.hack/EVA: Catharsis: Onset of Fimbulwinter

Disclaimer: In this universe in the quantum foam, I do not own or in any way shape or form hold a claim to the .hack series or Neon Genesis Evangelion (or of course, any other copyrighted works I might reference here).

" " denotes speech

'italics' denotes thought

'bold' denotes location names

'bold italics' denotes skill use

Apartment 402, Tokyo-3

As usual, the residence of radiated a sense of calm and comfort—if, of course, one had an extremely Spartan sense for aesthetics, and enjoyed being in the middle if a construction zone. Granted, it was useful in that it provided limited hiding spaces for intruders, but then, Tabris was far from an ordinary intruder. In the past few days, there had been one too many aberrations from his scenario—an issue he planned to remedy here and now with the destruction of Rei Ayanami, something which he felt should not prove too difficult, as the grey haired youth was quite possibly the most powerful of the AIDA-Angels, blessed with the powers of the Fruit of Life, as well as that of the Shadow.

'I am afraid, First Child, that your actions constitute a possible threat to my scenario,' he thought to himself as his form took shape within the shadows of the blue-haired girl's apartment. 'But then, even though we are alike, you have chosen to stand with the Lilim and defy fate—choosing destruction in the end, as expected of a descendant of the Usurper. I thought it would be enough to simply place you in a coma and bind your mind to AIDA, but it appears I was wrong…'

The AIDA-Angel's lips twitched up in amusement as he surveyed his surroundings, eyes tracking across the bleak and lifeless room until they came at last to the figure of a young girl sleeping on her bed. She appeared to be having a pleasant dream, pleasant moans and sighs escaping her lips as she shifted ever so slightly.

'Ah, trapped in delusion, like your other mortal colleagues…once perhaps I might have asked you to join me in destroying this world's light, that you might cleanse yourself of the Lilim taint you bear. However, I see you have chosen the illusory path, running from the inescapable to buy yourself some time to satisfy your desire for this fleeting, transitory life. Troubled you seem…let me give you peace.'

Silently, he floated towards the sleeping girl, stretching out a hand so as to touch her and destroy her mind, smirking as he moved closer and closer, the sharp scent of ozone making itself known, with ribbons of energy swirling about in his left hand.

"Goodbye, First Child," he whispered whimsically—only to be smashed aside like a rag doll as the blue-haired girl moved, slamming her legs into the grey haired youth's gut, springing up out of bed faster than he would have thought humanly possible with a cry of "Not-so-loving Boomerang Kick!"

The sheer force of the brutal impact sent the AIDA-Angel reeling, as Zefie followed up with twin strikes to the temple and a palm strike to the face that broke Kaworu's nose with a very satisfying crunch as he crashed into the wall. But unfortunately, the Fourth Child was not without his own AIDA-inspired tricks, releasing a fistful of lighting that hurled the Child of Dawn away from him, giving him some space.

'So she has chosen to fight…even if she knows that it is futile in the end,' he groused, now somewhat irked—not only had he failed to simply kill the First Child in her sleep, but she had actually dared to strike him, he who was the avatar of judgment, who merely wished to bring the Lilim to their eternal rest. 'And the technique…'

"You are not a Lilim, and yet you stand with them, so die with them in turn," the Fourth said coldly, once more hurling arcing bolts of electricity at the girl from his hands, serpents of lightning hissing as they coursed through the space between, seeking out their chosen victim like dragons of the lesser void—but striking at nothing, as their target had vanished. "What?!"

'But a human is incapable of moving at that…'

Feeling an aura of hostility and bloodlust behind him, Kaworu instinctively threw himself flat, thereby (narrowly) avoiding being bisected by a sword of light in Zefie's right hand. Growling, he rose to his feet, spinning and shaping a lance of energy in his hands to counter the blue-haired girl's odd choice of weapon, drawing upon the innate power of an Angel (but avoiding projecting an AT Field at all costs, as he didn't want to be discovered as such by NERV—not yet anyway).

"No, I'm not a human, I concede that," Zefie observed, slightly singed from the storm of electric current that had shot her way. And yet, she seemed almost amused, her lips tugging up into an ironic twist as she shaped a long dagger in her left hand. "But it seems I am a better messenger of free will than you will ever be, Tabris!"

Clang! Sparks flew as the two duelists clashed now in earnest, twin swords and lance crisscrossing, rebounding, striking once and again with attacks calculated to take the neck of the other's wielder. The Fourth strikes as a powerful wave upon the shore, each blow savage in nature—the First like the capricious power of wind, concealing intent as her motions flow one into the next to repel the enemy—but of a certainty, both are using lethal force within the confines of the room.

Though it was only Tabris who came with the intention to kill, while Zefie's mission is of a different nature, this concern is secondary now that the battle has started.

Whoosh! The Child of Dawn sidesteps the hurtling energy lance, pushing it away with one blade of light, while the other thrusts quickly at the temple, an attack Kaworu flips away from just in time. Defending herself in this situation does not mean holding back, as she cannot against an Angel, merely that if her weapon should happen to strike a critical but nonfatal blow, she will refrain from finishing the treacherous being on the spot.

Perhaps in that case, Tabris will still die in due time, if he does not unseal his full might, but that is not Zefie's concern—her concern is with Tabris' mind and the AIDA and fragments of divinity housed within it.

Whir! Clash! Clang! The demonic lance of coruscating energy invades her circle of control each time it is thrust, probing her defenses—it is only natural, as they are not fighting within The World, but the physical world, where if anything, the Angel housing the soul of Adam holds sway.

Still…

"You are angry, it seems, Tabris," she taunted her foe, daggers whirling and crashing upon the lance of light. "How very human of an emotion that is...."

In response, the Seventeenth Angel sneered, his attacks, redoubled in power, joined by a fierce discharge of electricity, catching the Child of Dawn by surprise and throwing her out the open window.

'It would be too much to hope that she was killed by the fall, wouldn't it?' the Fourth Child asked himself, walking warily over to the window and leaning over, only for a certain blue-haired girl, having plunged her daggers into the side of the building to use as footholds, to grab onto his mop of grey hair and yank him out of the building along with her, jamming yet another dagger into his free shoulder to keep him from grabbing her in turn. 'AUUGH!'

While the battle had not been fought in The World, Zefie did have the experience having observed of the instincts of millions in duels against one another or against monsters. She had learned a few things about the art of war, including how to predict an enemy's attacks, to counter them, and to fight with nerves of steel.

Unfortunately, Tabris flailed as he plummeted down, his legs wind-milling about, knocking the Child of Dawn from her perch, sending both of them into a lurching drop to the ground—before both vanished, simultaneously reappearing in the middle of the glassy crater left at Nobeyama after EVA-03's destruction. Standing there in the pale moonlight, they stood, champion of the Angels and champion of the Lilim, weapons drawn and ready as both opponents blurred, rushing at each other, exchanging blows faster than any mortal eye could track.

"I will not let you interfere after I have come this far, First Child," Tabris said with a smirk, loosing another surge of forked lightning. "Drown in your ideals and die, spawn of Lilith!"

But this time, Zefie caught the crackling storm of energy on her blades, absorbing the lightning into one of her swords—and hurling it back, the redirected energy crossing with the original stream, warping one another's trajectories so that both went veering off wildly, grounding out on the sea of glass around them. Her other dagger of light was hurled down in front of the grey-haired youth, coming to ground—detonating into a cross-flare that meted out divine punishment to a rogue angel defying destiny.

"Spawn of Lilith, am I?" Zefie asked, stalking forward, tracing a sword out of thin air to replace the lost dagger, kicking the ground and launching herself at the Angel of Free Will. "Then at my hands of my vessel, meet your demise, avatar of Adam!"

Her movements, fast to begin with, had increased in speed to the point of absurdity, like a bodkin arrow streaking for the Seventeenth Angel's heart. Whirr bang! He countered her aerial assault by launching himself bodily into the air, arrow to meet arrow, as lance met dual swords and the two figures collided, two unstoppable forces meeting their match in midair.

And as yet, both had yet to unveil their most powerful techniques, defensive or offensive, not wanting to risk discovery by undesired parties.

'This being is far more of a threat to my scenario than I had originally calculated,' Tabris thought to himself, his arms moving on their own as he struck and parried, his mood souring as he was shaken from his usual calm. Having taken the 'First Child' all too lightly in the beginning, he was now fighting for his life, with his desired assassination foiled. '…she is displaying all the power of an Angel, but is not bound by their will!'

In his limited state, he had struck fiercely with conventional techniques, attempting to kill his opponent quickly, or at least disable her that he might overpower her with his mind, but he had underestimated the quality of resistance that the First would put up. It was almost as if she were not the First at all, but—

'That's it…someone is possessing the First's body, a being who knows the power of the Angels and is capable of using it to full advantage,' he realized, wincing at the thought. This had to be a gambit of the miserable Dark Queen Helba, as no one else would be audacious enough to use a coma victim as a tool except well…him. 'The situation is rapidly spiraling out of control—clearly I will have to end this quickly, taking the risk of exposing my nature to eliminate a major threat.'

Spinning about to disengage from the effective strike range of the blue-haired girl, the Fourth Child somersaulted backwards, then hurled two shafts of light into the sky, where they streaked on out of sight—continuing out of the atmosphere, where they reamed and gutted the two surveillance satellites that would have passed over the area in a matter of minutes.

'Brute force is a crude, but effective measure against the delicate Fruit of Knowledge. At the very least, this will buy me some time to utterly destroy the First, or at least the being inside her mind.'

"You caught me by surprise, Child of Dawn," he said with a smirk, projecting his energy lances once again. "I must say, that was a clever gambit, possessing another body, much as one of we Angels might have done once. Your dear Queen of the Dark has her wits about her, it seems, but it ends now."

Indeed, for an Angel of Vengeance housing the soul of Adam, one might say Tabris had been going easy on his opponents up to now, failing to take those who would try to stop him seriously. Part of this was that he had not found a worthy opponent up until now, with all of his foes proving vulnerable in the end—that is perhaps why he had not been anticipating a struggle this time.

'For Rei Ayanami could not defend against me when I placed her in a coma in The World…'

So thinking, he launched one last full-force attack, his weapons crashing against Zefie's dual swords in a shower of sparks as he used the momentum of the blow to spring away, reabsorbing the energy lances into his body, as his eyes lit up with malice. He pulls away, and in an instant, the atmosphere changes, the air freezing, as the true power of the Seventeenth Angel (sans AT Field) was made manifest, his small body floating up in the air, as four wings of light erupted from his back, and glowing lines of power began to be drawn into his form, surrounded by the shadows.

"Meet my demise?" he growled, in a voice that could drive even the crows from a battlefield. "Au Contraire, dear goddess of the wind…I think it time for an unnatural being to die…and what better way than by the power of the wind itself."

A divine power herself, Zefie could feel the unnatural shift in power, could understand the meaning of Tabris' "retreat" of sorts—the soul of Adam caused Second Impact, and while the attack about to be unleashed would not be on that level, it would be damnably close…

'Close enough, at least, to annihilate every living being within the glass enclosure…a fatal blow guaranteed to destroy any mortal, regardless of how strong…a garden of depletion, draining the power and life energy of the environment itself to satisfy the bloodlust of the Angelic thirst for vengeance.'

The winds themselves shuddered in protest as Tabris, reaching out, bound them to his will, shaping a howling coil that would tear his opponent into shreds, cut her apart as a katana might shred bundled grass. Even from the distance, his murderous intent was unmistakable, as one way or another, he intended to prevail over this pretender.

Eyes narrowing, Zefie tossed her two dual swords at the glowing figure, sending them flying with all the strength she could manage, detonating them into cross-flares, but to no avail, as the energy released in those blasts was simply absorbed by the Seventeenth Angel as well.

"Why not surrender?" the kindly voice asked from above. "There is no way to prevail against an avatar of fate, for even you will one day die."

Ignoring it, Zefie stepped back, closed her eyes and focused, mumbling a sort of arcane gibberish under her breath…perhaps a prayer to a higher power? Or perhaps…

"It has been an honor to fight against such an impetuous foe, lady of wind!" Tabris cackled as he raises his hands in the air, and with a downward slash, unleashes the untamed powers he had gathered in one final destructive blow, with even the energies bleeding off to the side enough to kill a mere human. "This is your end!"

Space and time themselves distorted, as a massive shaft of light came smashing down with a roar, an attack that cannot be avoided and will never miss, the destructive will of the First Angel taken form and focused against a single spread of earth, guaranteeing total annihilation to any mortal foolish enough to have triggered it.

It hurtles towards the blue-haired girl, who at the last moment closes her eyes as if accepting her death, whispering: "Etaf fo lasrever," insignificant words swallowed up by the great wave of destruction, drawing nearer, nearer—

"Lily of the Hurricane!"

The quiet shout shakes the very air as it is spoken, as the shaft of terrible light crashes into a form of azure light—a shape appearing from empty space, solidifying into a shield shaped a great red spider lily—the hurricane of immortal memories. The wave of destruction that dooms any mortal and destroys all in its path has been stopped.

A great storm rages at the boundary layer, as celestial wrath rains down upon the sepals and petals, each composed of myriad hexagons of light, the greatest protection permitted the goddess, the ancient symbol of immortality through memory—and given that she was a goddess in a world of data—it was said to be invincible in protection against the Wave.

Even so, this is another world, and the power being opposed was also that of the divine—one after another, the tendrils of the flower fall, though sapping away its power a little a little at a time, splintering before the onslaught. One after another, the layers break, until—

"Nuaaaa!"

The power of Second Impact coalesced into a holy weapon of despair, against that might--

With a cry of effort, Zefie draws all she can from the power of her divinity, putting her faith into the great shield.

A sound of something splintering—light washes over where the Child of Dawn stood now unprotected, a cascade of power that crashed down, continuing unabated for over a minute. When it was over, nothing remained in that space, and Kaworu smirked—

"GUH!"

But only until a blade was plunged into his back, jerked forward and up to sever the spinal cord, and a cross-flare erupted with the epicenter in his gut, flinging him away like a rag doll. When he halted himself, there was a squelching sound, as another weapon lanced through him—the tips of a two pronged spear emerged from his lower abdomen. Turning around with great effort and a hateful snarl, he saw a heavily wounded blue-haired girl, her face strained in pain from the injuries sustained as she twisted the spear.

With a last surge of power, his fingers make contact with her forehead and he forces an entrance, intending to destroy the girl from within, or perhaps to possess her form. For if this body were about to be put out of commission, perhaps he could still achieve his goal by taking over the body of the conqueror, tricking all of his foes in turn.

There was a flash of light, and then Tabris found himself within the hinterlands mind of the Child of Dawn, lips slowly smirking at his inevitable victory as he—

"Loving Boomerang Tackle!"

—was ruthlessly smashed aside by a glowing Longhorn Grunty, upon which rode a saffron-haired girl clad in a flowing white dress, holding a long red spear with two shafts twisting around themselves to form a helix and then becoming straight—said spear leveled at Tabris' heart.

"Didn't I warn you? You alone, I do not bless," the saffron-haired girl whispered in a deathly tone, glaring at Siarl with cold and angry eyes, a glare that caused the Seventeenth Angel to try to escape from the mind he had invaded, but to no avail. "It's no use…this space is under my data jurisdiction, no one may leave or enter without my will.'

Surely with his Angelic heritage and power, Tabris could find a way out of this place, even if that place was inside the mind of a being greater than human who clearly did not wish for him to escape. So within the mind, where it would not be detected, he raised his AT Field—the most powerful of that of any Angel—a defense that was instantly shredded by the rampaging power of a Longhorn Grunty as it pierced through like a demonic bullet, with the girl Zefie jamming her Lancea Longinus into the AIDA-Angel's gullet, protect breaking it in one blow..

'Oh…crap.'

"And now, you can get out of my mind…" the Child of Dawn said with a wicked smile, lifting her right arm to reveal the sepals of the Twilight Bracelet. "Data Drain!"

An agonizing scream was heard as both returned to the real world, with Tabris having fallen into a coma due to his injuries.

'Objective completed.'

NERV HQ

It was another late night for the Queen of the Dark, though this time she had volunteered to stay at NERV so that her 'beloved sempai' might be able to get some rest after the harrowing trials of the last few days. Granted, she did harbor a little bit of concern for her superior, but staying late had benefits of its own, among them the fact that no one else would use the coffee machine, and that she effectively had unsupervised access to the MAGI.

'And with the codes retrieved from within Casper, the access is indeed total and unsupervised…' she mused with a smile, as she selected certain events that had been recorded in the MAGI over the last few hours and erased them, as well as re-enabling the Angel Alert system, which she had bypassed at the first sign of trouble. After all, it would be a troublesome thing if her scenario were to meet with interference from the rest of NERV—or if certain sensor networks around Nobeyama had retained evidence of a certain battle. 'It is a good thing that MAGI can hack most systems on its own, except those which the Goddess personally blesses or those I forbid it to, of course…'

At long last, the Fourth Child had been neutralized, though not yet killed, as it was still necessary to confront the AIDA-Angel in The World in order to complete its destruction, lest the Lost Ones never return.

'That is, after all, the main reason behind having to hold back against him…and as one knows, it is much more difficult to do that when the opponent is attempting to kill. Tabris has multiple plots in The World as well as here, and once he is hooked up to the network for monitoring, his mind should return to The World—where he can at last be dealt with. Besides, as long as he is not dead in this world—yet—we have not violated the Dead Sea Scrolls, although I'm sure SEELE will be…most displeased.'

A dark, slightly contemptuous, expression flitted across her face for a moment, threatening to linger there before she firmly dismissed it. It had been getting harder to hide who she was due to Agent Kaji's snooping around, among other things, though at least he only believed her to be Bith the Black for now. She tolerated the man because he like her, he sought the truth, but also because he was a useful tool, one who would not hesitate to do what was necessary.

'And I myself have a certain dislike of firearms and real world weapons, despite being a fierce warrior in The World itself.'

Sometimes, she wondered how this grand play would turn out, with the Lost Ones, the fragments of Lycoris, the dothackers, and the death of children, which she still felt guilty about. Maya knew that it was probably Tabris whose machinations had led the Children to the recent states of pain they were experiencing, taking away their choices by imposing his will over others—not fate for all that he liked to spout out jargon and psychology.

Her AI Agent, the Obsidian Knight Balthasar, reported that conditions in The World continued to be stable, with the phantom dothackers going out in small groups to explore and investigate rumors, as they happened to be the best source of information—certainly the best that was unfiltered by C.C. Corp.

'That company has almost as many secrets as NERV,' she thought to herself, rolling her eyes. 'Almost as many. Which reminds me, I need Bith to do me another favor…'


Human Instrumentality Committee

Hearing that the Fourth Child was now in a coma due to massive injuries, the Committee of Old Men was in an uproar, as they were furious that the Child they had selected to infiltrate NERV had been struck down—not by a computer virus, but by an attacker of some sort.

"What is Ikari thinking?" rumbled one of the great monoliths. "First EVA-01 becomes a god, and now the Seventeenth is struck down?"

"Indeed, it should not be possible this early…a severe disruption in the scenario it is," spoke another, thoroughly unhappy with the way things were going.

"Well then," interjected Chairman Keel Lorenz. "Perhaps it is time for the bell to ring at last."