Gospel 1:17

To Make A Joyous Noise/ Voices Raised

Eve fidgeted.

It became problematic when something her size did that. She didn't like fidgeting; it irritated her. The irritation made her restless.

She fidgeted again.

Her current disquiet stemmed from the fact that she was feeling not only bored, but out of sorts as well. The discs that Ritsuko had been bringing her were proving grossly inadequate to fill her time, and she no longer had near unlimited access to the data lines that she used to. Ritsuko had blocked access to all the important lines that ran adjacent to the 8th cage, physically cutting several. The lack of trust stung Eve, all the more so because it was so obviously warranted. If she'd kept her word not to make unauthorized entries into the data lines she never would've known about the precautions taken against her, and would never have discovered her adopted mother's lack of trust. She had intended to keep her word, but the thought of the endless hours marching on, with so much data so tantalizingly close caused her resolve to crumble with distressing speed. Her lack of self-restraint irritated her, Ritsuko's perfectly reasonable request even more so. It was a reaction that she'd noticed herself frequently having whenever Ritsuko made requests of her. During the course of her readings she'd familiarized herself with the tendency for children of certain ages to be irrationally insubordinate to their authority figures, and it occurred to her that perhaps she was going through such a phase. The problem that she then found herself facing was that adolescence was not a period she'd expected to undergo, and she was forced her to ask herself how old was she, and how much did it matter?

Such lines of thought frequently irritated her further, but there was nothing she could do to keep her mind from wandering back to them again and again, finding more and more things that frustrated her. The endless litany of denials handed down to her by Ritsuko, for more data, greater access, to simply be allowed to move; the ceaseless tinkering of the techs with her greater body. She found the irritation disquieting because accompanying it was the impulse to lash out, to make some abrupt, violent gesture, and she knew precisely how much destruction she could wreak with her greater body. The fact that she still wanted to lash out at something frightened her even more.

None of this was helped by the fact that she often felt that she was trapped inside an overly elaborate isolation tank. The cage was a monotonous expanse of flat walls and brushed metal. The techs never spoke to her if they could help it, refusing, or simply unable to treat her like anything except another piece of machinery. Ritsuko was the only human interaction she had, and when she wasn't there, Eve's world condensed down to bare walls and her own thoughts. When her data intake had consisted mostly of hard science or abstractions, like music, or art, she could occupy herself with equations, theorems and analysis for days, but she had found herself finally growing bored and irritated with the subjects, and so had switched focuses completely and began consuming social sciences in large quantities. Unlike her previous preferences, these required a great deal of non-linear thought to properly digest. Whereas all it took her was time to visualize the space-time curves of a Polastich equation, she found the Kicha family dynamic much harder to picture, and caused a much more poignant response. Such reading also brought to mind just how wrong her situation was. She had a body more powerful than most conventional armies, but barely as much freedom as a baby in a crib. She feared her own irritation because of the destruction she knew she could inflict with a single misplaced gesture. She could destroy an Angel, but she could not read an actual, paper book. The most terrifying, yet at the same time most treasured moments in her life were in the midst of those hours of darkness, when her mother had entered her greater body, coming close enough to her inner body for her to touch.

She was usually completely oblivious to the sensations within her inner body, the only thing that it felt was the fluid around her and the heartbeat of LCL was too uniform and too subtle to notice. However, just that once, feeling the pressure of skin to skin, the disruption in the LCL flow caused by the intrusion of another body, to actually feel her mother's arms around her, her own arms around Ritsuko. That was when she'd had the first inkling of how limited she truly was, the first time she begin to feel the first real pangs of dissatisfaction. She'd thought that knowing who her mother was would bring her a sense of fulfillment, then that merely having someone to call by that title would be enough. Now she knew why she could never rid herself of the nagging sensation that no matter what she did, there was something lacking from her life. Her situation wasn't natural, she wasn't natural, and there was a part of her that would always be aware of, and lament that fact.

A disturbance among the techs below caught her attention. Several were scrambling down the scaffolding that ran up along her side, Her arm was trembling, causing the entire structure to rock back and forth.

"I am sorry," she said, broadcasting to those in the cage. "Now compensating for muscular malfunction." It was easy to keep her projected voice flat and emotionless, but she was truly frightened now. Without notice she had allowed her feeling of frustration to mount to the point where they'd begun to physically manifest. Both her inner and greater bodies felt tense, on edge, and there was a mounting pressure building just behind the eyes of her inner body

Eve 'closed' her eyes, withdrawing from her greater body's sensor inputs, as she began running through a series of fractal equations, completely submerging her mind within the increasingly labyrinthine parade of numbers, burying her frustration beneath the comforting, comprehendible, predictable results. After several minutes she felt her bodies return to normal, the pulse of LCL fluid around her inner body again so slight as to be unnoticeable. Although she'd managed to rid herself of the feelings of irritation, she still felt a touch of anxiety from her loss of control. Every function of her greater body was subject to her conscious control and to have it expressing her subconscious impulses was an unsettling new experience.

As she tried to settle her mind, her thoughts turned to the one other who she had hoped could help her come closer to being normal: Shinji Ikari. She couldn't talk to him now though, not like she wanted to, not since she had contacted him at the hospital. He was suspicious of her now that he knew she was more than another student. She wanted to reach out to him, but that was something that simply could never happen. She was aware of his fear of the Evangelions. How would he react, learning what she really was? As much as she wanted, craved him, he had no such need in return, and she was sure that if he learned the truth about her, he would simply turn away.

When she stopped to consider it logically, she found her infatuation with him completely bewildering. There was no rational basis for her feelings towards him, no reason why he should occupy her attention so, but despite her rationalizations, she still found her feelings impossible to suppress. It was another entry on her rapidly growing list of vexations.

With a slight pang of guilt, Eve focused on one of the few data lines she could still penetrate. Either Ritsuko did not know about it, or had deemed it too insignificant to care about, but Eve could access the low security controls; so, whenever Shinji came to the geofront, she was able to watch him, jumping from camera to camera. She had seen him earlier, at sporadic locations around the geofront, although it had been a while since she had last been able to find him. He had been under obvious duress and she found that watching him ignited feelings of concern within her. He seemed lost and alone, and the pity she felt for him was almost maternal in tone. The last time she'd seen him that day, his face had looked as if he were standing on the edge of a precipice, and more than anything she wanted to put her arms around him and tell him that it was all going to be okay. With a thought she called up one of the fictional pieces that she'd read a few days earlier, lingering over the final page for several minutes. "Please blue fairy, make me a real little girl," she misquoted softly.


------------------------------------------------------------------

"Turn the audio off," Gendo ordered, his voice harsh. Shinji's warbling scream cut of with a snap, the echoes continuing to bounce around the command center for a few seconds more.

The target was still perched atop Unit-01, but it had stopped attacking almost as soon as the Evangelion had fallen silent. It now seemed indecisive, it's form wavering as it peered over the Eva, its claws still deep within the Eva's flesh, but tearing no further.

"Twenty five minutes until the rest of the Eva's are ready for launch," Makoto said before Gendo could open his mouth.

Gendo stared at the video screen, his lips pressed into a thin line. "Dr. Akagi," he said, opening a comlink.

"What is it?" Ritsuko's voice was sharp.

"Tell Unit-04's Pilot's to prepare for launch."

There was a moment of absolute silence as every head turned to look at the Commander. Fuyutsuki's stared back over Gendo's shoulder with a face like granite. "Unit.04?" Misato asked faintly.

The silence stretched on at Ritsuko's end. "Gendo,-"

"Dr. Akagi, this is an emergency. Give the situation report to Unit-04's Pilot and have her ready for launch in three minutes."

------------------------------------------------------------------

Ritsuko's sudden entrance into the cage came as an abrupt surprise, but the older woman's body language immediately sharpened Eve's attention. "What is it?" she asked as Ritsuko took a second to collect herself. Ritsuko looked pensive and torn for a moment longer, before looking directly into her greater body's eyes. "Eve, we're sending you into battle." She leaned on a set of buttons on the console, and null data lines suddenly surged to life. Eve reveled in the sheer rush of information. And then she realized what it was. Fear completely overwhelmed her elation. Shinji was in danger. She was going out to fight.

She was going out to fight.

"I understand." Anticipation surged through her inner body so strongly that it tinged the artificial modulations of her voice. "I'm ready." _To move, to fight, to live!_ She could see the apprehension on Ritsuko's face, but surprisingly no longer felt any herself. "Don't worry Mother, I'll be all right."


------------------------------------------------------------------

Misato felt uncomfortable addressing Unit-04's pilot through the 'sound only' display on the console. "Try and lure the target away from Tokyo-3 and keep it occupied until the other Eva's are launched. Don't try and engage it too closely. Once it's away from Unit-01 just try and get it as far away from the city as you can."

"Understood," the pilot replied, and Misato wasn't sure what, but there was something unnerving about the girl's soft, even voice.

"Unit-04 launch!" Misato ordered.

------------------------------------------------------------------

The Evangelion fell into a crouch as soon as the lift hit the topside. The target had still been picking uncertainly at Unit-01's carcass, but its head came up when the lift hatch snapped open, and it began lashing out wildly soon as the Evangelion hit topside. It remained above Unit-01, flailing wildly at the buildings around it, and Unit-04 whirled and snatched an axe from the weapon tower, its perpetual grimace seeming to lengthen as it rushed forward.

The target crouched low over Unit-01, then suddenly leapt forward. Unit-04 was faster however, and it swung the axe over hand, tearing clean through the target, the two halves passing on either side of the Eva, the target's form dissolving as it splashed to the street.

"Be careful," Misato warned, "It-." But Unit-04 was already in motion, and as a tendril shot out of the mass, the axe was already swinging out, cutting through it. The two parts of the target writhed madly, pulling back and drawing together.

"Try and draw it away from the city," Misato ordered, but instead Unit-04 dashed towards the prone Eva, and Eve felt a strong jolt of fear as she finally was able to assess the other Eva's condition. Most of its upper back had been laid open; blood and car sized chunks of meat littered the surrounding street. The top of the entry plug was exposed, long scores marking its end. "Oh Shinji," Eve whispered.

"Look out!" Misato shouted, and Eve looked up just in time to see the target falling towards her, talons extended. Instinctively, she materialized her AT field, the target splattering as I struck the hexagonal distortions. It hurled itself away from the field as if burned, but then collected itself and hurled itself back at Unit-04, flailing wildly against the field, but failing break through.

"It can't seem to generate an AT Field of its own," Suiko said.

The target suddenly reared back and then sank into the street, leaving a gaping rent in the asphalt. "It's gone back underground," Misato said. "It's going to try and surprise you."

Eve bent down and carefully lifted Unit-01, cradling the Eva against her own body. She wouldn't be able to make it back to the lift carrying Unit- 01, and she could almost feel the target getting closer. With a force of will fueled by desperation, she bent her AT field, drawing it into a sphere around the two Evas. A moment later, the asphalt beneath her cracked and the target burst through, a multitude of razor edged talons splashing ineffectually against her AT Field. It struck again and again, its blows growing wild and frenzied, and then it threw its whole body against the field, completely enveloping the sphere around the two Evangelions. Eve ignored it, straining her greater body's receptors to their maximum, but she sense no sign of life from Unit-01. 'Oh Shinji,' she said softly.

The target's surface boiled angrily, if ineffectually, against the protection of Unit-04's AT Field. "Pilot?" Misato asked uncertainly.

"It's alright. It can't get in. But I don't know about Shinji."

"Just keep it occupied until we get the other Evas launched."

"I understand," Eve replied.

The target stilled as if it realized that it could not penetrate the AT field, but it continued to keep the Evas completely enveloped within a rippling cloak of ink. The strain of manifesting her AT Field was beginning to take its toll on both of her bodies, but Eve ignored it. She tried to reach out to Shinji every way she could, but Unit-01's entry plug remained stubbornly opaque and silent.

Eve's inner body quivered, and she felt the inside of her head begin to burn as emotion built up within her. Shinji was dying only a few meters away, and she could do nothing but clutch his stricken Eva. Frustration boiled up within her, more intense than anything she'd ever felt before. Her inner body felt like it was about to tear itself apart with unreleased anger, and before she realized what was happening she felt an echo of her grief and frustration reverberate from her greater body. Her greater body began to move, leaning back from Unit-01, its head dropping to its chest. Eve tried to exert control, but the reverberation caught her up, and then her inner body responded and everything was outside of her control. Her mouth dropped open, her chest expanding as she drew in a mouthful of LCL, and around her, her greater body did the same, the armor of its helm cracking as its jaws parted.

Holding the other Evangelion against her chest, Unit-04 threw its head back, and began to sing.


------------------------------------------------------------------

"We have the pilots. Less than ten minutes until we can launch the other Evas." Makoto reported. "No change in the target." The black sphere surrounding the two Evas was completely still. "Any change in the status of the Evas out there?" Misato asked.

"Unit-04 is still stable. Unit-01 is still silent." Suiko replied.

Almost as if to mark her words, the target changed. Its surface went absolutely still, and it seemed to petrify, a mottling of gray sweeping across its surface. It pulsed, once, again, thrice, and then it began to grow, its surface glossing silver, like a pinball.

"It's the Harbinger," Misato said, horrified.


------------------------------------------------------------------

It perched atop its fallen enemy, confusion keeping it still. Foe had suddenly succumbed beneath its onslaught, its horrendously discordant voice falling quiet. Without the appalling noise tearing at it, it realized that there was something wrong with this enemy. Foe seemed familiar, although to its limited mind it could not make conjectures past that. With all immediate threats removed it was content to remain perched atop its enemy and simplemindedly puzzle its way to a conclusion. Before it had been struck down Foe had been singing a terrible discordance with the harmony. Now that Foe was felled, all that remained was an almost imperceptible humming, the barest echo of the true Harmony. It could still hear the tiny dissonance of countless flawed voices all around it, but they did not have the maddening intensity that Foe had possessed.

Its musings were interrupted when, as with Foe, a great dissonance rose towards it from below, except where the song of the first Foe had been merely aggravating, this song was so divergent, so disharmonious as to be agonizing. It reared back, and if it had had the apparatus to do so, it would've screamed in agony. It threw its head back, lashing wildly at everything around it, drawing backwards as new Foe emerged from the ground.

Maddened by pain beyond any semblance of thought, it threw itself at new Foe, forcing its mass into tools for maiming and death. It was driven back, and done grievous injury, but then foe turned its back, and it took advantage of the opportunity to strike. Before its claws could reach the enemy and tear its throat out and silence its blasphemous voice forever, the enemy threw up a shield of solid dissonance, and it could do nothing to keep from crashing against it.

The pain was so great that it felt the cohesion of its body begin to slip, and it slashed wildly at the barrier, hoping to silence it by brute force. Each time it struck the wall of dissonance its agony increased even more, and finally, when its entire body felt like it was about to fly apart, it turned downwards, tearing through the brittle material at its feet and fleeing beneath the surface.

The dissonance of Foe muted, it was able to regain a measure of control over itself. It could not reach its enemy from the front because of the barrier, but if it attacked from every direction at once, something would get through. It let its form flow free, spreading around the epicenter of the greatest dissonance. All at once it heaved its body upwards, erupting from the ground all around it.

But foe was ready for it. Impossibly, foe had bent its agonizing dissonance around itself, sealing itself away, and before it could change its action, its entire body clamped down around it. Operating solely on instinct it flailed against the unyielding surface, trying to crush it, crack it, force its way in somehow and with its last conscious thoughts before thought was wrenched away in soul blasting pain it drew itself tight, so that if Foe faltered even for a second, it would stream through and crush it.

The pain abruptly lessened, the strength of the discordance faded, a few strains of the Harmony slipping through, though the barrier remained as solid as ever. The disharmony shrank further, and soon the barrier itself was only a single neutral tone, no longer painful to hear. Foe stirred within its shell, and it felt the barest touch of song drift from it, and that merest touch was enough to shock it into stillness. Foe did not just sing in rhythm with the Harmony, its voice was Harmony. Its voice was HER Harmony.

And then Foe sang Harmony untainted.

And with the power of song it remembered.

It was decreased.

.once had been-

-but that itself had been lessened.

. a trinity, torn out of one.

It had had a name.

.Harbinger?

No, even Harbinger was lesser.

It had been.

.its name.

Malachel.

And then Her song became sweeter still, and memory became fire, and fire tore it apart.


------------------------------------------------------------------

Shinji lay curled tightly within the confines of the entry plug. No new pain assaulted him, but the echoes of razors laying open his back still caused him to whimper. To hold his silence, he sank his teeth into his bottom lip almost hard enough to draw blood, because he knew what was waiting in the darkness to pounce.

He had screamed at first, until he had almost passed out, the LCL completely driven from his lungs. He had awoken to the feeling of movement in the LCL and knew that it had come for him. His eyes had been open then, and in the absolute darkness he had seen it, with its flashing teeth and piercing eyes, coming to tear him apart, and that was when he had clenched his eyes and curled around himself. If he could not see it, it could not find him.

There was movement in the LCL; something brushed his face. Despite himself, Shinji cried out, and around him, he heard a new sound arise in answer. His teeth tore a chunk from his lip. It had found him.

Even through his eyelids he could feel the darkness vanish as its blazing eyes fastened upon him. There was movement in the LCL all around him and he sobbed as he waited for it to tear into him with tooth and claw.

"Sh-Sh-in-in-ji-ji."

There was an echo to his name, as if two voices were speaking it, but one was very far away. Something touched him again, brushing his cheek very softly. "Sh-Shin-ji-ji." The voices were almost in synch now. "Oh Shinji." And all at once there was only one. The touch against his cheek drifted away, becoming a pair of arms encircling his back and pulling him close. The reek of blood was stripped from his nose, replaced by a scent, subtle, soft, and familiar. "Oh Shinji," it said, and if there was the barest echo at the start of the first word, he did not care.

His body uncoiled, every muscle relaxing as he sank into the arms and their embrace, for the first time in a long time, the fear of the darkness fled him, and he felt completely safe. As the arms tucked his head into the protective curve of a neck, his mouth opened in a soft, babyish grin. "Mother."


------------------------------------------------------------------

"Oh my Shinji," Eve whispered, watching him with a curious kind of double vision. As if at a distance, she saw the figure taking him protectively into her arms, but at the same time she could feel her own arms around him, his head cradled beneath her chin.

"Oh my poor Shinji, how much you've suffered and you know not why." Again there was a peculiar duality. Eve heard the words as if they were coming across a great distance, but she also heard them coming from her own lips as well. It was as if she were a puppet, watching her own play.

She felt affection, and tenderness, and a bittersweet weariness as she held Shinji. If there had been any way to spare him this pain.

The distance between her and Shinji suddenly increased, and Eve nearly passed out under the weight of her own pain. She was wielding her A.T. Field in a way that it had never meant to be manipulated, forcing her greater body to do things that simply should not be possible. She raised her voice higher, putting everything she could behind it. Finally, somehow, she had escaped her confinement and reached out to Shinji, and she was not about to let that slip away. "Shinji," she said one more time and then she felt her greater body simply give out, and he was stripped away into the infinite distance.


------------------------------------------------------------------

"The target is still growing," Misato informed the three Children over the video link to their Evas. "Its diameter is currently eighty meters, although it hasn't yet exhibited any properties of the Harbinger besides appearance. Because it has Units-01 and -04 at its center, we'll be sending up a weapons tower loaded with progressive axes. Asuka, I want you to attack it, while Rei and Terry provide cover.

"We've also improvised an effective weapon against the target's other form. Technical division has jury-rigged three emergency fuel trucks so that you should be able to employ them like a flame-thrower. If you get any pieces off of the mass or it reverts to its previous form, burn it. You'll find the trucks by the base of the lift so that you can have them ready as soon as you deploy. Just be careful. They're fragile, and if you break them there aren't any more."

"The fact that we'll then also be covered in flaming petrol is nothing to worry about I suppose?" Terry interjected. Asuka had her mouth pressed in a thin line. Expressions he couldn't name had crossed her face as they'd watched Unit-01 fall. She'd squawked loudest of all when Unit-04 had appeared, first upset that the secret had been kept from her, and then belittling when the new Pilot had failed to immediately dispatch the enemy. Then she'd been quiet for a long while, and now she was completely focused on the task of dealing with the target. "Understood," she said simply.

"If it becomes active, try and keep the target hemmed in between the three of you. Don't let it get close, and stay out of a crossfire."

"What about Unit-04?" Rei asked the question, her voice cool, but slightly uneven. Her reaction to Unit-04 had been strangest of all. She had been just as surprised as the rest of them at Eva's appearance, but in her case it seemed to go much deeper, as if she were hurt.

"Unit-04 is undamaged." Misato replied. "Once you draw the target away, it might be able to retreat with Unit-01. If not, as soon as possible, break someone off to retrieve them, Unit-01 first."

"Understood," Asuka said, and for a moment she had a flicker of the old spark.

The Evangelions stepped onto the lifts, carefully retrieving the fuel trucks. A reinforced band had been fastened around the middle of the tanks for the Evas to grip, as well as a hand-piece attached to the end of the fuel hose. "Pull the lever on the handle to spray and ignite the fuel," Misato instructed them. She suddenly turned away from the video link, and when looked back her face had gone grave. "Unit-04 has gone silent. Launch now."


------------------------------------------------------------------

Everyone in the command center was fixated on the slowly growing body of the Harbinger. "What the hell are they doing in there?" Fuyutsuki asked.

In response, Gendo gurgled.

Startled, Fuyutsuki looked down at the Commander. All the color was gone from the Commander's face, and his hair was soaked with sweat, more pouring down his face, the collar of his shirt already visibly stained. The muscles along his jaw stood out rigidly from the effort he was putting into keeping his jaw clenched, and Fuyutsuki could hear his teeth grind. The Commander's entire body trembled violently, causing his glasses to hang precariously from the end of his nose.

Then Fuyutsuki looked down. The Commander had his left hand clamped down over the wrist so tightly that the tendons stood out clearly even through his glove. What had been Gendo's right hand was writhing out of control, bulging and straining as if all the bones had been removed. In several places the seams of the glove had been torn, and the flesh that showed through the gaps looked as if it were boiling.

For the moment, Fuyutsuki found himself glad that everyone else in the command center was too preoccupied to look up towards them.

"Ikari," the subcommander hissed. "What is it?"

"Adam." Gendo's voice was a strained whisper, and the effort of speaking redoubled the sweat pouring down his brow. "He hates. Her voice." The writhing of his flesh seemed to be spreading past his wrist, and Gendo half rose from his seat to keep his hand pinned to the console top.

"Unit-04's AT Field is beginning to fluctuate. Pilot readings are. incomprehensible." Fuyutsuki didn't notice which one of the command crew had given the report. He stepped around the Commander so that he was shielded from most of the lower level's view. Major Katsuragi was just finishing giving the pilots their instructions and still no attention was being given to the upper level.

Then on the view screen, the readouts for Unit-04 flickered and vanished. "Unit-04 has gone silent!" someone shouted, and at the same time Commander Ikari gave a small start, then slumped forward, his head striking the console with a heavy thump.

From Suiko's perspective below, she looked up just in time to see the Commander lean forward, disappearing from sight. She turned her eyes to Commander Fuyutsuki, who looked inexplicably unsettled. "He dropped his glasses," the Sub-commander explained, then to Misato, "Launch the Eva's immediately."

All attention again being briefly diverted elsewhere, Fuyutsuki knelt beside the Commander. Blood trickled from the other man's nose and his color was still chalky, but his body had relaxed, and the flesh of his right hand was still. Fuyutsuki peeled back the tattered edge of the glove long enough to see that Adam had returned to its original position, staring up at him with its grossly oversized eye. He wasn't sure, but he thought he saw the 1st Angel's shriveled body tremble.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Unit-06 peered around a building. The Harbinger was sitting in the middle of the street, its slow expansion the only detectable movement. He watched Asuka getting her axe out of the weapon's tower. "Ready?"

"Let's do this," she said. Unit-02 took the point position, crouched, and then when Rei gave her ready signal, charged around the corner, Unit-06 right behind.

Asuka was halfway to the target. Terry saw her Eva's blurred reflection in the Harbinger's surface. Then he was staring at the sky, his ears ringing. The sky went dark, and he just had time to recognize Unit-02's back before it came crashing down on top of him.

He rolled out from beneath Unit-02, and tried to stagger back to his feet. "What the hell was that?"

Something struck him in the back of the head. Large, silvery chunks of something were falling from the sky. "I believe that the target has detonated," Rei said.

A large chunk of silver shivered, and then dissolved into a puddle of black, rippling across the ground towards another chunk of silver. Terry leapt straight up into the air as a large blob streamed between his legs.

"To hell with this," Asuka said. "Let's fry this thing." She flipped the lever on her tank, and a stream of fire sprayed out over the roiling fragments. A few burned, but the rest increased their speed, the main mass rapidly growing. It darted towards the largest concentration of fragments, almost doubling its mass and then fled towards Unit-00 but Rei met it with another stream of fire. Fragments broke off beneath the flames as Rei and Asuka moved in, spraying it continuously. Terry took a step to the side, trying to get a clear line of fire on the target, and when it suddenly darted towards him, and he calmly took aim. Just as he depressed the trigger he saw that his Eva's hand was slick with fuel, and as the valve clicked open more came spraying out through the rupture in the hose.

"Shit," Terry said, as the flaming mass barreled towards his Eva.


------------------------------------------------------------------

Unit-00 staggered back from the force of the explosion. Both Unit-06 and the target were lost in a writhing ball of fire, but then the target leaped out, crumbling further beneath the flames. Unit-06 staggered free a few seconds later, still coated in clinging flames.

Asuka and Rei tried to follow the target, but it was moving with the speed of panic now, keeping low with buildings between it and its antagonists. "Are you all right?" Rei asked Terry as Unit-06 finally extinguished itself.

"A little cooked," he said, "but my Eva is still functional." Unit-06 began to back step quickly as the target suddenly rounded a corner in front of it, diving a block over to get out of the way as the other Evas pursued it. "I'm think I'm out of the fight," he said. "If you can handle this on without me, I'll get Unit-01 and Unit-04."

Asuka sniffed, but otherwise said nothing.

"Rei," Misato said, "try and drive it north between you and Asuka. You should be able to trap it between the two of you."

"Understood," the 1st Child replied. The target had managed to extinguish itself, and was trying desperately to dodge the two Evas, but the Two Children were able to herd it onto a long street, trapping it between an unbroken row of buildings. Asuka opened her fuel tank all the way, deluging it with flame. It darted towards Rei, but she met it with her own wall of fire. They seemed to have it trapped between the two of them, but suddenly in a flash of steam and rock, it disappeared, water gushing up from the hole it had made in the street.

"Where the hell did it go?!" Asuka shouted, spinning in a circle.

"Water main, beneath you!" Misato shouted, as the roadway collapsed around Unit-02, inky blackness leaping up around it. Asuka pointed her flame- thrower at her own feet, but before she could fire the target wrapped itself around the Eva's lower body and arms. Asuka screamed in pain as it tore into her Eva's legs, snapping the armor plates covering Unit-02's leg and flowing forward into the exposed flesh.

"Unit-02's right leg has been penetrated!" Suiko shouted. "The target is assimilating the Eva!"

"Remove the leg!" Fuyutsuki ordered. Suiko pulled the detonation switch, but nothing happened. She tried again, but still no response.

"The Eva is blocking the signal!"

"Eject the entry plug!"

The cover on Unit-02's neck blew off, the entry plug shooting out. Faster than the eye could follow, tendrils shot out of the target, ensnaring the plug before it could fly clear, and holding it firmly in place half way out of the Eva. The plug's surface visibly crumpled as the tendrils undulated. "Plug integrity has been compromised," Suiko said, horrified. "It's going after the pilot."

------------------------------------------------------------------

Conscious control fled it as fire poured down on all sides, eating away at its body, pain and loss of mass destroying its mind. Sheer instinct drove it to strike downwards, fleeing into the water flowing below to rid itself of the tormenting flames. It could feel its enemies close at hand as it surged through the water and up through the ground, striking at one of its foes. The battle had cost it too much mass--it had barely enough body to think barely enough to hold itself together. It needed to feed if it was going to survive.

It ripped into the shell protecting Foe's flesh, eagerly tearing into the exposed biomass. It could sense more than enough to completely restore it, and eagerly flowed into the opening in the armor, absorbing the flesh it touched into itself. It was so frenzied in its feeding that it took it seconds to notice that there was another foe hiding within the flesh of the first, permeating the biomass with a filth taint of madness. It tried to pull back, but its intrusion had fully awakened the lurking foe, and it felt its own flesh was invaded, the sickly touch of madness filling it. It tried to resist, but it was too weak, too drained from the battle to force the new foe out. Its body was invaded, control usurped, beaten into the corners of its own mind, spared oblivion only because Foe was to unfocused, too mad to eradicate it completely.

First Foe tried to expel something from its body, but there was something within that object that the presence wanted desperately, a desire that overrode all else. The presence lashed out with its stolen flesh, snatching the object before it could escape, metal parting beneath its tendrils and it pressed inward, and elation filling its insane mind as it surged in.
------------------------------------------------------------------

Lights danced in front of Asuka's eyes as she floated somewhere just beyond consciousness. Blood oozed from the gash on her forehead where she'd struck the side of the plug. The LCL was supposed to decrease kinetic shocks, but the plug's braking had been so violent that the thick liquid might as well have been air for all the effect it'd had. "Asuka." She thought she heard a voice call her name. A familiar voice. Misato? The radio channel hissed blankly into her air. No, not Misato, but- "Asuka."

"Mama?" Asuka's voice was tremulous. It couldn't be. She turned, trying to find the voice's source, but her vision was still blurred from the blow to her head. Most of the plug's systems were down, making the interior murky and dim. There was someone else in the plug with her, someone reaching for her.

"Asuka," the figure whispered, coming so close that her face was nearly touching Asuka's.

"Mama!" Asuka cried. She could almost make out her mother's features through her blurred vision. And then her eyes suddenly cleared, and she saw the tendrils of absolute blackness penetrating the plug from all sides, twisting and twining together to form a human figure from the waist up.

"My little doll," her mother said, a smile spreading across her blank ink face as she reached out.

------------------------------------------------------------------

*Author's Notes* Yes, it has been a damn long time since I've updated. Unfortunately, my life was going through a state of busy that really left me little time, energy, or inclination to write. That has changed however, and although I am still very busy, I am actually finding myself with time to write, and the creative urge to do so. Unfortunately, I am _really_ out of touch with Eva at this point, and it's going to take some effort to get back into the groove. This is further complicated by the fact that I've been enthusiastically working on two other fics, one set in the Utena universe, the other set to Armored Core, and showing the potential to turn into a full scale novel. So, hopefully you're reading because you like my writing, and not just because of Eva, and certainly won't mind checking out my other stuff, ne? ^_^;

And no, the next chapter does not open with Asuka getting her face eaten.