"Evangelion Unit-02 Gamma…"

"Evangelion Unit-05 Beta…"

"... Launch!"

With a jolt of electromagnetic acceleration, the two cyborgs shot up from the subterranean hanger towards the surface. The brakes bore down on the platform, bringing them to a smooth stop a few seconds later. A metallic clang echoed from each cage, before the restraints fell away, the Evas' bodies slumping a bit from the ramrod straight positions they'd been held in.

Slowly but steadily, Unit-02y took a step forwards, umbilical power cable flowing down from its spine. The cyborg lifted her left arm up into her field of vision, and gave the mechanical fingers an experimental wiggle, before clenching them into a fist.

Unit-02y huffed approvingly, a cloud of steam jetting from the openings in its helmet.

"Well, this is promising."

Neon Genesis Evangelion:

(Not) the End

Chapter 036: You Can (Not) Co-operate

Mari didn't really notice the upgrades to Unit-05 at first, until she actually turned her attention towards finding them. Then again, Britain had been responsible for developing Unit-05 in the first place; it'd only make sense that their additions would have been integrated almost seamlessly. Like the director had said, the storage holsters had been removed from her Eva's shoulder pylons and moved to the forearms, where the ulna fins would usually be on other models. Curious, the girl reached across and drew one of Unit-05's progressive knives, getting a feel for the action before replacing the blade.

"Hmm. Not bad," she commented. While it might be hindering if she lost an arm or something, at the moment using the new holsters felt just as smooth as it did when they'd been shoulder-mounted.

As for the other upgrades? Well, she'd have to wait on checking the mobility and structural improvements for the actual fight, but everything seemed to be moving together nicely. Interested in what else there was, the girl called up the status screen, and checked for new additions she might have missed. Skimming through the list, Mari spotted a few things of interest- a new pair of cranial guns, some split-extension mechanism for the pylons, a rear clamp, retracting engine panels on the legs, a slimmed down N2 backpack...

"Hey Princess, how's your Eva?" Mari asked, closing the status screen and looking back up at the displays. Unit-02y looked mostly the same as it had used to be- save for two parts. The Eva's helmet had been completely reconstructed, with braces set into its new jaw plate, and two short prongs protruding from its forehead between a pair of stubby barrels. Even more of note, however, was Unit-02y's mechanical left arm. While its shape matched that of the old limb, the prosthetic was clearly an alien part, with numerous segmented plates protecting each joint and a more angular design as a whole. Only the fingers and outer surface of the forearm were red- the rest of the armour was all in a variety of grey tones.

"Feels pretty solid," Asuka replied. "Honestly, I'd barely know that the arm was artificial if it didn't look this way. It's good to be back in Unit-02. And yours, Four-Eyes?"

Mari smiled softly.

"Well, I'm pretty much the same. The guys really did a good job here."

"That said," she commented. "We should probably arm up; I don't feel like fighting an Angel with my bare hands another time."

Command must have been listening, because two false buildings- one on either side of them- promptly swung open, before a rack of equipment slid up into each one, filled with all manner of weapons designed for Evangelions to use. Without hesitation, Unit-05 reached over and pulled one out, bringing the newly-improved Lance of Cassius to her side. The Lance had been stretched out further, with the pommel turned into a miniature lance shaft all of its own, and a ring of panels added in front of the main shaft's stabiliser gears- both of which should give her some more options when using it, if the trigger on the handle was any indication. Now armed, Mari glanced towards her partner, making sure they were both ready. Unit-02 looked back, a two-handed battleaxe held casually in her grip, and nodded.

A few seconds later, an alarm went off. A hologram popped up, displaying several sentences to the pilot.

[Warning, Pattern Blue Detected]

[Double Event]

[Third Angel - Hofniel: Identified]

[Eleventh Angel - Matarael: Identified]

.

In the distance, through the haze of rain, two massive shapes moved towards them.

.

The first one was clearly the new Angel- Mari didn't recognise it at all. The holographic indicator that popped up next to it only served to confirm the thought.

Matarael was… odd. To be honest, Mari thought it kinda looked like a harvestman with a salt shaker for a body, or possibly a severed head with a tall hat. Its main body was a rough, off-white cylinder about thirty five meters tall, which rounded off at its bottom into an ovoid 'head' with a dark green abdomen growing from where a neck would have been. Above the head, its shell rose out like a brim, before cutting down the middle of its owlish 'face' like a beak between a pair of almond shaped amber eyes. Right above there on the brim were four more eyes, these ones small and circular. The final one was at the top of its body, where the carapace flexed open like a set of vertically-oriented eyelids, exposing an eye about the size of Unit-05's head, with an indigo iris.

About where the 'head's ears would be, Matarael had grown three pairs of legs, each one more than twice as long as the Angel's body was tall, and covered in shiny black armour. These legs stepped precisely through the mess of buildings as it advanced, their curved claws leaving behind punctures in the ground with each step.

And then… there was the other one. Hofniel.

This one hadn't changed much from the last time she'd seen it... even the damage she'd done still seemed present, though it had clearly compensated for it. Hofniel's slithering body resembled that of an eel or a lung- if the eel's flesh was covered in black, skeletal plating instead of scales. Its ruined legs had grown a little since their destruction, though the short, insectile limbs were far from the great reptilian claws it had once possessed. Its neck had also healed poorly, a perpendicular chunk of bone coating the restraining bolt. However, its head was still the same; a jawless skull atop a glistening red core, with three flexible mandibles shielding it from underneath. The only difference here were its eyes- and here, Mari was given pause.

When she'd first fought Hofniel, its eyes had been green. Now, they were a deep, angry red.

.

"Evas," the director announced. "Your top priority is to destroy the incoming Angels. Do not attempt to disable, do not attempt to capture or recapture; destroy them. As London lacks most of the infrastructure for surviving combat with Angels, I also ask that you minimize collateral if and when it is possible to do so. Understood?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Then- Evangelions, begin attack!"

Mari didn't need him to tell her twice.

"Alright then, let's go!" she yelled, as Unit-05 leapt forwards into action! The Eva hunched down, coasting from side to side as she closed distance with her enemies.

Screeching like nails on a chalkboard, Hofniel's eyes flashed, shooting out a pair of glowing white lasers. Mari instinctively swung her off-arm up. In a split second, her AT Field blazed to life, refracting the beams up and away from the cyborg at an extreme angle.

In retaliation, the girl levelled the Lance at the Angel, and squeezed the trigger. As a pair of panels retracted, the weapon's two new autocannons opened fire, sending a barrage of explosive shells slamming into the serpent. Seemingly more irritated than hurt, the Angel shrieked again, and surged forwards, attempting to remove the last of the distance between them-

That was when Unit-02 dashed in from the side, and smashed her axe into the Angel's throat with a two-handed swing.

Hofniel was thrown back, its AT Field just barely stopping the swing from decapitating it a second time.

"Four-Eyes!" Asuka shouted to her, sparing a second to shoot a glance her way. "You take the spider, I'll take the snake! Keep them busy so they can't team up on us!"

"Roger that!"

However, Matarael hadn't been just standing around. As Mari turned, a thousand tons of flesh and shell slammed into her front, throwing the Eva off balance. In the nick of time, Mari swung her Lance up, catching the Angel's downwards slash on its armoured surface. The spider made no sound, but the way its eyes widened told Mari it hadn't been expecting such reaction speed.

"Thought I'd be slower?" the brunette quipped at it, forcing the monster back with a shove. "Big mistake!" Automatically, Unit-05's AT Field surged out, matching up with the Angel's own field, and neutralizing the phase space. With Cocytus's barrier having done irreparable damage to its defenses, Matarael was completely helpless to stop the loss of its remaining protection- something Mari was going to take full advantage of.

"Eat this!" the Fifth Child yelled, striking back with a full-body swing. Even with the Angel's attempt to retreat, the Lance of Cassius left a mark, the armour cracked and buckled inwards from the impact. Recovering from its stumbling, the Angel planted its feet down, and glared at the Evangelion, a faint stream of orange blood dripping from its 'forehead' wound. Mari drew her Lance back, ready to try another strike- when she noticed something odd. Where it hit the pavement, the Angel's blood was steaming and bubbling…

Suddenly, Mari realised how this thing had been able to destroy Bethany Base.

Matarael's pupil shrank, and the surface of its iris bulged out.

"Oh, crap!" the girl yelled, practically leaping backwards. A focused jet of orange solvent erupted from Matarael's main eye, slashing across the Eva's left pylon before it fell away into the surrounding buildings. Instantly, the solvent started eating away at the fin, the metal plates blistering and hissing as they corroded. A few flecks dripped off, the burning fluid glancing against the cyborg's arm. Mari hissed, and thought a command to Unit-05's systems. A second later, the melting pylon unlocked, and ejected away from the rest of the body, crashing to the ground.

"I'm not gonna let you do that again, you bastard!" the girl yelled, drawing a progressive knife with her left hand. "Eat this!"

The Eva rushed forwards, Lance readied once more.

The Third Angel swung out of the way again, letting Unit-02's Smash Halberd slam down into the street, fracturing the pavement into a million pieces. In one smooth motion, the red Eva twisted, yanking the oversized blade out of the shattered tarmac and into a horizontal slash. This time, Hofniel couldn't evade, and the Angel found itself thrown sideways, a chunk of its gold-plated rib cage broken open.

The Angel writhed where it landed, slithering upright and firing its eye beams again. With most of her AT Field occupied keeping Hofniel's from asserting itself, Asuka had nowhere near enough left to refract the attack away. The two blasts of concentrated plasma slashed across her upper chest, marring the armour with a sizzling scar, and forcing the pilot to bite back a cry. Unit-02 snorted angrily, and snapped open her shoulder pylons, unleashing a barrage of missile fire in retaliation. Hofniel's eyes flashed again, the Angel slashing apart most of the missiles in mid-air with its lasers before they could hit it- but the missiles distracted it enough for Asuka's purposes.

"Hi-yaaah!"

Charging forwards, Unit-02 thrust the halberd forwards, smashing the weapon's spiked tip into the Angel's face before it could react. A sickening crack rang out, as part of the Angel's upper jaw was almost torn off, only connected to the rest of its skull by the flesh inside the armour. It wasn't a Core hit, but the impact did a good enough job of stunning it, long enough for Unit-02's artificial arm to swing forwards, hand splayed into a grasping claw.

The Eva's fingers closed around one of Hofniel's three mandibles, and yanked backwards, ripping the segmented appendage off in a spray of indigo blood. Shrieking in pain, Hofniel lashed out, slamming its ridged tail into Unit-02's gut. As the Eva doubled over, the tail struck again, whipping into the side of the cyborg's face and shattering one of its four cameras.

Unit-02 stepped back, retreating temporarily to escape the Angel's thrashing body. Asuka heaved a breath, left eye twitching slightly from the feedback.

.

"...Damn," she muttered, forcing her Eva into a defensive stance. "Didn't expect this thing to be so damned persistent. That last one hurt."

[Small master?]

The redhead blinked in surprise, caught off guard by the voice.

"Wha-"

[Look out!]

Unbidden, Unit-02 jerked to the right, a pair of eye beams missing her by a couple meters, and breaking Asuka away from her lock-up. Even as she recovered, the girl remembered. She'd heard this voice, this presence before- during her first real fight with an Angel.

~You're here again? Why now?

[You came back.]

Came back? What did it mean by 'came back'? She hadn't gone anywhere… except when they'd had to fight Sandalphon. Of course. Asuka hadn't been piloting Unit-02 that time.

Hofniel lunged, eyes burning furiously. Unit-02 dodged to the side, and swung her halberd, forcing the Angel to abandon a second attack.

~Well, what are you planning? It's not like I have time to chat,~ Asuka replied.

[I want to help you,] the voice answered, a hint of pleading to its voice. [Like we did last time.]

Last time…

Asuka's lips pulled back in a grin.

~Really?~

[Yes.]

"Then let's do it!" the girl said out loud. "Unit-02! Perfect synch!"

The Eva's helmet split open, the jaw and forehead shifting away to expose four yellow eyes, each one a glowing slit. Its body tensed, trembling as the cyborg brought the connection with its pilot to their natural limit. Inside the Eva, Asuka could see the synch gauge shoot up, rising until it reached 100 percent and stopped. She could feel it... feel everything- the armour, the AT Field, the cybernetics- as if it were her own body. This went beyond normal piloting, beyond normal synchronisation…

Hofniel shrieked, and lunged, fangs bared to bite down on the troublesome Evangelion.

"Now!"

Eyes blazing, Asuka spun to the side, letting the Angel pass by before completing her revolution and slamming her Smash Halberd into Hofniel's spine. The Angel was helpless to stop its momentum, part of its spinal armour shearing off as it tumbled to a stop.

With the power of a god flowing through her, Asuka drew back her weapon, and charged into melee again.

Nothing was gonna stop her now.

Mari was having the time of her life now. Unit-05 stabbed and struck, dodging away from the jets of solvent and parrying Matarael's claws before they could hit. The Angel glared back, attacking over and over with dogged ferocity, without any care for its defenses. Its shell had been broken in several more places, its caustic orange blood now making any physical contact with its body a deadly risk. What's more, it seemed like the thing had an endless supply of the solvent- no matter how much it sprayed and bled, it always seemed to have more available. Nevertheless, Mari kept hitting it with everything she had.

The pupil of Matarael's main eye contracted again, and the flood of solvent forced the Fifth Child to leap out of the way, Unit-05's thrusters propelling the cyborg into the air. That eye… Mari was almost certain that it was the Angel's Core, or at least very close to it. She'd tried to gouge it out a few times, but stuff had gotten in the way- the coating alone was enough to nullify the 200mm cannons in her Lance, and the armoured eyelid it'd deployed was clearly tough enough to resist a progressive knife. It had to be important.

"Well then, let's see how your stupid eye armour does against this!" Mari yelled, before Unit-05's remaining pylon opened up. Right as Matarael's eyes tracked up, three metal spikes shot out of the fin with a pneumatic thump, and stabbed into the main optic's lens before the armoured lid could slam shut. Each one trailed a pair of cables, linking the darts to the interior of the Eva's shoulder pylon- and the power cables leading from the pylons to the N2 reactor.

"Shock Anchors, discharge!"

Electricity poured down the cables, discharging directly into the Angel's eye with a thunderous crackle. Matarael began to writhe, limbs shuddering and thrashing as a sizeable amount of Unit-05's reactor output boiled the organ in its own fluids. The Eva jerked forwards, prompting a startled squeak from Mari before she dug the cyborg's heels in. It shouldn't be too much longer before-

With a disgustingly wet ripping sound, the Angel's eye ruptured, boiling hot solvent gushing out from between the half-closed lids. The cables of the now useless shock anchors retracted back into storage, their heads melted off by the organ's catastrophic destruction. Unit-05 retreated a little, her pilot suppressing a shudder of revulsion.

"Well…" she muttered. "That... worked. It was completely disgusting, but it worked."

Almost as if it'd heard her, the Angel started to rise again, its six remaining eyes glaring up at the girl. Its armoured eyelid was stuck, unable to close fully- and behind them and the ruins of its eye, Mari saw a glimmering red surface.

"Blow me down, I was right," the girl muttered, before the wounded spider pounced, striking with such ferocity that Mari was forced to propel herself away with the aid of Unit-05''s rockets to avoid the blows. The green and silver Evangelion darted left and right, slowly giving ground as it evaded the monster's rage-clouded swings.

~Just… need… to… get… an opening…~

"Four-Eyes!" Asuka interrupted, her voice filled with… glee? Mari shot a glance at the 'audio only' of the comms hologram, as she tried to keep up her defensive manoeuvres.

"Busy!" She fired back.

"Look, try to draw the Angel over towards me- I'll do the same!"

"Wait, what?" Mari demanded. Draw the Angels together? Didn't they split up in the first place so the Angels couldn't team up on them?

"Trust me!"

~...Well,~ the Fifth Child thought. ~Can't be worse than any of Misato's plans.~

"Roger that, Princess."

With that, Mari threw Unit-05 into a circular strafe, peppering Matarael with her Eva's head vulcans. The Angel turned, blood spraying out of its wounds in a hiss. As the surrounding block started to melt away, it charged after Mari, tearing a path of destruction through its surroundings. Unit-05 accelerated back, and fired a few more shots before spinning back to her direction of movement.

~And there she is,~ the girl noted. Far ahead of her, a crimson Evangelion closed in, playing keepaway with what was left of Hofniel. The Angel itself was practically falling apart, more like a mess of bone and slimy musculature in the shape of a snake than anything else- but Unit-02 was something else entirely. The Eva seemed to carry that same limitless strength shown by Berserker units, but it moved with the fluidity and grace that could only be brought out by a pilot, all while its true eyes blazed like torches.

"Alright, Four-Eyes, here's the plan," Asuka called in. "We're going to charge straight at each other, with the Angels right behind us. When I yell 'go', I want you to duck, and take the shot!"

"Hit 'em while they're not looking?" Mari said back. "Heh- Sounds good, Princess! Let's do it!"

With that, the two cyborgs sped up, drawing their foes behind them like they were chained to them. Unit-05's stance widened, the Eva sinking lower as she drew back the Lance of Cassius. Unit-02 leaned forwards, keeping her halberd back and at the ready.

"Three…"

Hofniel screamed and roared, despite only half its upper skull left.

"Two…"

Matarael's amber eyes narrowed into slits, its legs slamming down over and over with a noise like a runaway train.

"One…"

Almost there...

.

"Go!"

Unit-05's legs shot out, forcing the Eva as close to the ground as she could get without smashing into the tarmac, and Unit-02 soared over her. Instantly, Mari rammed the control stick forwards as hard as she could, putting all her effort into the blow!

.

Crunch.

Crack.

.

.

Slowly, despite her pounding heart, Mari looked up, and opened her eyes.

Hofniel's body hung limp and lifeless, its remaining eye now dark. Suspending it in the air was the Lance of Cassius, its point driven completely through the Angel's Core.

Arm shaking, Mari lowered her arm, and released the Lance, letting the dead Angel fall to the ground. The girl turned, looking over her Eva's shoulder.

Unit-02's chest heaved, great clouds of steam hissing from its nostrils. The cyborg's massive axe had been driven into the Eleventh Angel from overhead, and split its Core in two with the force of the blow. The flood of orange solvent seemed to have shut off, the remaining puddles and streams of the caustic fluid simply eating into the ground.

With a grunt, Unit-02 wrenched its halberd free of the corpse, and tossed the weapon to the side. The red Eva turned, staggering a little where she stood. Finally, the visual link in Unit-05's cockpit opened, letting Mari see Asuka's face again. The Second Child looked exhausted, slouched back in her saddle… but there was no mistaking the smile on her face.

"...We did it," she said.

Mari nodded, and smiled back in relief.

"Y-yeah. We did."

"Hmm," Asuka sighed. With a final hiss, Unit-02's helmet closed again, her four eyes dimming as the strength of the synchronisation left her body. The Eva stumbled forwards a little, and slumped into Unit-05, forcing the other cyborg to grab her and hold her up.

"Kinda tired," the Second Child muttered, "Sorry, Four-Eyes."

Gaining a loose hold on the silver and green Eva, Unit-02 leaned forwards, and nuzzled her armoured forehead against Unit-05's.

.

At last, all was right with the world again.