Disclaimer: Not mine etc etc.

A/N: Wow, this has been sitting on my hard drive for quite some time. The knife fight scene was one of the first parts I wrote for this series, and I'm fairly proud of it. Anyway, please review, I need to know about the quality of this action writing.

Despite the fact I detest responding to reviews in a fic (just seems like a bloody waste of time to me), the plain fact is some of you want Art out. I could write an essay as to why I want him in here, but frankly I don't have the time, nor the inclination. If you want to give it a try, there's this handy little button at the bottom of the page marked 'review'. So you tell me, "Why would I have Arthur Cooper in this fic?"

Yes, I realise I'm being lazy, but ff.net is getting annoyed at chapter long authors notes. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it ^_^;;

Er... those guy's who had questions, check the bottom of the page.

Chapter 6

"Major, I have two new contacts, moving inbound at a speed and altitude comparable to aircraft."

"Bombers?"

"No ma'am, signature suggests something much bigger."

"Where are they heading?"

"Into Unit 02's combat zone."

Misato frowned, "More Jet Alones? Did they make airborne versions?"

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

Two silhouettes graced the ground, speeding towards a little known valley. In this valley the sounds of battle were heard, shots from rifles, canon, and at this distance the soft whisper of rockets.

The silhouettes belonged to two divine shapes, caressing the sky in an elegant display of flight. Two angelically white figures, far above the petty concerns of the world below them.

Majestically their mighty pinions beat, as they gracefully defied gravity. Massive wings of a pure white, dove-like in their beauty.

But two sharp lines fracture the soft lines of their otherwise harmonious shadows. Two long weapons that glint in the day light. Two lengthy shafts, topped with a blade as brilliant as chrome.

Then, as though responding to some unheard command, or some unseen signal, both of the seraphim snapped their wings closed. Such a perfect display of synchronicity.

Their wing span now gone, hey begin to lose altitude. Like the morning star, the production model evas fell to earth.

please note: the spears are not the copies of the lance of loginus seen in EoE, they are just plain old spears... er, except they're eva sized

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

Asuka smirked. 'Oh goodie,' she thought to herself, as the two newcomers landed a few hundred metres from her. It was a welcome change from the ants of the factory's defence force.

"Only two? How thoughtless," she said mockingly, even though she knew they could not hear her. It would have been nice for a little more of them to turn up. About five would do, something she could really get her teeth into. These two would barely provide a warm up.

Unit 02 stood out in the middle of a large field, a clear target. No doubt they had chosen her as a target as she was the most prominent eva. Despite her pride she was no fool, she knew the only reason they had gone after her was because she was the first eva they had seen. Besides, it made no sense for them to deliberately head hunt the toughest target.

They had set down in front of her, their spears' levelled at her eva, no doubt pointing dramatically to her core. They were equidistant from her, one to her forward left, one to her forward right. The one on the left seemed to be inching forward though. She summarised that one was the leader of the pair. It was obvious that he would be the harder opponent. On the other hand, that one might be a subordinate being used as a human shield. Either way, she was confident she could take them.

"Asuka?"

"Yes Misato?"

"Don't take any risks with them. You're the only one with any real experience for this kind of fight, and the others are tied up with jet alones. That means you're on your own."

"I wasn't counting on their help anyway, Misato."

"Even so, be careful. We don't have a lot of data on these guys."

"Yeah right..."

The eva closest to her lunged forward with it's spear.

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

Art slammed the butt of his rifle into the last Jet Alone in his immediate vicinity, neatly crunching a gun shaped hole in the huge mecha. It staggered back under the force, Art pushing his eva to follow, swinging around with the broadsword in an ugly cumbersome arc. The top half of the stricken robot slid off, revealing it's inner workings, making Art smile with the satisfaction of a foe well vanquished. He frowned as he realised how stupid his thoughts were sounding.

"Major, all targets taken care of, I'm on my way to give Unit 02 a hand."

"Negative three, she can handle her self. You are to deny your sector to the enemy."

"Wha- what enemy! All the buggers legged it when their glorified Pino's got their capacitors handed back to them in a sling!"

"Even so Cooper, you need to cover the escape route for our troops."

"But maj-"

"Don't make me repeat a direct order Pilot."

Art sat back in the seat, teeth clenched and glaring at the audio only window. Ok, on the one hand, Sohryu was a well trained pilot, and undoubtedly had some experience with eva on eva combat. She handled herself well against that earlier eva, and that was when she was going through a lot, and wasn't she supposed to have taken down her fair share of angels? In light of that, maybe the major was justified in having Art sit this one out.

But... from what he had seen personally...

"Sorry Major? You rescind that direct order?"

"What? No-"

"Command, my radio is out. I'm going to provide back-up for Unit 02."

"Damn it Cooper this isn't a god dam-" Art cut the communications link. He could do without command's helpful comments about why what he was doing was wrong. He would need to concentrate if he was to be any good to Sohryu, and an angry Major shouting in your ear tends to distract you a bit.

He felt moderately ashamed at himself for disobeying the Major, but he felt he was right in doing this. After all, it was a waste of resources having him stuck on the sidelines, not doing much. He smiled, and started his eva running towards the combatants, his umbilical cable hovering in the air on a few jets as he disconnected it.

He got about two strides when the last of the jet alones began to attack. They swarmed towards the green giant, much to the annoyance of the British pilot inside. "Oh bugger," he growled as he drove his broadsword into the first, barging it to the side with his shoulder.

His momentum carried him past that robot, leaving the broadsword buried inside the mechanical warrior. Another came at him as he charged forward. Swinging both fists together he crushed it's side, sending it hurtling into a group of trees.

Another came in flying at his head. His eva already low from the heavy swing, he sent it into a roll across the ground, the shoulder blades digging up divots the size of car parks. As he came up he faced the eva in the direction of Unit 02, ignoring the jet alone landing behind him. He had no time for that right now, he had to get to Sohryu.

But as he turned another jet alone appeared before him. He slammed both arms on it's head, bounding off the ground, effectively leap frogging over the stricken mecha, crumpling the tough metal underneath the eva's weight.

He looked at the far figures of the three combatants. It was still a long way away. He left the crumpled corpse of the twisted metal robot and set off on his short trip to the combat zone.

He never noticed quite how many Jet Alone's were sneaking up behind him. Or how many fell to a bright scarlet beam lancing out from Rei's position.

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

Rei watched as the green eva tore it's way across the field of battle. It was quite funny watching the green giant hurl itself along at such a rate, ripping great chunks of earth behind it as it's heels dug into the ground.

She was slightly worried though. He had quite voluntarily disobeyed a direct order. The concept she could understand, sometimes a commanding officer did not have the necessary information to accurately asses a situation, at which point it became necessary for a pilot to make a decision. It was the simple fact that he had no acceptable reason to do so that bothered her.

Pilot Sohryu, she felt, was a capable pilot, and clearly did not need help with the new threat. There was absolutely no need for Pilot Cooper to attempt such a risky action. In fact, it was a misallocation of resources. Cooper would have been far more efficient if he had taken the time to dispose of the Jet Alones now following across the field of battle.

She pulled down the trigger, making the tail of mecha behind the British eva significantly smaller. She had decided to use her own initiative and took it upon herself to remove these from the combatant list. If it were not for her steady and methodical application of firepower, Pilot Cooper would have been intercepted by the pursuing robots.

It was strange to think of how often and how close Cooper came to destruction. She wondered if he knew just how regular an event his near extinction was. It confused her to imagine such a persons life, never quite realising the mortality he had, the precariousness of his life.

Another, more distressing thought floated into her mind. What if he knew and simply ignored it?

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

The first production model, or at least the one closest to her raised it's weapon to strike. There was almost an expression of hatred in the otherwise neutral face. It managed to convey aggression, superiority and disdain in one single permanent leer. Asuka smirked back at the daemonic vision in front of her, weighing up the strengths and weaknesses of the spear held in both hands. The pole arm had a good body length of reach over her own axe- she would have to close fast to snatch the initiative from it.

The other eva held back, as though it were waiting for the other one to settle some score with Asuka. But that was probably just her adrenaline charged mind playing tricks on her. No doubt it was just acting as a guard. If she were to get in close then it would surely stab out, covering it's buddy. It was a standard tactic, and one they actually taught at Nerv as well- which meant she knew exactly what the weaknesses of that approach was.

The next few moments drifted past with the speed of continents. The first one took one step forward, spear raised into a vicious jabbing position. Asuka balanced her axe in her hand, ready to dodge the incoming pole arm. She could almost see the muscles bunching underneath the things armour as they slid over each other into the most efficient positions. It's arm's coiled like a snake.

And a green blur canonballed into it, snapping Asuka's world back into real time. Both blur and attacker were soon on the ground, the spear hurtling out to the side as the production model fumbled it from surprise. The blur formed itself into the shape of the British evangelion piloted by none other than-

"Cooper you fucking moron!" she screamed into the comm. unit.

This was her fight! Her duel between these two foes! Her... her debut battle in whatever country this was! And a god damned rookie had to go plant his heavy handed finger in her business! HER FIGHT!

"Cooper get the hell away from here now!"

The reply was garbled with static, as the two giants wrestled each other on the ground, various antennae buffeted and mired by AT field interference, "*static* -it busy ri- *static* -alk later!"

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

Art listened with half an ear as the parade of German insults issued forth from his communications window. He frowned. Some he had never heard before. He made a mental note to look up a few after the battle.

He rapidly blocked an incoming appendage that seemed destined to connect with the eva's head, narrowly avoiding being put out of the fight altogether. It was kind of stupid, now that he thought about it. He was locked in a wrestling match with a far stronger opponent, and he had just terminally pissed off the only back up he could count on in the immediate vicinity. It would take something pretty bloody special to help him now.

The two evas rolled over the grey slab that was the factory roof. The white eva ended up on top, and slammed a fist down on to Art's green eva's head. Art jerked it out the way, the fist exploding into the already weakened concrete. Fracture lines ran out from the fist spreading across the roof like a cancer.

In a few seconds the roof gave way to the two evas weight, and they fell into the darkness, Art's green eva landing first on the floor, rolling out of the way just as the white one fell in his old position. He kicked it, sending it flying into a collection of factory equipment.

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

Kensuke walked slowly, yet purposefully from the Horaki household. It was well beyond late now, and the sun was beginning to peak up over the horizon, unsure itself if it was ready for the world to wake up. He sighed, it was still a school day tomorrow, and his late night penguin stalking had taken up all the time he would usually reserve for sleep. Another sigh and a mental shrug later, he began to think of ways he could sleep throughout the day without getting caught.

It had been fun though. He never quite realised how fast the flightless bird could be. That was the thing about Penpen, he always had one more surprise up his wing. But eventually they had managed to corner him behind a dumpster, and Hikari had tempted him from his hiding place using a jar of sardines. From then on it was just a simple matter of avoiding the random pecks and scratches as he carried the penguin back to her house.

He could understand Touji's interest in Hikari though, if not the crush itself. Hikari was, well, special. She could command an entire class into mute obedience, and yet still have the sensitive nature to go hunting for a friends lost penguin when any sane person should have been sleeping. It was a mix that Kensuke decided was admirable.

He checked his watch again. He sighed. He could also understand why his father was going to give him hell for getting back so late, or early in this case. No doubt he would have been asleep rather than staying up worrying, but his dad was a busy man, and any scrap of spare time he had was usually given over to more work or sleep. But Kensuke didn't mind. The yelling that would surely happen was a sign that his father did care about him, which was a lot better than most got.

He looked in the basket he was now carrying under one arm. A small reward from Hikari for helping her out at this time of night. He smiled, maybe these would pacify his old man. A collection of baked goods that had been wrapped up in a cloth.

He grinned. It was probably worth the all nighter just to get his hands on Hikari's buns.

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

Asuka raised an eyebrow in disgust as the two giants rolled into the gaping hole. "Idiot," she commented bitterly. Yeah sure, it was fine coming to help if she needed it, but these amateurs were hardly going to make her even sweat. And to top it off, he had even managed to screw up the rescue attempt.

The second production model stabbed forward. Purely on reflex she blocked the attack. Absolute fool, she thought. First he comes charging across the battlefield with little or no regard for the position of the enemy. The production model, again, attempted a thrust, which she absentmindedly dodged. Then, he manages to put his eva in *the* worst tactical position she had ever seen.

Deciding she had enough of this fool, she dodged another strike, stepped neatly in towards her opponent and grabbed it's throat. It struggled briefly before she threw it back on the ground, the force of the impact stunning it for a few moments.

Asuka took her time in bringing the axe down to cleave it neatly in two, the entry plug obliterated by the axe head, mangled into an unrecognisable object. 'These damn amateurs are barely worth my time,' she thought, idly wiping the blood splatter from the eva's armour.

It was true. These eva's simply lacked any combat experience, and were quite possibly the most predictable enemy she had fought since she went against Rei in the simulator. Pathetic really. They were simply not good enough to beat her.

Of course, Cooper was equally pathetic. She wondered how he was getting on, and whether or not she would have to break his ego by rescuing her would be rescuer. She smirked at that thought.

She had been wrong before, when she had just gotten back out of the hospital. Back then she was still stuck in the rut of believing herself to be second best. Now, she was absolutely, and positively, the best eva pilot.

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

He could not believe it. Of all the damned luck. Just as he had been making good his escape plan, two bloody obstacles had literally fallen out of the sky. The member of Selee sighed. Stupid evangelions bringing their fight inside the factory. Didn't they realise the cost of the equipment used in the manufacture of Jet Alones. Nerv had a lot to answer for indeed.

Not to mention the cost of pinning a member of Selee underneath a ton of rubble. He had heard the fall of the two giant mecha, not really paying it much heed. They had been far to far down the factory to bother him that much, and he was nearly at his escape craft anyway. However, whatever the evangelions had done to get in to the factory had caused the roof to come down on him. He had, in retrospect, been fortunate. The rubble had merely crushed a lot of the prosthetics which made up a good proportion of his body, a lot of the organic parts had been left relatively in tact.

The downside to this was the fact he could not escape. He was unable to move in any serious fashion, and unless a kindly soul came down here to help him, he would either be captured, or would simply die of starvation. Neither prospect filled him with much hope, but the idea of starving to death was not as honourable a passing as he had hoped.

There was the sound of footsteps. Perhaps it was a kindly soul? He doubted it. They were getting closer now. The old man twisted his head to try and see the face of the person who was approaching. He couldn't quite see the face, but the uniform was pretty clear. The uniform of a Nerv sergeant, prepped for combat. He had signed the document releasing funds for them himself. He was already regretting that.

"So, you have found me."

The sergeant squatted next to the old man. He reached down to the old man's jacket, checking that the badge of Selee was there. The sergeant stood back up.

"Are you going to take me into custody? Or has Ikari got other plans for his former superiors?"

He heard the subtle click of a safety catch being released.

"I see."

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

Art rose to his feet, his heart pounding. It had the edge over him. He only had, he checked, three minutes of power left. After that it would all be over and that guy would try and finish off Sohryu. He could not let that happen. Besides, he grinned, it would not help his ego to be beaten by this guy. The monitor system registered the low light levels, activating the night vision backups. He was surrounded by an eerie green glow, that failed to present him with a clear view of the world. Assuming it to be too dark for even the sophisticated detection systems, he strained his eyes to take stock of his surroundings.

His eva barely fit in the factory. He had a clearance of about twenty metres from his shoulder blades to the roof. He grimaced. This fight was not going to be pleasant. The low ceiling would make any kind of manoeuvring difficult, and if his combat instructors had taught him anything, it was that restrictive situations were to be avoided.

He hit a few buttons on his control panel, and the progressive knife flipped out of it's housing. He grabbed it, and was knocked aside by the white eva's charge. He hadn't seen it coming, it was too dark. He could barely see.

The two evas crashed into more expensive sounding equipment. Art ended up underneath it again, but this time he brought the eva's knees up into a ball and kicked it up. He heard it thump into the ceiling, and car sized chunks of concrete bounced off his armour. It fell to the ground next to him, and he leapt his eva on top of it, striking down with the knife. It gripped his knife arm, and a struggle began between them, both fighting to gain control over the weapon.

He could almost feel the other pilots fear, his desperate attempt to humanise his opponent. He could sense the aggression pouring off of him. He was only a few dozen metres from him, lost in the green enhanced haze. Locked in a gutter fight, the two evas each trying to gain the upper hand. In the dark, a mad scramble for the last one standing, both feeding off of each others survival instinct. Art could smell the anger buzzing around him, a chaotic mess of sensations, yet infinitely focussed on the pilot in the other war machine.

The white eva, in an act of desperation, brought it's head up sharply, neatly nutting the green eva. Art was stunned from the impact, stars exploding in his eyes. Art lost control of the eva for a second, the shock causing the eva to slacken it's grip on the weapon. The white demon took advantage of this, twisting the green eva's arm around and plunging the knife into it's chest. Art gasped as the pain swept across him. The green eva snarled in protest, and the knee came up sharply between the attacker's legs, a learnt reflex from back alley scraps where both sides forgot whatever reasons they had, and just went for the throat.

This did not appear to have the desired effect of leaving the other guy in a helpless ball, probably due to the fact that the other pilot remembered that evas aren't equipped in that fashion. What it did result in was the other eva forcing Art over onto his back, flattening more of the factory equipment as he went. It reached over and dragged the knife, still plunged up to the hilt in the green eva, across the body, a jet of blood disappearing into the darkness of the roof.

Art was in agony, the fire across his chest burning away any rational thought. The white eva was quick to push it's advantage, vaulting on top of Art's eva, simultaneously squeezing with it's legs and pummelling it's midsection. Art shut his eyes tightly, hoping to God the pain would end. His arms were tight across his chest, warding off the invisible fists that battered him.

The white eva stopped it's pummelling, instead driving it's hand into the green evas chest. It got a good grip on the chest armour and wrenched it away, tearing a good amount of flesh with it. Art felt as though he would pass out from the pain. He fuzzily heard an electronic voice tell him that Carbon Dioxide was being pumped into the LCL mix. Evidently the life support systems had picked up on the fact he was hyperventilating. Increasing the carbon dioxide content reduced oxygen dependency, keeping the pilot more or less sane. No amount of clever biology was going to keep Art's heart from beating out of his chest.

The white eva began to dig through the soft inner tissue of the British made eva, blood oozing out into the factory, chunks of meat clinging to the now unused tools. Art felt it all as though it were his own body, the monster blindly groping his own chest, ripping apart his ribs, revelling in the ravaging of his innards. Sanity was not something he wanted right now.

And yet he could do nothing.

He could barely think.

He had no defence against this white monstrosity. And to be fair, he started it. His body screamed at his mind to make it stop, to somehow make the hurting go away. But he couldn't. The pain was too intense.

He was going to die in this cold worthless place, somewhere by rights he should not be, instead enjoying the carefree life that was owed to him. Not here, blinded by darkness, under the tender mercies of a butcher, heart beat ringing in his ears, blotting out the guttural war chant of his enemy.

He imagined himself being torn limb from limb. He imagined a world where the pain had stopped because he had died. He imagined a place where his father had no one left to call family.

In a flash of sanity he hit a combination on the arm rest pads. His right shoulder blade cracked open. The white eva stopped its grisly excavation to examine this new development. Art gripped the pilots sticks with a vigour born of self preservation, eyes blazing intensely in the animal lust for survival.

His eva's arms reached up, and rammed the white demon onto the shoulder blade. The eva emitted a low rumble of primal fury. There was a series of pops as the gas launched grenades fired from the blade housing, with enough concussive force to demolish several city blocks.

The white eva was blasted away, leaving Art with the more immediate problem of a half torn out chest and now another wound from the grenade explosions. He tried to get the eva to stand so it could escape, but the best he could manage was a crawl.

"Move you lousy piece of junk..." he grunted drowsily, almost wrenching the joysticks from their housings, willing the eva to move faster. The white eva landed with a heavy thud next to him. An alarm wailed in his ear. He glanced at the damage readout. The blast had gotten more of him than he had thought, the plug life support systems were failing. He could taste the subtle change in the LCL, once a tasteless goo, now something reminiscent of blood, the filtration systems finally letting the natural pollutants run free.

Seeing he could not escape, Art settled for tearing his opponent apart. He would be damned if he gave up now, not after all he had gone through. And he was far too out of it to think of anything more complex. The LCL in the plug was rapidly becoming unusable, much like blood in the body if separated from the lungs for too long. He was becoming short of breath, oxygen deprivation getting the better of him. Little black dots started to pop out of his vision, in stark contrast to the red haze in the corners of his eyes, all adding to the green glow of the monitors to produce a nauseating assault on his eyes.

The green eva punched up off the floor, it's pilot grunting with the exertion, landing on top of the production model. Weakly his eva clenched around the others chest armour, gripping it tightly with its fingers. But the white eva was not going to allow that. Snarling it brought it's legs up, kicking Art's eva into the factory. Art had kept a hold of the chest plate though, and it was torn free, exposing the eva series' own skin.

Art was now nearly out for the count. His attempt to save Sohryu had turned into a complete failure. His power was nearly gone as the white eva lifted him up, ramming him into the ceiling. The green eva was impaled to the factory roof by it's shoulder blades.

The white eva began to hit it. The force of the blows gently swayed the green eva back and forth. Art could barely feel the pain now. His world was now fuzzy, growing dark at the edges, black lines feeling in from the corner of his vision. The plug's life support must have been destroyed in the grenade explosions. He was finding it hard to breathe

Dumbly, he rolled his head over to where his power read out was. Barely twenty seconds worth of useful power. And there only two things holding him in position. He could taste his anger in the warm, foul smelling plug. The arrogance of that monster to think he would succumb to humiliation. Well, he would see how defeated this pilot was.

Dreamily his hand wandered down to a small panel to the side of his chair. He opened it to reveal another console, something only the plug technicians were supposed to know about. He keyed in a number combination, and a small lever popped out on the other side of the seat. This would release the eva from it's shoulder blades, the battery supply for the eva. If he released it he would have roughly two seconds of useful power. It was certain death. Art gripped it, and pulled anyway.

Hydraulic clamps keeping the shoulder blades in place suddenly went slack. The green eva dropped from the ceiling, sliding cleanly from the shoulder pads.

Art barely thought about his actions. The green eva stepped forward, almost on autopilot, thrusting his hand through the exposed flesh of the white eva, delving deep, past the organs, past the muscle and bones. He gripped something that felt like a smooth gem and squeezed.

THE END

A/N: Didya have fun? Because now it gets dark for the 6th child, whilst brightening for the rest of the cast. The sequel to this will be in the next book. I set myself a limit of 6 chapters per book, and hopefully there will be 6 books. If you've worked out why I'm going for 6s, now try to work out what the last 6 is ;) Oh, and you may have noticed a lack of Shinji in this chapter, don't worry, he gets the whole first chapter of the next book. Just him, Rei, and a bucket full of angst.

Rob - Unit 00s not unstable for the berserker reaction, I meant unstable for a different reason. Explained later on, when it becomes a problem. This is what is known as foreshadowing...that or it's just a random thought I had to keep Rei out of harms way, I' not sure ^_^;;

Dragon of the Rifts - This takes place approximately 1 month(ish) after episode 24 (I think I mentioned this in Part 1), Shinji is in a... he's sorta... well remember how Asuka was during the final episodes of the series? Like that, he's in hospital. Only not quite like that. Either way he's not up to his usual angsty self. And Unit 01? No pilot, therefore, back at Nerv. Don't worry though, he's got quite a lot of action to get through before this story is over, although his main role in this story will be a non-combative character. In my opinion he never was much of a fighter, and probably deserves a break from the stress. Anyway, glad you liked it.



*sigh* Best review(/flame) wins a cookie. That's it, I'm off to bed.

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