaworu chuckled, his merry laugh echoing in the hall. "I think that we both know that you are quite powerless, even here. It must have been all that you could do, to send Shinji home again, last time. Were that I had such power here, I would have brought him home with me." He sighed, running a hand through his tousled gray hair. "Stricken as you are, you have nothing. You are nothing. Even my sister has more power than you!" Shaking his head, the boy smiled as he continued to taunt the Mother of Mankind. "I wonder how you were even able to fight ADAM at all. It makes me wonder what the life on this world would have been like had He been its progenitor, rather than some flabby, weak, powerless being."

Lilith stared at the man-made Angel as he continued to talk, shaking her head. No matter how she tried to explain it to her children, they continued to misunderstand the point. This was why she had finally agreed to their plans, misaimed though they were. Each part of her that they defeated meant more of her power and self returning. Soon, once all of the parts of her that she had unleashed to fight the Other were returned, she could set everything to rights and correct the course of the planet's destiny.

"Love is the thread that binds us together and forms the tapestry that is our past and future, and soon we shall be free of the hurtful present. Together, we-"

The only part of the puzzle that she had not figured out was the link between the Other and the boy who piloted the Shadow they called Unit-01, which they had created from her own flesh.

"-much more like you, but her pathos is weak, a sign of her inferior nature. She is ill-suited for the task of managing Third Impact, and her abilities are weak and underdeveloped. Her emotional depth is that of a rock, stunted and deformed. She expects to be the guide of destiny? The morning is quickly approaching that will see-"

Obviously, the chattering hybrid before her had no clue as to the truth of the matter. His arrogance in his misguided ignorance was grating. She grew weary of him, and focused her thoughts on his form.

Lilith smiled as a shocked expression crossed the boy's face.

"What-" he gasped, clutching at his head, knees buckling and sending him to the floor.

There was a flash of almost tangible darkness as Lilith banished him with her AT-Field. Her power here was limited by the fact that she was impaled by her own weapon in the physical world, but that did not mean that she powerless.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Rei watched dispassionately as the drone screamed inside the tube, eyes filled with madness and panic. Kaji watched, horrified but interested, from his gurney. This was the fiftieth clone to be selected for experimentation, and this time the transfer had taken hold.

"Agent Kaji, if you do not calm down, I will not be able to release you from the tube." Rei spoke into the microphone. She paused, watching the drone clutching at its hair as it thrashed around in the LCL. "This is unnecessary." Looking down at the computer terminal and watching the drone's vital signs for a moment, she turned to look at the original Kaji. "You are being unreasonable."

"Hey, don't put this on me!" Kaji said, scowling at her. "It's probably a traumatic experience, being put into a soulless body."

"I have not experienced any trauma from the process." She replied, her mouth twisting into a frown. "I also have never experienced any trauma during the upload procedure either." Leaning back towards the microphone, "Agent Kaji, if you do not cooperate, I will terminate you."

The drone gave no sign of hearing her, continuing to scream and thrash wildly.

Rei typed a short command into the terminal, and the tube pulsed with energy. The drone stiffened, and then ceased all activity as the vital signs all flat-lined.

"So what's next then?" Kaji asked, his voice slightly caustic, at odds with his usual cajoling attitude.

Typing the command to drain the tube, Rei glanced over at her captive. "Autopsy."

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Asuka watched the technicians and maintenance crews installing components into her Unit-02. Most of the new parts would increase performance, but others were a special selection of parts that would allow her limited contact experiment to occur. Bypassing the other safeties and limiting systems, she would be able to engage in her modified version of her own mother's last work, and hopefully get some real answers.

Of course, she couldn't just start up Unit-02 and run the experiment whenever she wanted -not anymore. They had the only two operational Evangelions on a tight leash these days, especially after Rei's work on constructing new weapons for them. She'd have to wait for a regular progression test, and they weren't due for one for another month. In the meantime however, she would continue to pour over the logs and design schematics. If she found some sort of soul sitting in her Unit-02, then it would confirm some of her suspicions and, at the same time, invalidate a large part of everything that she believed to be true.

If there was a soul there in her Unit-02, it did mean that Shinji was still alive, at least in a manner of speaking. If he was locked away in the core of Unit-01, then... then there was hope that they could get him back.

How they planned on doing that, or how they were going to handle the fact that he didn't have a body, well, she didn't know that. But if he could be gotten back, brought back to life, pulled back from the abyss...

It would be good to see him again.

If there wasn't anything there waiting for her, though, it meant that they were still lying to them. What the point of it was, Asuka couldn't tell. There didn't seem to be a point to a lot of the lies that she had uncovered. Whatever the reasoning behind them all still remained a mystery. Her phone began to vibrate in her pocket. Pulling it out, she frowned at the message. Misato wanted to have a meeting with the pilots.

Other than the continued work on cleaning up Tokyo-3, there wasn't anything planned for the future that the pilots really needed to worry about. Most of the training was being consumed by the cleanup operations, and they did not conduct any missions until the Angels arrived, so...

So Misato was either going to talk to them about Shinji, or there was something else afoot.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Misato looked up as the girls walked into the conference room, and put down her tablet. Sighing, she waved at them to sit down. Heavy bags hung under her eyes, and it looked to the girls that the woman was having problems sleeping. Watching them as they sat down, the older woman activated the main display monitor, tapping through some documents on her hand-held computer.

"It's been three months since five forty-three last night, Misato." Asuka remarked, "Tell us something good."

"There's been no significant progress on the salvage operation." The Sub-Commander said, pinching the bridge of her nose. "They still have nothing to offer on when we can expect any results." Watching the two sit in stony silence, she ran a hand through her hair before moving to a calendar. "But that's not why I wanted to have a meeting with you two. I just thought that you'd like to know. The real reason we're here today is because for the next few weeks your missions will be augmented by the autopilot systems. We installed them some time ago, but never had the opportunity to conduct testing. We figure that-"

"Since all we're doing is cleanup projects, why not test the systems doing that?" Asuka interrupted, grinding out the sentence from clenched teeth. ""Misato, we'll be bored out of our skulls! The autopilots still require us to be in the Evangelions! We'll just be sitting there, for hours on end, doing nothing!"

"Asuka," Misato started, rubbing her forehead, "I know that it's not optimal, but-"

"Optimal? Misato, there's-"

"Enough!" the older woman shouted suddenly, slamming a fist on the table. "You'll be testing the systems. It needs to be done, and I don't want to cut back on our recovery operations in the Geo-Front or on the surface. You can use the time in the Entry Plugs however you want, I don't care. Listen to music, load up some ebooks on the internal screens, I don't care. We're testing the autopilot, and these simple but prolonged cleanup missions are perfect." Leveling a look that brooked no insubordination at her pilots, the Sub-Commander sent the calendar to their accounts. "I've added the mission rosters to your files so you can read the mission briefs and testing parameters ahead of time. Any questions?"

"Understood." Rei answered, her voice as placid as her expression. Asuka rolled her eyes and threw her hands up in aggravation, twisting in her chair to stare at her wing-man.

"Understood? Is that it? Jeez, Rei, tell us how you really feel. C'mon, are you just going to let them-"

"ASUKA!" Misato shouted, getting to her feet, losing her temper. "That is enough! Your attitude is getting old, and, quite frankly, it's beneath you! I didn't expect you to object to testing. It's not like this is the worst batch of tests you've ever done, anyways! What is your problem?"

"MY problem? Asuka all but screeched, slamming her own hands against the table as she stood up. "You just want to replace us with some autopilot, and you want us to help you get the data to do it! You want us to sit there, nice and compliant, and expect us to thank you for it. You want all of us to just dance to your tune, just like some puppet, just like the First Child here!" Spittle flew from the redhead's mouth as she pointed at Rei, who sat watching the exchange disinterestedly. "You want us all to just be little dolls that do everything you want, no questions asked! Well, fuck you!"

"What the hell, Asuka!" Misato roared, her eyes flashing. "What do you think that you're doing? DO you think that-"

"Oh, spare me your lectures, Misato." Asuka sneered, glaring at her superior. "It's true, just admit it! You all just want us to do as we're told, perfect dolls. Fuck that. Look where it got Shinji. All he ever wanted to do was make his fucking father happy, to have him be proud of him, and look at where it got him. Cut in fucking half, arms and legs ripped off. He's dead, and you won't even tell us the truth! Can you even admit it to yourself?"

Misato slapped the angry teenager, a swift, sudden movement that caught the girl by surprise.

"How dare you!" Misato hissed at the dumbstruck girl. "I don't know where you got that idea, but he's not dead! He's just-"

"He was cut in half!" Asuka screamed back with new anger burning in her eyes, hands clenched into fists held slightly back, "CUT IN HALF! Even if we can get him out of the LCL, he's going to die!"

"You don't think that we haven't thought about that?" Misato screamed back, managing to hold back the tears in her eyes but failing to keep the pain from her words.

"Have you even visited the shrine, Misato? I've never seen you there. I haven't even seen a scrap of paper with your name on it, asking him to come back. Some guardian you are! Some friend!"

"Enough!" Misato said, grabbing her tablet and heading for the door. "Testing starts at eight tomorrow morning. If you're not there, you can spend some time in solitary."

"Sure thing!" Asuka snarled at the retreating woman as the door shut behind her. "Way to back me up there, Rei." she said, turning to the still sitting girl, who watched her passively.

"Orders are orders, Pilot-Captain."

"Fuck your orders. Why do you insist on being their doll, their little puppet?"

"I am not a doll, Pilot-Captain."

"Yes you are!" Asuka snorted in derision. "Always going along with everything they ever say, going off and having private dinners with the Commander. What a joke. You're his little pet, his little doll. Marching along to their tune."

"I am not-"

"I thought you had something, you know." Asuka sneered at Rei, fists on her hips. "I thought you had some promise. You and Shinji, just starting to come out of your little shells. The three of us, a team! A unit! But you still just do whatever the Commander tells you to do, don't you?" Asuka glared at the younger girl.

"I follow the Commander's orders." Rei said, standing up. "We must all follow the Commander's orders."

"Did the Commander order you not to visit the shrine? Not to visit Unit-01? Because that's all that's left of Shinji Ikari in this world, and what does it say about him when neither his father or his girlfriend don't even visit it?"

"He is not dead."

"He's dead!" Asuka screamed, jabbing a finger against Rei's sternum. "Even if he wasn't, he'd be missing half of his organs if he comes back! We can't fix that! Nobody can! It's just you and me now, girl! If we don't work together, this world will burn! Wake up and smell the ashes, Rei! Shinji's dead, and we failed him!"

Rei recoiled, a brief look of shock crossing her features, but not brief enough to escape Asuka's notice.

"Yeah, that's right! We failed him, Rei. You, me, all of us! They sent him out to deal with something that neatly handed us our asses. What did we expect to happen? For him to just neatly clean up after us? You saw what it did! You know what it took to even just slow it down!" Screaming now, half in German and half in Japanese, Asuka threw her hands up in the air. "Was he supposed to magically make it die? Sollte er etwa noch einen scheiß-unglaublichen Sieg aus seinem Arsch hervorzaubern? Another wonderful victory by the superb, infallible wonder boy." Snarling now, her voice raw with anger, she kicked her chair into the table. "Anstatt dessen verreckt er! He dies after giving every last breath in his body, every last scrap of effort in him to stop the end of the world. He's dead, and no one will admit the truth because his ego border collapsed and what little was left vanished into the LCL. Open your eyes, Rei! He's dead. Er ist tot und er wird nicht wiederkommen."

Straightening back up, Rei shook her head. "He is not dead," she repeated, "so I will not mourn him. Don't you have faith in the works of the Commander? In the works of NERV? Shinji will be returned."

Asuka narrowed her eyes as she studied the other girl, her hot, barely controlled rage suddenly focusing like light through a lens. Something in the way the other girl acted, the way she held herself, the way she seemed so confident spawned a new doubt in the German girl's mind. "You know something. What is it?"

"I know many things, Pilot-Captain." Rei retorted, walking past the redhead towards the door. "Do not call me a doll again."

"Yeah. Sure." Asuka said, grinding her teeth. "See you later."

Asuka sat alone in the room and stared at the door for several minutes, eyes narrowed, her mind racing. It was obvious that Rei knew something that she wasn't letting on, something that went beyond the girl's usual level of quiet obfuscation. That the High Command continued to stand by their claims that Shinji was still alive, capable of being 'salvaged', these she could put to being lies at worst, or hopeless optimism at best.

Rei had never struck her as being overly optimistic - in fact, just the opposite. The girl was usually a refreshing source of realistic pessimism. If Rei had usually been prone to bouts of sentimentality, Asuka would have chalked up the girl's insistence of Shinji's continued existence as a grieving denial of the truth. As it was though, there had to be something else she was missing, some little thing that Rei did know that she wasn't sharing.

It was either that, or Rei was off the deep end over Shinji's death, leaving Asuka as the only sane person still at NERV, without the support of her remaining fellow pilot.

Asuka was certain that while Rei might not be all there upstairs, the girl was no dummy. If she was certain that Shinji was still alive, then that meant that she knew something to the contrary of all rational observation. Rising from her chair, the redheaded junior scientist left the room, headed for her lab. Very little went on in NERV or Tokyo-3 that the MAGI did not know about or at least observed, and if the information was hidden away in their databanks, then she would be able to find it. Even if it took her some time, even if it took another three months, she would get to the bottom of this new problem.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Shinji shivered as he stalked through the city, although he was not cold. He kept going over the scene in his mind, over and over again. Every time he closed his eyes, he could see the look on the man's face as he pulled the trigger, and he could taste the man's blood in his mouth.

Muttering to himself, he tried to rationalize the situation, telling himself that there had been no time. There had been no other way, and he had needed to get to Unit-01. Whoever the men were, they had abducted him from the hospital and had killed a nurse and two other security agents to even get as far as they had.

Killing them hadn't been like killing the Angels. The Angels were a threat! They were here to destroy everything! They weren't people, they were just monsters! Alien beings that rampaged and destroyed, who wanted to reach the Second Angel and initiate Third Impact.

The men that had kidnapped him though… they had been a threat. They had tried to keep him from Unit-01, from fighting the Angel. Rei and Asuka could have died, could have been hurt really badly. He had almost not been there in time as it was. If he hadn't killed those men, it would have been too late for everyone.

Those men, whoever they had been, whomever they had been working for, had deserved to die.

They had deserved to die, and he had killed them. They made him kill them. What was he supposed to do, let them keep him from protecting the world? From protecting Rei? That was why he was at NERV, right? To save the world from Third Impact? How could he do that if some assholes had kidnapped him?

He couldn't. So he had to kill them. There was no choice.

Slowly, Shinji began to feel better.

He kept walking, looking at the war-torn city, his eyes picking out familiar landmarks, even though he wasn't quite used to finding them from ground level. Following along the debris littered streets, Shinji stopped as he came to the intersection where he had first fought an Angel, his breath catching in his lungs.

Stopping in the center of the road, he started with shock as the city melted from smoking ruins to a bright summer's day, the streets still empty, save for the towering Angel waiting at the far end of the road. The muted sounds of machinery filled the air, prompting the boy to spin around, just in time to see Unit-01 rise up from beneath the ground, tall and proud. A fearsome, towering behemoth in its own right, the purple titan took a step forwards, then came toppling over, the tumultuous sound of the impact somehow managing to be moderately loud, despite the muffled nature of the interface.

Shinji spun around again as loud, bellowing laughter filled the air. Gaping in shock, he watched as the Angel laughed at the stricken Evangelion.

FOOLISH SHADOW OF MAN'S CONSTRUCTION!

Shinji clutched his head as the words seemed to appear in his mind, a deafening sound that was somehow not head by his ears.

YOU CANNOT STAND BEFORE ME! THE TASK IS COMPLETE! THE OTHER IS NO MORE! I SHALL BECOME ONE WITH THE GREAT MOTHER AND BRING AN END TO THIS EXISTENCE! NONE SHALL STAND BETWEEN ME AND COMPLETION!

Shinji watched the two giants struggle, their combat tearing a path of destruction through the city. Following quickly, he watched himself fight, his unpreparedness and lack of training obvious to him now. Eventually, the fight came to a close, Unit-01's arm broken, and the Angel's hand wrapped around the Evangelion's face.

I AM THE CHILD OF THE MOTHER, ONE OF THE WATER AND BRINGER OF STORMS! THE LIGHT OF MY SOUL IS MIGHT AND POWER! IN THE FULLNESS OF THE YEARS I HAVE RETURNED, STIRRED FROM ANCIENT SLUMBER. WHY DO YOU FIGHT? YOU ARE NOTHING COMPARED TO THE POWER GIVEN TO ME BY THE GREAT MOTHER!

The glowing spike shot through Unit-01's face, exiting out the back with a spray of gore.

Wincing, and rubbing the back of his head as a sympathetic pain twinged in his skull, the boy watched, horror and interest playing across his face.

Dumping the body of its foe to the ground, the Angel turned and left.

Long seconds ticked past, each heartbeat seeming to be an eternity, as Shinji watched the blood and oil pour from the horrific wounds from Unit-01.

With a roar that rattled the city, the purple Evangelion surged to its feet, charging at the Angel.

As the fight came to its violent finish, the city changed again, melting and shifting, leaving Shinji on a wooded hillside, staring at the two giants, locked in struggle.

SEEK NOT TO BAR MY WAY, SHADOW OF MAN! WHY DO YOU FIGHT? YOU CANNOT HOPE TO PREVAIL! COMPLETION IS MY TASK AND HIGHEST GOAL! CREATED TO SERVE THE MOTHER AGAINST THE GREAT OTHER, I LEAD MY SIBLINGS IN BATTLE! I AM THE LEADER OF LEGIONS! THE LIGHT OF MY SOUL IS THE LIGHT OF THE SUN, AND YOU CANNOT EXTINGUISH IT!

Battle ended, the Angel collapsing down, the knife buried in its core, just as Unit-01's power let out, slumping downward.

The great geometric monstrosity of the Fifth Angel floated over the city, the light of its energy weapon melting away at the mountain, where Shinji and Rei made their defiant stand against the strongest Angel they had come up against so far.

REJOICE WITH GREAT TREMBLING, SHADOWS OF MANKIND! THE TIME OF COMPLETION IS AT HAND! BEHOLD THE LIGHT OF MY SOUL, HOPE! I AM THE DESTROYER OF ENEMIES, FAVORED CHILD OF THE GREAT MOTHER! HEED MY MESSAGE!

Out from the mountain, a new light appeared, burning a path back towards the Angel, fighting across the baleful beam of energy to strike straight at the red core that sat at the center of the ever-shifting prisms. A new thunder sounded across the landscape as fire poured from the killing wound.

The scene shifted again, to the stormy shores of Tokyo-3. Tears welled up in Shinji's face, as his hair was swept back by a wind he could not otherwise feel. This was not a day that he liked to think about.

Stretched out far below him, Unit-00 lay in a heap as once again an Angel and Evangelion battled.

There was nothing but pure bestial instinct in Unit-01's movements, screaming an incoherent cry as it fought.

The many-toothed ichthyoid Angel shouted back, reprimanding the berserking giant.

STAND ASIDE, SHADOW! WHY DO YOU FIGHT? VICTORY SHALL NOT BE YOURS! ALL WILL BE UNIFIED WITH THE GREAT MOTHER, AND YOU CANNOT STOP THIS FROM COMING TO PASS! I AM THE ROARING BEAST! THE LIGHT OF MY-

The out of control Evangelion roared at the Angel as it mounted the final attack.

Tears running down his face, Shinji collapsed to the ground, sobbing. A twisting pain shot through his heart as he watched himself brutally destroy the Angel. Around him, the landscape changed again.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Asuka sat in the Entry Plug, watching the data stream on her virtual display as the technical crew in NERV Central remotely controlled her Unit-02. The information was a little interesting, although not very useful just yet. She would need to do careful analysis on the data to figure out how to block the remote overrides. It wouldn't do to let them use the system to lock her out while she was trying to conduct her own experiment later, after all.

So she waited patiently, if grudgingly, as the techs ran the two Evangelions through cleaning up another ruined section of the city. They were a little over three hours into the test, and all things seemed to be fine, at least for her Unit-02. The initial changeover to the remote pilot system had been weird. It had sort of felt like she had back when she and Rei were fighting the twin Angel, a strange sort of tandem unison, like there was another person just looking over her shoulder.

Of course, the last time that she had had someone looking over her shoulder here in the Entry Plug, things had not gone smoothly at all. Shinji, incapable of speaking German, let alone thinking in the language, had forced her to change the system set to Japanese. While she had no problems thinking in the foreign tongue, it still wasn't her preferred choice. On top of the change in language sets, his presence kept screwing up her synchronization. For some reason, he synched up very easily with the Evangelions.

Sighing, she leaned back in the throne, closing her eyes. Soon, though, soon, she would conduct her own experiment and hopefully shed some light on some things.

Calling up a mission clock, the redhead scowled at the visual display. Two more hours left, plus an intensive deactivation sequence, including an MRI and CAT scan, with a blood draw following. They wanted to carefully monitor them for any problems following the use of the autopilot system. Part of her was gratified at the attention to detail, but the imposition on her time still rankled.

Rei, of course, had been blandly accepting of the intrusion into their schedules, although the girl barely ventured forth from her room in their quarters near the cages. The girl was probably just sitting over there in Unit-00, vacantly staring off into space. It was weird how she could just drift off like that, still awake, but completely off in her own world. It was creepy.

"Was denken die sich alle bloß? Warum kann man sich in diesem Saustall nicht auf einen einzigen Menschen verlassen? Wehrkraftzersetzer und dumme, folgsame Schäfchen hier so weit das Auge reicht!" Asuka muttered to herself as she called up the latest reports on Unit-01. There had been some power surges coming off the Evangelion during the last few days, more than the re-purposed umbilical cable setup could handle. Electricity had been arcing off the purple titan, jumping to the floor, the ceiling, the catwalks, everywhere. It was like watching a Van de Graaf generator. The technicians had paused in their work, until specialized insulated gear could be made for them.

The ingested core had completely replaced the need for an external power source for the war machine. It was, according the initial reports, a perfect organic S2 engine, everything that the Nevada base had been trying to mimic before they had flashed out of existence during the disaster. If they could unlock the secrets of the red orb, NERV could further revolutionize the Evangelions. Given fully free reign, not tethered to a home base for power, with nigh infinite power to pump into an AT-Field, well, the Evangelions would be a force that could literally go anywhere and destroy any enemy. It would be as if they were the Angels, only better.

But they were far from wresting those secrets from the crimson sphere. Not only was it completely inserted into the Evangelion, they had no idea how removing it would interfere with the salvage operations they were trying to plan. The only thing they could do right now was monitor the Evangelion through the umbilical cable, and try to draw off enough power to keep the giant in a standby mode.

The crews didn't voice it, but it was clear to the girl that they had no idea what they were doing or dealing with. They could only do what the Evangelion allowed them to do, but fortunately, it was content to simply wait there in the cage, work crews covering it like ants as they tried to replace restraints and armor. Removing the Angelic mask had been a dicey affair, but the Evangelion had eventually relented and allowed it.

The new limbs that it had manifested out of its AT-Field were, of course, missing any of the mechanical components that had run throughout the original body parts. No sensors, cables, wires, restraints or reinforcing structures for the external armor to be installed onto were present. In the massive email chains and meeting recordings that she had stolen into via her MAGI connections she had found out that the confusion was present at all levels as to the proper way to go forward.

It had taken Gendo himself to step in, telling them to modify the installation procedures and place the protective system around the new body parts, as if it were armor worn by a normal person. The fabrication labs were currently designing and manufacturing the new components, but a new helmet and the accompanying restraints had been installed on the Evangelion's head, finally hiding that awful grimacing smile behind armored plate.

It was a small relief, to have only the glowing eyes of the masked face staring at her when she visited the shrine at the end of the catwalk.

It had been ninety-three days since the event. Three months, and still they had nothing to show for their efforts but a shrine and an armored head.

Despite all her best efforts, it seemed that her former mentor was no closer to an answer than when she started. Of course, the bulk of the work that the team working on the salvage operation was done on a separate and offline MAGI system, Asuka had managed to glean some bits and pieces of information from simulation models run through the main MAGI trio. What there was, unfortunately, meant nothing to the young scientist. Neither did anything make sense to her clandestine compatriot, half a country away, but he had found a few things of interest when analyzing the raw code. There were references to both her mother and Shinji's mother, and there were markers from one user Gendo Ikari, from over eight years ago.

Even stranger, there was a cross-reference to a file named for Rei with an extension type that neither one was able to recognize. She had been unable to actually find the file on the MAGI, but a further search for the .will extension had brought up a series of dates that extended back ten years, each of them two weeks apart, that continued out through the current time and into the future.

The models themselves seemed to be just of brainwave activity under different stimuli, and featured a combination of old data from previous pilot checkups and from right before the boy's vital signs had flat-lined during the fight. What was supposed to have happened during the models themselves was unknown.

Asuka still had no idea why Rei seemed so sure that Shinji was not dead, or that he was coming back. Certainly, the adults all seemed to be firmly convinced that he was recoverable. Barring that, they were committed to maintaining the appearance that they could get him back in one shape or another.

Calling up a new link to the MAGI, Asuka typed a few commands to the super-computers, telling them to run the same model simulation, but to substitute her data from both her last full control mission, and her current autopilot mission. If she could not work on her current obsession, there was no reason for her to not work on a new problem.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Rei and Kaji watched the clone as it quietly sobbed, curled up in a ball inside the tube. The download into drone had gone off without any of the previously noted irregularities, and the young girl in the tube had woken up, looked out at them as a look of horrified realization slid over the previously placid face.

"I will let you out when you stop crying." Rei told the clone, which she had dubbed Kaji II, "I have clothing and food available for your use."

Frightened red eyes peeked up from behind pale arms, and the clone nodded after a moment's hesitation.

Rei started the exit sequence for the tube, then looked over at her captive as she picked up the coveralls from the counter.

"After your double has eaten, we will proceed with the primary tests to determine the completeness of the image and download."

Warily watching the girl in the tube that supposedly was him, Kaji's gaze flicked back to the girl with the same body that held him prisoner.

"Is that really me in there?"

"If everything went as planned, not exactly. Each iteration of the image is slightly different from the original host."

Interest sparked, Kaji looked back at the clone. "So you aren't the same as the original Rei?"

"Correct, Agent Ryouji. I do not know exactly how many versions there were before me, but I am at least the third one."

"How do you know this? Did they ever have more than one of you running around at the same time?"

Rei opened her mouth to explain, but then paused, watching the man with narrowed eyes. While there was no danger of the man escaping, there was no need to explain things to him that he really didn't need to know.

"No. As far as I am aware, the Commander believes me to be a perfect copy of the original Rei, be it with some memory lapses from between the time of the image download and subsequent upload into this body. I do, however, have certain and irrefutable evidence to the contrary." Turning from her bound captive, she moved to the opening tube, a towel in one hand and the coveralls in another.

"Hello, Kaji II. Please dry yourself off, and then get dressed. Food will be provided once you are ready."

The clone nodded, its movements a little jerky and unsure as it took the offered items.

"This is a little disorienting, you know." Kaji II commented, with Rei's voice but with the cadence and mannerisms of the bound adult. "I haven't been this short in a long time, let alone… well, let's just say that I'm not used to the new… gear." There was a somewhat mischievous look to the clone's face, as it winked at the original. "It's not quite like we imagined, or how Rits explained it to us."

Kaji I started to laugh as Rei began to frown. "Yeah, it's definitely me in there."

"Get dressed." Rei curtly ordered the clone. "You are obviously feeling better, if you are no longer crying and are now making inappropriate jokes."

"Oh, that wasn't a joke, Rei." Both Kajis said in unison, even as the female version toweled her hair. Both wore similar grins as well, watching their captor. "I hope you'll excuse the fact that my last clear memories are of an intrusive medical experiment being conducted on me against my will. The shock was a little much to take," the girl said, throwing the damp towel towards Rei, who let it fall to the floor. "It takes a toll on one, you know?"

"Ah." Rei commented, nodding slightly as Kaji II dressed. "You are attempting to guilt trip me. It will not work now, as it has not worked during your previous attempts."

"Yeah?" Kaji II replied, zipping up the coverall. "How about basic human decency?"

"You will find that while I am unsympathetic to your cause, I have not caused you undue harm or taken disproportionate actions against you. Your actions however, have placed not only Shinji's life in danger and have threatened the Commander's Scenario, but also you have annoyed me. I have wasted valuable time dealing with you, and I have lost opportunities that I may never again be able to regain."

Rei paused, studying the girl standing before her, the arrogant and smug look that belonged to the man within out of place on her features.

"These opportunities were in part due to my not treating you as I should have – as a resource to be exploited, a piece to be moved about on the board and then sacrificed."

"Really?" Kaji II snorted, incredulous. "So you think that you're a player now? Rei, you have no idea-"

Rei pulled the stun-gun from her pocket and shot the double. As the girl convulsed on the floor from the electrical current, Kaji I sighed, shaking his head.

"I know more than you, Agent Ryouji, although you have information that I desire. Your being in that body serves two purposes for me." Rei deactivated the stun-gun, and pulled out a pair of handcuffs. Clasping them around the girl's wrists, Rei then dragged her over to a waiting chair. "You are proof of concept for the copying of a stock human, and now I can interrogate you without worrying about losing access to the information that I seek."

Gasping, the bound girl looked up into Rei's eyes, finding the crimson orbs unreadable. "But… what about the food?" she asked weakly.

Walking over to another chair and pulling it around to face the captives, Rei sat down and folded her hands in front of her face before answering.

"The offer of food was a lie."

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

The body that sat inside the Entry Plug of Unit-00 stirred as Rei transferred herself over to it. It was warm and comfortable inside the plug, and she could feel the duplicated version of her inside the recently installed components near the base of the tube.

Hello sister, Rei said, greeting the previous version of her that inhabited the core of the Evangelion. How goes their test of the autopilot system?

It's fine. A little different from when we work together, but still, it's pretty much the same old thing. How is your latest experiment?

It appears to have worked. The initial interactions suggest a high level of success in the carryover of personality and mental patterns. Further observation will be required to determine physical quirks, as well as the time needed for the mind to regain complete control over body functions and hand-eye coordination. Memory tests will be needed, but I can now also create multiple copies of Agent Ryouji to do double and triple blind tests, checking their responses to different requests and situations.

What's next after all that then?

The next step in experimentation would be to try a download of a person from within an Evangelion core.

There was a distinct pause, and Rei could feel a mix of emotion coming from her sister.

You mean making a copy of me.

Correct. Although it is not a perfect test, as you are not a normal person, you remain the only viable candidate for experimentation. Dr. Soryu is not a complete person, and as such would not be a stable subject. If I am to ensure an as close to perfect procedure for recovering Shinji as is possible, then I will need to use you.

But it won't really be me, will it. I'll still be here, in this body. It will only be a copy of me as I am at the time of the download. No freedom for me.

While the experiment is not meant to grant you your freedom from your current state, there will be a version of you that is free, and in a body that you would have had originally. That you would be free to go as you please. After we verify the stability of image and upload, that you could stay here in Tokyo-3 or leave as you wish, to wherever that you desire so long that you do not interfere with my plans.

Such a caring and generous sister you are. You really know how to make me feel better, don't you? But while this might work, and let you know that it can be done, how will you tell what pattern belongs to your boy, and what belongs to whomever is inside Unit-01's core originally?

I have sufficient amounts of data concerning Shinji's brain wave and mental patterns. Establishing and isolating the pertinent wavelengths will be an obstacle to overcome, but I am certain of my eventual success, should I prove capable of producing a viable reproduction of you.

Then… Thenyou should probably get back to work.

Rei smiled, and then nodded. There is still more research that needs to be done, but the experiments should largely be the same. I will begin at once.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Shinji screamed as he watched the fight between Unit-01 and the last Angel, that awful fight, the most terrible of all the fights that he had been party to.

The hulking form battled Unit-01, and from the outsider's perspective, the fight seemed even more desperate than it had to the boy the first time around.

I AM THE STRONG ARM OF THE GREAT MOTHER! I AM THE FIST THAT STRIKES! THE OTHER IS DEFEATED AND GONE! WHY DO YOU FIGHT? WHY DO YOU PERSIST? I HAVE CAST DOWN THE OTHER SHADOWS THAT SOUGHT TO BAR MY PATH! YOU SHALL NOT PREVAIL WHERE THEY FAILED, SHADOW! THE LIGHT OF MY SOUL IS POWER AND STRENGTH! YOU TOO SHALL FALL BEFORE ME, AND I WILL BE REUNITED WITH THE GREAT MOTHER!

As the fight continued, the Angel kept up the tirade against Unit-01, which only answered with Shinji's out of time responses, screamed out through the communications system of the battered titan.

Then, just as the Angel's victory seemed to be realized as it ripped the Evangelion apart, limb from limb with the deadly whips flying towards its prey's head, the Angel shuddered slightly.

NO! NO! IT CANNOT BE!

Brilliant, eye searing flame burned out from the stricken Evangelion, a radiant halo that shone through the darkness of the storm that had enveloped the landscape. It illuminated the final, brutal, moments of the fight, as Unit-01 became whole again, formed from flesh, steel and the fire that was the AT-Field.

THE OTHER IS RETURNED!

Unit-01, the Other that Mankind called ADAM, finished the fight and began to feast, devouring the Angel's flesh. It screamed almost the entire time, as the flame of its soul faded away, instead of being snuffed out of existence as had happened to all those that had come before it.

The Beast sat back as it placed the skull mask over its monstrous face. As the mask shifted and flowed like putty into the more familiar bird skull, Unit-01 leapt to its feet, throwing its arms up to the sky in dreadful jubilation.

"I AM!" it screamed, speaking aloud in a voice that was both Shinji and not Shinji at the same time.

"I AM!" Eyes burning like stars in the darkness of space glared out from behind the mask, locking gazes with the ghost of the boy that was wandering through the Interface, the first thing other than Lilith to acknowledge him.

"I AM!" Unit-01 roared, rattling the entire Geo-Front with its deafening scream.

"Is that me?" Shinji whispered, watching the Evangelion turn and walk away. "What are you?" he asked as the world melted away, shifting and changing once more.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Ritsuko and Kozo stared at each other from across the large table where ancient notes and printouts were spread out, new annotations added and corrections and questions marked down on them, each one wishing that they were closer to the answer they sought.

"This is perhaps the most frustrating project I have ever worked on." Kozo remarked, leaning back in his chair. Across the table Ritsuko shrugged as she lit up a cigarette, taking a long hard drag on it before blowing a steady stream of smoke up into the air.

"Do you think that we should tell him?" she asked after a few long minutes, watching the older man as he rubbed his leg, trying to work out the tension and pain that had built up in it.

"He won't like it. It's not a certain thing, and it does not leave us with any opportunities for future attempts should it fail." Kozo paused, looking up and locking eyes with the blond doctor. "If we should fail." He sighed, shaking his head sadly, with a wistful look on his face. "You know how he is."

"It's still the best chance that we've got." She argued, "Time is running out, and if we don't act soon, we'll miss the window. You know the projections, we can't wait."

"I know. If we wait much longer, the reintegration of his soul will be past the point where we can hope to separate him again, at least cleanly."

Ritsuko slouched down in her seat, running her hands through her hair. Still smoking her cigarette, she ground her teeth.

"This is such shit." she said suddenly, growling the words out. "Want to know something?" Ritsuko looked up at him, tears glistening in her eyes. "My cat ran away from my friend's house a few days ago. She found her yesterday, dead in an alley." The woman's voice, usually perfectly controlled, wavered as she continued on, the words coming out like a flood. "I only found out this morning, when I checked my messages. One right after the other."

"I'm sorry," Kozo offered, his voice sincere, and face concerned.

"It's okay." Ritsuko answered, waving the condolences off. "She was pretty old, and it's a thing that cats do, you know, run off to die." She sniffled, voice cracking a little. "But I wish that I had been there."

"Isn't that terrible?" She asked, laughing a little, bitterly. "Shinji's stuck in Unit-01, and we need to get him out, not just for his sake, but for the world, and I'm torn up about not being there for my cat."

"In the cold, measured world that Gendo moves in, it would be an easy choice." Kozo commented, leaning forwards, steepling his hands on the table. "He lives in a world where he must weigh the lives and well-being of people, and move them around like pieces on a game board. His life does not allow him the luxuries that others take for granted. But we are not him. We are the pieces that he manipulates, and we still feel like normal people. It's perfectly normal for you to mourn not being there for your pet. It's a sign of your sanity, of your humanity."

The old man smiled a small, sad smile, his eyes far away. "Gendo hasn't been a normal person for a very long time, but you know this."

"But what does that say about us? About what we are doing? About our future?"

"Why do you think that it is us that will remain behind, to help pick up the pieces of a shattered post Third Impact world? He will be locked away in Unit-01. It is a punishment as much as it is a reunion with his wife. He has sacrificed his humanity for the world. He has dedicated everything to this enterprise of ours. There will be no place for him here after that."

"But what if I want him here? What if I don't want him to go?"

"That too, is perfectly normal. You're quite attached to him, but you know that he's just humoring you, right?"

"Yes... but…"

"But you still hope. You still hope against hope that he might pick you over Yui, the woman for whom he would forsake becoming a god."

"It's not fair," she said, stubbing the cigarette out in the overflowing ashtray, starting to cry. "Why does she get to have him? This is all her fault! I'll have lost my entire family, such as it is. Haven't I sacrificed enough?"

"We've all been called upon to make sacrifices. We've all committed terrible crimes as well, awful acts that would make many loathe to feel for our pain, to sympathize with the trials that we must undergo, even as we subject others to their own trials. In a good and just world, we would charged as criminals guilty of crimes against humanity. But then, in a good and just world, there would be no need for people such as us. Remember, Ritsuko, remember that what we are doing here is not for the sake of our own power and prestige, but to stop a genocidal armageddon. In this world, there is no justice. There is-"

"There is only Gendo Ikari."

"Indeed. There is only Gendo Ikari, the man that made the Abyss blink."

Ritsuko chuckled, despite herself. "The man who won a staring contest with the sun."

"It is said, amongst the men and women of Section-2, that they are not a protection team for the Supreme Commander, but rather a team that protects others from getting too close to him."

"That had Unit-01 not counter attacked at the moment it had, that he would have wrestled the Angel into submission."

"The only reason that he sends the Children into battle is to make it fair for the Angels."

"These sayings are so idiotic."

"He likes them though. It amuses him, to watch the others spread ridiculous rumors about him. It builds his legend, it surrounds him with a mystique. It ensures, in its own way, that they will follow him into the very gates of hell. Any attack with small arms against an Angel? Pure folly, a minor distraction to it at best, before being swept aside. But still, they did all did it, right behind him, leading the charge."

"And when we had no power, he led the teams in preparing the Evangelions for combat by hand."

"He breeds and inspires an almost fanatical following in the rank and file, and not just here at Central. Across all of NERV, at all of our installations, save for the inevitable few, they buy into his cult of personality. Why else would they be so loyal? We sometimes forget that not everyone knows about the people and events that set us upon this course, but very few know even a little of the truth."

Kozo stood up, and straightened his jacket. "Go home, get some rest. Bury your cat. Get some fresh air. Talk with Misato. I'll talk to Gendo. I'll brief him on the proposed operation." He smiled at her, then turned to leave.

"Are we bad people, Kozo?" Ritsuko asked, just as the door opened, staring at his back.

Kozo looked back over his shoulder at the scientist. "We are necessary. We do what must be done, and that is all that anyone could ever ask of us."

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Gendo listened to his friend and chief lieutenant, his face a passive mask as they looked out over the Evangelion cage, from the platform where he had first laid eyes on his son in the flesh upon the boy's arrival to Tokyo-3. It seemed like so long ago, waiting here for Shinji and his guide to arrive, the then Captain Misato Katsuragi.

Things were much different now, Gendo mused as Kozo explained the planned salvage procedure. Shinji had changed, blossomed into a fine young man. Battered and weary, certainly, but still possessed of that inner fire that burned bright and hot, just below the surface.

He had taken up the impossible challenge, had risen to the duty thrust upon him. A hero worthy of any ancient saga or myth, a legendary figure. Born to a dying world, the boy who would become a man over the course of his story, who would then sacrifice himself to heal the world and save all mankind.

At least, that was what could have been. Reality frequently was nothing like the stories of the elder days.

"Are you sure that this is our best chance?" It was clear that the scientist did not think it was certain that the plan would work.

"Yes. It is our only chance. The simulations look promising, but that's all I can give you. We simply don't have enough time to keep trying to develop another method. Separating him from the Evangelion would be tricky enough if it was just Yui in there. Having to ensure that his soul is cut away just right a second time, after the reunification?" Kozo left the rest unsaid, turning his eyes down to the shrine far below them, watching as bolts of energy periodically jumped out to the catwalk from the energized war machine, within which sat Shinji's soul.

"How soon can you conduct the experiment?" Gendo asked, staring into the glowing eyes of the titanic figure, staring at the thing that had derailed decades of work and careful planning.

"Three weeks. We'll have only one shot at this. If it doesn't work, then we'll have no choice but to resort to our fallback plan."

"Kill Lilith, and declare open war against SEELE." Gendo's mouth twisted into a cold, humorless smile as his gloved hands gripped the railing. ADAM twisted back and forth under his skin, causing odd shapes to move under the gloves. It was fortunate that Gendo was not given to much public interaction, for it would be hard to keep his unusual condition from being noticed.

Removing ADAM would now kill him, such was the level of the embryo's development and their codependent relationship. According to the last exam, it had consumed and replaced his kidneys and his liver, as well as his left lung. The thing would be ready soon for their plans, for the Third Impact that NERV desired. Soon, but not yet. The gestation was not complete.

But ADAM's development would mean nothing if they did not have Shinji Ikari, the Third Child, available. They could get by with various amounts of Shinji, but they needed him still isolated from his half that resided within Unit-01. They needed the moment of synchronization, they needed that microcosm of Instrumentality to become the real thing, and they needed him for Rei.

If they were to make this world a Heaven, if they were to reach their full potential, then they needed Shinji. If they lost him, then the road ahead was going to be a hard one, where NERV would plunge the world back into war, against a shadowy organization that controlled entire nations.

The Supreme Commander of NERV watched Asuka as she lit another candle and placed it amongst the others, dropping a small note into the pile that sat before the picture of his son. Those that remained here at Central had not given up. They had not faltered in their remembrance of the boy as days became weeks and weeks turned to months.

They remained strong. They continued to fight. They continued to rebuild. They had given everything in the last battle, fighting a hopeless fight, hoping that it would buy enough time for Shinji and Unit-01 to intercept the Angel. They had stood by him, ready to die, all for a few seconds.

The pair remained in silence, watching the redheaded pilot turn and leave, headed back to her rooms nearby. She stayed down here in the Geo-Front, not for safety, as that last fortress wall had been breached, ruining the sanctity of the land that lay beneath Tokyo-3 and the broken world above, but in order to be closer by the weapons when it came time to fight again.

There would be at least one more Angel, he knew. The young woman below had no idea how many remained, or when they might come. She merely waited, and prepared. And amidst her preparations, her training, she would light candles for his son, and write letters to him.

Did she do this because she expected his return, or did she do this because she expected the opposite? The letters that she wrote Shinji suggested a mix of both, as did most of the of the others. Rei had not been to the shrine. He wasn't sure of what to make of that -but he had not had time or opportunity to question her about it.

But what about himself? He had not been to his son's shrine, but then, he was not one for such things. What did he expect to happen? To be completely honest, he didn't rightfully know. But the die was already cast – there was only one course that they could take to try to recover from this upset.

"Do it."

Kozo silently turned and left his protégé standing watch over his son, as the man had for almost three months.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Misato sat up reading the outline of the procedure that had taken Ritsuko and Kozo months to come up with. Her tablet barely illuminated her bedroom, and didn't bother the sleeping scientist that cuddled up next to her.

She didn't pretend to understand even a quarter of the procedure, except that it was heavily modified from the original attempts to recover Yui Ikari and Dr. Soryu.

Ritsuko had been a mess when she had come around to see her. She looked like she hadn't slept in days. But they had figured out a way to bring the boy back. That's what mattered, she told herself. It was risky, and it wasn't even certain, but that was all they could offer, it seemed.

How many other risky, uncertain ventures had the pilots been party to? Almost every single Angel fight had been risky from the get-go, and the ones that were supposed to have been sure things had gone sideways soon enough.

This was just one more hurdle for them to jump, the latest in a long line of such hurdles. Just one more impossibility.

Dropping the tablet to the floor, where it landed in a heap of dirty laundry next to her bed. Ritsuko muttered something and rolled over, taking the sheets with her.

Grumbling, the raven haired woman tugged back on the blanket before sliding down to rest on her back, staring up at the bare metal ceiling.

They would start work tomorrow, building the components required for the operation. She would tell the girls then too, before their next run of the auto-pilot tests. It should cheer them up, she thought. They all needed some cheering up.

Gendo said that they were drawing near the end, that soon the scrap of ADAM that was growing inside his body would be ready for Third Impact, where everything, all of the terrible costs they had paid along the way would all be worth it.

She wasn't sure that any new world could pay them back for all the pain and loss they had endured ever since Second Impact. Third Impact could not bring back the dead. Could it heal the scars, both the physical and the mental?

All the other senior staff, the inner circle, they all looked to that day. All of their hopes and dreams were pinned on it, although they said that it wasn't some magical cure-all. It would just be better after their Third Impact.

She wasn't sure what she thought. It was easy to be caught up in the Commander's words, to want to follow along with his plans, but at times like this,

when she lay in the dark, sleepless and tired, she had her doubts. His dogmatic faith in his scenario was infectious, but these long weeks of hopelessness had taken a toll, not only on her, but on everyone.

Well, almost everyone, she corrected herself, turning on her side to stare at the wall. Rei was still the same, faithfully following every order, waiting for the word from the Commander, his carefully groomed key to success. But perhaps even Rei was feeling the stress that bore down on them. She seemed a little more out of it than usual, as if her attention was someplace else. Of course, with the blue haired girl it was hard to tell for sure, but there did seem to be a sort of backsliding on the girl's part, sinking back to her old ways, her isolation, her unresponsive, inexpressive gaze.

The girl's only friend that was still here was Asuka, and their friendship had always been a shaky thing, mostly bound together by Shinji. Misato scowled in the darkness, her brow furrowed in anger. Shinji had always been Rei's door to social interaction – if not for her interest and connection with him, she would never have been friends with the Horakis, or Suzahara and the other boy.

But that had always been the plan. The Commander's plan. Gendo Ikari's precious Scenario.

Misato stared at the wall for a long time before she finally fell asleep.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Both girls stared at Misato. Neither one moved or spoke, but there was a change in the air. The attitude in the room seemed almost hopeful. Finally, Asuka nodded, before flipping her hair back over her shoulder, closing the plugsuit around her neck.

"Well, I'm sure that they'll tell us all about it after our mission. C'mon, Rei. Let's go."

Both pilots left the locker room in silence, sparing neither a glance to each other or back at the Sub-Commander, who in turn watched them leave without a word.

Sighing, Misato went and closed Asuka's locker, before leaving. Her brisk steps slowly became a morose shuffle as she headed for her office. Waiting for her was a stack of reports, all of them bad. Most were incident reports concerning the continued attacks on NERV installations around the world, some by direct action of that nation's government, and others by 'local riots'. Section-2 believed that the majority of the latter were a cover for governments that wanted plausible deniability.

Most of the incidents were minor, and had negligible effects on NERV operations around the world. Others, however, continued to further reduce the productivity of the multinational company. It served to drain NERV's resources, forcing them to quietly subcontract work to third parties that would normally have been taken care of by their own factories.

Other reports were coded briefs from Section-2, relaying the current results of their intense background screening project, working to hunt down, interrogate and liquidate any SEELE moles as they hunted for the missing Kaji Ryouji. So far, there was still no lead on the man, which was the most suspicious thing of all.

Ritsuko had left early in the morning, but had left a breakfast on the table for her, along with a note. It was almost like back in their college days.

Shoving her fists into her jacket's pockets, Misato scowled as she waited for the elevator. Even with the wars looming on the horizon, those had been happier days. Happier, better days… but those days were long gone.

She wondered if there would be any carefree days ever again.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Kensuke stared at his monitor, squinting through bloodshot eyes as his fingers flew across the keyboard, dissecting his way through computer code and decompiling device drivers, trying to break his way through the latest assignment from Asuka.

Out here in the boondocks, it was just him and his dad's cousin's family. None of them were very technically inclined, and as such, were more than a little in awe of him. Which was good, as they usually left him alone, and didn't care that he had dropped out going to the classes at the local high school in lieu of working on his own projects. It was, however, bad in that they often brought him things to fix. It usually didn't take long, and, admittedly, it was a small price to pay for the freedom he had. There was a small stack of things to take care of for them off to one side of the desks he had setup in their garage, a constant reminder that he would need to get started on them soon, but the boy was certain that a breakthrough was near.

His mutterings were interrupted as the door to the house banged open, letting in bright sunlight, and three smaller cousins, each of them chattering at a mile a minute.

"Kensuke! Kensuke! You got mail!"

"From Tokyo-3!"

Looking up from the monitor, he saw the three kids were laden down with boxes, and that more waited in the entry. The mailman must have just come, but he had missed the sound of the doorbell.

Wincing as he stood up, Kensuke yawned. He had been awake for the past 36 hours, burning his way through NERV code. He was sore from sitting hunched over in his chair, and needed to either sleep or eat.

Taking the first of the offered boxes, he flipped it around, looking for the label. If it was from Tokyo-3, there was only two people it could be from – his father, which was unlikely, or from Asuka, which was risky. Either one would be interesting, especially if all of them were from them.

The bespectacled boy frowned as he found the shipping label – it was from Dr. Akagi. Tearing it open, his jaw dropped. Inside the box was a smooth spherical component, with several sockets for cables and plugs. He recognized it instantly, although he had only seen it in magazines and on the internet.

He has holding part of a MAGI cluster.

Looking at the excited children, all gathered around, looking at the technological marvel, he spoke with growing excitement.

"How many packages are there for me?"

"Lots!"

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Asuka grinned as she read the carefully worded email to her publicly known "private" account from Kensuke, glad that he had finally gotten the packages. He had been grousing in some of their latest correspondence about the difficulties he had been having in getting hardware powerful enough to handle the work they were doing.

It was surprising that she hadn't thought of it earlier, but there was no point in crying over spilt milk. What was important was that he would, within the day, be set up with a rig that was up to the task of crunching through the amounts and type of data they were working with. This was now more important than ever, with the announcement that they had a plan to retrieve Shinji, if he was even retrievable. She wanted to send him whatever it was that she could find on their plan. Dr. Akagi had said three weeks, which wasn't a lot of time to do a thorough data analysis. She of course remained unconvinced that they would be able to get Shinji back, but she would wait and see. Regardless however of the ultimate fate of the boy, this was a chance to unlock some of the secrets about the Evangelions and Unit-01 that they had been lying about and hiding from her. If she could prove that they were lying, especially where Shinji was concerned, then she might be able to bring Rei back over to her side.

In the meantime, she would continue her preparations for her own experiments. Kensuke had come through with some additions to the subroutines for her experiment, updating the code that operated some of the sensors and control components that relayed information back to Central and Terminal Dogma. She wanted to be sure that as little could go wrong as possible during the experiment, and that meant, amongst other things, removing the ability of the technicians from interfering.

Once he was done putting the cluster node together, the nerd was going to rerun the same simulations and comb back through the code for her. It would be interesting to see what he came up with, and get his perspective on it. Apart from that, she was waiting on his report of his findings from the last few data streams she had the MAGI send his way.

Leaning back in her seat, Asuka watched as her Unit-02 danced to the puppet-strings of the control crew in Terminal Dogma, moving through the city, continuing the reclamation works. She hated these tests, not only as she was stuck in the Entry Plug not doing anything other than being a warm body, but also because she wasn't in control of herself, of her actions.

Even with the extra security that she had with her access to the MAGI, it still wasn't wise to do anything with her projects while in the Evangelion. The data streams would be under scrutiny, so her work would have to wait until later.

It was nice, having someone she could depend on, even though he was so far away. Kensuke, much like Toji, had turned out to be someone she could trust. While neither boy had been very fond of her at first, and she of them, both boys had, in their own way, grown on her. Toji, as a fellow pilot and warrior, and Kensuke as a fellow researcher.

Glancing at the mission clock, Asuka groaned. Three more hours.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Shinji was cold, through to his core, having watched and relived the titanic battles that he had been party too, but his tears had long since dried on his face.

His short talk with Lilith, the Angel that Misato had called the Mother of Mankind, had been short and raised more questions than it had answered. But the brief interaction with the otherworldly being had shown him that he had some power here, in this place. She had said that he was broken, and that he needed to be healed.

His behavior while fighting the Angels, his uncontrollable rage and apparent bloodlust, certainly these were sure signs of the truth behind her statements. While he had never heard them utter the things they did, they were mostly coherent in their words, even if what they had said made no sense.

He didn't know why he felt so bad about the fights now. True, he had never really wanted to fight, and if he never had to again, he would be fine with it, but…

Shinji waved a hand at the world, blurring it into a featureless orange fog. Among all of their shouted boastings, there was a common question, one that burned its way into his mind.

Why did he fight?

He would always fight the Angels if he had to. These things, no matter what, meant the literal end of the world. He knew that if he didn't fight, Rei would. She would always fight, at his father's command. Even if she was alone, even if he wasn't there, even if Asuka wasn't there. Rei would fight even if she was half dead, even if it should cost her her last breath.

A grim look of determination crossed over his features, and he stood up straighter, squaring his shoulders.

She would always fight, for his father and for the world. She had fought because of the bond that she had, for the world. Now, he was certain, she fought just as much because of their bond to each other.

And so, Shinji reasoned to himself, fists balled and held at his sides, he would always fight.

Not for the world. Not for his father. Not even for the small collection friends. But for her. For Rei.

"I'll always fight. I'll fight through anything for her." Shinji whispered to himself, and then shouted it at the top of his lungs.

"I'll fight! I'll fight anything! I'll fight anyone!" the boy screamed, his voice cracking. Out of the orange mist, the towering figures of the Angels surrounded him in a circle, staring down at him.

"I am not afraid! I am not going to run away!" Shinji roared up at them, as he felt himself begin to grow, stretching up and out, becoming as tall as the Angels, a new, powerful warmth grew in his chest.

"I FIGHT FOR HER! I FIGHT FOR REI AYANAMI!"

Lashing out at the nearest of the Angels, being the first one he had ever battled, grabbing the immense being's shoulders and head butted it straight in the bird skull mask.

"I AM SHINJI IKARI, AND I'LL NEVER STOP FIGHTING!"

Dropping the stunned Angel, he turned to the shifting geometric form of the Fifth Angel, his eyes two pinpricks of burning starfire as his hair blew back in an invisible wind, a bloodthirsty grin on his face.

"I KILLED YOU BEFORE! I'LL KILL YOU AGAIN!"

The golden light of an AT-Field flashed into existence as light from the Fifth Angel's energy weapon splashed out over him. Shinji recoiled at first, but then his smile intensified as the blue white fire rolled off the golden field.

"AHAHAHA!" the boy screamed joyously, power flowing through his body, leaving him feeling refreshed and excited. Heart pounding in his chest, he leapt atop the prone Third Angel, deftly avoiding the blows of the others. Words could not describe the feelings of power and strength that coursed through his body, nor could they express the sense of rightness that stemmed from fighting.

Shinji punched his fists down into the green flesh, taking hold of the crimson orb and ripped it free. "CENTER THE TARGET!" Shinji howled with bloodthirsty delight, holding aloft the gristly prize. He then smashed the core on the ground, where it detonated with the familiar crucifix of fire. Leaping back into the fray, his AT-Field flashed again as the Angels lashed at him with energy weapons and physical blows.

"PULL THE SWITCH!"

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Rei watched her double struggle against the handcuffs and manacles that kept it bound to the steel chair.

Kaji II sighed and gave up its struggles, shooting Rei a look of incredulous disdain. The expression was one that the girl was not used to seeing on her own face, which was most often a placid mask, hiding her thoughts and feelings. To see her features twisted into such emotional displays as the test subject had been doing ever since the successful upload was… disquieting, to say the least.

Rei looked down at her notebook and began writing, jotting down several quick paragraphs, looking up every few moments to assess Kaji II. She had observed early on that the original Kaji exhibited signs of increased anxiety when she made notations and recorded information, either spoken or written.

Just as she had hypothesized, the clone was showing increased nervousness, and small beads of sweat were beginning to form across Kaji II's forehead. Rei resumed writing, but looked up as an alarm on one of the terminals began to flash, demanding her attention.

"What's that?" Kaji II asked, trying to twist to get a better look as Rei stood up and moved over to the computer bank, typing in a series of commands, tapping into the security camera feed from the Evangelion cages. Rei, ignoring her captive, frowned as she looked over the data stream coming off from Unit-01. Blinking rapidly, she gasped softly as a disaster scene appeared on the screen.

Unit-01's cage was drenched in flame, and the shimmering field of golden hexagons of the purple Evangelion's AT-Field flashed in and out of existence every few milliseconds. Bright streams of electricity were pouring off the titan, blue actinic flashes that made a strange counterpoint to the red and orange glow of the fire.

Rei instantly focused her consciousness to into the drone body sitting in Unit-00, sitting upright in the throne seat of the Entry Plug, just as frantic calls came in over the communications net.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Asuka and Rei exchanged sideways glances at each other, and then looked back into the wreckage of Unit-01's cage. It looked as if a bomb had gone off inside the cavernous room, the walls charred black, paint burned off the metal surfaces. It stank of burned electronics and ozone, along with undertones of the unique smell of boiled LCL. Standing in the center of the destruction was Unit-01, looking completely untouched by the disaster that it had caused.

"What does it mean?" Asuka asked, watching the teams of men and women bustling to and fro. "Why did Unit-01 do this?" She leaned back against the wall, ignoring the burnt paint rubbing off onto her plugsuit and her still LCL soaked hair.

"I… I do not know." Rei answered softly, her voice barely audible over the din of the repair crews. "Dr. Akagi has not released information concerning the telemetry from the moments preceding the event."

"This is more than just some power surge from the S2 organ, Rei! This is something else, something big! It took both of us focusing our AT-Fields into the room to erode Unit-01's before control could be reestablished, and it's not as if that was particularly easy! We're just lucky that it otherwise just stood there doing nothing!"

Rei stood at the catwalk railing, hands down at her side, motionless except for her eyes. She turned back to look at her captain, her face as unreadable as ever.

"I do not know. This is unlike any previous observed behavior before."

"No shit, Rei. I'm not asking for a report, I'm asking for what you think."

Rei stared blankly at Asuka for a moment before responding. "What I think is that this is unlike any previous observed behavior."

Asuka, starting to lose her patience with the conversation in particular and Rei in general, shook her head, scowling at the girl.

"Fine! Fine!"

She turned and left, marching off to take a shower and change. Once again, her overtures had been spurned. Once again, she was shown that she couldn't trust anyone here. The only other person she could count on was half a country away, and he didn't have the experience with the Evangelions that she really needed in a compatriot. He was a quick learner, and definitely no slouch when it came to technical matters, but he was still years behind anyone at NERV that worked on the war machines.

Kensuke was eager, but eagerness wasn't enough. The best he could really do was help her find discrepancies in the code and raw data, find things that didn't do what she had been told they were supposed to do. It was hard for him, because he didn't understand much of the primary subject material at all. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack without knowing what a needle was.

Kicking the door to their locker room open, her reflection in one of the mirrors caught her eye. Her hair was drenched in LCL, unkempt and longer than she usually liked keeping it. She had bags under her eyes, not as bad as Misato's had been the other day, but that was only due to her constant exposure to LCL. Were it not for her almost daily immersion in the fluid, she was sure that she would look much worse than her commanding officer. Her skin was paler than it had been in a long time, the slight healthy tan that she used to have long gone. Her eyes were bloodshot.

Glaring at her reflection, Asuka punched the mirror, sending spider web cracks out from the center. Punching it again, she grinned at the pain as broken glass cut through the gloves of the plugsuit and sliced open the skin of her knuckles. The sharp pain felt good.

Whistling a jaunty tune, Asuka stripped off her uniform, kicking it over by the lockers. She walked into one of the shower stalls, turning the water to as hot as she could stand, and stood under the running water, feeling the thick liquid slowly leave her hair, running down her body. She lifted her wounded hand up to the showerhead, relishing the stinging pain as water hit the cuts. As bloody water flowed down her arm, she licked at it, filling her mouth with the coppery taste.

Spitting the blood out to the floor, she stood under the hot water, trying to think, trying to plan.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

"So you have no idea what happened, or what caused the incident?" Gendo asked his two top scientists, his tone flatter than was usual. Light reflected off his glasses, making his expression an inscrutable, intimidating wall. It had been a long time since either Kozo Fuyutsuki or Ritsuko Akagi had been on the receiving side of the imposing glare, and while they both knew how much of it was carefully constructed to be so, it didn't really help.

"The MAGI are still going over the data, and my teams are running their own analysis. So far no one has any idea."

"How far back has this pushed our efforts towards the recovery operation?"

"About three days." Kozo answered, studying his student. "All of that is simply repairs to the facility in order to set up the experiment. None of the hardware that will be used in the operation had been installed just yet."

"Encase Unit-01 in bakelite before any more repairs take place. I do not want a repeat of this incident. Time is not a resource that we have in abundance."

"Very well."

"What do we tell the others?" Ritsuko asked, uneasy under her lover's scrutiny. "What do we tell the pilots, I mean."

"Tell them whatever you want." Gendo replied dismissively. "Or tell them nothing. I don't care."

He hissed in pain, and clutched at his face, knocking his glasses off as he slumped back in his seat. Both Kozo and Ritsuko rushed across the room to him, the older man wrestling his hands back while Ritsuko checked his face.

She let out a small involuntary gasp, before pulling a small flashlight from her lab coat. Shining the light on his face, she moved it back and forth over his eyes, checking for dilation.

One of the Commander's eyes was the same blue it had always been. The other was a brilliant mix of green and blue, the color of ADAM's eyes. The lightly bruised skin around the eye itself was puffy and slightly inflamed.

"When did this happen?" she demanded, gingerly testing the skin on his face with her fingers. She cursed as small amounts of pus seeped up from under his lower eyelid.

"It pushed my eye out sometime this morning." Gendo replied, finally batting away the two people who could be called his friends. "I was working when the pain kicked in, and it popped out my eye with a tentacle, and pinched off the optic nerve. It then grew a new eye and settled in the socket."

"Why didn't you say something?" She shrieked, gripping one of his shoulders hard. "Why-"

"You are working on something more important. Besides, I can see through the eye."

The others stopped still, staring at him with fresh horror.

"That means that-"

"It means that the embryo has expanded into my brain. Yes, I know what that means, Ritsuko."

"You need to have an MRI and a CAT scan." Kozo said, "To say nothing of starting antibiotics, or at least an anti-inflammatory."

Gendo shook his head again, frowning at them. "You are the only ones who would be able to do it, and you're both needed for the salvage operation. That takes precedence over any other considerations right now. Nothing can stand in the way of that."

"We aren't needed for all the aspects of preparation, you idiot." Ritsuko hissed. "Come on, let's go. We can get this started right now."

"No."

"Gendo, be reasonable. We need to make sure that you're not in any danger. Go with Ritsuko. I will take care of things here, seeing as that's my job." Kozo ordered, his voice filled with an authority that expected to be obeyed. "You're the one who keeps the plates spinning, you're the one that keeps the Scenario on track. You are NERV."

"Kozo, I said no. I want you to focus on the recovery operations."

"Gendo, if you don't cooperate, I'll just taze you when you don't expect it." Ritsuko interjected, arms crossed. "Or I'll drug you. Or something else. You need to do this, even if it is just for us to check up on the embryo's development. You'd be almost due for one anyway."

The bearded man scowled at the pair, but relented. "Fine. I'll let you run the tests – but as soon as they are complete you are back on the salvage project."

"Then we need to get moving to my labs then, shouldn't we?"

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Gendo stared up at the inside of the MRI tube, listening to the machine hum as it applied the electromagnetic field to his body. The growing embryo inside of him seemed to like the sensation, as it had ceased its restless movement, and started to pulse in time with magnets. The sound was somewhat soothing, and the combined with the smells of cleaning agents and leftover cigarette smoke, it soon put him to sleep.

When he opened his eyes, it was wasn't to the sounds of the medical machinery, but to the ringing impacts and explosions of titanic combat.

The world was one of dull light and orange mist, much like the world that he sometimes dreamed of, when ADAM's dreams and thoughts leaked through into his own. The embryo however was silent now, the constant whispers that had become the background noise of his thoughts these past two months missing from his mind.

Up ahead through the fog and mist, Gendo could see flashes of bright light casting huge shadows upon the clouds, outlining the belligerents of the battle he was hearing. He instantly recognized the silhouettes of Unit-01 and the Angels.

"Why am I here?" he asked himself aloud, wonder and doubt in his voice. The dreams of ADAM had often been nonsensical, strange visions of different places, different events, different people. He had long since given up on trying to glean useful information from the embryo. The altered fragment of the First Angel was even less helpful than was Lilith, but none of the previous dreams had been like this.

Carefully approaching the fight, he swore as the clouds above parted to give way to a massive body flying overhead. The Fourth Angel landed behind him in a heap of limbs, screaming in a strange chittering voice.

Another blast of light, this one much closer, nearly blinded him as Unit-01 came charging after the Angel, eyes glowing red underneath a battle-scarred helmet. The colossus gracefully leapt over him, and landed with a brutal kick to the still rising Angel.

Far overhead, the screeching hum of the Fifth Angel sounded as a ray of light burned through the clouds after the Evangelion. The heat as the beam passed overhead was intense, even though it was nowhere near Gendo.

"Why am I seeing this?" he asked again, trying to think. The images of his son fighting figured often in his dreams, but never like this. The boy had never fought a fight such as this, against multiple Angels. This dreaming world could not be the product of his guilt and doubts, although he was just as powerless here as witness to this fight as he was normally.

Around him the fight continued, with the twins of the Seventh Angel springing out in perfect unison. Another blast of energy passed overhead, and he could see the massive, shifting form of the jewel-like Angel off in the distance.

Until the arrival of the Fourteenth Angel, the Fifth had been the closest to actually breaching the Geo-Front, and certainly had been one of the most dangerous foes the Children had faced. This version maintained its distance, lashing out at the Evangelion without regard for the other Angels, further highlighting to Gendo the apparent incapability of the other worldly creatures to work together.

He watched the bloody melee continue, and slowly he came to the realization that Unit-01 was winning. Blast after blast of energy washed over the struggling giants, but each time the destructive waves were shunted aside by the shield of glowing hexagons. One by one, the Angels fell to the brutal blows of Unit-01, bodies torn asunder, rent from limb to limb, cores smashed apart.

As the last of the twined Angels fell to the vicious onslaught, the hulking form of the Fourteenth Angel came flying out from behind the purple Evangelion. Gendo reflexively shouted a warning to his son, but the giant was already spinning around, roaring a challenge at the deadly creature.

A halo of light burned into existence above Unit-01 as they traded blows, each one thrown by the Angel becoming weaker and more desperate seeming as each one of the Evangelion's was becoming stronger and more devastating. The leering Angel reeled with each blow, knocked back over and over again, giving up ground to the unrelenting titan.

Unit-01 landed an awesome blow, sending an armored fist straight through the Angel's core and out its back. The resulting explosion rocked Unit-01 back onto the balls of its feet, but otherwise did nothing to harm it. Unperturbed, the Evangelion cocked a finger at the still distant Fifth Angel, and mimed shooting a pistol.

A brilliant spear of light shot forth from the outstretched digit, and blew a hole through the crystalline structure. The Angel sank to the ground, smoke billowing out of the horrific wound, before detonating. Alone now, with the exception of Gendo, Unit-01 threw its arms up to the sky and bellowed in exultant victory.

Around them, the fog rippled again, as the forms of the Angels reappeared.

His mouth dropping in surprise, Gendo could only stare as the fight was joined again.

The unsettling dream abruptly ended as Ritsuko shook him awake.

"You're free to go. I'll let you know what the tests show," she said, passing him two small bags, each filled with pills. "One's an antibiotic, and the other is for the inflammation. You know what to do."

He nodded as he sat up on the gurney, clenching the fist that used to hold an eye. After ADAM had replaced his with a new one, the eye that had been embedded in his palm had vanished, leaving only a small circular indent in his skin that was soft and tender.

"When do you expect to be done?" he asked as he started to dress.

"In time to actually get started on the preparations. The scans and sample collection took a little longer than I had originally anticipated, but I'll be done with processing them by the time they have the cage prepared for me and my team."

Ritsuko watched him finish dressing, watching ADAM's tendrils move back and forth under his skin. The sight made her flesh crawl. As he pulled his jacket on over top the red sweater, she turned and left the room, headed for her office. The MAGI had been processing the first of the blood work samples during his MRI, and if they weren't done with it yet, they would be soon.

She was as concerned for his health as she was for ADAM's development, although she wasn't sure which one she was more worried about. So far, the embryo had more or less taken care of itself, although to the detriment of its host, even though they had anticipated the issue. Gendo was not concerned about himself at all, at least not yet. But if their Impact was not going to be soon, then he would be running on borrowed time, and then they would have to deal with a fully gestated ADAM/human.

What such a thing as that would be like, they had no idea. What its capabilities would be was unknown and could only be theorized. The plan was to only let enough of a sample develop so they could initiate Impact on their own terms, not let it grow to complete fruition.

Looking back through her notes as she walked through the empty halls, Ritsuko sighed. They would have to decide if they were going to try to remove the growing embryo from him and implant it in someone else. As it was, she could keep him alive, with some specialized equipment and LCL, but he would never again be able to even pretend to be a normal, healthy human.

Sighing again as she entered the dimly lit office, she sat down at her desk. Her hand went for her cigarettes as she scrolled through a report on the repairs being done to Unit-01's cage, but when her fingers closed around the package, the empty carton collapsed. Looking up from the computer screen, she frowned, pursing her lips in irritation. Throwing the crumpled box away, she scooted in her chair across the room to her coffee pot.

The last three months had been nothing but long days that stretched into the night, and they weren't going to end just yet.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Kensuke woke to the buzzing sound of his phone, its vibrations knocking against a half empty energy drink. Picking his head up off from his desk, the boy grabbed the phone with a groaning mutter of exhaustion.

"Hello?"

"Aida. Are you alone?"

He blinked rapidly as Asuka repeated her question. Despite their constant contact over the past few months, they hadn't spoken at all, due to security concerns.

"Yes, I'm alone. But this isn't a secured line!" he hissed into the phone. "What do you want?" There was silence on the line, stretching on for over a minute. The boy would have thought the call had been dropped if he couldn't still hear her breathing. "Asuka?"

"Do you trust me?"

"Asuka?" he asked again, confused.

"Do you trust me?"

"Yeah… sure." He stared at the newly installed MAGI node, which was humming away on an old workbench. The small blinking lights indicated the advanced supercomputers were busy crunching data on the last assignment he had given the pair of cybernetic processors. "Yeah, I trust you. I don't understand a lot of what we're working on, but I trust you."

There was more silence from the girl, the only sound on the phone being her soft breathing. "Asuka, what's this about?"

"You're the only one." She replied, disconnecting from the call. Kensuke put the phone back down on the desk, and grabbed the forgotten can, knocking back the last dregs of the sweetened drink, trying to wake up. He hadn't understood what that had been about, but he wasn't sure there was anything to understand.

Apart from his father, Asuka was his only link to the things going on back in Tokyo-3. Before, his father had indulged him with scraps of information about the Evangelion Project, but now that he was out in the countryside, that had become a thing of the past. They still stayed in touch, of course, but the man was very noncommittal about just how bad things were in the city. Without Asuka, he wouldn't have known about the current situation with Shinji, or the desperate fight with the last Angel.

He wondered if he was in turn Asuka's only contact outside of the city. While their correspondence was usually strictly business, Kensuke couldn't recall her mentioning talking to either of their other friends, not even in passing. Still watching the supercomputers blink as they burned through data, he chewed on his bottom lip, thinking.

Turning back to his desktop, he pulled up his email client. The strange phone call had him worried, and he wanted a second opinion.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Frowning, Asuka reread the last section of the status report, going over the problem the tech crew had encountered while installing part of the new control system that they would use in their attempt to rescue Shinji. After removing the armored hatch that covered the Entry Plug, they found a growth of new flesh, much like what had occurred with Unit-04 and Toji. Thick tendons and ropey flesh had to be cut away in order to gain access to the top access panels on the Entry Plug housing. While Unit-01 made no effort to stop them, energy output from the core increased, and the wounds began to heal and regrow. The tech crews were had to to cut away regenerated material every quarter hour to keep the new linkages in place and undamaged.

Leaning back in her seat, the readhead pilot called up an older report from the autopsy of Unit-04, scanning through it. Asuka thought that she remembered something else from that report, but wanted to be sure. When she had forcibly removed the Entry Plug from the hijacked Evangelion, there had been other tendrils of flesh that kept the armored tube anchored in place. Part of the Salvage Operation called for slowly backing the Entry Plug out from Unit-01, while trying to reestablish the waveform analogous to Shinji's ego-border. If they had to fight against more regenerating flesh, then the recovery operation would be put at risk. Asuka still thought that the whole thing was a lost cause, but even so, it needed to be attempted. If it didn't work, then they would have to face the facts and admit that Shinji was gone. If it did work, then…

Then Shinji would be back.

A case of hopeless optimism, if she had ever heard of one. On the other hand, there was Rei's suspicious attitude towards the whole thing. Asuka was sure that the younger girl knew something that she wasn't sharing; either out of distrust or spite. Whatever the reason, the result remained the same. It seemed that the bond the pilots had developed over their struggles against both the Angels and the authority had been too fragile to withstand the loss of Shinji. Watching as her Unit-02 was tearing down the ruins of a building at the command of the command crew deep inside the Geo-Front, she wondered if Rei's committal to the team of pilots had only ever been for Shinji's sake.

Even with all of their ups and downs, the past year hadn't been too bad. Both Rei and Shinji had started to come out of their shells, and not being entirely useless. Yes, there had been some issues that still needed to be resolved, some puzzles to be solved, but…

Asuka missed the way things had been before. There had been the warm camaraderie of the pilot corps, the thrill of unlocking the mysteries behind Shinji's abilities with the AT-Field, and, of course, the glory of defeating the Angels.

Now, there was no camaraderie, Shinji was gone, and the last Angel, well, if it had just been herself and Rei, then they would all be dead.

Asuka's musings were interrupted as alarms began to sound, control of the Evangelion being transferred abruptly back to her. Looking around, she saw Unit-00 also returning to Rei's command, standing up straight. Opening up a line to Terminal Dogma, she flexed her back, trying to get stretched out.

"What's going on? What's wrong?"

"We have a Code Blue. An Angel has been detected, in high orbit over the planet, and approaching."

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Misato paced back and forth on the main command platform, switching her gaze between the recently repaired main screens and the smaller screens that showed the vital signs of the two pilots. Both girls had had been outfitted with MK.8 AP rifles, the particle rifles having the longest range of NERV's weaponry, but the Angel was still well outside their effective reach, and seemed to be content to sit there and wait.

What it was waiting for was unknown. It had already broken from the past behavior of the Angels by not immediately making its way towards the fortress city far below it, instead electing to hang there in space, suspended above them like a Damoclean sword.

The Commander had been in meetings all afternoon, as had his primary Sub-Commander. Gendo with SEELE and the United Nations, Kozo with the JSSDF and the Diet. Both were giving assurances that NERV had everything under control and well in hand.

Misato wasn't entirely convinced that they should have even bothered responding to the different groups' calls. Hadn't they just been the ones attacking NERV in the recent past, seizing assets and stealing NERV property? Hadn't their activities put NERV in a bind, limiting research and development as well as manufacturing efforts for spare components and weapons?

They should have let them just hang out to dry, as far as she was concerned. Sure, they would stop the Angel, but that was no reason to try and allay any fears of those two-faced bastards.

"Any changes?"

"Nothing at all." Maya reported, filling in for Ritsuko, who was overseeing the careful removal of the currently installed components of the Salvage Operation. They did not know if Unit-01 would react to the Angel, and if it did, just what that reaction would be. The last thing they needed was for Unit-01 to destroy their hard work in a breakout attempt to go and fight. They couldn't do anything about the Evangelion being sealed up in bakelite, but they wanted everything else to be clear in that event.

"The Angel continues to remain in a Medium Earth Orbit, at fifteen hundred kilometers over Tokyo-3. There are no anomalous energy readings from the Angel that suggest it has a directed energy weapon such as the Fifth Angel. No activity similar to that of the Tenth Angel has been detected. No change has been observed in its physical appearance." Maya looked over at the Sub-Commander, concerned. "It's still just waiting."

It had been waiting for the last three hours, sitting in geosynchronous orbit, visible from the ground as a bright dot in the sky. The Angel appeared suddenly in High Earth Orbit, roughly halfway between the Earth and the Moon, and had closed the distance quickly, traveling at an estimated speed of three kilometers a second until it had halted its advance.

Misato looked up as Gendo strode into the room far above them, headed for his seat on the observation platform. Settling down into his chair, he regarded the command and technical crews with his usual stare before addressing the room.

"The United Nations informed me that if we do not take action against the Angel within the next hour, that they will try their hand at dealing with it themselves."

There was a smattering of sharply drawn breaths from the crewmembers, and more than one face twisted in outraged surprise.

"I, of course, informed them that they are more than welcome to attempt to deal with the Angel. I also informed them that any attempted use of material or technologies related to NERV properties by national governments would be tacitly admitting their theft and thus be opening themselves to punitive actions."

NERV-Central was one of the only NERV installations left in the world, with most of the others shut down and decommissioned, and others moved to countries that had remained friendly to the multinational company. Logistics and security teams were still trying to catalog what exactly had been lost, what had been destroyed and what recovered by the host nation governments from the ashes. Until this point, there had been no official recognition of the thefts, with Gendo content to wait and continue to play the game with SEELE.

Leaning forwards, hands held in front of his face, he smiled into his gloves. Shifting so the light reflected off his glasses, he looked up at the main information displays. "They did not care to comment. We shall see what they choose to do."

Misato turned around, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, despite the seriousness of the situation. Tapping a button on her headset, she filled the two pilots in on the latest developments.

"Those swine!" Asuka swore, her voice more bitter than angry. "How dare they!"

Rei merely kept watch on the Angel high overhead, offering no comment on the situation. Whatever the Commander deemed to be the best course of action was fine with her. Her thoughts would have no bearing on anything.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Half a world away, in the unbroken plains of Siberia, once a frozen wasteland, now a valuable breadbasket for the world, three huge doors set into the earth yawned open letting the waning sunlight into the artificial caverns beneath.

Fire and smoke poured out from beneath great rockets as their primary boosters lifted them from subterranean cradles. The three RT-2PM2 Topol-MICBMs quickly cleared Earth's atmosphere, headed for the small glowing dot that hung in the sky. The primary boosters burned out, prompting the second stage to kick in as they carried their deadly payloads out. Instead of turning to close in on some terrestrial target, the three missiles continued out into space as the third and final stage boosters ignited.

Far below, under the waves of the North and Arctic Seas, submarine missile bays opened, the ships shuddering as more missiles spit forth, carrying deadly cargo heavenward.

As the warheads closed the distance between them and their target, the Angel gave no indication of even noticing the attack. Boosters completely spent, the missiles cleared the border of Medium Earth Orbit, two of the warheads deployed in the MIRV modulation, launching several independent missiles out at the Angel. Some of the missiles were decoys, while others carried the combined destructive force of two thousand kilotons of TNT. The last warhead was a single, huge warhead rating eight hundred kilotons of the benchmark explosive.

These missiles were not originally designed for space combat. While the option for high altitude detonation existed in order to make use of resulting EMP disruption, the current mission was beyond the original scope of the devastating weapons. No course corrections could be made now, so if the Angel moved to escape, there would be no pursuit.

The warheads were spreading out as they continued to close, eating up the distance at a rate of over seven thousand meters a second. The Angel still gave no sign that it had noticed.

The second wave of ICBMs burned past the Hubble Telescope, which was turning to bring its cameras to bear on the assault. Other satellites in the area relayed what data they could back home.

Men and women in command centers around the world held their breath, some watching dots on screens closing in, while others prepared for to launch more nuclear tipped missiles.

A glowing field of hexagons flashed into existence as atomic fire burned in space, the detonations rolling off the AT-Field, the devastating energy turned back out into the void.

The glowing bubble vanished, and then a lance of light swept out from the Angel, flashing in an arc, seeking the second and newly launched third waves of missiles. Explosions followed the beam of light as it intercepted each missile, and sensor information vanished in the wake of the EMP interference.

Snorting at the static on the main screens, Misato looked over at Maya. "What was the last we had on the Angel's location?"

"It was still holding the same position. No movement, nothing. We only registered a slight change in our readings – that light wasn't an energy weapon. That was its AT-Field, used as a weapon."

"So it used it like Shinji can?" Asuka cut in, staring up at the glowing dot. "That means it's defenseless when attacking with it," she said, her voice calculating. "A two-pronged assault seems like the best choice."

"The Enemy remains outside our effective range, however." Rei commented, "Even the modified particle rifle used against the Fifth Angel would not have the range necessary."

"Let alone powering two of those beasts." Asuka agreed, nodding as she tried to think. "Do we have any sort of orbital deployment system for the Evangelions? I mean, I know that NERV-Munich had been working on a type of sub-orbital deployment system for the planned Mass-Production line, but I haven't been keeping up with it."

"Even if we did, you would still only have five minutes of full power." Misato said as Maya leaned down to whisper in another technician's ear. "And you'd either be on an impact course with Earth, or getting lost out into space."

"We've dealt with Angels on the five minute timer before, Misato." Asuka objected, "In fact, we've defeated several of them."

"But what about recovery, Asuka? I can't afford to lose you girls."

"If the Evangelions can be placed into a stable orbit, even for a short period of time, the Entry Plugs could be launched back to Earth to land in the ocean for pilot recovery." Asuka retorted, a plan beginning to take shape in her mind. "Recovery spacecraft could then be launched to return the Evangelions back home."

"Sensors restored!" Aoba called out, as they regained visual on the Angel, still sitting out in space. "No movement from the Angel! All readings are the same prior to the attack."

Maya came up to Misato, motioning to the woman to mute her microphone. "We do have a test-bed launch system, recovered from NERV-Canaveral before we had to abandon that facility. But it's not assembled, and we only have one."

"What about recovery?" Misato asked, glancing up at Gendo, who hadn't visibly reacted at all during the fruitless assault by the UN. "Even if we can only send just one up, I don't like being dependent on other people to recover the Evangelions."

"It has an independent on-board power supply system, although it isn't much more powerful than what the Evangelions already have. I think that it can offer an additional ten minutes at full gain, but that's it."

"It's longer than five minutes, Lieutenant." Misato observed, turning back to the main screen, watching the Angel. "And they have killed Angels within the five minute timeline, she's not wrong about that. But the recovery portion of the plan needs to be more than just ejecting the Entry Plug. Whichever one that gets sent up – if we send one up – will be a sitting duck if the Angel isn't defeated. Which brings us back to the fact that we need at least a two-pronged attack, and we have only one delivery system."

"The system called for the incorporation of a parachute similar to those used in stratospheric jumps. I don't know where it was in the development stage, or if it was made, if we even recovered it."

Still watching the Angel as it sat unmoving from its position in orbit, Misato shook her head. "Well, you better get someone to start going through boxes looking for it." Unmuting her headset, she addressed the pilots. "We may have something of use, but the techs need to dig it out and assess the situation. Until then, we're going to sit in a waiting pattern. One Evangelion on duty, the other on standby. Who's going to be on shift first?"

"I am." Asuka quickly announced. "Misato, what do they have for us?"

"I'll let you know once they can tell me if we even have it, and it's not a complete answer anyway. We'll still have to work up a solid plan of attack."

"Alright." Asuka stretched out in her seat, lacing her fingers together and pushing her arms out away from her core, trying to limber up inside the Entry Plug. "What about secondary plans? Obviously what the UN decided to try didn't work out very well. Has there been any sort of retaliatory action taken against launch sites, like during the Fifth Angel?"

"No, nothing yet. Look, Asuka, just sit tight and keep an eye on the Angel, okay?" Misato asked, starting to run through inventory lists of material recovered from other facilities. "We're working on it on this end. We'll have Rei swap out with you in about three hours."

"Sure." Asuka muttered back into the radio, glowering at the screens. It was obvious that they didn't want her help. She would just have to try and figure something else out, by herself.

Pulling up a remote console connection to the MAGI, she began to pour over the sensor data that they had on the Angel, which currently was not much.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Kaji I and Kaji II traded glances at the Rei drone that sat at the table with them, gazing off into space with an empty, mindless look on its face.

"Well, no matter what, she'll be listening to us, so we might as well talk, hope that she's too preoccupied with the Angel to pay us much mind." Kaji II began, pulling idly at the manacles that kept it chained to the table. "I don't know how she does it, but I haven't been able to control any of her drones. It must be something more than just a physical ability."

"We know that she's a hybrid. Whatever she does to control them must be linked to the Angelic part of her makeup. I also overheard her while she was recording some notes that once the download process started into the previous test drones, that she wasn't able to feel them in the background like she could the others."

"Then our soul must be the broken link then." Kaji II made a disgusted sound, yanking on the manacles again. "It would have been nice to be able to get those clones to get the keys to these chains."

"As it is though, we need to figure out what our next course is. At least one of us needs to escape, before she gets bored of this and liquidates us."

"Especially since I don't have very clear memories of what we were up too. I mean, I've got some stuff, but most of it's kinda hazy. It's like being in a fog, trying to remember specific things."

"Fortunately she hasn't had any real time to interrogate you. As worked up as she is, she won't wait to get rid of you as a liability if she thinks you're not worth keeping alive."

"It's strange, though. I always expected it to be one of Gendo's agents who would finally kill me, but not for her own reasons."

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Sub-Commander Katsuragi, Dr. Akagi, and the main command staff were clustered around in the main conference room just off the primary command bridge. Technical readouts on the Evangelion Orbital Deployment, Combat and Recovery System were displayed on the holographic interface, along with the component parts that they had on hand, and the parts that they were missing. The missing components list was very short – exactly two items, to be exact. The problem was that they were incredibly vital components. Neither one could be manufactured onsite in the amount of time that was needed, however.

One was a launch vehicle capable of delivering an Evangelion sized payload into orbit. The other was a launch site for a rocket of that size. With the current state of the political landscape, it was considered unlikely that they would be able to make use of UN Directive Z387 again. To further complicate the issue, there were only three such locations even near Tokyo-3 that would even fit the bill. There was the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan, the Naro Space Center in the Republic of Korea, and the Svobodny Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. These were the only facilities near enough for quick transport of the Evangelion that could handle the launch. According to the latest information that they had, none of them had any rockets on hand, and the Svobodny Cosmodrome area was experiencing poor weather, which was forecasted to last another three days.

Neither the government of Japan or the Republic of Korea was currently on friendly terms with NERV. Gendo, Misato and Ritsuko knew, was currently meeting with SEELE. As far as the rest of the command crew was aware, their commander was in a meeting with leadership from both nations. It was all up in the air right now if they would be able to make use of Directive Z387. In the meantime, they were trying to figure out other options, as well as how to initiate a two-pronged attack when they only had enough to send one Evangelion into space.

Staring at the lists of resources available to them, Misato held up a hand, prompting two arguing bridge bunnies to stop talking. Looking up at the group the tired woman typed in a new command to the MAGI, bringing up another option that they hadn't yet thought about using.

"Why don't we use Unit-01?" she asked, glancing around. "Don't get me wrong, I know that it's not ideal, and potentially dangerous, but, we might be able to get Unit-01 to engage with the Angel on its own, if it senses it. And while they are fighting, we could have another Evangelion use the deployment system to nail it with a particle rifle."

"I don't think the Commander would go for that idea." Ritsuko warned with a frown. "Besides, Unit-01's been isolated for the salvage process. We'd have to cut it loose from the bakelite, move it to one of the catapults, and then hope that it figures out that there's an Angel around while it sits on the surface."

"We don't even know the current capabilities of Unit-01 right now anyway," Lieutenant Aoba said, calling up the current sensor readings from the Evangelion on his screen. "We know that it's capable of atmospheric flight, but achieving escape velocity? Would it be able to maneuver in a vacuum?"

"And even if it can, how do we convince it to come back home, and then ensure that it lands where it needs to?" Lieutenant Hyuga asked, bringing up a three dimension model of the planet and the Angel. "The Angel is keeping a geosynchronous orbit right now, but once the fight starts, who knows? The time window for the launched Evangelion to fight and defeat the Angel is pretty short if it's to get back to the right spot for an orbital drop onto the recovery zone." The bespectacled tech typed in a few new commands, and the glowing planet began to rotate, with a new glowing dot to represent a space-faring Evangelion trying to reach a highlighted area above Tokyo-3. "Unit-01's not under any sort of control. Who knows what it might do if it lands in the ocean, let alone another country?"

"Like I said, it's not ideal." Misato rebutted. "But it might be a viable option. Otherwise, the only other course of action we have for a two-pronged attack is having the UN organize another series of missile launches. Nothing we have in our stores comes even close to being able to deal with the ranges we're dealing with."

"Why do we need to attack the Angel so far out?"

The rest of the room turned to look at Lieutenant Ibuki, who colored slightly, but asked her question again. "Why do we need to attack it so far out? It's not going to leave. We know that it will have to come here sooner or later, right? It has to breach the Geo-Front and reach Terminal Dogma, and it can't do it from out there."

"Observed data from the Angel's AT-Field attack is inconclusive for determining if it has the range and power to sustain a penetrative assault on the Geo-Front from its current location." Ritsuko said, considering her senior lieutenant's idea. "Waiting allows us time to make another orbital deployment system and solidify an agreement for use of a launch site."

"Still, we need to develop options in the event that we do need to engage the Angel at the current range." Misato countered. "We can't just hope that it'll just sit there until we're ready to attack it. Creating a long term plan to kill it is fine, but if it is able to attack us from outside our current defensive umbrella, I want to be able to counter it as soon as possible. Right now, everything we have is hypothetical, so using Unit-01 isn't entirely out of the question. Recovery problems exist with using either of the other Evangelions in orbital combat, so our recovery of Unit-01 is only a little complicated by the fact that it's not under our direct control."

"We will not be using Unit-01." Gendo announced, walking into the room and taking his place at the head of the table. "I have secured for us a launch site, a launch vehicle and full cooperation of onsite technical staff. Sub-Commander Katsuragi, begin making preparations to transport an Evangelion, the pilot, the delivery system and technical teams at once. Dr. Akagi, coordinate with NERV-New Delhi to prepare Evangelion Unit-07, as it is at this time, for delivery to a third party."

"Sir?" Ritsuko asked, her tablet already out to send instructions, but uncertain as to why they were going to be preparing to deliver the next most completed Evangelion while it was in the middle of construction.

"The cost of cooperation was a trade. A trade of highly advanced technology, for the use of a site and of material." Light reflected off his glasses as he folded his hands in front of his face, studying the holographic display. "We are going to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea."

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Asuka stared at her commanding officer, mouth agape. "We're trading North Korea an Evangelion?" she asked, completely flabbergasted. "Wir sollen eine der fortschrittlichsten Kampfmaschinen der Menschheit einer drittklassigen Diktatur im Austausch für ein Startgelände und eine passende Trägerrakete überlassen, wenn bisher alles, was sie in den Weltraum schießen wollten, explodiert ist? Seid ihr bekloppt?"

"For one," Misato replied while shaking her head, "I don't like it anymore than you do. Two, it's an incomplete Evangelion, and they're getting it as-is. Three, we're sending our own technical teams to inspect and check out the rocket. If they find any problems, Ritsuko's confident that the fabrication team that's going along will be able to build something to correct it. Four, if you don't want to be the first Evangelion Pilot to conduct orbital combat, I'll be happy to keep you on the ground as backup and send Rei in Unit-00."

"I never said that I wouldn't go!" Asuka said shrilly, almost shouting. "I was just saying that it's completely insane." She looked around the Evangelion cage as workers swarmed over the crimson giant, already starting to make the initial checks and prior to installation of the EODCRS components. "Who's leading up the technical teams?"

"Lieutenant Ibuki. She'll have overall command of the detachment's mission, although it's a purely technical one. Tactical operations will still be commanded from here."

"I'll have a higher amount of personal latitude though, right? Because of the time lag in communication."

"Well, the communication lag won't be all that much, but yes. You'll have more leeway in on the spot decisions. We won't have very much in the way of quick response countermeasures to help out, and if the Angel stays at the range it's at, nothing we have will be able to reach it, of course. Any help would have to come from outside of NERV."

"So what's the plan? I thought that we were aiming for a two-pronged attack."

"The plan is that you'll handle the Angel by yourself if you have to. You'll be armed with the positron rifle, plus a progressive knife, and the spike thrower is being retrofitted for use with a series of self guided missiles capable of spaceflight. If the Angel moves into a range that we can have Rei engage it from the ground, then she'll provide assistance."

"So why the rush? Why are we moving so fast on this? Why not fabricate another deployment system and send up Rei as well? I mean, not that I'm not confident that I'll be able to handle the Angel by myself, but usually more firepower is better, right?"

"The Commander wants us to move on this as quickly as possible. There were… issues… with the negotiations with the UN. That's one of the reasons we're working with the DPRK on this. He also doesn't want a lucky shot by another country to get through and kill the Angel. He wants us to move on the Angel and kill it quickly. Look, there's going to be an official brief this evening. We'll go through all of this and more. Just get a shower and some food, and then pack a bag."

"How many days should I pack for?"

"Plan on at least a week, but don't take anything you wouldn't want to lose. You won't be going back there, and if we have to pull our team out in a hurry, they won't stop to grab your stuff."

Asuka silently nodded. "Alright, fine. I'll see you there." The teenager turned and started for door at the far end of the cage that led to the locker-room and showers. Part of her was excited, but another part still seethed at the casual dismissal from the other day, in addition to the other issues that she had with NERV's attitude towards the pilots in general and her in particular. That was also to say nothing of the general attitude of High Command towards the Shinji situation, and of course, Rei's attitude.

She wouldn't be able to work on any of her projects while traveling or while in the DPRK, so she'd have to send Kensuke a message. It would have to be carefully coded of course, just in case it was found, for security reasons. She trusted him more than anybody else right now, but she still couldn't just tell him what the next operation entailed. This was too big to risk letting it get out, if what she surmised was correct.

As Misato watched the girl leave, she felt conflicted. There had been issues with the negotiations, that was true, but this was more than just snubbing the United Nations. Gendo had warned them in private that open warfare was likely just around the corner. Things were quickly coming to a head, and if they weren't careful, it could mean the end of everything they had accomplished thus far, and the end of everything that they had been working towards.

All new development and fabrication operations had ceased in the Geo-Front, with new orders to prepare to dismantle and move everything out to a new location, to establish a new base of operations. It wouldn't be as secure as the Geo-Front, but then, it wouldn't have to be. ADAM was not yet ready for them to initiate Third Impact on their own terms, so they would prepare to activate the Revelations Protocol, the Commander's ultimate denial of SEELE, his scorched earth plan.

If they proved to be incapable of holding the Geo-Front secure against outside forces serving SEELE, then the Commander would give the order to activate the nuclear weapons that would destroy Terminal Dogma and the lower levels of Central Dogma, including the antimatter storage site, which was the part of the plan they expected to destroy the Second Angel, along with the entire Geo-Front and most of the surrounding area. The devastation would be massive, and would ensure that nothing was left that could allow Third Impact to take place.

With the current stores of antimatter dedicated to the Revelations Protocol, in addition to the few antimatter warheads that composed the Armageddon Protocol, the resulting explosion would be equal to over 20000 megatons of TNT. It would trigger worldwide devastation, in the form of earthquakes and tsunamis. A very real risk existed of it plunging the world into an ice age, with the amount of particulate that would be thrown up into the atmosphere. It would probably shift the Earth on its axis again, like during Second Impact.

And NERV would face the blame for it all.

Author's Notes:

Well, not much to say here. I hope to have Chapter 37 out to you before Thanksgiving, but alas, a new semester has begun and already I can see the ghosts of homework future piling up.

Editing, proof-reading and German translations were graciously volunteered by Judicar Deimos. Without his ceaseless and ever efficient efforts, this story would not be the same.

At any rate, I do not expect more than three, possibly four more chapters. Once again I would like to thank you all for sticking with me and reading this story, and I am ever humbled by the amount of readers even during the long periods between updates. I hope that everything continues to be satisfactory.

Oh, and I haven't forgotten that Rei & Shinji have yet to truly kiss.

26 Aug- edited the story to work around the link filter. The file being referenced is , and is the image download. .will files are soul files, basically.