Some of these chapters might be short. I keep a one-thousand word minimum, which means lot's of filler scenes. But at the same time, I'm told my chapters are some of the longest out there. Anyway, here's the next Angel fight. Disclaimer: I don't own Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Evangelion, or Anarchy Reigns.
Cruel Angel's Thesis Chapter 12: Angel of Embryo, Sandalphon
"Where am I?," Sandalphon asked as he extended his senses. It seemed he had landed in the middle of a volcano at the edge of the island. "Well this stinks... Guess I screwed up again. Still, I should count myself lucky I managed to land in an environment I am suited towards. This will give me time to develop. Then I can burrow under the ground to where the Lilim are keeping Father, taking the magma with me." His senses then picked up a few devices near him. "I should have expected the Lilim to notice my entrance. And I am still not ready to face them. Still, if they wish to attack me, they will find it very difficult."
"We couldn't have planned this distraction better ourselves," SEELE-03 said with a smug grin, "Now NERV will be busy dealing with the Eighth Angel while we can muster the forces necessary to retrieve our imprisoned agents." "We only get one shot at this," Lorenz pointed out, "And if it fails, we stand to lose yet another agent." He activated the communicator. "Max, is everything set?" 'We have our infiltration force ready to attack at any moment,' Max replied. "Good," Lorenz said, "We'll give you the signal once the Eighth Angel is dealt with."
"That's Sandalphon?," Shinji asked, looking at the scan from the volcano, "He looks like an embryo." "This is him in his development phase," Kaworu explained, "By now he's focusing energy to affect a serious growth spurt. Of course, it's pure luck that we caught him while he was still developing. He always was a klutz." "How do we proceed?," Maya asked. "Going into that volcano to retrieve the Angel while it's still developing is a suicide mission," Gendo noted, "Even with our advanced armor the pilots could only withstand ten minutes at maximum. And for all we know the Angel would wait until it was contained to activate his growth spurt."
"So the what's the plan?," Rei asked. "Luckily the JSDF still has a few N2 mines they're willing to grant us," Shining said, "We'll drop one into the volcano on the far side near the ocean, triggering a safe eruption that will both empty the magma chamber, depriving Sandalphon of his means to break into the geofront, and expose him to the outside air." "He's more used to high temperature, high pressure environments," Kaworu noted, "Once exposed to a normal atmosphere he'll be vulnerable. But once he's exposed, we need to act quick to retrieve the core before the body expands to the point of explosion."
"No sign of the Lilim," Sandalphon said, "No matter. If they won't come to me, I'll go to them." He had already gathered the necessary amount of energy, and immediately grew to his fully-developed form. However, at that moment, a massive explosion went off. Thanks to his AT Field he wasn't affected, but he wound up being carried outside the volcano by the sudden shift in the magma current. "CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP!" He found himself starting to expand as he was exposed to a lower pressure than he was used to. Even worse, he saw Unit-01 flying in.
"So this is why the Lilim weren't trying to come to me," Sandalphon realized, "Thanks a lot, Tabris. Now I look like an even bigger doofus..." Shinji stopped just inches from Sandalphon. "This should be enough. Now to crack open this lobster. Cruel Angel's Thesis!" Shinji's Stand went at full power as Unit-01's arms moved faster than anyone would have thought possible. "DAME DAME DAME DAME DAME DAME DAME DAME!" A few good punches and Shinji had broken through the outer layer of the Angel, enough to grab the core and retreat as the rest of the body expanded until it burst like an overripe melon.
A general alert in NERV headquarters went out just as Shinji retrieved the core. "We got Killseekers in full force infiltrating the geofront!," Shigeru called out, "They're heading for the prison cells!" "Damn!," Gendo said, "They're trying to release the artificial Stand users we had contained!" The four pilots still at NERV hurried to where the group of Killseekers was gathered. These included some Mutant Plants and Poison Killseekers, as well as a Cybrid Joe for good measure. "They really want their buddies back," Asuka noted.
"There must be at least a hundred of them," Aigis noted, "They intend to overwhelm with numbers." "One hundred hardly seems like a lot," Kaworu said with a smirk. The group activated their various powers and started blasting at the group, coating the walls with blue blood as they took out mutant after mutant. Meanwhile, one member of the infiltration group, named Sasha, had slipped by the pilots as they handled the Killseekers. However, she had to stop and dodge when a sonic blast erupted from just outside the prison cells.
Cadence walked up to to the icy woman. "Trying to get inside? I can offer you a trip if you like. Catch is... It's one way." "No thanks," Sasha replied, "I prefer to make my own travel plans. And I much prefer traveling with friends. Snow Spikes!" The nanotech inside her body activated, creating a frosty construct that she fired at Cadence. "Deathharmonic!" She screamed at the top of her lungs, blasting the construct to the snowflakes. "I've seen colder winters in Miami," Cadence snarked, "Why not look up old Rudy? I'm sure he could teach you a thing or two about cryokinesis."
She and Sasha started trading blows. Cadence may have had a rather limited Stand, but she made up for it with martial prowess, having mastered karate at a young age. Sasha, despite being a master of systema, had a hard time dealing with a fighting style that didn't even use weapons, not to mention the occasional sub-sonic burst whenever Cadence was face-to-face with her frosty adversary. A few good strikes to Sasha's midsection, followed by a sonic scream right in her ear, and Cadence soon knocked out the Russian blonde. She then contacted the others. "We have one more for the cells."
"Why would SEELE risk a jailbreak of this magnitude?," Fuyutsuki asked. He and Gendo were engaged in another shogi game. "You know Lorenz," Gendo said, "He hates to lose in anything, even if he already has the tools to win. He probably doesn't even need these artificial Stand users. He just wants them to make things easier to keep under control. No, his plan is something else altogether." "So it's simply that he desires more power," Fuyutsuki noted, "Even though he'll have all he could want should his plans succeed." Gendo finished with a winning move. "But so long as we remove that power base, we can win."
A lot of the Angel personalities and background is based on the story Going Another Way by Tribun, but of course I threw my own spin on both the Angels and their battles. The idea to force a volcanic eruption came from the story Thousand Shinji by Academia Nut, though this time with Gendo noting the idiocy of the canon plan instead of Shinji, to show how much he's really changed from canon. Read and review.