June 23rd 2015

GDI/Special unit NERV Emergency Triage Hospital, Tokyo 3 Geofront

Shinji awoke suddenly to an all encompassing universe of pain that stretched from the very being of his soul, through to his nerves, his bones, muscles and skin and seemed to radiate through his mortal frame and expanded in what felt akin to pulsing waves to the great beyond.

Somewhere on a scale of 1-10 he felt his pain as a combination of sharp stinging sensations and slow burning aches that registered as a "fucking ouch" in the core of his mind.

What made the combination of jabbing and pounding sensations worse was the light in the unfamiliar room that seemed to be coming from the entire ceiling above him without any real source or destination. An unending sterile illumination that chased every shadow away and was disturbingly had to focus on.

He rolled his head one way and then the other trying to take in his surroundings, one wall was plain white with the GDI symbol in gold at about chest height in the middle of the room, the other side was a stretch of windows through which more diffused light poured in to the space.

He sat up with a pained effort as he attempted to cast his mind back to how he found himself in such a world of aches, pains and stabbing sensations.

(Hours Earlier)

Technicians and Scientists ran in various directions around the entire space surrounding the gold, green and purple giant as catwalks and railings retracted or moved in to position. Shinji found himself utterly alone in a sea of people, caught in their tides as he was all too literally pulled from where he was stood minutes ago on the cross-bridge section in front of the evangelions face to a supporting walkway that had been mechanically raised in to position and then all but pushed into a gigantic white, gold and black lozenge like machine with what looked like screw mechanisms embedded in to it's hull.

Seconds later the lozenge sealed itself shut as Shinji positioned himself within the only piece of furniture inside the device which consisted of a seating arrangement with a pair of solid control yokes as he felt the sudden decent of gravity, unaware that the docking arm had just jammed the entire entry plug within the neck of the biomechanical cyborg god.

Before he had even time to think the plug began to fill with some sort of viscous pale orange fluid from below and just before he had time to connect his senses to the smell of blood that had come out of nowhere it had filled from his feet to his hips, and was very quickly threatening his neck.

He swallowed air quickly, every reflex telling him he was about to be underwater and therefore – about to drown.

As the fluid passed his ears he suddenly found himself being able to hear voices that he had been unaware of before – speaker panels within the plug vibrating within the fluid allowing the transfer of sound to his ears as he heard the voice of Ritsuko Akagi filling his ears.

"Just relax Shinji. This is normal – let the LCL fluid fill your lungs and it will transfer oxygen in to your blood stream directly"

"You should quickly get used to it, my apologies Shinji" Moebius cut in as Shinji finally surrendered and exhaled, allowing the fluid to rush uncontrolled into his lungs.

Another series of voices he did not recognise continued in the background, apparently on the same communication frequency as his own.

"Main power connection complete, umbilical is linked to primary liquid tiberium battery"

"Roger"

"Initializing Level 2 contact systems, connecting interface system to pilots neurotransmitters"

The plug became a rainbow wash of colours and patterns before it settled into a bruise of kaleidoscopic, almost psychedelic stars and mandalas that slowly came in to focus – Shinji could now see the world outside as a giant, quickly putting two and two together.

He was now seeing through the singular eye of the Evangelion.

"Set Japanese as the linguistic norm for the cognitive interface" He heard Ritsuko say aloud.

"Initializing internal EVA to ÆVA connections, initializing internal membrane holographics" Moebius continued.

Instantly a series of green concentric circles appeared before his eyes alongside loading bars and scrawls of text that shot past too fast for Shinji to read which was quickly replaced by the GDI logo in stylized green wireframe which then resolved itself into a series of heads up displays and a green box that hovered in front of his vision no matter where he turned his head.

Within the box the text hovered "WELCOME PILOT SHINJI IKARI" which was suddenly announced by a computer generated voice at the same time from seemingly every direction at once.

"Contact complete, all systems nominal"

" . . . What . . . what is all this?" Shinji asked aloud, suddenly panicked for a moment by the sheer level of sensory input all around him.

"Shinji, what you are seeing is the ÆVA connecting from the AI MAGI systems in Tokyo 3 to the systems within the EVA itself and your own brain." Moebius explained as quickly as he could "It's an interface that allows the Advanced Electronic Video Agent within the Evangelion to feed you combat information both from us and in the field. The acronyms are confusing but you will get used to it."

"huh" was all Shinji could reply as the startup sequence continued around him.

In the background he could hear the cacophony of voices continue with terms like "synchronisation at 41.3%" and "plug suits" but he was utterly lost in what was going on around him as he felt a jolt of movement.

The sea of fluid around the Evangelion had drained away to nothing and the platforms had disconnected as the reversed puzzle of technology had parted – Unit 01 was moving backwards towards a system of elevator shafts that a number video feeds had been selected for and fed in a series of drop down boxes in front of Shinji's eyes.

From nowhere he heard "This is going to work" in the voice of Ritsuko and then the voice of Misato Kitsuragi replied "Prepare for launch!"

With a sudden, solid thunk the Evangelion had finished it's transfer backwards to the launch rails behind it.

Shinji overheard a mention of "blast doors" and then his world became nothing but speed.

The launch rails catapulted Unit 01 through the complicated, spaghettified mess that was the fast transit system for Evangelion urban combat as a speed that even through the LCL buffering the G forces around him still caused him to flinch and grind his teeth together and within mere seconds his world went from megastructures and machinery, to an incomprehensible blur, to the muted blues of a city at night.

Before him, SACHIEL had stopped it's steady loping gait and observed the rapidly expanding wash of electromagnetic energies through senses no human could ever hope to match and attoseconds later the armoured bulkheads embedded in the street opened and warning sirens blared – UNIT 01 emerged in full force.

Absolute, daunting, silent.

Shinji heard the voice of Misato ask "Ready Shinji?" as he grit his teeth and replied "Yeah . . . Yes I think so"

"Disengage the final safety systems!" Was Misatos reply, half statement and half warcry as the last of the locking bolts from the launch rail system disengaged and lifted away as UNIT 01 slouched forwards slightly under it's own weight and he heard the voice of Ritsuko interject.

"Listen Shinji, I want you to focus on walking, the ÆVA will project a wireframe in front of you of where we want you to go and what we want you to do." and as she finished that sentence he saw the green wireframe of polygons form into a rough model of UNIT 01 and the streets around him, and an indication in yellow of where he should move.

"The ÆVA will also feed you suggestions in combat of what you need to do to strike the enemy and avoid damage" Misato continued "Just follow what it says for now until you get a feel for the EVA. We are directing GDI forces to distract the enemy until you are able to fight!"

Again, another wireframe display appeared as a trio of hover missile launch rail units announced their deadly intent – the floating missile launchers darted across a hillside almost two miles away at speeds that almost reached 100mph as they unleashed their racks at SACHIEL. Streaks of fire and smoke that came from the treelines they used as camouflage and ended in enormous explosions that shook the earth and caused even the EVA to tremble.

Against an Angels AT field however, they might as well have been pissing into the wind as not one of the warheads even managed to touch SACHIELS skin, even the flames that blossomed from them did nothing – such was the sheer force of will that was SACHIELS absolute territory.

SACHIEL would not, or rather could not even view these attempts with pity – but an attempt at harm warranted a response. SACHIEL raised it's arm and the skin across it's entire form rippled as it it was never skin at all, but rather flames wreathed in vantablack molecules of sheer hatred and death, an utter mockery of the concept of uncanny valley that walked the epidermis of reality.

SACHIEL levelled it's palm and flexed its fingers, splaying them wide as a whip like beam of purple fire erupted so quickly it looked as it had formed faster than even the speed of light, coming from both the palm and it's targets at the same time and meeting in the middle before the entire hillside both exploded, imploded and melted instantly as a cross-shaped pinkish purple explosion rose into the sky in an insult to every scientifically known law of physics.

Shinji tried to push the thought of the soldiers who had just been violently killed as he put every mental effort he could muster into the image of walking, repeating the word "walk" through a harsh whisper as the EVA raised one foot and then the leg, completing the arc of a footstep as the sole of the foot trampled a parked van beneath it.

A flight of AC-10 Thunderbolt III close air support attack fighters tore through the air, each craft opening fire for seconds at a time, spraying hundreds of rounds from their under nose cannons before veering off. Again, not once did the attacks actually managed to force their way through SACHIELS AT-field but the distraction was enough to allow Shinji to take a second step, and then a third as SACHIEL turned at the hip to watch the annoying Lillim gnats turn past.

Another rippled of its wraithfire skin, the arm raised and another whip of one hundred percent accurate power tore through the air. No cross shaped explosion followed this time, only the entire fighter group being ripped apart on an atomic level.

"It's walking" Ritsuko explained as Misato organised with the bridge staff around them on the command deck for more re-enforcements to meet with Shinji's path.

Gendo Ikari watched from above the command deck, his shark like sneer hidden behind his crossed palms, elbows on the desk as Fuyutsuki remarked "They are doing surprisingly well so far, perhaps it is within the remit of man to challenge gods?"

"Yui will have to come out soon professor, these are but the opening moves" was all Gendo replied.

"Shinji, I need you to take a turn down the path we've set out for you" Misato relayed to him "More GDI forces are on the way but you are going to have to fight yourself soon!"

Fear shot down his spine, so far he had managed to get the titan to walk, and was beginning to speed up to even a slow jog – but to fight the monster before him? Impossible! As much as he knew he had too, he had agreed to, he had no real plan beyond doing as he had been told.

The plan he had followed for almost his entire life so far.

So, he pushed his effort in to speeding up a little more and the EVA followed his will – the slow jog sped up and the EVA went to turn the corner.

Which is where everything went wrong all at once.

The ankle of the multi thousand ton beast twisted as he attempted the turn and flexed downwards – in the regular sized human it would have been a moment of pain, perhaps even a sprain – in something as vast as the Evangelion the pain receptors shot like fire, muscles pulling against steel and titanium both within and without. The other foot faltered, the EVA tipped and the cyborg went flying sideways fast enough to bring a sonic boom in it's wake and crushed the concrete below.

SACHIEL however, turned to face the newcomer again. Such was the pitiful Lillim attack that not only did it miss completely but the only other being that could be considered a distant, mutilated and even lobotomised "cousin" had planted itself in the dirt with such a failure of effort that it didn't even deserve to be labelled as "pitiful" and so it gazed down on the EVA, moments away form making it's move.

The voice of Misato screamed through the plug "Shinji, get up – you need to GET UP NOW!"

He moved from grasping his head and looking up, directly into the endless darkness that was the eye slits of SACHIELS two bone-mask faces.

He froze.

The hesitation was all SACHIEL needed.

SACHIELS arm extended farther than it had any reasonable right to, seeming to be both an arms length and the entire street away at the same time and wrapped itself around UNIT 01's head. The ÆVA system was throwing up an entire realm of warning displays as it began to both lift and crush the Evangelions face at the same time, lifting the entire construct up and pulling it both off the street but towards SACHIEL with such a force that lifted UNIT 01 entirely off the ground and left it's feet dangling below.

SACHIEL pierced through the realm of sight in to the core of the Lillim within and regarded the child with naught but hatred as explosions rippled off the AT field behind it. Stretching it's other arm at such an angle that it would have been utterly dislocated, if not outright broken it's shoulder in any other humanoid being another lance-whip of pink fire exploded and a battalion of tanks evaporated in flames.

The arm then swang around so quickly that the air displaced by it send parked cars and trucks below flying as SACHIEL took UNIT 01's dangling wrist in it's free arm, wrenched and twisted it and then pulled at such an angle and force that the wrist bones twisted and broke and then the flesh and muscles around them tore, ripped and then shredded apart.

One half of the bones within pierced outwards through the external armer and then the entire arm was slammed backwards – tearing the lower half of UNIT 01's arm free – the only reason the limb was still attached was because of the steel and titanium backwards that had bent rather than broken from the sheer force from the other side of it's wrist as blood liberally poured out from the two halves of the wound.

Shinji screamed, the skin on his own arm rippled and pulsed within the plug – he could no longer feel his hand or a single finger as synchronisation fed through every element of having his own arm seemingly ripped off back to him.

"STAY CALM SHINJI! THAT'S NOT YOUR ARM YOU CAN FEEL! YOU NEED TO FIGHT BACK!" Misato yelled at him through the open comm channel to little use, he could not hear her through his own agony, and even if he could then he would not have cared.

"What about the EVA's defence systems?" Ritsuko asked aloud to Maya Ibuki who hit a series of controls and the chest armour of the titan opened outwards in tactically hidden slots and threw out a combination of smoke, chaff and tear gas grenades that exploded uselessly around both UNIT 01 and SACHIEL.

"UNIT 01 NEEDS FIRE SUPPORT NOW!" Misato continued to yell as frantic orders flew through the command decks as SACHIEL lifted UNIT 01 effortlessly with the single hand wrapped around it's forehead and began to crush with agonising slowness.

The RADOME that had been embedded in place of UNIT 01's eye exploded from the pressure and components fell uselessly on to the ground far below as the armoured plates on the EVA's head began to crack and grind against one another. One twisted down and inwards from the exploded RADOME and pierced flesh and blood mixed with LCL pissed liberally from the wound.

Then SACHIEL began it's true assault as pink explosions formed on the surface of it's palm directly in the face of UNIT 01. Over, and over, and over again.

The EVA's skull fractured, Shinji grabbed at his face, his eye, his forehead and shrieked in agony. All sense had fled him. The ÆVA crashed as it's own components underwent trauma and damage and the HUD displays fizzled out into pixels.

Then the explosion finally ripped through the front of the EVA's skull and out the other and SACHIEL released it's grip and UNIT 01 went flying backwards in a rain of blood, brain, skull and metal.

In the command centre hexagon alarms flew up in rapid succession as displays threw up damage reports and disconnection alerts. Staff desperately ran through displays of text and images showing the thousand fold systems that ran the EVANGELION but to no use.

Humanities last trump card was dead in the water.

Misato clenched her jaw as she then swapped out one train of thought for another "Damnit, begin recovery operations, pilot recovery is our number one priority – stand by to eject and recover the pilot"

Ibuki was the one who yelled her reply "None of the EVA or ÆVA are responding, the systems are not responding to our commands"

At exactly the same time, a presence which had not felt the light on her skin, the wind on her hair or any earthly touch for twelve years awoke and tenderly felt at the soul within her. UNIT 01s eyes flashed for a moment and it's head began to lift.

The cracked and dented armour ripped apart and UNIT 01 roared it's battle-cry to the universe as it tore open the armoured mouth guard and revealed an entire maw full gleaming white, sharp teeth.

"It's . . . " Moebius began.

"It's . . going" Ritsuko continued.

" . . . Berserk" Misato finished.

A wave of fear ran through the CIC as the staff where frozen, motionless – Shinji Ikari had been knocked unconscious and the EVA had taken control of itself with nothing to restrain it. A monster built by human hands was about to be let loose.

It lowered it's head, shook itself as the last of the blood and metal flew from it's face and locked eyes on SACHIEL before dropping to it's knees and then bolting forwards, half run and half leap towards it's prey.

UNIT 01 collided with the once angel of water, now angel of fire in a tackle-lunge that SACHIEL caught with it's chest before wrapping it's hands around the insane construction and throwing the titan back down on to the concrete.

Wasting no time UNIT 01 somehow landed on it's feet and instantly returned to the attack. Turning back to the soon to be meal in front of it and launching in to another dash towards SACHIEL.

"She's returned. We've won" Fuyutsuki announced from the highest level of the CIC next to his protégé.

The mad dash of UNIT 01 slammed into the active AT field projected in front of SACHIEL and it shuddered before it then began to headbutt the purple octagon of force that appeared between them.

"Come on, come on – breach the AT field" Moebius uttered under his breath – the one realm of science outside of his control was the field of absolute terror/territory that both the angel and supposedly the Eva could generate. UNIT 01 still had to break through that barrier to kill it's enemy.

01 headbutted the AT field again, and again, before them pounding with it's one good fist. It looked down to the sundered left arm and raised the elbow to point at SACHIEL whilst the limp other half of the limb sagged below. Then somehow, beyond all sense and measure it shook the arm in a single motion and the broken half of the arm aligned with the intact one and the two met.

In a flash of light, a twisting of flesh and a fusion of atoms, the broken bones met and fused – the torn muscles began to writhe and meet one another before wrapping around each broken end and pulling inwards as pale, obscenely human like skin began to grow over the entire arrangement.

It took less than three seconds and a single flick of the wrist and the left arm of the Evangelion was somehow healed and it flexed it's fingers in satisfaction alongside an almost happy grunt.

Next the unit reach forwards, attempting to pierce SACHIELS AT field from the middle, but could find no purchase so instead it headbutted the field again and pushed before it then added the two outstretched and menaced hands as the AT field began to buckle.

Globs of saliva fell from the Evangelions mouth and onto the road below as SACHIEL staggered back, for the first time in it's existence it felt something that might resemble fear.

UNIT 01 tore through the AT field that SACHIEL had thrown up, corroding the space around it as it went and screamed in delight as it did so – so SACHIEL unleashed another blast of power in response and UNIT 01 threw itself sideways, watching as the lance of light cleanly missed and carried on over the horizon.

In return UNIT 01 copied what SACHIEL had done to it – grabbing both arms, pulling, twisting and wrenching at the same time.

One arm tore away, the vantablack flesh simply tore ino shreds of light and elementary particles, fizzling away as it flew over the Evangelions shoulder. The other arm tore and shredded and UNIT 01 ripped it away entirely, taking a bite out of the end it suddenly held in it's hand but was not satisfied.

Looking down at the angry red orb in front of it, the core that held SACHIELs being, it delved downwards, headbutting and biting at the same instance but making no purchase.

In the command centre Gendo felt a sudden flush of fear – the scenario had only just begun and Yui was attempting to devour the angels core, it's S2 engine, this was not as the prophesies had foretold.

However, UNIT 01 was unable to even make a dent in the glowing blood red globe and instead opted to scratch and bite at it whilst making mad purchase at the opened ribcage around it. Tearing off one rib it thrust down at the core in one hand whilst the other grabbed lower purchase at the cracked face of SACHIEL, attempting to tear one of it's faces clean off of it's body.

The hand with the rib thrust and stabbed again and again, the core suddenly started to crack under the abuse.

The hand ripping the face-skull away was greeting with a river of blood and gore.

SACHIEL, at last at the true abyss of death and fear flashed it's eyes and leapt upwards at UNIT 01 in a last ditch attempt.

If it could not win, then it would die – but it would take it's enemy with them.

The jet black flesh swept, moulded and suddenly fluid attempted to wrap around the head of UNIT 01 once again, and as the Evangelion attempted to fight back – SACHIEL resolved itself in dimensions higher than any non-angelic being could ever hope to understand. It ripped it's soul back to the primordial source and summoned it's new purpose and pulled more energy than it could ever hope to contain.

SACHIEL would become fire.

So it exploded.

The cross explosion tore upwards in to low lunar orbit. The rainbow of light would be seen millions of years later as a corona of power from an otherwise insignificant star.

Evangelion UNIT 01 stood and heaved it's chest, breathing in and out in the pit of flames.

A moment from Scythe himself.

OKAY SO A YEAR AND TWO MONTHS LATER I FINALLY FINISHED A FIGHT I WANTED TO WRITE UP IN A WEEK.

GUH

Basically . . . between lockdown, Covid 19, home-schooling my kids, a new job, mass effect 4 being announced, 3.0+1.0 being released and a whole host of other crap my inspiration to write, died flat on it's face and I had made repeated attempts to resurrect my urge to write and it went flat out fucking nowhere. This is my attempt to reverse that slump.

This morning (27/01/2022) this chapter was half a page long from early 2021. Today it is a full 9 pages long and actually goes through the entire 3rd angel fight with multiple changes that I hope match the feel of the story. GDI offering fire support, SACHIEL and it's regards to 01, 01 and the way it would clearly look at SACHIEL as nothing more than a meal that hasn't had the decency to die yet. In writing this I had been picking up elements from the OG series as well as 1.11 (the wonders of having two monitors to observe, pause the film/episode and write on as I was going) as well as elements from the C&C wiki and craft them all into this chapter. I want to get more into the world building of the two combined universes as I carry on from here.

As for my other tale "Of Avatars and Harbingers" I am still suffering from writers block so that will take a little longer but I cam hoping to revive both tales before too long. So until next time people . . .

. . . Tarrah for now.