It had been dark outside the archive as the groundcar picked him up, the night lit less and less as the city sank into the armored depths of the Geofront to be replaced by militarized skyscrapers clad in white composite armor.
Grant sprinted through the halls of the NERV Geofront facility towards the changing room where he'd stowed his equipment, ident card in one hand and communicator in the other.
"Yes I know there's a contact, but is that everything you can tell me?"
"Yes, we've got nothing else."
Grant abruptly hit the end call button, hearing the plastic crack as he careened around a corner and into the room.
"Fething incompetent intel," he muttered under his breath, seeing the other three pilots still weren't at the site.
He unslung his bag and quickly put on his combat uniform, cinching the waist and chest belts before slipping the breastplate over his head. He grabbed his power sword from the locker and his hellpistol from his bag, checking the charges before locking his helmet to his belt.
The door to the changing room opened, the pilots all still in school uniforms.
"I'll see you on the surface," Grant called as he sprinted towards the deployment bay the NERV agent had specified. Soryu shouted something after him, but he didn't quite catch her words.
He burst into the bay and saw his titan standing there, seemingly untouched in the past few days. Running across the gantry and ducking into the spinal hatch as he put on his helmet, he sealed the Warlord's interior and started his final checks.
Strapping himself into the command throne, he steeled himself for a few moments, letting his breathing steady as he reached for the Manifold Interface Unit plug. He pulled it out, slotting it into the base of his skull as he began the rites of connection.
"From the weakness of the mind, Omnisah save us. From the ignorance of our knowledge, give wisdom. From the corruption of our hearts, take our souls into your grace. From the ravages of the destroyer, Emperor protect us."
The titan's mind touched his, and he felt its aggression come to the simmer it had during his last connection. It wasn't as he'd been warned during his training, however, there was no yearning for the freedom to destroy.
Just the wish it would be given a chance.
His senses sharpened, his skin was metal and his arms were weapons. His senses expanded, seeing in auspex and heat and smelling the trace elements of weapons propellent and industrialization. His communications relay pinged, and he accepted the request.
"This is Major Katsuragi, are you ready Princeps?"
"The Aquilis Redeptor will walk," he answered in turn.
Another voice cut across as a visual feed was established, and Grant could barely suppress a groan as the red-haired pilot appeared.
"Oh did you practice that line," she asked sarcastically, "or did you just think of it on the way over?"
"I didn't think it up," he snapped, "It's procedure, which seems to be a foreign concept to you."
Seemingly wanting to break up the conversation before two titan-scale battles happened at once, the Major interjected with a shouted order.
"All units, launch!"
Grant hadn't noticed where his titan had been standing. It was a magnetic catapult. Compressed into his command throne as he rocketed towards the surface, he could feel his heart pounding in his chest.
Reaching the surface, his titan slammed to a stop and he felt the launch locks disengage.
"Maybe a warning next time Major," he said as he began to move at a steady gait out into the city. The three Evangelions also stepping from their deployment points to grab upscaled slug rifles.
He couldn't detect any targets, and his search auspex was scrambled to a point nearing uselessness.
"NERV, I'm getting massive interference on my auspex. Confirm enemy targets."
"We're getting it as well," said one of the NERV officers over the communications link, "There's one there, but we can't get anything more than a pattern blue confirmation."
"It must be hiding from us," remarked Soryu, "This could be fun."
Attempting to light his void shields, Grant felt a rush of air and turned. Bringing his plasma cannon to bear only to see nothing.
"Advise, it's here in the cit-" Grant's warning was interrupted as something slammed into the back of his Warlord, sending his titan slamming face first into a skyscraper as something tore into his back.
"Grant's hit!" yelled Shinji, and Grant heard the boom of Unit-1's rifle as the weight on his titan's back disappeared. The Warlord pulled itself from the wreckage and Grant re-ignited his void shields, trying to get the protective shield online before the enemy made a second strike.
"Thanks, Ikari," growled Grant as he turned his back against another skyscraper.
"Where'd it go?" asked Soryu, her red painted Evangelion rounding a corner with a huge glaive held in its hands.
"It seems to be able to mask its presence somehow."
As if in response to his statement, something white flashed in from around a skyscraper, sending a battered Unit-0 flying down a street.
"Ayanami!" yelled Shinji as he lunged after whatever had just hit Unit-0 to fire a burst of cannon rounds, "My pallet rifle isn't doing a thing!"
"Asuka, Rei, do we have anything left that can hurt this thing?"
"We're getting feedback from its AT Field," said one of the NERV officers, "Either we get a positron rifle up there or we aren't going to penetrate it."
Some kind of energy weapon fired off to Grant's left, scattering across his void shields and cracking the first layer. He spun and tried to draw a bead on whatever had just fired at him but was only able to ineffectually spray Mega Bolter rounds across its AT Field.
It was white and easily larger than either his Warlord or one of the Evangelions, with a pair of almost feathered wings and two pairs of arms. One pair sported the energy weapons and the others were blade-like. Its snaking tail disappeared around a corner as it evaded a turbo laser salvo, the beams continuing to punch holes in nearby buildings.
"It's too fast for me to get hits," said Grant, his blood beginning to boil with anger that was as much his Warlord's as it was his own.
The enemy vanished around another building as Unit-2 sprinted towards it, glaive swinging wildly until a blast took off a chunk of its torso.
"Asuka, pull back!" ordered the Major, "Don't risk it."
The pilot of Unit-2 seemed to concede the point, moving back towards the other Evangelions and Grant's Warlord. This fight wasn't going well, their units were damaged without a single substantial hit on the enemy. Their strategy had to change.
"Major," he said over the line, tension rising as the angel seemed to be circling in for a kill, "Can we get some support?"
"Negative, I'm getting nothing but interference," replied the Major, "Its AT field seems to have adapted to jam all our city defense systems. You and the Evas are on your own."
"Then we're going to need a new tactic," he said turning constantly to check streets in an attempt to find the angel before it struck again. He spotted it rounding a corner and fired another salvo after it, but the hits weren't enough to crack its shield.
"Shinji, Rei, Asuka, try to flush it out into the open." ordered the Major, "Only the Warlord is going to have enough firepower to crack it, we don't have the time to set up a positron rifle."
"That'll take forever!" protested Asuka, "I've got no idea where it went!"
"It isn't invisible," said Shinji, "It has a signature now, and if I can keep firing at it long enough, I'll get another reading and then be able to lock on for the kill."
"If you see anything that looks like wings," warned Grant as he scanned back and forth with his auspex, "Just throw as much fire as you can at it, I only need to get into position."
The dance continued, with occasional bursts of fire connected with the angel, damage to the Evangelions, and hits against void shields slowly whittling down Grant's combat endurance. An opportunity arose only to be narrowly avoided by the enemy, and Grant knew it was only a matter of time until the angel found an opening. The Evangelion pilots lacked the trained reactions and communication that a titan legion had, the only two who were able to sync in any sort of way were Soryu and Ikari, and even they jockeyed for positioning and barely coordinated.
"Shinji, do you read me?" asked Grant.
"Yeah," he said, already sounding exhausted, "We can't quite corner it."
Grant felt the same, he couldn't keep up with combat for much longer. He could endure over two weeks provided he could hunker down and rest from the toxic chemical buildup a princeps built up in a fight, but any longer and he was risking becoming sick for days from disconnection shock and hormone imbalance.
"Then we push it up," he said, looking towards the top of the skyscrapers.
The Major jumped on the idea, "Grant, move towards the center of the city, Unit-1, Unit-2, switch to close combat weapons and try to force it to gain altitude."
"Right," he said, turning his titan towards the nearest building.
He had to navigate through a maze of streets while avoiding the angel's attacks. All the while, it was moving in ever-shrinking circles, until it finally came into contact with Soryu and then Ikari. They managed to corner it in a street two blocks down and forced it upwards, Unit-2's pilot giving her best battle cry as she slashed at it with her glaive only to be struck onto her back by another energy blast. Overextending as usual, not letting Unit-1 make the few paces to get into position.
"Unit-2 is down!" yelled the Major, "This is our last chance!"
The Warlord sprinted down the street, Grant already charging his plasma cannon. Just a few more seconds, a few more shots and the kill would be secured.
"Unit-0, you need to hit it now." said Grant as he came up on the last turn, "We need to end this!"
He spun around the corner and felt the leg struts of his titan strain as it tried to stop on a dime, his leg muscles began to cramp uncontrollably and the skin of his right arm burned with psychosomatic pain from a dangerous charge length.
Unit-0 made the shot, showering the angel with pallet rifle rounds as it blindly sprayed energy blasts back towards it and Unit-1. Grant swung his plasma cannon up and loosed the blast. It pierced the enemy's AT Field and slammed into the angel's left wing, sending it tumbling through the air.
The angel landed heavily on its back, a pair of claws tearing outwards as it tried to rise from the rubble of the building it had just demolished. Grant fired again and tore one of the energy weapon arms from its body, sending chunks of meat and a cloud of vaporized flesh across the nearby area. Turbo lasers followed, punching into its hide
"It's starting to regenerate!" yelled Shinji as one of his shoulder pylons opened, Unit-1 grabbing a huge power knife from inside as he lunged at the wounded angel. He buried the blade in the middle of its body, only for a gaping maw to open and tear a chunk from his Evangelion.
"Ikari, you're blocking my shot!" warned Grant, strafing as he sprayed Mega Bolter rounds into the parts of the angel he could see, even his chest-mounted lascannon firing.
Unit-1 pulled away from the angel, part of his Evangelion still gripped in the angel's teeth. Grant fired another blast of plasma, blowing straight through the angel and into the wreckage behind it. Still, the angel refused to die and it lashed out with a beam of energy toward the Warlord. Grant's void shields smashed apart in a shower of violent light, and he gasped as the beam cut a deep rent in his chest plating.
Shinji took the opportunity, bringing his knife down into the angel's red core in a shower of sparks. Twisting it, he cracked the organ in half as the creature spasmed and died.
"It's dead," whispered Shinji, his Eva rising shakily from its handiwork. It was soaked from head to toe in blood, and not all of it was the angel's. As it stood there it looked more demonic than the thing it had just killed, like a cannibalistic daemon torn from the deepest hell ever dreamt by human minds. Still, Grant saw on his screen the human inside it. A human soul clad in tainted meat.
The actions such thoughts brought would have to wait for later.
"NERV, this is the Warlord," signaled Grant, "Engine kill."