Chapter 37: To Puppeteer the Pale Husk

It has been over a decade and a half since our discoveries in the Jordan expedition made rich men out of many of us. Millions of marks, a permanent position in the university, all of those are mine. Before that day, I would have been content with this. Now… there are greater works to accomplish.

Europe is plunged into war again. Another senseless waste of life, a waste of souls, spurred on by a demagogue with wild ideals on the prosperity of the nation. Another war like the one that took my family from me.

It does not interfere with my work, however. I am too well established, and too wealthy, an academic and benefactor to the party, to toss away on the front lines. It allows me the time I require to continue translating these Dead Sea scrolls. They speak of other beings. Alien beings. It seems they speak, however tentatively, of the future.

As long as I live, what happens in the greater Fatherland means little to me. Membership to the party, while mostly frivolous, is access to the levers of political power, to the more subtle, believing Thule Society remnants, that may yet prove useful, at least in the short term.

- From the personal journals of Lorenz Kihl, October 1939

Terminal Dogma, Mid-November 2016

Major Eleanor Theisman stepped back through the now permanently open portal into the vast space of Terminal Dogma, a white floor and massive white giants separated and broken up by a meters-thick covering of Corite.

One giant, in particular, the largest in the room, drew her eye to it, as it often did to her and many of the other technicians who were working tirelessly to restore the Geofront.

"Hello again, ma'am." a voice drew her attention away from Lilith as a man with close-cropped black hair and serious black eyes, her second in command of the Engineering Division, spoke, coming to a stop in front of her and saluting, his hand resting over a jagged, lightning-bolt scar that rested just over his right eye.

"Captain Moon." she said as she offered a salute in return. "What's the status of the clean-up?"

"Coming along, as always, ma'am." Captain Jimin Moon smiled slightly as they walked towards the command tent a little ways away. "Fourth Team has made some pretty significant progress upward. They're halfway to what was Central Dogma's level at this point. Seventh Team is almost to the generator room, only a few blocked corridors away. They're being cautious, though, and I can't exactly blame them. With things as messy as they are, they don't want to risk dumping radiation anywhere, even with us likely being more than able to contain it."

Eleanor nodded as they entered the command tent, the space occupied by several terminals staffed by technicians surrounding a holographic table. "Good to hear." she said, somewhat offhandedly.

She came to rest beside the table, a cutaway of the Geofront hovering above its surface, dots and lines showcasing the progress of the dozens of teams that trawled through the ruined superstructure.

"And, if I may, Major," Moon asked after a moment, looking at the black-haired, grey-eyed woman in jeans and a sweater that leaned forward to observe the display intently, "who's our other guest, besides two of the pilots?"

Eleanor glanced over at Suriel as she was joined by Hikari and Rei. "They're here to assist in an experiment that I'll be doing with Lilith, to see if we can speed things up for us."

"With that in mind…" her brow furrowed as she searched her mind for names and faces. "Do you know where… Mortimer, Espinoza, Kimura, Nishiyama, Winter and Sundén are?"

"Let me check." Moon pulled out a clear-pad, stretching it into a larger frame, and took a moment to appreciate the novelty before typing in queries.

"Let's see…" he paused as a list scrolled into being. "It looks like Mortimer and Nishiyama are with the Second Team making their way to the backup computer core… Espinoza is with Fifth Team prepping to dive and start retrieving one of the Cores in the lake… and Winter, Kimura, and Sundén are with Sixth Team doing path-clearing for Fourth Team."

"Alright." Eleanor said quietly. "Get them back here. We won't be going in without them."

"Going in?" Moon asked calmly, an eyebrow arched. "Where?"

"Into Lilith, of course."

The few other techs in the tent paused, looking back at Eleanor with startled looks of various levels as Moon's other eyebrow rose. "Well, that's… somewhat unexpected, with so many people going in with you." he paused for a moment. "May I ask why?"
"Because we might make our lives a whole lot easier if we can harness this beast to do some work for us." Eleanor replied, glancing back out the tent door at what was the right leg of Lilith.

Moon scoffed slightly at the notion. "Turning the husk of a god into a beast of burden?" he chuckled softly. "My, how far we've come."

"How far indeed, Mr. Moon."

. . .

Soon enough, the needed technicians gathered around Eleanor as she stood on the shore of the LCL lake. "Alright, ladies and gentlemen." she began. "I'll be right upfront about this. This is going to be weird. You'll be receiving on the fly job training on how to operate majority-Pneumaic vessels, whilst we try and use it to help speed up cleanup and reconstruction of the Geofront. Any questions before we make our way up?"

Caleb Mortimer, a slight, but strong blond-haired man with rectangular glasses, raised a hand slightly. "Why do we have the pilots and our guest with us, ma'am, if I may ask?" he said quietly.

Eleanor glanced over at the trio for a moment. "Suriel here was in charge, nominally, of this vessel. She has a familiarity with its systems that are going to be invaluable. Rei here spent a week trapped in Lilith with me, so again, familiarity and all that. Finally, Hikari, like all of you, is an apprentice Mender. A little farther along than you all are, so when she mentions something you haven't heard before, take it to mean that she knows what she's talking about."

"In addition," she continued, "we'll be joined by another gentleman with some familiarity with this vessel. He is, after all, the man who designed these vessels in the first place."

Quiet murmurs went up between the assembled technicians and engineers as Suriel grasped at a bracelet hidden under her sweater sleeve.

"Alright." Eleanor said, restoring some quiet. "Everyone ready to go?"

Some slow nods were her answer, and she looked over at Rei. "Ready to take us up?"

Rei nodded, then looked at the engineers. "Please remain where you are as we ascend." she smiled slightly. "It wouldn't do to risk falling off, after all."

With that, she stretched out her hand, palm down, and focused, a disk of deep blue glass swirling into being just below her hand. At the same time, a far larger pane sprang into being under the group's feet. Rei's hand moved smoothly, coming to a stop palm up under the disk, and the space between hand and glass lessened slightly.

As it did, the disk beneath their feet lifted into the air without a sound, and the engineers scooted forward a few steps nervously, some of them jumping slightly as belts of light sprang into being around their waists. "A little insurance, if you will." Hikari piped up, drawing the engineer's gazes to the band around Hikari's wrist that she pointed out.

The tension amongst the engineers lessened slightly as their flight continued for a few moments more before slowing to a stop slightly above the stomach of Lilith. They stepped onto the somewhat soft skin of the vessel, a few stumbling as they tried to find their footing while the disk disappeared and Rei breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

"Alright," Eleanor said as she stepped carefully towards the engineers, "gather round. We'll need to be in physical contact for this next part."

The others nodded as they made their way into a rough circle, hands grabbing shoulders, arms, and other hands.

Eleanor nodded in turn, a slight smile on her face. "Take a deep breath, boys and girls. It'll be the last one you need for a little while."

As she said this, the center of her chest began to turn into glowing, almost ethereal water, spreading quickly as she heard a series of near gasping breaths. Soon enough, the ring of people was a ring of slowly swirling water, breaking into a flexile line which dove into the skin, and soul, of Lilith, disappearing without a trace.

Within the realm of Lilith, 11 beings sprang into existence. The ring broke apart as the engineers took stock of their surroundings, then the extra person who had taken form alongside them.

He was a fairly tall man, with a thin build and a similarly thin face with a prominent nose and cheeks that gave him an almost imperious air, augmented by a head of shoulder-length white hair. His eyes, a deep black with red irises, dispelled that notion, however, as they darted back and forth, seeming to drink in the sights and the people around him before his gaze fell onto Suriel's hand. Which he found himself to be holding.

He blinked as Suriel came to notice it as well, then blushed slightly as he let go. "Oh. Hello, there." he said, almost bashfully.

"Hi." was Suriel's only reply for a moment, and they looked at each other wonderingly for a time before Eleanor pointedly coughed, grabbing everyone's attention.

"Let's not waste too much time standing around and staring, shall we?" she said as she glanced around the group with a slight, wry smile.

She looked back at Suriel and Kadmonel, sweeping a hand as she turned towards the interior of the space. "Would you like to lead us on?"

. . .

Training Simulators, HERZ-Matsushiro

Marie Vincennes' brow furrowed slightly as she focused, and she made an effort not to squint too much as she tried to pick up the cube in front of her using only her AT Field. Though it was remarkably well simulated when Asuka demonstrated it with a cube of her own, it was proving to be remarkably difficult.

Then again, this sort of thing was somewhat… ahead of the curve. Her Interfacing more than made up for it, however. She had been learning at a breathtaking pace compared to before, and that was quite the statement to make. She was almost more impressed that Zhou had been able to keep up as well as he did.

Asuka regarded them silently from the corner of Marie's vision as Marie's block wobbled slightly, then slowly began to rise from the ground. A meter… 2… 3…

Then the strain on her mind became too great, and Marie let the block drop with a weary sigh.

"Not too bad, Marie." Asuka said with a nod. "I've gotta give you credit, that's a lot more progress than I made the first time I tried."

"And don't worry, Zhou," she continued, looking over to a screen that showed Zhou Tsung's face drawn in concentration and even showing a little anger, "you'll get it soon. You've gotten this far, after all."

Zhou nodded, a determined look on his face. "I'll prove you right."

Asuka nodded with a smile. "That's the spirit. Now remember, your AT Field is as much like a muscle as your mind is. If you're not pleased with your progress, then you just need to keep training."

"But for now," she continued, "let's take a quick break before we head into weapons training."

"Yes, ma'am." Marie and Zhou both said as they stretched in their seats, their grey Plugsuits creaking ever so slightly with their movements.

"So, do you want to get out, stretch your legs, or are you good just staying in here?"

"I can stay," Marie replied, "if Zhou doesn't need to go."

'No need to waste time out of the cockpit.' she thought as Zhou wordlessly shook his head. "So," she said aloud, casually, "I heard there was something that pulled Rei and Hikari away from training."

"Oh, yeah." Asuka nodded. "They're out in the Geofront right now, helping with some sort of project Eleanor's doing that involves Lilith."

"Lilith…" Zhou said, his brow furrowed in confusion.

"Oh." Asuka said after a moment. "It's the… uh…" she puffed out her cheeks for a second. "How do I explain this easily…"

As Asuka began to explain Lilith and how, exactly, the thing that apparently was responsible for humanity's existence worked, along with how Major Eleanor Theisman planned to use it, Marie listened with a level expression. 'This is interesting, I'll give Asuka that.' she mused. 'But… how exactly does this matter to me?'

'It shows the upper limit of your Interfacing.'

she realized after a moment. 'If these FAR people could make a wonder like this with enough time and preparation… what can you not do?'

Her mind began to whirl with ideas before Asuka dispersed them. "Alright, then. I think that's enough explaining from me. Let's get to some of the fun stuff, shall we?"

Within Lilith, the group came to a stop in front of the massive pillar of what appeared to be Corite, silently taking it in before Eleanor turned to them. "Alright, let's get started."

She looked over at Espinoza and Sundén. "You two will be with me. Winter, Nishiyama," she said, gesturing over to Hikari, "you'll stick by her. Finally, Kimura, Mortimer, you'll stick with Rei."

She looked over at Kadmonel and Suriel. "You two stick close. We'll need your expertise on how this system works and how we can access the sort of power that we're looking for."

Suriel and Kadmonel nodded silently, and Eleanor nodded towards the pillar. "Alright. Let's dive in."

With that, the three clusters of people surrounded the pillar, the engineers placing their hands on their supervisor's shoulders as their vision tunneled, and the deep blue ocean and white sands disappeared.

They all found themselves standing in a long hallway, the walls and ceiling a graceful arc of uniform grey metal broken up by spires of red crystal. It was dark, and the group strained to see around them for a moment before their sight began to adjust.

After a moment, Suriel and Kadmonel appeared in their midst, and Eleanor regarded them. "Well, as much as I'd like to lead out, there's only one place I really know where to go."

She focused on Kadmonel. "Is there any standardization to these vessels that would help us know where to go?"

Kadmonel looked around the hallway as he cupped his clean-shaven chin thoughtfully. "Let's see… this is a Black-pattern vessel, so…"

He shook his head slightly before walking over to a wall, placing a hand on it and closing his eyes. "Give me a moment to get my bearings for myself and Suriel."

The wall glowed around the outline of his hand for a moment, then it faded as he nodded, opened his eyes, and turned to face the group. "I have a few places which might be of note to our efforts. Soul Recall and Transitory Crystal control systems are down that way," he began, gesturing down the hallway, "while Movement Systems and Environment Interaction are the other direction, a ways apart from each other."

"Well, the first one shouldn't be of much use to us," Eleanor said with a shrug, "seeing as we… well… kind of gummed it up when Near Third Impact happened."

"Though perhaps clearing up the Corite on the surface of the Geofront may help progress." Rei interjected.

After a moment's consideration, Eleanor shrugged. "Fair point, I'll admit."

"And," she continued as she glanced around, "I'm guessing these systems need power of some sort as well. Do you know where those would be?"

Kadmonel closed his eyes again for a moment. "They'll be down the hall, past Soul Recall. The… Pneumaic, I guess would be the term, Pneumaic boosters will be there, with easy access to the Locus' power source."

Eleanor nodded. "Good. Go ahead and feed us the locations and we'll get going."

As Kadmonel did so, she nodded to Espinoza and Sundén. "We'll be heading down to the Pneumaic boosters, get things started up. Hikari, you take your team to Movement Systems to get this and the MP-Evas floating again. Rei, you and yours will go to Environment Interaction, see how much interaction we can actually get."

She looked over to Suriel. "I'd like you to come with us, help try to spin things up again. This is your ship, after all, and I'd like to give you the honor of helping us by flipping the switch, as it were. Kadmonel, go with Rei and her team, see how much you can fine-tune things."

She nodded emphatically. "Alright, boys and girls. Let's be about it, now."

. . .

Eleanor, Espinoza, Sundén, and Suriel emerged into the mindscape of the Pneumaic Boosters, the sight that greeted them a large, tall hexagonal room whose ceiling seemed to stretch out of existence, each corner playing host to a jagged, ascending spiral of flat, long diamond-shaped slats, their broad ends pointing inward and tapering as they pointed out.

First Lieutenant Carina Espinoza looked up and up, and up some more, her brown eyes widening slightly as she sighed, running a hand over long, dreadlocked hair. "This… is not like any generator room I've ever seen."

Second Lieutenant Ori Sundén nodded as he approached the spiral closest to him, pausing for a moment and looking down at his short, somewhat stocky form before cautiously setting a foot on one of the floating slats in front of him, humming in surprise as it stayed utterly still. "Perhaps it is at… well, the top?" he replied, looking up with green eyes that scanned for any trace of… well, anything up there.

"That would be incorrect." Suriel stepped forward. "These spirals, should I remember correctly, are in fact the boosters themselves. They appear to be… out of alignment."

"Okay." Eleanor nodded. "Where's the entrance to the Locus, then?"

"We are already within the Locus." Suriel said calmly, Espinoza and Sundén looking back at her incredulously before looking over at a distinctly nonplussed Eleanor.

"You mean we're in one of those handle things?" Sundén said, mouth hanging open slightly in amazement. "How much did we shrink coming in here?"

"None." Eleanor shrugged. "No one said a Locus had to be handheld. It could be a device, a vehicle, a ship. A building. Hell, even a complex of buildings. But I'm getting ahead of myself and our current grasp of Pneumaic technology."

She looked over at Suriel. "Where would the access point for this Locus be?"

Suriel nodded down towards the center of the floor. "I believe that it is hidden here, beneath the floor panelings."

Eleanor nodded as she walked to the center of the room, her brow furrowing slightly as a section of the floor bloomed like a budding flower, the center rising up to present an ovoid crimson crystal. "Alright. You guys are going to have to go ahead and begin realigning the boosters with Suriel's help. I'll get started on sparking this power source up again."

"Uh… what about falling?" Espinoza said slowly. "It's a long way down from up there."

"You're in a mindscape." Eleanor replied. "You play by the rules within them. And, as a week of staying here helped me find, there's no capacity for physical harm in here. You can fall from as far up as you can get and not get hurt."

The two engineers nodded slowly as Suriel walked over to them. "Very well." she said quietly. "Let us begin the process of realignment."

Asuka watched intently as Marie hefted a rocket launcher, sighting it in on the target several kilometers away, as Zhou shouldered a similar launcher. It wasn't their first test-firing, but Marie had shown a propensity for the rather explosive, and Zhou… he just seemed to enjoy the broadening of his experience.

"Alright, you've shot at your fill of static targets, got a feel for how this system works," Asuka began as she glanced aside, keying up a panel and typing in parameters, "but now you'll see how hard it is to get a bead on something a little more… active."

She finalized the parameters of the targets, and they smoothly began to glide across the ground towards the Evas. "Don't let them touch you, or we'll have to start again. Once you score 10 hits on them, the targets will stop moving. Every few hits will see them get faster though, so you'll need to lead your shots."

"Then perhaps it would be wise to let them close first, guarantee our shots." Zhou said, the last words of his sentence nearly drowned out as Marie fired her rocket, a hit blooming off of the steadily approaching target.

Asuka grimaced slightly, memories of Bardiel coming to the fore as Zhou scored his first hit. "I… wouldn't recommend that. You'd be surprised how easy it is for a close hit to cook off things unexpectedly."

"Now, get to it!" Asuka smiled slightly after a moment. "After all, it's only going to get harder from here."

As she settled into Observer mode, her Eva melting away as she floated into the digital sky, she regarded the duo with discerning eyes. They wouldn't be handling this sort of weaponry yet. Not for a while, if what Misato and Ritsuko said was true. 'Granted, it won't be long until we see all sorts of wild shit from the nations of the world looking to outfit their Evas.' she mused, her smile widening at a few of the myriad possibilities. The smile disappeared after a moment. 'None of it is going to hold a candle to the Lance copies, though. Or what we can extrapolate out of the materials.'

She shook her head slightly. No one else in the world knew about the Lance copies. And if all went well in the world, it would be a long time before they would have to use Lancium-based weaponry against anything else. Or anyone else.

She blinked, focusing on Marie's Unit-0T, colored such that it had a deep red, almost maroon body with copper accents, as it dodged the boxy target speeding past, firing off another rocket at it. The missile flew just behind it, and she could almost hear Marie tsk softly.

'She's a lot like me.' Asuka mused. 'Religiosity or not, she's a perfectionist. That I'm able to get her to get out of the simulator or dial it back with her Interfacing is a miracle sometimes. I wonder…'

She thought back to Marie's brief, somewhat terse interactions with Toji. Only with Toji. 'She did mention that she was in the running to be the pilot of Unit-04… I'll have to talk to her. And Toji. After all, if we're going to work with her again, we can't afford to have someone hesitate when the chips are down. For any reason.'

The targets were whirling around the digital arena now, trails of smoke crisscrossing the plane like a demented, ephemeral web as rockets cracked and thundered out of the barrels of the launchers in Marie and Zhou's hands, heedless of such petty restraints as ammo count.

Finally, Marie smiled slightly as her 10th hit finally landed, the target smoothly slowing to a stop. Soon after, Zhou managed to repeat Marie's success, a slight nod the only indication of his satisfaction.

"So," Asuka said with a nod as her Eva flowed back into existence, "it's pretty tough, huh?"

Marie and Zhou both nodded. "Yeah." Marie admitted. "It certainly is. Did you ever encounter something this fast?"

Asuka nodded. "Once, during the Angel War. We call it Matarael now. But it couldn't keep it up for long, and its AT Field was weak. I'll tell that story…" she paused dramatically for a moment. "After we get out and get some lunch. We've sat in here long enough."

Hikari, Winter, and Nishiyama entered the Movement Systems room, Kadmonel pausing with Rei's group to follow them in for a moment.

It was a large, spherical room, dark like the hallway was, a massive sphere hanging in the center of the room, and as Hikari and the others looked around in wonder, Hikari looked down, and found herself walking on… nothing but the open air.

She paused, blinking for a moment as a wave of vertigo swept over her, the others soon following her lead.

Second Lieutenant Tamara Winter grabbed at her stomach for a moment. "At least it isn't too far down." she chuckled uneasily, wiping sweat from a pale brow under brunette hair, blue eyes scanning the smooth sloping surface under her.

First Lieutenant Mizuki Nishiyama nodded, taking deep breaths as she stepped forward, far more slowly than before. "I wonder…" she said quietly, then raised a foot slowly before setting it down in front of her. It sank below a few inches, as though she had encountered a stairway. Stepping into it, she paused for a moment before taking another step, this time back up.

"It reacts to what height we want to be at, all while keeping an utterly clear view of the floor below us." she said, nodding slowly as her black eyes gleamed with wonder.

"Even still, as… frankly amazing as this is," Hikari replied, "It likely won't be of any use to us without the power Eleanor and the others getting online."

She turned to Kadmonel. "Mr. Kadmonel, do you happen to have any instructions on how to use this?"

"You should be able to link with the wall and make a query." he replied. "I'll be going on ahead. If you need anything, touch the wall and contact me. I will be able to make my way to you once power is sufficiently restored."

Hikari nodded, and Kadmonel nodded in turn before turning and leaving.

With that, Hikari took a deep breath as she walked towards the doorway again, placing a hand on the wall beside it. 'Link with the wall…'

She blinked on her Sight, saw the energy that pooled around her palm. She reached out with a Frame, dipping into it… and felt a looming weight that seemed just out of sight. It was almost… expectant.

"O…kay." she paused for a moment. "Can I get instructions on how to access and use the Movement Systems?"

As she finished the last word, it was as if a dam of information had broken, flooding into her mind as she tried to sort it out over what felt like an eternity. It was… almost overwhelming.

'No. Focus… come on…'

After what seemed like ages, the information slowly began to make sense. The sphere wasn't the control surface. Or it was, just… not its active form. They would puppeteer the body itself, depending on a feed from the outside sensors…

Finally, Hikari pulled her hand away from the wall, taking one deep breath, then another.

"Ms. Horaki? Are you okay?"

Hikari blinked as she turned to face Nishiyama and Winter, noting the concerned expression on their faces. "Yes." she finally said, her nodding slightly choppy. "How… how long was I touching the wall for?"

"Not more than a few seconds." Winter replied, Nishiyama nodding.

Hikari nodded slowly after a moment before she walked over towards the two engineers and the sphere that floated behind them. "Alright. Link up to me, and I'll share the info on how to move this thing."

As she felt them tentatively linking to her soul with their own Frames, the room began to brighten slowly, a subtle but noticeable thrum suffusing the room as the sphere began to glow and slowly shift.

"Ah. Good. That probably means Eleanor and her team have at least restored basic power." Hikari said with a slight smile. "Winter, get to the wall, see if you can establish communications with the other teams. This is a group effort, after all. No need to be caught lacking in our efforts, however unintentionally."

She stepped forward as the sphere became a facsimile of the body they currently occupied. As she stepped past an invisible point, the world around the body became shrouded in a white mist. 'We must not have the feed for the visual sensors yet.' she mused. That would likely change fairly soon.

. . .

Rei, Kadmonel, Kimura, and Mortimer stepped into the Environment Interaction as the space began to brighten by degrees. The slowly brightening light showed a box-like room, the floor, walls, and ceiling divided into thousands, perhaps millions, of tiny squares.

"Ah." Kadmonel said, nodding slowly as he noted the increasing visibility. "We have at least some power again. Good."

"Now…" he continued as he advanced further into the room, then paused as if he expected… something to happen.

When nothing did, he hummed softly. "It seems the external sensory processors are also in need of some work." he turned back towards the doorway. "I'm going to go see if Suriel and her group are done fixing the boosters to their satisfaction, and guide them to the sensors. I will return shortly."

With that, he disappeared back into the hallway, an echoing sucking sound following moments after.

"Alright then." Second Lieutenant Mortimer said slowly, hazel eyes darting around as he pushed up his glasses. "I hope he's back soon. Because I have… no idea on how this is supposed to work."

As he finished, a slow, pulsing hum thrummed through the room, a rippling wave of bright blue light flowing from right to left.

First Lieutenant Tadashi Kimura looked around himself, making his way to a wall and tapping on one of the cubes. "Maybe… these cubes act as a sort of haptic interface that we'll use?"

Mortimer shrugged. "Maybe." he chuckled slightly after a moment. "Maybe we're expected to rebuild the Geofront brick by brick."

Rei smiled slightly as she walked to the center of the room. "Perhaps."

As she came to a stop, one of the walls grew a small, swirling dot of light that lifted off it, growing in width as it came closer, the blank white space soon resolved into an image of a spherical room, Hikari, Winter, and Nishiyama surrounding a small projection of the body of Lilith.

"Hello?" Hikari said as the image cleared up. "Can you hear me?"

Rei looked over and nodded. "Yes, Hikari. We can see you, as well."

Hikari sighed. "Oh, good." her brow furrowed. "Do you know where Eleanor and her team went? I can't seem to-"

In a moment, a second 'screen' flared into existence, showing Eleanor, her team, Suriel, and Kadmonel in another spherical room. "Oh. Hello." Eleanor said, surprise evident in her voice and expression. "Internal communications. Neat."

"We're fixing up external sensors, in case you're wondering." she continued, glancing to the side. "Or rather, Suriel and Kadmonel are. You should start seeing something right… about… now."

As she said the last word, the room Rei and her team occupied began to glow uniformly, and the cubes on the floor, surrounding Rei in a ring, began to extrude hollow wireframes, slowly at first, then more quickly, Rei remaining still even as her eyes, and those of Mortimer and Nishiyama, widened as the wireframe blocks became a dome with an opening on top.

Within the blocks, an ephemeral view of Terminal Dogma manifested, the blocks that made up the edge of what was now clearly the hole in the ceiling only holding within them incomplete, sometimes shredded pieces from where Lilith and the ritual of the last battle had drilled it out of the way.

The engineers approached the display slowly, awe evident in their expressions. "Every block represents a section of the wall, and whatever falls within its volumetric space." Mortimer said in slack-jawed amazement. "Like the voxels in holographic technology."

Kimura nodded slowly as they passed through the ring of voxels to join Rei's side, looking down at the prostrate form of Lilith and the MP-Evas within Terminal Dogma. "We'll literally be rebuilding the Geofront block by block, like you said."

He looked over at Mortimer, excitement gleaming in his eyes. "How much do you think we can influence? Just the surface level? Or can we influence what's under them as well?"

"Perhaps we should ask the man responsible for these systems?" Rei said quietly, looking over at the screen that showed Kadmonel.

"Kadmonel, would you be so kind as to return to us, and perhaps guide us on how to use these systems? And," she continued with a slight smile, "bring the others if you can, as well. I feel this will be a… group effort."

"I have a basic understanding of these engineering tools, but I, and the others, would be happy to help, now that the auto-repair functions are coming online. One moment."

With that, Kadmonel gathered the others, and the screen showing them disappeared. Moments later, they walked through the doorway, Eleanor's eyes glittering with excitement as her team's eyes glowed with wonder.

"Are we ready to begin?" Rei asked as she stepped out of the projection of Terminal Dogma for a moment.

"If Hikari's team is ready to lift the MP-Evas and the vessel, yes." Eleanor nodded as she looked over at the screen that showed Hikari and the floating facsimile of Lilith.

Hikari nodded. "We'll start by gathering the MP-Evas over Lilith and locking them in place. After that, we'll begin our ascent."

"Alright." Eleanor stepped into the projection. "We're ready whenever you are."

Hikari turned back to look at Winter and Nishiyama as she connected her soul with theirs. "Alright. Gather the Evas, and lock them above Lilith."

They nodded, turning to the image of the Mass Production Units and reaching out to them. As they grabbed them, globules of whatever matter made up the facsimile detached and floated towards the Evas, creating a shell around the images.

Slowly, they picked them up, the Units outside floating into the air and stopping over Lilith, frozen in the air as Winter and Nishiyama locked them in place.

"Beginning ascent now." Hikari put her hands under the shoulders of Lilith, Winter's hands resting under the small of its back as Nishiyama took up a position by Lilith's legs.

As they lifted, Eleanor, Rei, and the others in Environment Interaction watched the far smaller image of Lilith and the Evas in their projection as it slowly, silently rose into the air.

After silent, wondrous moments, they passed through the hole in the ceiling, slowing to a stop a few meters above the level just above the ceiling.

"Alright, we'll wait for your say-so to start moving again." Hikari said, brow furrowed slightly in concentration. "Let us know when."

"Will do." Eleanor replied as she looked at the new projection, the glowing cubic outlines that held the ceiling of Terminal Dogma and the level above it at chest height now.

"Let's see…" she linked her soul to Kadmonel's, reaching out for a voxel on the edge of the hole. As she grabbed it, it glowed, and a stream of information flowed into her mind as she nodded, focusing on the surface-level details and the major interior works, power lines and vents and plumbing making itself known to her. Anything smaller than that could be repaired later, anyways.

In her mind, she pulled, and the section she pulled at slowly formed back into its original position and shape. After a minute, Eleanor released the voxel, nodding in satisfaction as she linked herself to the others in the room.

"Alright, then," she said as she grabbed at a group of voxels beside the first one she'd repaired, "let's get to work."

. . .

2 Days Later

Daniel had at least a general idea of why Eleanor wanted him, Misato, Ritsuko, Makoto, Maya, and the Children to fly in instead of coming through the portal. She had been tight-lipped about the reveal she wanted to make, but it must have been an extensive one. Rei and Hikari had gone ahead, so as not to spoil the surprise.

The comfortably familiar tilt-jet aircraft they rode in, now emblazoned with the HERZ logo, passed over the rolling fields of Corite quickly, and Tokyo-3 was now only a few more minutes away. It was a rather tight fit, however, with so many people aboard.

"Woah… holy shit…" they all heard their pilot say after long moments of intermittent chatting.

"What's up?" Asuka said, her head against the wall and a bored look in her eyes that began to gleam with confusion.

"We'll be passing the city limits in about… 5 minutes. Less than that."

Asuka's eyebrow arched as the others' attention became stirred. "You can tell even under the Corite?"

"No." the pilot chuckled. "Man, you've got to see this to believe it. Hold on. I'm patching through the gun camera feed to the internal screen. One moment."

All eyes turned to the screen as it blinked on, showing the desolate world below. In the center of a sea of red, however…

"It's…" Shinji said, jaw slack in amazement as they all began to crowd around the monitor. "It's free again."

The city of Tokyo-3 stood defiant in the middle of the Corite, green and grey and silver stretching out over several kilometers, the glittering of the three Ashi lakes a brilliant blue.

"That's…" Mari said, reaching out to the screen for a moment before pulling her hand back. "That's a lot of lakes. Did I not notice that on the way in? How are there that many lakes?"

"Well, those are the result of the deaths of two of the Angels." Kaworu replied. "I believe it was Israfel and Sahaquiel?"

Toji nodded. "Sounds about right. There was also the expansion we made when Unit-00 blew up."

Mari blinked as she looked over at Shinji, Asuka, Kaworu, and Toji, surprised by the dark tone in Toji's voice and the serious look in their eyes. "Unit-00? There was one before Danny Boy's?"

Shinji nodded. "Yeah. It was Rei's."

A somewhat somber silence filled the cabin for a moment. "So, uh… was our dear bluebird okay, in the end?"

Daniel nodded, a distant, hazy look in his eyes. "Yes, she was. It took a little help from me, but… she pulled through."

He shook his head after a moment as he looked back at the screen. "But that's a story for another time. For now…" a slight smile tugged at a corner of his mouth as they came in for their final descent. "We get to walk around the fruits of Eleanor's little deus ex machina."

They touched down at a port close to one of the Geofront entrances, and the doors opened to reveal Eleanor, Rei, Hikari, Suriel, and a man who held Suriel's hand, clearly waiting expectantly as the group stepped slowly out of the aircraft, drinking in their surroundings.

"Wow…" Makoto said softly. "All this… over two days?"

"Yes, sir." Eleanor beamed with pride. "If you'll follow us, we'll show you the actual Geofront as well."

The two groups began to walk with each other towards the Geofront tram station, taking in the utterly silent, clean streets around them, and Maya looked up at the man that accompanied them. "Is that…" she began, and Eleanor glanced back at her, then up at the man.

"Yes. This is Kadmonel, in the flesh."

A somewhat stunned silence rippled through the group for a moment as they entered a tram and began to descend, as all looked towards Kadmonel.

Daniel merely arched an eyebrow. "What happened? Did he do something with the LCL in the lake?"

Eleanor shook her head. "No, actually. It was Suriel."

She thought back to when they, at last, emerged from Lilith, a group meeting them on the Geofront surface that was lit once again by the complex mirror system, the Corite within, and in the city for a fair ways, swept away, showing the green trees and the bright blue water of the Geofront's lake.

As they had returned to Terminal Dogma to pack things up and begin setting up an operation on the surface, Suriel had moved towards the now open lake of LCL, slowly, as if… compelled by something.

Then she had reached in, and where her hand dipped under the liquid's surface, a patch of it glowed for a moment, drawing a crowd. The glow subsided after a moment, and she pulled, a hand, then a body, breaching the surface, gasping for air.

Eleanor's eyes, along with Hikari's, Rei's, and their team's, had gone wide in shocked recognition.

"So it seems that there are depths to Suriel's command over LCL." Eleanor said.

Ritsuko shook her head slightly. "Fascinating. To reconstitute a body that quickly… it bears some study." Maya nodded emphatically in agreement.

She paused for a moment as she looked over at Suriel apologetically. "If you wish to do so."

Suriel nodded slowly. "Yes. I'd rather like to figure out what I can do with this power. What limits there are."

After that, pockets of conversation sprang up, Mana quietly informing Mari and Mayumi, along with the rest of the Children, that she had convinced her mother to allow her to continue piloting, much to Mari and the others' delight.

The conversation was replaced with quiet gasps as they broke out of the tunnel and into the Geofront interior proper. Mari, Mana, and Mayumi's faces were nearly glued to the windows, their expressions alight with wonder at the sight. The rest of those who had seen, fought for, and gave their all for and within the Geofront regarded the familiar sight with no small amount of admiration, some chuckling slightly at the reactions of their compatriots.

"Hey, Misato." Shinji said quietly as he made his way over to her.

"Yeah?" she asked, looking away from the Numberless Children for a moment to meet Shinji's gaze.

"I get what you felt like." Shinji chuckled. "That first time you took me through here."

Misato smiled slightly as her mind whirled with memories of halcyon days, a warm feeling as she remembered Shinji's face smushed against the window of her car. She chuckled softly. "It's a good feeling."

"Yeah." Shinji looked back out, his eye catching the glittering pyramid, its bottom still molten from before Lilith had shoved it aside. "Yeah, it is."

. . .

Soon enough, they found themselves walking familiar hallways, at least, familiar to most of them, marveling at the lighting that showed the way, and the air conditioning that cooled them deep in the earth as they were.

"So, how long did it take to get everything hooked back up?" Maya asked idly. "I mean, this is enough of a miracle as is, but still."

Eleanor chuckled. "Well, I'll admit, it was down to the last minute to get the power links back online. The reactors stayed intact too. No leaks or anything. And really, it's only the main, very, very important things that are getting power right now. Lights, AC, Central Dogma's computer systems. Everything else will need to be wired back in."

"That sounds like it will take a while." Mayumi piped up, uncertainty in her voice.

"Well, maybe." Eleanor shrugged as they stepped into separate elevators, the kids taking a similar one up on Eleanor's silent nudging to Shinji as she linked to Mayumi to answer her fully. "But we're in the process of contracting some construction Interfacers and Animists to help speed things along. There seem to be plenty of them around, seeing as the Siberian agri-domes have completely finished their construction by now."

She severed the link to Mayumi, then looked over at Ritsuko and Maya after a moment. "One thing you'll probably be cognizant of. We managed to get the physical structure of the Magi system in Central Dogma, but we're also pretty confident the data for the Magi's operation has been wiped clean." she shrugged apologetically. "I don't know how much that might mean…"

Ritsuko waved her off. "It's fine, really. We're moving on, anyway. Even if mother might miss the familiarity of it."

"And really," Maya piped up, "Mrs. Akagi has been the most excited to start work on a new system. We've finalized the broad strokes, at least. It'll be a five-core system instead of a three-core, and we'll be crafting some artificial Spirits with the help of some other contractors. Really, at this point, the structure might get in the way, more than anything."

Eleanor nodded as the elevator doors opened with a quiet ding, the elevators disgorging their passengers down the same wide, long hall.

As they walked, they slowed, then stopped in front of a large NERV logo, beneath which, in similarly crimson lettering, were the words 'Central Dogma'.

It was silent for a moment, then Asuka hummed quietly. "Man, what a nostalgia trip, seeing that again…"

She shook her head slightly. "Anyway, I can guess at where we're going, now." she said as she looked at Eleanor with a slight grin.

"Follow me." was her only reply, as she began walking again, the rest of the groups slowly following her.

Finally, they emerged into the cavernous room of Central Dogma, the sight of the dark room below them a distant thing as they emerged onto the command tower.

The adults of HERZ and the Children scattered across the main command bridge, Daniel slowing to a stop in front of the standing terminal that he had inherited as head of Engineering. Powering it on, he tapped in old access codes, and found himself looking at a diagnostics screen that showed the outline of Unit-01.

Shinji, Asuka, Rei, Kaworu, and Eleanor gathered around him as he began to swipe through old engineering files on the Units in NERV's former care, reminiscing as Toji and Hikari joined them after a moment.

Misato, on the other hand, looked intently at the three consoles that now sat empty. The consoles that had been Makoto's, then Adira's, Shigeru's, and Maya's.

"So," she asked Makoto with a slight smile as she glanced over at him, "any idea on who's going to fill those old chairs?"

"Well…" Makoto paused as he pulled out his clear-pad, tapping through it silently for a few moments. "The First Lieutenants most likely to be put there are… Agano, Mogami, and Ooi. There are a few others after them, but they're the most likely ones to be there."

Misato nodded slowly, thinking for a moment to put faces to the names. She chuckled softly after a moment. "It's a girl's party here, then? Poor Shigeru gets left out in the cold?"

Makoto shook his head. "Certainly not. He'll be here as my adjutant, coordinating our needs with various governments, especially now that there are Evas involved." he smiled slightly. "And having him to bounce ideas off of helps, too."

"Oh, good." Misato said airily. "He can still organize his poker nights easily, then."

Makoto chuckled. "That's true, too."

They stood in companionable silence for a few moments before a throat cleared behind them. "Ms. Misato, Commander, ma'am?"

Misato and Makoto turned to regard Mari, standing a little ahead of Mana and Mayumi, looking at the both of them expectantly. "Yes?" Misato asked.

"So, with all this," Mari said, an excited gleam in her eyes, "does this mean this'll be our super cool headquarters home base thing? At least, again, for you guys."

Misato was quiet for a moment, then nodded slowly. "I get the feeling we'll still be deploying the Evas from Matsushiro for a while, but… the rest of the world would be okay with us moving back in, I think."

"Cool!" Mari shouted, her singular word echoing in the vast chamber and drawing the attention of the others on the bridge. With that, she dashed over towards the other Children, Mana and Mayumi following behind her.

Misato and Makoto watched on in bemusement as Mari relayed the news. Then, Misato grew a distant look in her eyes. "Speaking of home… there's one more place I want to visit…"

. . .

Misato, Shinji, and Asuka stepped into the entry hall slowly, finding themselves fortunate as they flicked the light switch on and found light. They entered the kitchen with what could almost be called reverence and stood there silently for a moment before Misato took a deep breath.

"It's musty, and more than a little dusty, but…" she trailed off.

"We're home." Shinji nearly whispered, Asuka nodding silently.

They took in the room, all the memories that came with it, as they slowly began to make their way towards the living room. After a moment, Asuka chuckled. "Well, Shinji, it looks like you have your work cut out for you before we move back in."

A quiet chuckle rippled through the empty apartment. "Yeah." Shinji replied before glancing over at Asuka and Misato with a slight grin. "It's a good thing I have help like yours, then."

. . .

Next door, a similarly quiet reunion was taking place, Daniel, Eleanor, Rei, and Kaworu doing slight cleanup from the mess Near Third Impact had made. Things had been knocked over, unsurprisingly, but everything was mostly intact.

Daniel and Eleanor finally came to their bedroom, and Daniel turned to look at Eleanor with a contented, somewhat amused gleam in his eyes. "You know, you didn't have to go this far to prove you're the greatest woman in Reality."

"But I did, anyway." Eleanor smiled for a moment before the smile faltered. "Even if Ritsuko's somewhat right about the lack of defenses within Tokyo-3."

"Like you said, the rest of the Corite looks exactly the same whether it's off or on. And besides, we've got 8 completed Frame Titans, 2 more by the end of the week, that'll be able to come bounding in on a moment's notice."

Daniel paused for a moment as he smiled slightly. "And besides, I think I know you well enough to know you've got plans to update the city defenses still."

Eleanor threw her arms around Daniel's shoulders as her smile became a grin. "And you didn't even have to cheat that time, too."

With that, she pulled him in for a quick kiss, pulling back with a quiet sigh. "It feels good to be back."

Daniel nodded. "Yeah." his smile disappeared after a moment. "Even with what Percy's told us concerning the missing Looking Glasses."

"You think we'll see more Angels soon?" a concerned look flickered across Eleanor's face.

Daniel shrugged. "It's certainly possible, depending on how easy it is to get Looking Glasses connected to this world in particular. But really…" his smile slowly began to return. "I'm sure the kids will be able to keep on top of things."