Unravel

by Homer's Disciple

Shinji rejected Instrumentality, but he made so many mistakes. He has one last chance to set things right, to unravel everything and save what matters. A retelling or altering of the series, an altered version of Shinji with an altered past. Life takes a different path, but do all paths lead to the same destination? Is Shinji doomed to never know happiness?

52. Ozymandias

Hey guys, back again.
I wrote Chapters 51 and 52 at the same time so we have a quick update for once!
The quote for this chapter isn't in the opening. It'll make sense.

Here's Chapter 52: "Ozymandias"

---

The old man raged against the dying of the light. Evangelion Unit 00 squaring off against three of SEELE's nightmares. A knight fending off a hoard of white dragons.

The AT Blades flashed in dual displays of brilliant light. White flesh was parted, and blood showered forth flooding the grounds below. The undead foes did not fall easily however, they swarmed and threatened to overwhelm with their sheer combined mass. They repaired the damage done to them at a rate that surpassed Adam's Children.

The rumbling of giants and their combat shook the Earth, a rampage that consumed the surrounding lands. Manmade or natural, it shook and succumbed to the urban wasteland being born before their very eyes.

Humans had been caught in the crossfire. SEELE's military forces and their small army of staff having disappeared amid ruin and debris. Ants having fallen with this section of their colony.

Wounds littered Eva Unit 00 and the old soul piloting within. Nerv's titan moved with the Broken Man, keeping pace with him, as he piloted against his foes. His movements were strained, his body had turned against him, burning him from within, his aged and battered form weighed him down, and yet he carried forward.

The Broken Man severed the head of a dragon only to be tackled by another. The beast leaped upon his Eva's back, clawing and biting wildly at him, and he faltered almost brought to the ground. Yet the Original Shinji Ikari refused to fall. He reached a single hand forth and ripped the foul thing from his Eva, blood and flesh tore free of Unit 00 as he did so. The phantom sensations raged allowing him to feel all of it.

He barely even flinched at the pain.

CRASH.

He tossed the MP Eva aside sending debris and ash showering back, only to be charged by another. He whirled and the AT Blades lashed outward forcing the dragon back.

SEELE was on the verge of victory. He could feel it… he could feel it in his bones. And so, he fought, drawing as much of the attention to himself as he could. Giving another the chance to continue without him. To put an end to this madness once and for all, and to save the boy along with his sister.

Then he felt it. The wail of a god, inaudible save for a precious few. Only two in all the known universe heard the pain and anguish as an entity that predated the Earth was brought low and bound.

He needed to end this quickly. The MP Evas roared behind him and charged.

…

The god wailed in silent agony, a being that was comprised of two, bound to the bidding of beings infinitely lesser than itself. It was a titan unlike any other, different in shape and form than anything forged by either Nerv or SEELE.

Adam and Lilith were humanoid, with two arms and two legs, and pale white skin. Its body was one that no longer held any traces of gender. It was a giant unlike any of Adam's Children and it carried no armor, yet it was a head shorter than an Evangelion. It was deformed and diminished in comparison to the form it had taken upon Lilith's Rising. Scars and damage were visible on the god's skin, mementos from its great battle with the Abomination.

Only its face gave away its true nature. Its face shifted, features appearing and disappearing, or else moving. Adam and Lilith held together within one body. Two faces that bled into each other to form one.

A face that contorted in pain.

The First and Second Angels lay prisoner once again. The god struggled, burned as it was pulled along by threads weaved by its parents. It was a defilement of the highest order to use such trickery, to abuse the work of those who had come before. It wept at the insult to its parents.

The god raged as it was pulled along. Forced to obey. It lumbered forward across the now exposed hangar amid SEELE's fortress. It walked and moved toward the nexus point that was at the altar, another perversion of the First Ancestral Race.

Instrumentality was within reach as an imprisoned Evangelion Unit 02 lay at the centerpiece, the immobile trigger for the end of all mankind. A red titan guarded by twin MP Evas.

---

The bunker.

Shinji Ikari sat amid the cult as they watched from afar, safe and secure among their wealth and resources. He sat in his prison, a carefully lit circle of visibility amid a sea of black, with Keel, Page, the holographic avatars of SEELE floating above, and the armed guards standing nearby.

He was restrained in his chair, eyes closed tight as he fought to break free. He reached again and again for the Angel abilities that had painstakingly begun to return. Yet still, they did not come. He could not summon the AT fields.

He was helpless as a doll before Keel and the projected holograms above. Powerless to stop the cult of SEELE from sacrificing the entirety of the human race for their immortality. It was insanity and arrogance, these decrepit men and women who believe themselves above death itself.

Mari… Asuka… he thought wanting to weep. Another name crossed his mind, one that was too painful for him to utter even within his thoughts. A girl with red eyes just like his.

It couldn't end like this. He had been through too much, lost too much, learned so much… it couldn't end. Not yet. He pleaded and begged with a cold and uncaring universe, praying to any higher power that he could think of. Anything to save those he loved.

What seemed like his entire body was burning him as the Great Machine bent the Angel network along a preprogrammed path. The impossible had been made possible. Keel Lorenz was succeeding where Gendo Ikari had failed.

SEELE was binding a god to their will. And it was all his fault.

"It begins," an elderly voice said.

Shinji opened his eyes.

The holographic screens continued to play the live feed for all to see. The Hybrid, Adam and Lilith, were smaller than they should have been. Not the colossus that had dwarfed even Unit 01. A Wounded God diminished from its battle with an Abomination.

Keel bared his teeth in the widest smile Shinji had ever seen from the man. SEELE's leader approached the boy with the gun still in hand.

On-screen, the footage showed the Hybrid being wrenched forward against its will and pulled like a puppet in a ritual performed by mortals. Pulled towards Unit 02 and the trigger for Human Instrumentality.

"My ascension is at hand. Now, you have my permission to die."

Shinji didn't have the strength to glare. He sat hopelessly in his restraints as Keel brought the gun to rest under his chin.

So, this is it. Everything that we did. It was all for nothing. Worse than the original timeline ever was, he thought bitterly.

His entire life flashed before his eyes. His parents who had rejected and abandoned him, the puppet masters who had molded him behind the scenes, the fleeting bits of joy and family that he had been blessed with, his life with Misato, Rei, Asuka, and finally even Mari. The good times and the bad. So short in hindsight.

Keel placed his finger on the trigger and Shinji braced himself, thinking of better days. He wished he could say that he had no fear, that he faced his end valiantly as his Other would have, but that would have been a lie. In spite of everything, he was still a teenager and he was scared. He was scared to die…

It was a primal fear instilled in all living things. Fear of the nothingness that awaited. It ate at him and he shuddered under that instinct-driven weight.

CRACK.

"Sir!" Page exclaimed in shock.

All eyes whirled to see SEELE's Great Machine in the back of the room. The device was straining as the glass that encased the replica spear fragments cracked. Inside, the metal pieces themselves began to vibrate producing an audible hum. The circuitry hissed and sparked, the readings went haywire, warnings in bright red flared.

A single word emerged into the world for all to fear. A sound made audible to humans and Angel alike. A voice that was made up of two. Adam and Lilith spoke.

"NO."

Shinji felt it. He felt the network twisting and turning, rebelling against the unnatural manipulation that had formed the nexus point.

CRACK.

More of the Great Machine cracked. Sparks flew as the computers malfunctioned. The power spiked, and the projected images of the stone monoliths above flickered in and out of existence.

A very human chill crept down the spine of everyone in the room. And Shinji knew. He realized what was happening. A strange and foreign sense of calm began to fill him. Not relief, that would have been too simple, but rather a feeble and enigmatic sense of hope.

Hope that the game wasn't over yet. That there were still moves left to be played.

Keel grabbed his face forcefully, pressing the barrel of the gun harder into his flesh. Shinji barely flinched.

"What did you do?" Keel asked sternly, a hint of uncertainty seeping into the elderly man's voice.

He blinked. Then the boy smiled to the shock and awe of the gathered SEELE.

"Nothing," Shinji answered truthfully.

He gestured to the live feed of the projected screens. The Hybrid was resisting. The deformed god was moments away from making contact with the bound Unit 02, moments from triggering SEELE's version of instrumentality, and yet, it denied them.

The Hybrid rose and stood tall, bucking against the ritual and refusing to grant these elderly men and women their wish. Its muscles bulged. Its veins throbbed, and its wounds bled, yet the Hybrid fought against the current that sought to control it.

"Keel…" a panicked, very human voice, whimpered. A member of SEELE speaking from the supposed safety of their hologram.

"That… that's not possible…"

"Our experiments… we manipulated the Angel network… this can't be…"

"How?! How is it resisting?!"

"Do something… you have to do something damn you! Keel!"

Frightened voices from some of the richest most powerful people on Earth, made into little more than children throwing a tantrum. Faced with a world that for once did not bend to their will.

CRACK.

Keel flinched, his walking cane wobbling on the floor, and nearly fell. Page reached out to steady her boss. The gun barrel slid from Shinji's chin.

More of the Great Machine was breaking under the strain of resistance. A manmade instrument facing off against the will of a combined Adam and Lilith.

Shinji observed coolly and bitterly as his captors began to break. As they experienced fear and uncertainty for perhaps the first time in their lives.

"You didn't listen. You never understood the power you tried to control. You tried to bind a new god to your will," Shinji said.

All of SEELE had eyes on him. From Keel and Page to the others hidden behind their holographic avatars. Each of them were wealthy oligarchies in their own right that turned to a teenage boy for answers.

"Humph. Maybe you bit off more than you could chew."

Shinji stared straight ahead to the live feed from the projected images, the screens that Keel had so kindly provided. He watched the scene unfolding and he saw the truth with his own eyes.

SEELE had been doomed from the start.

The Hybrid was at a fraction of its strength. A shadow of what Shinji had glimpsed from the Broken Man's memories, for that Hybrid had dwarfed even Unit 01 in size. Here and now, in this world, Adam and Lilith had been wounded greatly by clashing with his Other.

Yet even diminished, SEELE struggled to control the Hybrid. Keel and the others had been insane.

They're gridlocked. SEELE can't bind the Hybrid, it won't obey… but it's too weak to break free on its own…

He watched from his bunker-like prison as Adam and Lilith pulled against the unseen threads, wrenching themselves back and refusing to submit to the will of another. They were at a tipping point, the path to Keel's defeat was open, it just needed a little push.

SEELE had channeled their Great Machine's work into Unit 02 to enact their ritual. Keel had forced Asuka to be his trigger for instrumentality, but there were things that Shinji knew that Keel did not.

Shinji gathered his strength, his connection to his Other had slowly been returning, and he needed the old man to hear him through all the interference caused by the ritual.

Keel brandished the gun in front of him, Page was watching him and realized what he was doing again, people spoke in low panicked voices. He ignored them all.

"You will fix this. You will make them obey-" Keel had been threatening him.

Shinji drowned out the man's voice and focused.

Page was reaching into her coat pocket, no doubt grabbing another dose of his supposed medicine. He ignored her just as he had ignored Keel.

"Kyoko! She's the key! She's the key!" Shinji shouted. He put everything he had, all the strength he could muster, and sent his message across the connection he shared with his Other.

Hear me! Hear me! He pleaded.

I understand – the Broken Man replied.

Their communication was strained by the war waging between the Hybrid and the ritual, and even still, the message had been received.

Shinji sensed his Other gathering Adam's Might from afar. He felt the burning sensation in his veins amplify as the Angel network went haywire again, growing more and more chaotic at this latest act.

A shout erupted across the unseen threads. A desperate plead that only a select few would be able to hear. Only one was all it would take.

"Kyoko!" the Broken Man shouted; his voice charged with the strength of the Original First Angel.

---

Outside.

The scene at the surface of SEELE's compound was a nightmarish tapestry from an apocalyptic prophecy.

Bodies of soldiers and scientists alike littered the grounds with bits of destroyed concrete and steel. The aftermath of Mari's failed attempt to stop the ritual. The aftermath of mere humans caught in the crossfire between Evangelion Combat. Unit 03 lay where it had fallen, twin spears lodged within its body.

A whirlwind of activity rushed by. The air itself was a weighty thing, as Human Instrumentality lay gridlocked and unable to proceed. Hurricane winds raced overhead. The sky above the compound was unnaturally dark and cloudy, a scar upon the heavens themselves.

Scattered mists whisked by as the portal faded away into nothing. Otherworldly particles that dissolved before the struggle below.

Unit 02 stood at the altar, the nexus point created by Keel's Great Machine, a lone figure imprisoned in a perverted Tree of Life. Bound by metallic branches forged from the same material as the replica spears.

On either side of the red titan, stood an MP Eva acting as guard.

Across from them was the Hybrid itself, a wounded god with a moving and ever-shifting face, changing from Adam to Lilith repeatedly, shadows and light radiating off its pale and burnt skin. A head shorter than Unit 02 yet infinitely more terrifying in its presence.

Asuka Langley Sohryu watched helplessly, imprisoned within the Entry Plug, as the mysterious cult that had captured her summoned a monster. An Angel unlike any she had ever known. The girl frantically grabbed at the controls, trying to form a sync rate and break free, tears in her eyes as she remembered the sight of her friend and the closest thing to a brother bloodied and battered.

The MP Evas standing as her guard began to move as orders were received.

"Weaken the Hybrid. Make it submit," Keel ordered.

SEELE's monstrosities pressed onward, acting on the commands of their creators. Lumbering undead that reached to challenge a new god.

And in the midst of all that chaos, Eva Unit 02 stirred. The red titan began to move of its own accord…

...

The Void inside Unit 02.

"Kyoko!"

The voice came as a surprise. A momentary shift in the endless greys of the void that grabbed even her attention. A cry that could not be ignored.

What remained of Kyoko Sohryu's soul stirred. The only surviving half of a once loving mother, now bound to a manmade titan, the ghost in the machine for Eva Unit 02.

Her mind was a disjointed and faded thing. Incoherent at the best of times, lost in the madness that was her pitiful excuse of an existence. Half a soul.

Yet even still, her consciousness realigned at the call of a recent and dear friend. Memories came flooding back, they would and could not last long, fleeting bits of sanity returning for the briefest of moments.

Kyoko gasped; her mind cleared once more.

"You…" she managed to whimper.

Her friend had called her. The one who had pieced her back together once before, the one who had given her the chance to save her daughter. An older man who himself had been a parent.

She needed to focus; she didn't have much time. She never did. Her awareness was fleeting and would always revert back to madness. What was happening? Why had she been called?

The Evangelion provided the answers. Kyoko peered through Unit 02's eyes as if they were her own because they were her eyes now. She felt the presence locked within the Entry Plug.

She felt the fear, the anger, the sorrow, of the pilot locked within. The pain of a child caught up in the cruel wars of men.

"Asuka… Asuka!" Kyoko cried.

She clung to her sanity with everything that she had, willing herself to stay in the here and now a little longer. Her daughter, her baby, was in danger. Angels surrounded her little girl, and the Eva had been bound. Nothing else mattered. For a mother's love never fades. Not even in death.

And heaven help anyone who stood before a mother's wrath.

Kyoko awoke with a rage, and the Eva woke with her. "Asuka!" she cried with all her heart.

"Don't die… don't die… don't die… don't die! Don't die! Don't die!"

A chant that allowed her precious more time. A chant that gave her the focus to act once more. Kyoko had a daughter to save.

…

The Real World.

Unit 02's eyes opened in a flurry of movement. The faceplate cracked, the mouthpiece breaking off in a harsh metallic snap, as the Eva's mouth was revealed.

"AHHHHHHH!" the Evangelion itself roared; its teeth bared. Vocal cords strained as the flesh moved for the very first time.

With a thunderous crash, Unit 02 awoke and ripped itself free of the restraints. SEELE's alter was torn to pieces as the red titan moved completely on its own. The perverted tree of life was defaced, its branches falling with heavy thuds, and the ritual died with it.

The Hybrid stumbled back, the threads pulling it onward in a feeble attempt to bind it was beginning to unwind. The god snarled and whirled a hand across the air in a cutting motion, and the nexus point, the knot, the singularity in the Angel network that SEELE had created was unraveled.

Hurricane winds died down. The sky began to return, bright blue seeping back into the world and sunlight bleeding through a disappearing and artificial dark heaven.

Unit 02 roared to life and lashed out. A Beast Unchained.

One of its former guards tried to stop it, reaching a claw-like hand for the Eva's shoulder. The Awakened Unit 02 charged it, tackling the undead Eva. The two titans crashed into a wall of the hangar and burst through it.

BOOM.

An explosion of shrapnel and ash flooded the air. Unit 02 kept running, its heavy feet pressing onward with a wild frenzy, carrying the MP Eva with it. Buildings were trampled in its path; smaller walls fell as the giants clashed.

The MP Eva brought its claws across Unit 02's throat, cutting deep and drawing blood.

02 howled in pain, coming to a stop as it grasped the MP Eva's head in its hands.

The Awakened Unit 02 roared as it squeezed, beginning to crush the MP Eva's skull with its bare hands. The white dragon snarled, shrieking out in feral panic as it lashed outward trying to break free. Bone began to crack, sick snapping sounds erupted forth, and still, the MP Eva did not die.

"AUHHHHHHH" the white dragon shrieked in a deep monstrous tone.

The Awakened Unit 02 heaved and brought the MP Eva up by its head before slamming it back down. Again, and again. The feral berserker-like-mother slammed the monster's skull into the ground repeatedly. Blood and brain splattered as the white titan's face disappeared in a mound of LCL and battered flesh.

"DON'T… DIE…" the Awakened Unit 02 spoke. Heavy strained words that did not come easy.

The MP Eva stopped its struggle, twitching uselessly on the ground having had its skull bashed in.

Inside the Entry Plug, Asuka fell to her seat in the cockpit. Unable to act, unable to pilot, forced to watch as the events unfolded. Yet, she felt a presence watching over her. A familiar one amid all the insanity. The feeling was short-lived as the Awakened Eva whirled once more, lashing out at any and all threats.

…

The Hybrid stretched its limbs, finally free of the abhorrent strings that had tried to pull it along.

It had been summoned here against its will, weakened and recovering from its clash with the Abomination. A shadow of what it had once been.

THUD.

THUD.

The last of Unit 02's undead guard came charging for it. These puny little things that dared to play with the DNA of Adam's Children, that had dared to dabble in the work of the First Ancestral Race.

The MP Eva leaped for them, no doubt acting on the orders of the humans who had created the beast. A feeble attempt to bind it once more.

PATHETIC – the Hybrid thought.

It raised a hand and Lilith's power surged. The unseen forces rose, and the weaponized gravity slammed into the MP Eva wrapping around it and squeezing. Limbs bent, and bone was crushed, armored-like skin contorted in on itself.

The Hybrid had snatched the MP Eva mid-leap and held the foul thing imprisoned, hovering in the air, as the beast was crushed like a tin can.

A feral roar erupted into existence nearby. Thunderous footsteps sounded off, growing closer and closer.

The Awakened Unit 02 was charging for them now. The Hybrid barely glanced their way as it raised another hand.

Once more, the unseen forces lashed out like a whip, a wrecking ball of pure kinetic energy.

BOOM.

The Awakened Unit 02 was hit and sent flying back, its heavy boots skidding across the floor, plate armor dented and strained, muscles dislocated. The red titan disappeared from view as it was flung back crashing through defensive walls and sending debris up along its path of destruction.

"HZZZZZ" the imprisoned MP Eva hissed harshly.

THE HUMANS HAVE STOLEN REGENERATION. – The Hybrid thought.

Adam and Lilith observed as their floating prisoner began to struggle, skin, bone, and muscle struggling against the invisible pressure exerted upon it from all sides.

The Hybrid leaned in and reached a single hand to the MP Eva's mouth. The Beast snarled uselessly, trying to lash out to no avail. Adam and Lilith placed a burned marked hand upon the creature's jaw and began to pull.

RIP.

Blood splattered as the MP Eva's jaw was torn off, revealing an exposed throat that led to the creature's internal organs and finally the stolen S2 engine inside.

Adam's Might gathered within the Hybrid, calling upon its other half, and its eyes began to shine bright red. Like a miniature star, Zeruel's abilities came to its beck and call.

The Hybrid fired a blast directly down the MP Eva's exposed throat. The laser traveled down the pathway and struck at the internal organs, incinerating the S2 engine. The MP Eva's body twitched wildly, still suspended in the air, white skin glowing red hot, as it was cooked from the inside.

When it was over, smoke seeped through the exposed throat. The corpse and its jaw fell to the floor with little ceremony.

The Hybrid turned and surveyed the compound around it. A human base of some kind, huts made of stone and metal, how primitive. It reached out, searching for the foul machine that had called it here.

Its eyes glowed bright red once more. The Hybrid fired a second blast, longer and continuous, and whirled in a circular motion.

The destruction was awe-inspiring. A superheated blast that cut through all manner of buildings and defensive structures like plastic, a wide arc of disintegration. SEELE's upper compound began to fall in on itself as defensive pillars and buildings were hit.

Miles and miles away, the skyscrapers and buildings in the outskirts of a nearby city were hit too. A city that the JSSDF had been struggling to evacuate before the battle had begun.

Adam and Lilith raised their hands, and the unseen forces rose and came crashing down upon the compound. Invisible meteors pummeled the manmade structures with a thunderous roar, wreaking havoc upon the so-called fortress.

The Hybrid seethed in a silent fury, relishing its outburst at these little things that had antagonized it.

More humans were scattered about. Soldiers in SEELE's army that had been ready to defend against other humans. They fled like ants with few surviving the Hybrid's onslaught. And yet there was more, an invading force of JSSDF that had been coming to storm the compound.

The Hybrid saw them, two groups of scattered soldiers. One group inside the compound and another racing towards it in their vehicles.

THEY WAGE WAR AGAINST EACH OTHER– the Hybrid mused. It found that it cared nothing for the squabbles of ants.

Where was the machine? The machine that had tried to bind them?

The Hybrid reached out once more, searching the threads that their parents had forged eons ago.

Adam and Lilith knelt and placed their hands on the ground. The Earth itself began to move at their command, parting way for what had been hidden underneath.

---

Shinji gasped as he felt the world around them begin to shake.

The projected holograms vanished, the screens and SEELE's avatars disappearing from existence, as the power cut out violently. The light went out and the Great Machine stopped entirely.

People cried out in absolute darkness as the room rumbled.

A shift of gravity occurred sending people flying briefly into the air only to be slammed back down, all in the dark. An elderly man cried out and a walking cane rattled across the floor sliding away.

Shinji sat imprisoned in his restraints, held in place by a chair bolted to the ground. Until suddenly, there was a loud snapping sound and he fell. He landed on his side; the chair having been ripped free by the sheer turbulence of the event.

BOOM.

Thunderous crashes sounded off as the room itself was lifted higher and higher. Cracking sounds emerged and suddenly light began to bleed into the room.

We were underground… in a bunker… Shinji realized.

Keel's bunker was ripped free and laid onto the surface by rough but careful hands. Pale hands that grasped and then pierced the ceiling, sending sunlight in to cut across the dark.

Finally, the Hybrid forced the bunker open. It peeled more than half of the ceiling off and sent walls falling all in one swift motion. A box being torn open to reveal its contents. Debris fell and landed with heavy thuds; people screamed as they were hit.

Shinji panted, his heart racing as debris and ash fell beside him. Chunks of it missed his head by mere inches.

When it was over, all of them, Shinji, Page, Keel, and what remained of the guard lay exposed to the world in blinding sunlight. The sudden transition from the darkness of the underground to the illuminated surface almost overwhelmed their eyes.

The sight that met them upon gaining clarity made all their hearts skip a beat.

A god towered over the gathered humans amid an exposed bunker.

Keel croaked at the sight of it. The elderly man lay on the floor having fallen, blood draped his face and he struggled to move, unable to stand on his own. Page was at his side, trying to help him but nearly paralyzed with fear herself.

The Hybrid glared at them with massive red eyes that never blinked. Cold intelligent eyes that stayed constant even as the rest of its body shifted. A hate-filled gaze.

With a grunt, a flick of its head, the unseen forces moved… unseen to all but Shinji. The boy witnessed it, the outpouring of power.

An explosion of circuitry, glass, and metal sounded off as the Great Machine was destroyed in a kinetic strike. A surgical-like blow that hit its target perfectly.

Keel and Page flinched as their toy disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

Shinji stared eyes wide at the Hybrid. At the union of Adam and Lilith.

The boy rose to his feet on wobbly unsteady legs, ash and pebble-sized debris sliding off of him as he did so. What remained of the chair and restraints clung to him stubbornly, but he was no longer bolted to the floor.

He reached out, just like he had when Lilith had first risen.

"It's over. We've won. Thank you," he panted. He spoke aloud and poured his voice across the Angel network, finding it steadied and calm with the ritual gone.

The Hybrid peered down at them, unblinking eyes fixated on Keel, Page, and then finally Shinji himself.

"You've beaten them. SEELE's finished. Lilith… you can stop. It's over," Shinji panted, hints of relief finding their way into his voice.

The Hybrid watched him silently. A looming titan that could destroy them in an instant.

"I can help you. Lilith… Rei… this isn't what she wants. Please, I can help. No more fighting. You're free…"

Shinji tried to smile. What came out was a weak purse of the lips. He was exhausted and drained from everything that had happened. From his torture, to Asuka, to Mari, and finally the return of the Hybrid.

Keel turned to him hesitantly, cracked visor revealing aged beady eyes. Page shook beside him, and the surviving guard in the room lay paralyzed with fear.

The Hybrid kept Shinji's gaze. Deep red eyes framed within pale skin that shifted from second to second, taking on different features of the First and Second Angels and often bleeding together.

Adam and Lilith spoke as one. Their voices rang out audibly, vocal cords producing sound for mortal ears. A loud and raspy voice that echoed.

"SHINJI IKARI. WE KNOW YOU."

Keel and Page flinched. They hadn't known Angels could speak.

Shinji blinked, struggling to get free of the restraints. His hands remained bound tight, and the bomb was still around his neck.

"Rei knew me-" he began.

"REI IS NO MORE."

Adam and Lilith said the words flatly, the sound ringing as two voices spoke as one.

Keel and Page cried out, blood beginning to drip down from their ears. The surviving guards did the same, and Shinji himself winced. The voice… the voice was painful to bear witness to.

"She can't be-" Shinji tried to say.

"REI IS GONE. YOU LET HER SUFFER. YOU FAILED TO SAVE HER. SHE TRUSTED YOU."

The Hybrid's eyes narrowed as pure unadulterated hatred filled its voice. It burned with a nigh divine fury that seemed to shake reality itself.

"I…" Shinji stammered.

"THESE INSECTS AND THEIR TRINKETS. THEY DEBASE THE WORK OF OUR PARENTS. THEY INSULT THOSE WHO CAME BEFORE US. BUT YOU? YOU…"

The Hybrid seethed lowering itself to look directly down at him and Shinji found himself trembling before it. He held the god's complete attention at that moment. The single most powerful being in the known universe had eyes only for him.

"WE HATE YOU MOST OF ALL, SHINJI IKARI. WE HATE YOU WITH EVERY ATOM IN THIS BODY." Adam and Lilith told him.

Dread filled him at that moment. What little relief had been building, what small sparks of hope he'd clung to, died in that moment.

The Hybrid rose once more, towering over the lot of them: Shinji, Keel, Page, and the surviving guards.

A bright light began to shine around the Hybrid's eyes, beams slowly coming to life and painting them all in a red glow. The air singed and crackled as the heat gathered.

"NOW DIE. DIE WITH THE REST OF YOUR KIND." Adam and Lilith said.

The blast was coming, the gathered glow shining bright as a star and slowly consuming their world.

Shinji hung his head.

"DIE."

The blast didn't come. Not yet. A heavy whooshing sound exploded into existence, and bright white light flashed across overhead. Suddenly the Hybrid was sent reeling back as an object a head taller than it slammed into its torso.

Harsh heavy winds erupted in the wake of the two titans colliding into each other. The sheer mass of the objects moving sent ripples of force rocking back.

The Broken Man had returned. Wings of Light protruded from Unit 00's back, and the Evangelion tackled the Hybrid forcing its face upward and away from Shinji.

An energy blast ignited the skies above casting them into an apocalyptic red. The laser went wide and missed its intended target completely before fading.

No! Stop this. We can help- Shinji heard the Broken Man try to say.

"ABOMINATION!" the Hybrid roared drowning out the time traveler. Rage and disgust audible for all to hear.

"YOU CHALLENGE US AGAIN?! SO, BE IT!"

Shinji watched breathlessly as the two clashed for the second time. Both of them weaker than they had been the first time. They span and span mid-air as their muscles strained from their face-off, neither able to overpower the other… yet.

Reality itself seemed to shimmer around them, like water rippling after dropping a stone inside, as the two mirror images of cosmic forces met for a second time. The power of the Original Adam and Lilith meeting those of the new timeline. The network went haywire at their confrontation, threads whipping wildly and burning them both.

With a cracking sound, they both launched into the skies, still locked in close combat, flying higher and higher until they disappeared heading for the upper atmosphere. Taking the fight away from them all.

The Hybrid and the Broken Man were gone. Leaving the survivors alone in the aftermath as the great forces battled it out from afar.

---

Shinji stood numb and in disbelief. His ears were ringing, and all his limbs felt heavy.

People were shouting, people were moving, and he found himself being pulled along.

"We still have the boy. Move!"

Rough hands had grabbed him. A guard… one of Keel's surviving personal guards…

Shinji blinked, coming back to the world as he saw Keel being helped to his feet. The boy struggled as a guard grabbed him in a death grip and began hauling him along by the shoulders.

He tried to resist, to pull free, but he was still a boy, and these were men.

"Sir! We need to get you out of here," the surviving guard was saying.

Three. Three of Keel's personal guards had survived their journey to the surface. The others lay where they had fallen, killed by falling debris, and given little thought.

Keel was on his feet again, a feeble and elderly man struggling to move with the help of Dr. Page. They were rushed out of the remains of the bunker, moved back onto the surface of what had once been SEELE's compound and fortress.

A wasteland greeted them when they left the remains of the bunker. The Earth had parted way, collecting into mounds on either side, to bring them above ground.

In all directions lay ruins of crumbling infrastructure, buildings damaged by Evangelion scale combat, fortifications that had fallen in on themselves. A red glow, melted concrete and steel, lay etched on what remained of the tallest structures, objects hit by the Hybrid's momentary rampage.

And bodies. Corpses and the near dying littered the grounds of the newfound wasteland of SEELE's base. People, scientists or mercenaries, stranded in the midst of all the chaos involving Keel's failed ritual.

"Get your hands off me," Shinji grunted. He struggled against his damaged restraints uselessly.

The guard pulled him along to keep pace with Keel and Page.

He reached for the Angel abilities once more. They had been slowly returning to him all this time, he couldn't say how, only that they were.

Almost!

He felt it, he felt the beginning of an AT Field at his fingertips. Little more than a flicker. Yet the light wouldn't come.

A protective ring of bodies surrounded him, Keel, and Page. The three surviving guards encircled their employer and his hostage, escorting them away from the wreckage and looking for a way out.

Vehicles sounded off nearby, and a voice boomed out from a megaphone.

"JSSDF! Surrender yourselves and the Eva Pilots!"

The JSSDF? They're on our side now? Shinji pondered. His Other had been busy, returning to his original body somehow, and piloting Unit 00. Building alliances to storm SEELE.

It was all so much to take in. He didn't have time to process this.

"Find us a way out," Keel said weakly. The Elderly Man walked with Page's assistance as the guard escorted them onward. In the doctor's free hand, lay a small device.

The trigger for the bomb, Shinji noted.

"Keep the boy close," Page instructed the guards.

Shinji scowled.

A black humvee rounded the corner, emerging from around a pile of wreckage. A JSSDF squad of mobile infantry.

Keel and the others froze as the military truck pulled to a stop blocking their way forward. The surviving guard raised their own firearms, a mix of rifles and handguns.

"JSSDF. Surrender yourself and release the Eva pilot!" a voice yelled from the humvee.

Doors opened and two soldiers stepped outside wearing the standard uniform of the Japanese military. Rifles were trained on them. Neither party fired, both groups eying the other with their firearms at the ready.

Keel's face grew pale as his guards shifted uncertainly.

Both parties stood vigil with their guns raised. A firefight was moments away from breaking out.

Only Shinji's presence was what kept the bloodbath at bay, and the boy knew it. He watched as the soldiers' eyes glanced his way. They had received orders to rescue him.

"Release the pilot and surrender yourselves!" the JSSDF ordered for the second time.

Shinji tried to step forward, but Page's sharp hands slammed into his shoulder and wrenched him back in-place. He was their bargaining chip, and he hated it.

"HZZZZZZZZZZZ."

The sound was followed by the rumble of a giant getting to its feet, upsetting the wasteland around them as debris and wreckage was forcibly shifted. The ground shook and the tiny humans upon the surface gasped in shock.

Damn it! No! Shinji thought.

"Run away! Run!" he tried to shout.

His voice was nearly drowned out as an MP Eva, perhaps the last in all existence rose like some undead nightmare from behind another mound of wreckage. Its head and faceplate were dented and cracked, having been bashed in minutes ago by the Awakened Unit 02.

The undead titan had never been killed… only wounded. In all the chaos of the Hybrid's onslaught, Unit 02's frenzied rage, and the Broken Man's return, one of SEELE's monsters had been left alive. One too many.

White flesh whirled as the MP Eva repaired itself continuously. The creature's strange eyeless face and mouth were back, its brain having healed itself, and the titan stood overlooking the scene below.

"Run!" Shinji shouted to the JSSDF.

Keel smiled coldly. "Protect us," SEELE's leader ordered.

Bullets rang out as the JSSDF squad, the would-be rescuers, fired at the undead creature above them. Sparks ignited across the MP Eva's skin uselessly as rounds slammed into its hide.

"Run!" Shinji shouted again.

The MP Eva brought its boot down upon the truck and the men inside.

SPLAT.

The mobile infantry disappeared in a mist of steel and red. Shinji flinched unable to watch. He was shaking again, a tremor in his hand returning. He nearly threw up.

The two JSSDF that had stepped out of their vehicle screamed and tried to fall back. Their guns had proven useless against an Evangelion. The men were shot down by Keel's guard, the gunfire ringing out along the wastes.

Shinji wheezed, shaking his head at all this. So much death and destruction. He wanted to shout, he wanted to cry at the futility of it all.

THUD.

THUD.

THUD.

The Last MP Eva stepped over them carefully, lumbering along slowly as it moved to protect its master. The undead creature reached its claw-like hands down, grasping Eva-sized handfuls of wreckage in its palms, and rose once more.

WHOOSH.

The MP Eva launched the gathered wreckage through the air, catapulting makeshift airstrikes throughout the wasteland. No doubt aiming for the invading JSSDF from its vantage point.

BOOM.

BOOM.

The projectiles landed with heavy thuds that seemed to explode from the sheer force involved, echoing across the land.

---

Nearby.

Amid the ruin and wastelands of SEELE's utterly destroyed fortress, lay a fallen titan impaled by two spears. Eva Unit 03 was in shambles, littered with damage, covered in dirt and chunks of debris, having been taken down moments before the Awakened Unit 02's rampage.

The Evangelion had laid where it fell throughout the insanity that followed. The Hybrid's wrath and its battle with the Broken Man far away, and now Keel's escape.

Mari opened her eyes slowly; the world came back into focus reluctantly as her mind returned to her.

She was on her side in the cockpit of the Entry Plug, held in place by the safety harness upon the Eva's fall. Her display screens were riddled with cracks, yet the computers still functioned.

"Ahhhhh" she grunted, forcing herself to move. Blood slid down the side of her face and she gasped as she felt a sharp pain in her chest.

Internal bleeding… her training told her.

Blinking slowly, she began to sit up in the cramped space of the cockpit. The sight that met her eyes stole the breath from her lungs.

A protruding hunk of metal was piercing through the Entry Plug, just feet away from where she had been sitting in her cockpit. The replica spear had reached through Unit 03's armor and cut into the Entry Plug itself, almost killing her in one blow. Instead, the spear tip was lodged in her Eva's throat.

She wheezed; her eyes wide at the realization of how close she'd come to death. She raised a hand slowly and ran her fingers along the protruding alien metal of the replica spear. It was unnaturally cool, thick, and sharp. It would have obliterated her if it had reached just another five feet…

"… Shinji…" she managed to moan.

Mari rose, her prosthetic leg whirring audibly as she did so. It was only then that she realized that her comm unit was still on and running.

"3 squads down. We need to take out that MP Eva," Lieutenant Colonel Hashi was saying.

"The Third Child-" Ritsuko tried to interrupt.

"We tried. I cannot allow that monster to run free!" Hashi barked.

Another voice joined in on the comms, Kaji. "If not for the boy, then for Keel! We need him alive! He must stand trial and expose the others!"

Hashi scowled audibly over the comm.

"My men are dying out there! We have no players in the field to match that thing. Units 00 and 03 are M.I.A."

"The Hybrid is still out there. We NEED every pilot we can get," Kaji said, doing his best to sound calm and collected.

"There has to be something. Unit 00 is out of range, but maybe we can get 02 back under control and-" Ritsuko was saying.

"That thing isn't coming back. It ran off into the wilderness like some kind of feral animal! We're on our own," Hashi said, his tone filled with disgust.

"You can't do this. No nukes!" Kaji began.

"Compromise. I'm calling for N2 bombardment. We must take that MP Eva down. I'm sorry, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few," Hashi said.

"That'll still take out the Third Child. And Keel. Not yet. Give us time, we'll think of something-" Kaji started to say.

"I'm here," Mari croaked, grabbing her comm unit. The words escaped her mouth in a wheeze and the others grew silent.

"Mari! Dear God, we thought… we thought you were down. Your vital signs aren't reading anymore," Ritsuko said over the comm channel.

"Entry Plug was hit hard. Spear managed to cut inside… some of the systems are out. But I'm here… I can fight," Mari answered.

"The continued strain on your body... I'm not sure how much you can keep taking-" Ritsuko said.

"There's no one else. Only me," Mari panted.

Momentary silence was her answer. Ritsuko didn't like the risk, and Kaji and Hashi didn't trust her. Mari didn't blame them.

"Brief me," she said, breaking the tension.

They did. They gave her a summary of what had happened. Telling her of how Unit 02 had woken and broken the ritual, only to be flung aside before then running off on its own. Of how the Hybrid had been driven off by Unit 00 into the upper atmosphere, both of them missing. Of how Keel was escaping with the protection of the Last MP Eva.

"Understood," Mari rasped.

She settled into the seat of the cockpit once more, readjusting her safety harness, and grasped the controls once more. The sync rate flashed on the cracked screen of her console, and she took control.

The phantom sensations reconnected, and Mari almost immediately cried out in pain. She bit her tongue, hard, and gritted her teeth. A spear was still impaled in Unit 03's stomach as well as its throat.

Get up, you worthless excuse for a human being…

Mari brought the Eva's hand up and reached for the spear lodged within the stomach. She grasped it tightly with the Eva and began to pull. She yanked it out slowly, cursing inwardly the whole time, bright yellow LCL gushing out as she did so.

"Ahhhhh," Mari screamed as the phantom sensations made her feel every second of it.

She removed the spear from the Eva's flesh and tossed it aside. The blood-stained metal clanged thunderously beside her.

Now for the throat.

Mari brought the Eva's hand up and carefully grasped the second spear impaled in her Eva. She screamed as she pulled it free. She wanted to close her eyes from the pain, but forced herself to look, moving carefully and steadily.

The spear tip that protruded into her Entry Plug began to recede with a heavy screech of metal on metal. She flinched as sparks flew when the foreign intrusion was pulled free, exposing a deep gash in her Entry Plug that was open to the world.

"Mari," Ritsuko muttered into the comm.

She brought the Eva up to a sitting position, debris and ash sliding off the torso as she did so. She used the spear for support and brought Unit 03 to an unsteady stand, leaning on the weapon like a cane.

Unit 03 slipped and fell to its knees. Mari cursed and used the spear to steady herself. She and her Eva knelt there, held up flimsily by the spear. Her wounds, those upon her body and those upon the Eva, ached her. She took a deep breath trying to get a hold of herself.

Sunlight bled into her cockpit, the exposed opening to her Entry Plug making her jumpy.

Mari breathed in deeply, taking in her surroundings. A lot had happened whilst she had been 'out'. She spotted them, the invading JSSDF struggling in their vehicles, small squads sent to capture SEELE and retrieve Shinji, forced back.

The Last MP Eva stood tall over them, launching weaponized ruins like projectiles at the human soldiers and scattering them back, protecting Keel's escape. Fireflies wheezed by the white dragon, firing tiny bursts of light at the creature's torso.

Military drones sprayed the Last MP Eva with hails and hails of bullets. Missiles fired leaving streaks of smoke in their wake before colliding with the sheer mass of the giant before them. Fireballs rocked across the creature's torso, little more than sparks ignited upon a mountain that moved.

"HZZZZZZ," the giant shrieked, more annoyed than hurt. Any damage already being undone as it healed. The nightmarish creature raised its pale arms outward swiping through the air in vicious displays of power and reach. Explosions and steel rain littered the skies as the drones were obliterated by the sheer mass of an Evangelion's arm.

She spotted a series of figures behind the creature moving along the newly made wasteland, like ants running across the gravel in close formation. One dragging behind as another pulled it forcefully.

Keel… Shinji… Mari thought.

BOOM.

Artillery fire slammed into the Last MP Eva and the monstrous creature shook from the force of the blow. Such crude methods would never be enough to put it down, only distract or annoy it at best.

"HZZZZZ" the white dragon hissed in disapproval at being struck. It responded by flinging more handfuls of wreckage towards the pitiful humans and their assault.

THUD.

THUD.

The kinetic strikes sounded off like artillery fire of their own. An unnatural mass driver made of flesh and undead muscle.

The Battalion Commander had been right when he'd said that they had nothing to match this monster. Even one of these horrors could slaughter an entire army. Air support and artillery be damned. For conventional weaponry, nothing short of N2 mines or Nuclear Release itself could put it down.

Has to be me… Shinji… hold on…

Mari gritted her teeth and forced herself up. She cried out as she forced her legs to work, to take the weight of her body and stand. Her Eva moved with her and before long she was standing once more. This wasn't over. Not yet.

The Last MP Eva hissed, turning its attention away from the military as it noticed her.

"Keep your people away… leave this to me," Mari whispered into the comm.

She heard Hashi ordering his troops to spread out and keep their distance, leaving the Evangelions to battle it out.

"Me and you. Last ones standing…" Mari wheezed to the beast.

She began to move, striding forward and using the spear as a walking cane. Her Eva had trouble moving on its own.

The MP Eva seemed to glare at her with its eyeless mess of a face, teeth bared menacingly. It began to come for her, boots stomping across the crater-filled grounds.

Only one shot at this… can't throw… do this up close and personal, Mari thought, stolen spear in hand.

The MP Eva began to crouch low as it ran, preparing to leap at her.

Mari stood her ground, raising the spear in a defensive stance. That caught the MP Eva's attention and it slowed. However monstrous these things appeared, they weren't simple beasts, far from it, they carried at least some rudimentary intelligence.

They circled each other. The MP Eva wary of leaping whilst she held her spear. Mari kept pace with the creature as they moved. Cars and other vehicles were crushed as they slow danced, followed by mounds of debris.

No time for this… Keel's getting away… Shinji…

She was breathing harder and harder. Her limbs felt heavier with each passing second. She wasn't right… she could feel it… if they didn't end this soon then her foe would simply outlast her.

Mari gritted her teeth and charged forward with the spear.

The MP Eva swerved narrowly dodging her spear thrust. She tried to turn her stab into a slashing motion, but her foe was ready for her. The white titan brought its arm up blocking the blunt staff of the spear, bone-cracking as the blow landed.

It wasn't enough, the MP Eva kept charging forward despite the wound. The undead monstrosity slammed into Unit 03 with all its weight behind it. The impact putting pressure onto the Eva's wounded belly.

Mari let out a blood-curdling scream as she was nearly brought down again.

No!

She planted her feet and held her ground, refusing to be brought low. She pushed back shoving the MP Eva backward where it skidded across the floor.

It came at her again before she could raise the spear. Instead, she brought her fist across its face using all the momentum she could gather.

The MP Eva screeched like a banshee. White flesh rippled visibly as the beast was struck. The thing was like a self-repairing tank. She needed to finish this or else it would keep healing itself.

Mari stabbed with the spear aiming for where the S2 engine would be, the would-be heart.

Her foe raised a hand, catching the spear tip within its grasp. The MP Eva shrieked as the blade of the spear tip cut into its palm, yet the beast pulled forward slamming its freehand onto the shaft.

The MP Eva put its weight onto the spear, forcing Mari down lower and lower as she struggled to keep the weapon in her grasp. Her foe hissed at her, trying to rip the weapon from her hands.

SNAP.

The spear broke in two and Mari stumbled back trying to put distance between her and her foe. The MP Eva pounced on her, not even bothering with the spear and letting it fall.

Mari screamed as the MP Eva sunk razor-sharp teeth into her Eva. She felt the teeth sink into Unit 03's skin, bypassing the plate armor. She dropped her half of the spear and struggled to keep her standing as the MP Eva tried to bring her to the ground.

She grasped the monster's head with both hands trying to forcibly yank it free. Warning signs flashed across her display. Together the giants tossed and turned, the MP Eva using its superior weight to its advantage.

Mari struggled just to stay on her feet, shaking within the confines of her exposed Entry Plug as the sheer kinetic forces of their movements threatened to overwhelm her in her wounded state. She almost vomited and her vision blurred.

The MP Eva reached a hand to claw at her exposed Entry Plug, trying to rip her out of the Evangelion.

Mari slammed a hand to her side, Unit 03 mimicking her every move. Her prog knife slid into the Eva's hand.

She screamed, stabbing the blade into the MP Eva's belly. Again, and again. The creature howled in agony as the knife cut deep, and its teeth released their grip on her.

Now!

Mari pressed forward and drove the knife through the MP Eva's face right in-between where the eyes should be. The blade pierced the flesh and bone and finally stopped as it reached past the skull and into the brain.

The MP Eva staggered back, thrashing wildly, with Mari's prog knife impaled in its face. The tip of the blade protruded from the back of its head.

Still, the white dragon did not die. It hissed loudly, brain-damaged, trying to rip the knife out and repairing itself even now.

Mari wheezed, moving to retrieve one half of the fallen spear. She scooped the half that held the spear tip off of the ground and charged.

"Just die already!" Mari screamed.

She slammed into the MP Eva with the broken spear in hand, impaling the monster through the torso where the heart would be. She felt the crunch as the S2 engine was hit and shattered upon impact.

The MP Eva died with a whimper, still trying to free the knife from its head in its final moments, before coming to slump against Unit 03.

Mari panted, nearly collapsing within the cockpit of her Entry Plug. It took a moment to gather herself. She shoved the MP Eva's corpse from Unit 03, guiding the enormous mass of dead flesh down slowly.

Shinji… Shinji….

She rose and Unit 03 rose with her. Warnings flashed in all caps across her displays. Entry Plug integrity issues, muscle and tissue damage, vital signs detection unavailable, life support system failing, and high-lighted limbs of the Eva that were on the verge of failing.

"You did it! You did it! Hashi's sending his men in again," Ritsuko said into the comm.

"Not done… yet…" Mari rasped. Blood was beginning to find its way into her mouth. Her time and her Eva's time was short.

Mari marched onward, forcing Unit 03 to continue. The wastelands of the compound were such a little thing to her now that the defenses were gone. She walked across in the direction she had seen Keel escaping to and crossed the distance at an incredible speed.

She was running on pure adrenaline now. Her world was in hyper-focus as the Eva's legs grew heavier and heavier, the movements sluggish and awkward. Yet she pressed forward, forcing one foot in front of the other.

Unit 03 found the escapees with ease, a giant hunting down a cluster of ants.

Keel and Page, with his surviving guard, were dragging an unwilling Shinji across the battered remains of a private airfield. Where once rows and rows of aircraft had sat waiting, now there remained less than half.

The insanity of the failed ritual, the Hybrid's rampage, and Evangelion combat, had brought destructive waves across the entire compound. Most of the aircraft lay crushed or else lost in the wasteland of wreckage from collapsed buildings and fallen debris.

"I found them," Mari wheezed. She weakly punched commands into her console and marked the position on her computer. The data would be sent to Ritsuko and by extension, the JSSDF searching for Shinji and Keel.

Like ants scurrying along, the group rushed forward in a haste trying to reach one of the aircraft and get it started. Keel fell behind with Page and an escorted Shinji.

Mari trampled her way across the airfield, her Eva leaving a trail of destruction in its wake as the giant stepped over an abandoned and crumbling air traffic controller.

Warnings flashed across her display again. Red text detailing the extensive damage the Eva had undergone and the weakening limbs that were moments away from total failure. She didn't even need the computer's diagnosis, the phantom sensations made sure she felt all of it.

Unit 03's left leg gave out on her just as she was beginning to reach her target. The Eva stumbled, falling to one knee with a fall that shook the ground. The ants scouring before her wobbled nearly falling themselves.

Mari cursed as the phantom sensations stopped working entirely for that leg. She crawled ahead on hands and one working knee, sparks flying as the Eva skidded across the pavement.

Keel and the others were panicking with the towering sight of the Eva closing on them.

Mari gritted her teeth and pushed the Eva forward. Ritsuko was speaking into her comm, telling her to stop and warning about the strain to her already injured body. She ignored the scientist, her mind focused only on one goal.

"Ahhhh," Mari wheezed, racing forward in her crawl bounding past the little ants that had fallen behind. She went around them, careful not to hurt the boy.

With her last ounce of strength, she let the Eva fall to its final resting place as its body finally began to give out. Mari swept Unit 03's arm out in one last act of defiance. She smashed the last row of surviving aircraft into bits, crushing them under the weight of a falling titan.

CRUNCH.

The aircraft vanished under her Eva's outstretched arm, taking two of Keel's only surviving guards with them. SEELE's leader was down to one.

Mari smiled as Unit 03 lost all ability to move. Not out of power, simply too wounded to carry forward as its muscles gave out. No escape for you… Keel… not anymore.

The cockpit shook and the safety harness pulled against her body keeping herself steady as her Eva collapsed.

Mari blinked, feeling so very tired and surprisingly old. Moments flashed before her eyes, memories from a life that she scarcely could believe was her own.

She was a young girl, sitting across from Keel Lorenz in a darkened room.

"You will be placed in the Eva Program. He will be there before you will. You will be his friend, and if need be, you will be more for him. Gain his trust. Give him what no one else ever has," Keel told her. His words were law, uncompromising and irrefutable. Even her parents bowed to this man.

She was a teenager, now officially emancipated from her parents, walking out of a courthouse with strange unfamiliar men by her side. She was to begin her training for Eva piloting by the end of the day.

She was an Eva Pilot, working against Gendo Ikari from within and sent to spy on the asset. She sat in her apartment with Page across from her.

"Be kind to him. Give him a shoulder to cry on. Shinji may not pursue you given his long isolation. If so, you will pursue him," Page told her.

She was a spy, a traitor, giving reports on the asset throughout the Angel War.

"He's an odd boy, but kind. He's lonely. The dummy wears his heart on his sleeve. He's… sweet… afraid of being alone. I can use that."

She had witnessed the voice in action. The 'Other' itself.

"The thing in his head… the Angel... it doesn't like me… I think it might suspect. But… it doesn't want to take me away from him… it doesn't want to hurt the boy…" she reported.

Mari hiccupped from within the cockpit of the Entry Plug. Tears welling up within her eyes at the fragments of a life that she was revolted of.

She had made so many mistakes. She had hurt the only person who had cared about her. Memories of the boy who had held her hand when no one else did came flashing by, the one who hadn't cared about the scars…

She still remembered the day she'd woken from her coma with her missing leg, and the naïve foolish boy that had been waiting for her. The first face she had laid eyes on after narrowly escaping death itself.

"Don't be scared. I'm here," the boy had whispered to her. Holding her close as if afraid to lose her.

She had tried to send him away, but he had refused to leave her. He had kissed her even when her face had been a tangle of scars and burns. He had found worth in a cripple… he had found beauty where there was none to be had inside or out. Her dummy hadn't thrown her away like her masters had…

Mari hiccupped, crying silently. Her world turning black.

She only wished she could have done more.

---

Shinji fell to his knees bringing the guard escorting him down with him. Keel and Page stumbled nearly falling themselves.

The ground rumbled around them like a miniature earthquake as Unit 03 collapsed onto the airfield and landed atop the row of surviving aircraft. The Eva crushed them, the escape vehicles disappearing under the heavy plate armor and taking with them two of the three remaining guards that Keel had had.

SEELE's leader stood back watching the scene in disbelief. His face, already bloodied from the Hybrid tearing his bunker to the surface, went pale. Page was at his side, having had to help the elderly man as they ran.

They were down to four. Keel himself, Page, and finally Shinji and the guard who had pulled him along in what remained of his restraints.

"Sir. We must find another way… the Eva is down…" Page said slowly, coming to grips with the sight before her.

Unit 03 lay like a corpse just feet from where they had been. It had fallen in a guided descent, the pilot knowing that they were going down and choosing to deny them their escape. A massive carcass of metal and alien flesh that lay before them.

Keel didn't respond. The elderly man looked around at the devastation that surrounded him. At what remain of his former fortress, designed to withstand an assault from Evangelion Units and military alike, at the ruins of what was to be the staging ground of his ascension.

"Sir. Sir," Page called to her distant employer.

Shinji barely paid attention to them. He gazed up at the fallen Unit 03 before him in awe, before bringing himself back into the here and now. So much had happened, and just as before he didn't have the time to process it all, he had to focus.

Almost there! Almost there!

The Angel abilities were returning to him and had been for some time now. Slowly but surely. He could feel it, the spark that lay at his fingertips.

"Get up!" his guard shouted, tugging roughly at the caller of the bomb strapped to his neck.

Shinji stayed on his knees reaching deeper and deeper into the power that had been shared with him.

"I said get up," the last of Keel's guard said. The soldier reached down to haul him to his feet by force.

Instead, a brilliantly bright shield of solid light erupted forth. The AT Field materialized into existence, breaking the restraints that had bound Shinji's hands for what seemed like hours now. The battered remnants of the chair fell with an audible thud. The boy was free.

The guard screamed as the AT Field didn't stop. The multi-colored solid light spread out in its octagonal design and sliced through the guard's knee. The man's leg was almost completely severed in that instant.

Shinji was careful, angling the AT Field away from himself.

Now!

He slammed the AT Field into the guard and the alien forces whirled sending the wounded man flying back several feet like a rag doll. The shield faded as the last of Keel's guard landed unconscious in the distance, bleeding heavily.

Page gasped, Keel turned silently watching in disbelief.

Shinji rose, turning to the two figures from his past and present. Page stepped forward placing herself in front of Keel and began fumbling into her coat pocket.

"Calm yourself. There's no need for-" Page began, retrieving the detonator to the bomb around his neck.

Shinji panted, running on pure adrenaline now. He was on his own, no Broken Man to guide him, but he knew he could do it. He had to. He'd seen his Other manipulate AT Fields into blades, burning brighter and stronger than before.

The boy brought his unrestrained hands to the bomb around his neck. The strap was like a belt, locked tight around him, but the explosive itself was a separate thing. It was a small rectangular shape.

He strained, focusing on the powers that had been shared with him. He brought forth the AT Fields again, but didn't let them spread out into a shield like always. Instead, he shaped the foreign substance into a bubble.

It was inconsistent, rough, but whole. The multi-colored lights wrapped around the bomb on his neck, encasing it entirely.

Shinji gasped feeling blood begin to slide down his face as his nose began to bleed. Page and Keel were staring astounded at his control of the AT Fields.

He was losing his breath; he couldn't hold this long. He willed the 'bubble' of solid light tighter and began to crush the bomb. Page didn't have to trigger the explosion. Keel had warned that if tampered with, the device would ignite, and so it did.

The adults flinched, stepping backward. A bright flash of white illuminated the scene, casting shadows in all directions. Shinji closed his eyes tight, almost tearing up from the effort, the AT Fields containing the explosion inside its prison.

The blast was a living thing. It thrashed outward wanting to spread out, but he held it contained in its cage of solid light. Seconds stretched on that seemed to last for an eternity and still, the boy held it back.

Be brave… be brave… he thought.

In that moment, Shinji was back at Mount Asama. He was back in that damned volcano with Asuka and holding an N2 mine's destructive force at bay. He could do this… he knew he could… he had done it before.

Be brave… be brave…

The blinding white faded leaving behind only a shining multi-colored bubble around his neck. Shinji groaned, falling to his knees as he let the shield drop. Ashes fell from where the bomb had been, what remained of the strap sliding to the floor.

He had contained the explosion inside a prison of carefully controlled AT Fields.

Shinji's world darkened, the world threatening to close in on him. It drained him, using these abilities when he was so injured and exhausted, still recovering from the drugs forced into his system.

He heard heels skittering across the pavement and he shot up as he glimpsed Page breaking into a run. The 'doctor' was reaching for the unconscious guard he'd sent flying moments ago, reaching for the gun the man had dropped.

Shinji brought forth the AT Field from his palm, forming a solid shield of light in an octagonal pattern, an act he'd done a thousand times before with his Eva.

The movements came naturally to him by now. He used his AT Field like a cross between riot shield and battering ram, being careful even here not to kill. He charged the woman.

Page screamed as she went flying just as the guard from before had. The alien forces did most of the work for him, exerting outward upon contact. Page was tossed like a rag doll and landed hard upon the pavement breaking her jaw in a sickening snap before losing consciousness too.

Shinji slid to the ground, having to catch his fall. Vomit came shooting up from his throat and he couldn't stop it. He threw up on the floor, sluggish limbs almost giving out on him. The abilities took their toll.

Not yet... can't black out… yet… one more…

The boy wobbled to his feet again, fist clenched, and ready to use the abilities one final time. Mari had destroyed the Last MP Eva, the getaway vehicles, and taken out most of Keel's surviving guards in the process. He'd taken down the rest with one exception.

Shinji whirled, his heart hopped up on adrenalin, fight or flight instinct raging and finally faced Keel himself. The man who had shaped his life just as much if not more than Gendo had.

SEELE's leader stood off to the side, leaning on his one good leg, having lost his walking cane some time ago, head lowered as if in mourning.

Keel made no move to oppose him. No rash or desperate acts as Page had. No shock and awe as the last guard had had. Once a powerful figure, still and silent as a statue. The elderly man didn't even seem to care about his employees lying unconscious several feet away. One of whom had most likely lost a leg. The other having broken their jaw.

"It's over, my boy. You have won."

Keel's voice was empty and drained, defeated. The elderly man raised his head surveying the chaotic wastelands that were once his fortress, the seat of his would-be ascension to godhood.

"Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair..." Keel muttered quietly, barely a whisper.

Shinji stood on edge, breathing as if he'd run miles, which he had practically been forced to. He stared at this man who had once moved the world to his will… now standing glumly to the side.

Slowly, the boy wiped the vomit from his bruised face. He didn't know what was happening and that left him on edge. He held the power at the tip of his fingers, ready to call it at a moment's notice. Ready to send Keel flying too.

Keel turned to face him, cracked visor revealing wrinkled eyes that barely functioned, and met his gaze evenly.

"I had hoped to negotiate for your release. To ensure my escape. Alas, it is not to be. Regardless, the Hybrid is loose. I could not control it."

Keel gestured beyond him, and Shinji was almost afraid to look. What next? After everything this man had orchestrated and prepared for… it was over… just like that.

Shinji heard it before he turned to see what Keel had gestured at.

Trucks raced along the wasteland of SEELE's former compound. The JSSDF were already on their way. Behind Keel, more of the soldiers appeared. A scattered formation of armed Humvees closing in on the airfield, breaking through the smog and clutter of the ruined buildings. The would-be rescuers would be arriving soon.

Shinji let the power fade from his fingertips. With the JSSDF on their way, it really was over it seemed.

Keel didn't bother to look at the newcomers approaching from behind. The elderly man had been the first to notice after all.

"The pawns have come to capture the king. And I cannot stop them. Not today," Keel said looking away.

That… that's it… after all the suffering he's caused… he… he's not afraid. He doesn't think we can touch him! It's all a game to him!

A hatred that he had only ever known for his father rose in him again. Shinji had only ever seen fear once in SEELE's leader, and that had been with the Hybrid towering over them. Humans… Keel didn't fear them.

Shinji punched him in the face.

He couldn't stop himself. After everything that he had been through, not just today, but his entire life, and every single life that had been ruined by SEELE, it all came bursting out.

"Ahhhhh," Keel gasped, truly shocked at such an act. The elderly man probably hadn't known pain for decades, if ever.

Keel fell on his back, aged legs failing him as he was brought to the ground. His expensive clothes, already covered in ash, were stained and darkened by the dirt and grime.

CRACK.

The visor shattered upon the impact. The device split in two. Glass had sprayed in all directions as the lenses imploded. Pieces of the glass cut into Shinji's hand from the blow, and he found that he didn't care whatsoever.

Keel groaned from where he lay on the floor, unable to even stand without his walking cane, unable to see without his visor to aid him. Arguably the world's single most powerful man reduced to an old and dying decrepit without his wealth and influence.

The JSSDF were approaching from all sides, surrounding the area to capture SEELE's leader, and rescue him at long last.

"Mari…" Shinji gasped.

He turned and left Keel behind, turning his attention to the fallen Unit 03. Shinji raced through the wreckage around him and climbed his way atop via the shoulder. He worked his way up to the Entry Plug and found the emergency release. He managed to pull the lever. With a hiss of compressed air, the metal tube was ejected, sliding off to the battered airfield and rolling to a stop on the ground.

Something wasn't right.

There had been too little air vented during the process. It was only then that he spotted the gap along the Entry Plug itself, a spear blow that had pierced inside and almost reached the pilot within.

Shinji rushed his way down and found the bay doors. With a grunt, he pulled the manual release, his muscles aching the entire time, and forced the bay doors open.

Mari lay inside.

The girl was suspended by her safety harness, eyes closed, her short-cropped hair dripping with red. His former girlfriend was thinner than he remembered, the plugsuit looked wrong on her in her state. She'd lost too much weight since being hospitalized and then forced to pilot.

She shouldn't be here… why… she doesn't belong here… not like this…

He looked over the girl and didn't know what to feel. Part of him wanted to weep and cry, part of him wanted to shout, to rage against her betrayal. A thousand questions raced inside him, a thousand insults, a thousand cries of concern.

Instead, his eyes widened as he saw her legs.

She's wearing a prosthetic…

The last time he'd seen her, she'd been confined to a wheelchair, barely beginning her physical therapy and training to walk with crutches. She'd been nowhere near a condition to pilot.

My Other… he did this…

He reached inside the cockpit feeling numb the entire time and got her out of the safety harness. His hands trembled as he took her meager weight into his arms. He didn't realize that he stopped breathing, had stopped blinking, until after he had heaved her out of the Entry Plug.

"… Mari…" he croaked, dragging her gently onto the surface of the ruined airfield.

The teenage spy was pale, just like when he had found her after the Five Angel Crisis. She was as light as a feather, or maybe he was so exhausted that he no longer felt the ache in his muscles. He couldn't say.

He held her in his arms. His first friend in the whole world. His first love. His betrayer who had hurt him so deeply that he'd been forced to place his pain in a box just to survive. Now, the box opened like another wound.

She stirred in his grasp, eyes opening ever so slightly.

Mari smiled at him with red-filled eyes. She had been crying.

"Hey, dummy… we… we look like shit… don't we…" she rasped. Her voice was like a gentle whisper in the night, barely audible.

"… why… why are you here?" Shinji said slowly. He felt his lips trembling as the words left his mouth, his heart ached at the sound of her voice.

His face contorted as he felt on the verge of tears.

"Why you… why pilot… after everything… you betrayed me… you… how could… was it all for nothing… I…" he stammered. He couldn't finish any of it. The untold multitude of questions and responses, none of them came into focus. He held her never knowing what to say or what to feel.

"Had to… help… couldn't… leave you with… Keel… not him…" Mari whispered to him.

She knew him. Not 'sir' or 'boss', she called him by his first name…

Shinji looked away forcing the tears to stop before they overwhelmed him.

He felt her feeble hand on his cheek, and he gasped. The fabric of the plugsuit was damp and cold to the touch.

She brought his gaze back to her and she looked so very old in that moment. Not the girl that he had known… not the girl that he had thought he knew. Not the vibrant wild girl so full of life, loud where he was quiet, adventurous where he was cautious.

No, the girl before him was almost a stranger wearing the face of an old friend. It was wrong… she was pale as a corpse, her face scarred and with aged hollow eyes that almost mirrored his own. It wasn't right… she was too young to have those scars... too young to have those eyes…

"I'm not… a good person…" she rasped.

He didn't know what to say.

"I'm sorry… I'm so sorry… you were the only one… the only one who ever cared about me. Not even my parents did… I didn't… deserve you…" Mari croaked, her voice a low broken thing, tears trailing down the side of her face.

"… we'll talk… I don't… we need to get you help…" Shinji said slowly. He breathed deeply barely noticing as his lungs struggled to take in new air.

The JSSDF was almost here. The armored Humvees closing in around them.

Mari smiled sadly at him and he saw the blood staining her teeth. She almost laughed and winced weekly at the pain it caused her.

"… hold on… we'll get you out of here and… and we'll talk…" he said weakly.

He turned to the oncoming JSSDF racing towards him and shouted. "I need a medic!"

Mari shook her head and Shinji trembled. "No, dummy… not this time…" she managed to say.

Her hand fell from his face and he moved to take it, their fingers intertwining like they had countless times before. From when they were children in a supposed mental ward, to when they were a couple and teenagers on the verge of adulthood.

"You're too good for this world… you really are…" she whispered.

Mari was staring up at him. Hollow eyes alight with the barest spark of joy. A kind of sorrowful hope amid the darkest of times. She was happy to see him again. He could feel it in her gaze.

She still had that look in her eyes when the life faded from her. She grew still. She died with her eyes open.

Shinji sat with the girl in his arms and cradled her close. Numbly, as if someone else was doing it, not himself or even his Other, he reached deep for the Woman in the Dark. He reached for Lilith and her sorcery.

It burned him to reach so far, to push himself to grab a power that he had no experience with. A power that required years of training to use. For it required a precision that even the greatest surgeon alive would find challenging.

Shadows emerged from the palm of his hand. Weak little things that faltered in the sun, struggling not to fade. He brought the shadows to the girl in his arms and felt a small universe of information open to him.

It wasn't enough. Mari was already gone. And even if he'd been faster… he knew that he didn't have the skill to save her.

He let the shadows fade into nothing and held the corpse close to him. Silent tears fell from his eyes, no longer able to hold them back. He knelt there in the ruins of the airfield, holding his dead girlfriend in his arms.

Distantly he heard the Humvees come to a screeching stop. Boots slammed onto the ground and footsteps came storming out. The JSSDF had arrived. The military took the wounded and immobile Keel into custody and handcuffed him. They took Dr. Page and the surviving guard into custody as well.

Soldiers swore aloud at the sight of the fallen Unit 03, and what Shinji had done to his kidnappers. The JSSDF stood protectively over him, radioing into their superiors that the pilot had been rescued.

Shinji himself barely noticed. He felt apart from the world around him as the events transpired. Lost and so very alone. Everything and everyone around him moving as if in a dream.

A soldier was talking to him. Another was checking him for wounds. A medic tugged on Mari's body trying to pull her away.

"She's gone, lad. Let her go," a voice said.

Shinji blinked, barely registering the words. He kept looking into the eyes of his first friend. They were empty now; whatever spark had once been there having faded.

"Incoming!" a voice shouted suddenly.

His instincts kicked in, his months of Eva piloting forcing him to return to the world. He stirred and looked up to see a bright light coming down upon them all. A falling meteor was burning up in the sky as it descended.

Men and women gasped as the JSSDF tried to move out.

Instead, the meteor slowed. The object shining a bright white as it resisted the friction generated by its fall from the atmosphere and the pull of Earth's gravity.

Evangelion Unit 00 uncurled itself from its wounded position. Wings of Light erupted into existence as it fought to regain control of its descent. It succeeded.

The Eva came to a hover over them all. AT Field powered wings flapping as it slowly and carefully began to land. It was covered in wounds, with the plate armor missing in several sections, and burns across its chest.

The Broken Man landed beside the small gathering of humans. Maneuvering Unit 00 carefully as huge gulfs of wind raced forth as it came to a stop. The old man had survived and returned from his second battle with the Hybrid.

The Wings of Light disappeared, and Unit 00 knelt. The Eva panted heavily in the open air using a broken replica spear just to stay up. It had been Awakened and still only barely walked away from the fight.

"Hold. It's on our side," the JSSDF were reporting suddenly.

Shinji only looked up into the faceplate of the damaged and Awakened Unit 00. He watched as the Eva turned its gaze to him, and he felt the Broken Man's eyes on him.

He felt the gaze of his Other travel from him to the dead girl in his arms. Neither spoke to each other. Shinji and Shinji. The boy and the old man.

Why her? Why hadn't you come sooner? If only you'd been here… if only we'd been stronger… if only I hadn't been captured… the words and a thousand others never came.

Memories flashed of an old man in the snow burying a woman, giving her a proper grave when there had been none. A figure cradling a corpse in their arms. A haunting image that echoed across both timelines. Two Shinji(s) and two Mari(s).

Shinji turned back to the dead girl in his arms. He rose carrying the body with him and numbly followed after the JSSDF. SEELE had been stopped and he had been rescued.

What a victory this was.

---

I found these last two chapters very hard to write. No victory is without cost.
Our poor Shinji has a hard life.

What do you think about Mari now? After everything?

What did you think about Keel's fall and SEELE's failure? The Hybrid? The glimpse of Asuka's mom?
Are you surprised that this wasn't the final chapter?

Thanks again for Reading, and please Review!