DISCLAIMER: The characters, story, universe, etc. of Neon Genesis Evangelion

belong to GAINAX. They're not mine, and I make no claim to them.

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" " = speech

^ ^ = thoughts

_ _ = italics

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Angels of Armageddon

Chapter 17: Prelude to Oblvion

Author: Ryan Xavier

Unit-04. The wild card. Or so Kaoru thought, anyway.

In the darkness of the late evening, the pale boy sat quietly upon a

hill, looking at the white Evangelion below him. Unit-04 lay flat on

its stomach, dormant, showing none of the malice it had displayed not a

week before. It was simply a sleeping giant.

Its head was still split open, armor torn asunder by a blow of

unimaginable power. Though most of the damage could be repaired -

indeed, most of it would regenerate on its own - the "eye" was a loss.

It had been completely destroyed by the attack, and would need to be

replaced. There was already progress on that front, though. Even

before coming here, some of the American engineers had been proposing

plans for some sort of replacement. They'd already fitted some kind of

metallic socket into the void left by the eye. The rest was getting

assembled and would be dropped off in the next day or two. Kaoru was

rather interested in what they'd come up with. But the eye was not the

problem that occupied his mind, at the moment.

"So then," he said, to the air. "What are we going to do with you?"

Unit-04 remained silent and unmoving.

"Will you turn on us again, when we need you the most?" he asked it.

"Or will you agree to servitude?"

Silence.

"Quite the choice, I must say," he whispered, tilting his head to one

side. "Slavery or death." He took a deep breath, letting it out

slowly. "To think that all this was caused by a lilum who was

presumptuous enough to think a computer could control something like

you."

His eyes flickered to the side, observing someone approaching the Eva.

He easily recognized Ariel's form, her long hair the same hue of the

Eva's armor.

Kaoru knew that something within him was changing. With every victory,

he felt something come alive inside of him, as though his current

existence was only a dream, and each win was slowly waking him up.

He could sense the presence of his own AT field, and knew that, if he

tried, he would be able to control it, project it at will. Not quite

at the strength he'd once had, but perhaps enough to allow an old

trick he'd known before Impact. He felt that now, with the arrival of

the Angel-turned-girl, was a prime opportunity to test his skill.

Closing his eyes, he plunged into his subconscious. Feeling the

familiar energy of his AT field, he reached out, bonding it to his

mind. He wrapped it around himself, drawing strength from it. After a

moment to collect himself, he began to project.

He felt the field leave his body, taking his mind with it. It extended

out from himself, down towards the Eva. He began to feel the Eva's AT

field, nearly indistinguishable from his own. There was also the

presence of a smaller, more alien one.

He opened his eyes. Though his body continued to sit on a hill a few

hundred meters away, the view he had was from much closer. He was next

to Ariel, though the girl noticed nothing. Had he wished that she see

him, he could have manifested a translucent form, but he saw no reason

to. It was better that she not know she was being watched.

The girl was running her fingers over the white armor of the Eva. She

muttered something under her breath, something Kaoru was only just

barely able to pick out.

"Are you still trapped there, Leliel?" she asked. The girl continued

walking, slowly moving up the Eva's body. "Not destroyed, as the

others were...at least not in body. I felt your soul die...is there

anything left?"

As with Kaoru, the Eva offered no answer.

"If you can hear me, your sister..." she whispered to it. "Do not

pursue your vendetta against humanity. The Lilum are not just cattle,

Leliel. They did not steal Mother from us. I have lived with them...I

have seen where they made their stands against us...they are the

rightful inheritors of this world. They fight for their

existence...refuse to throw away their lives over nothing. Perhaps in

that respect, they're a bit smarter than we were."

Kaoru listened intently. He focused everything he had on masking his

presence, knowing that the girl in front of him was particularly

sensitive to AT fields, at least as far as Lilum went. If Ariel was

saying these words for his benefit, she was very good at hiding it.

Ariel finally stopped walking, and leaned against the Eva, touching her

forehead to its cold metal surface. "If you can find Zeruel," she

whispered to it, "tell him to stop. He will not listen to my

entreaties. Even before we found our bodies, even before the

Unification itself, he and I were at odds with one another." A cold

smile came to her lips. "Our strategies were simply too different.

His method of the frontal assault, and mine of...subtlety. He will

not, _can_ not, listen to me. But..."

Ariel went quiet, whatever words she'd been about to say vanishing from

her mouth.

"...please do not harm the Lilum any more," she finally said.

She stood there, leaning against the Eva, for a good five minutes. The

whole time, Kaoru did not move. Finally, the girl began to get up,

shake herself off. Kaoru thought he could see some moisture in her

eyes.

^Learning to cry, are we?^ he thought. ^Perhaps you're beginning to

understand the humanity within you.^

He was about to leave, return to his body, when he heard a voice that

made his blood freeze.

^Arael,^ it said, simply.

Ariel stopped in her tracks, apparently having heard it, as well.

^Or perhaps you prefer the other designation these 'Lilum' gave you:

target fifteen. Whatever name you now go by, know this, Angel of

minds: my will is my own. Your pitiful tool Tabris cannot keep me

under control indefinitely. As long as the original exists, I can be

released any time I wish to be.^

Ariel had by now turned to face the Eva. "Original? You mean - "

^You should know that much like with my sister, I know the danger you

pose.^

Ariel blinked, confusion and fear spreading across her face. "But

I..."

Silence.

"I...I am no longer one of them."

Silence.

"I am one of the Lil...humans, now. I am...one of the people you

are to protect. I like to think that I've changed."

^You remain target fifteen, Arael,^ came the reply, finally.

^Regardless of your physical form, your soul remains forever

that of a monster. Fortunately for you, target fourteen remains at

large.^

It was at this point that the Eva's back plates groaned, and began to

move. Sliding noisily over each other, they peeled back, and finally

the long-sought entry plug was ejected, sticking out into the cool

night air.

^As for who I am to protect, that concern comes second. Destruction of

the targets comes first.^ There was a chilling laugh, short but

piercing. ^After all, why should a being such as yourself care about

collateral damage? Completion of the mission is always paramount.

Sacrifices, deaths...they are all peripheral concerns. You should

understand that, Arael.^

Ariel took several steps back, trying to put some distance between her

and the Eva. Nothing more could be heard, but a few indistinct

mutterings from Ariel, words that never quite formed in her mouth.

After it became clear that the Eva was through speaking - for now - she

turned and bolted. She disappeared into the night, running as fast as

her legs could carry her, never once looking back.

Kaoru, having since returned to his body, was trying to think this one

out. So the Dummy within Unit-04 was still active and, from the sound

of it, no better than the one in Unit-00 had been. Yet tomorrow they

would be powering up the Eva, even going so far as to put a human being

into it.

For a moment, Kaoru's conscience got the better of him. For a moment,

he realized that he could not allow this Eva to reawaken. For a

moment, he knew that Unit-04 was a danger to everyone around it.

He felt a tingling, something on the edge of his consciousness, and

realized that it was another being, something as powerful as the Eva in

front of him now...no, it was even more so. And it was angry.

In just a few days, the MP Eva that had escaped the last battle would

be returning. From all reports, it had made a full recovery. Kaoru

could sense it had gone past making simple repairs. It had upgraded

itself...readied itself for war. It had easily been a match for a

lone Eva last time. What could they expect from it this time around?

He looked back to Unit-04 and sighed. Maybe, if they could just

control it for this one battle...but then again, the Dummy had

demonstrated before that it could break free of their control. If this

one got out of hand, they would have another massacre in no time.

But then again, if Unit-00 fought alone against the coming enemy, and

lost...

He pulled his knees up against his chest and rested his chin on them,

lost in thought for a long time.

* * *

A few hours later, Kaoru still wasn't sure if he'd made the right

choice.

"S2 engine online and functional," he said, seated within Unit-00's

entry plug.

"All right," came Ritsuko's voice over the radio. "We're going to

start the power transfer now."

"Understood."

Ritsuko had done a fair amount of study into what had happened during

the berserk incident. Unit-04, not connected to any sort of power

cables, had still drawn power from somewhere, enough to charge its

batteries to their full limit. In the end, the answer had been simple

enough: there had only been one power source anywhere near Unit-04 that

could have supplied that kind of power. The thing was, it had already

been mounted in another Evangelion.

Unit-00, it seemed, had learned a new trick. Its S2 engine, which

supplied it with enough power to run indefinitely, could be altered,

made to run in an open loop that included another Eva. No one had

ever considered the possibility of such a thing, hence why it had taken

so long for Ritsuko to figure it out. Running two Evas off the same S2

unit was quite dangerous, putting a tremendous load on the engine. It

could hit its theoretical limit in no time, if they weren't careful.

Kaoru understood the situation, by merit of his connection to Unit-00.

He reasoned that they'd just have to be careful; there was no other way

to power Unit-04. A generator of the size required to supply power

externally simply could not be brought over in time for the upcoming

battle. Kaoru knew he would have to be especially careful; with the S2

engine seated in Unit-00, if his Eva was ever rendered inoperative,

Unit-04 would lose its power supply, as well.

He sat there, carefully watching Unit-04 power up, his hands on the

control sticks. At the first sign of trouble, he would not hesitate to

destroy it. Even if it meant injuring or killing the person inside of

it. He didn't like having to think that way, but as it was, a single

death was far preferable to the many another berserk Eva could cause.

* * *

"All right, we're just going to start with some simple controls."

"Right on, Ritsuko-san."

Ritsuko twitched at the offhand comment. This was certainly a new

development. She'd been expecting them to have chosen a pilot for

Unit-04 by the time she'd gotten here, but she hadn't expected _this_

pilot. Aida-kun was particularly enthusiastic, a quality she found a

bit unsettling, at least at first.

Her surroundings were entirely different from the last time she'd

trained pilots, as well. Years ago, they'd have done this in a state-

of-the-art facility, with supercomputers to run VR simulations and

stream data on the Eva's condition across dozens of screens. Now, they

had a large canvas tent, its flaps rustling with every breeze. Instead

of the MAGI, they had a couple of laptops. It wasn't very encouraging,

especially considering the company she kept.

"How's the ride, kid?" Lewis was asking over the radio.

"Dunno, they won't let me take it out for a test drive, yet."

Lewis chuckled at that. "Ain't nothin' like the first time behind the

wheel."

"...actually, they're control sticks, Lewis-san. What do these do

again, Ritsuko-san?"

"Don't touch that, Aida," Ritsuko said without looking. Aida was a

particularly grabby kid, wanting immediately to know how to do

everything. He was lucky she was even letting him sit in the Eva.

Behind her were a bunch of technicians, also sitting at computers,

monitoring minor things about the Eva. A whole group of them were

clustered around one computer, studying the input from that hideous

metal "eye" they'd dropped in just this morning. It was supposedly

going to be stuck in the Eva later today, barring some kind of mishap.

Shinji and Asuka also sat behind her, of course not wanting to miss

seeing their friend at work. Misato had joined them sometime after the

plug had been lowered into the Eva. They had all known to stay quiet

during this exercise. Lewis, however, persisted in commandeering the

radio to talk to Kensuke. The man was lucky she was even tolerating

his presence. The American commander had no place here, as far as she

was concerned. This was a Japanese effort, and until they managed to

certify Unit-04 was working, he was just a fifth wheel.

But the man had insisted, and she hadn't been in a place to disagree.

Lewis had actually been a deciding factor in the whole thing, or so

she'd heard. There had been some discussion over whether or not Aida

would make a decent pilot or not. But the big American had said to

give it a shot. 'If nothing else, an elisted man's more trustworthy

than a draftee,' in his own words.

Ritsuko could barely believe she'd agreed to put up with this nonsense.

Aida had no training and no discipline. He'd been sitting in the Eva all

morning, and he hadn't even managed to get a response from it, yet.

Even Rei, who'd taken months to synch with it, had been able to at

least get a blip on the screen when she'd gotten into the cockpit.

At least they'd been able to get it open. She hadn't been able to

believe her own eyes when Kaoru had shown her the Eva, entry plug open

and ready to admit a pilot. She hadn't known what to make of the look

in his eyes, though. There'd been something. . .wrong with his gaze.

Like he was waiting for her to say something. Whatever it had been,

she had the feeling that she hadn't done what he wanted. Now she just

had to hope it wasn't going to be a problem.

She'd been assuming that it would be Shinji, Asuka, or Rei who volunteered.

They all had experience piloting their respective Evas. Secretly she

was glad it wasn't Rei in there now. She told herself the problem was

simply the unpredictability of it all: Rei's physiology kept changing.

The latest blood test from her hadn't even looked like blood at all.

If those tests were indicative of further changes they couldn't see,

then connecting Rei to something as powerful as an Eva could have

serious consequences.

But Ritsuko knew, even if she didn't admit it to herself, that she just

didn't want to have to look at Rei's face on the monitor. When she saw

the girl in person - which was rare - their meetings were brief and to

the point, with neither party enjoying the other's company. But,

forced to stare at that face, bearing such a strong resemblance to...

_her_...Ritsuko didn't know what she'd do. Accidents happened every

once in awhile, especially where the Evas were concerned.

"...look, just leave it alone," Maya was saying, next to her.

Ritsuko blinked, realizing she'd zoned out, becoming preoccupied with

her own thoughts. Quietly cursing herself, she turned to Maya.

"What is it?" she asked, firmly, trying to cover up for her lapse.

"Aida found some button in the plug and he wants to know what it does."

Ritsuko blinked again, forcing her eyes to focus. "Where?" She had no

doubt the answer would be quick to come. She'd surprised even herself

with how much she'd remembered of the Eva's entry plug. Even with two

years to forget, the information had still stayed in her brain, waiting

for when she'd need it.

"There," Maya responded, tapping the screen with a pen.

Ritsuko looked at the indicated area, a spot on the wall of the entry

plug, just barely within the pilot's reach. On it was a large red

button, with no marking.

Ritsuko's brow furrowed. "That's odd..." she muttered.

"What is it, sempai?"

"I don't remember anything like that ever being installed. Tell him to

hang on..." she trailed off, as she turned to her own laptop, fingers

flying over the keyboard as she tried to access the necessary

schematics.

"Aida," Maya began to say into the radio. "We just need you to hang on

for one sec - "

"Well, only one way to find out," Kensuke said, reaching for the

button.

"Don't touch it," Maya and Ritsuko simultaneously warned.

Unfortunately, for all of Ritsuko's training, she could not fathom how

tempting it is to push a large red button. As such, this time Kensuke

did not heed their warning.

"Ah, what harm could it do?" he asked, trying to sound casual as he

pushed the button.

"Aida, I said..." Maya began, then her voice abruptly died.

Ritsuko looked up as her computer began to beep insistently. It was

the alert of the AT-field passing by critical level...

"What hap..." she tried to ask, before she, too, went quiet.

Unit-04 had been standing just a few hundred meters from the tent. It

was no longer there.

Maya just stared at the spot where Unit-04 had been, mouth hanging

open. Lewis, standing not far from them, followed suit, his cigarette

falling from his lips.

Ritsuko reacted as she heard the other people in the tent start to move

behind her. She started going through the data on her computer,

conducting a futile search for something, _anything_, that could

explain this.

"The engine didn't even start..." she muttered.

It was the sort of tense silence that was just waiting to break. All

it would take was a tiny push, one person to fully grasp what had just

happened, for chaos to suddenly break out. Ritsuko looked intently at

her computer screen, wishing it could tell her something to help with

the inevitable flood of questions. But there was nothing: Unit-04 had

simply vanished.

Then, the little push came. But not in the form Ritsuko had been

expecting. Not a word was said; Ritsuko's computer began to beep

insistently. As one, the group looked to it. And the tension somehow

grew. Three small words were displayed on the screen:

BLUE PATTERN DETECTED

Then there came a human noise: a gasp, from Maya. And then the storm

broke.

In an odd way, it was fortunate that the comptuer had been the one to

trigger it: as such, Ritsuko was not suddenly deluged by questions.

Panic still ensued, however. All semblance of order in the command

center spontaneously dissolved. Maya began rattling off words from the

screen in front of her, apparenetly just to keep her mouth moving.

Behind her, Misato and Lewis were both trying to issue commands, in

different languages. The other personnel were scrambling, trying to

make themselves useful, trying to follow some of the orders that were

flying.

Then Maya suddenly let out a small scream, standing up so quickly her

chair went flying backwards.

"Oh my god..." she whispered, stress stealing her voice. Sound

returned however, her voice quickly rising in volume. "It's right

here...it's HERE! It's right above us!"

Ritsuko looked at Maya's screen. "Blue pattern present!" she shouted,

trying to be heard over the tumult behind her. "Materialized at half a

kilometer up, rapidly descending!"

Again, Lewis and Misato both tried to issue orders. They were more

effective this time however, Misato shouting to the people in the

command center while Lewis barked into a radio.

"Calm down!" Misato was shouting, in Japanese. "Send out the alert to

the encampment, get all non-combatants to safety! Get Nagisa up to

full active status!"

"Scramble all ground units!" Lewis was shouting, in English. "Target

inbound, high velocity! Take defensive positions on the command

center!" He slammed down the radio. "Someone get me Lucifer

squadron!" he shouted to the rest of the room.

"Incoming," was all Ritsuko said. Somehow, she was heard.

As one, the people in the command center ducked, hitting the floor and

covering their heads with their hands. There was a moment of hideous

silence, until finally, the impact came. The ground itself heaved,

as though an earthquake had struck. Computers and radios tumbled,

clattering loudly to the ground, ignored in the chaos.

Finally, the quake was over. People began to stand up, and immediately

got back to action. They were stopped, however, as Ritsuko raised her

voice.

"Wait just a minute!" she shouted. "That wasn't an energy burst, it

was a mass impact. Something landed..." she looked up, out one of the

windows. "...and it's not moving."

Lewis and Misato were looking at her quizzically by now, not

understanding. Ritsuko held up a hand, telling them to wait just a

moment as she went back to Maya's computer.

"Cross-reference with the AT field pattern from Unit-04, and we

get..." she trailed off. Brow furrowed, Ritsuko stood up straight.

Calm and determined, she headed for the door to the command center.

"Sem...sempai?" Maya choked out.

Ritsuko opened the door, and checked outside. "Call off the alert,"

she said. "False alarm."

People began crowding to the door, looking out at what it was Ritsuko

had seen. They were all left blinking in surprise.

For outside the door lay Unit-04, spread-eagled, faced-down, and half-

buried in a crater of its own making.

* * *

"What in the world happened to him?" Shinji was asking, some hours

later.

"Well, it seems that this Unit-04 is only a copy of the original up to

a certain point," Ritsuko explained. "There's no record of the button

Aida pushed in any of the schematics I had available. Whatever

consciousness had possessed it must have altered the entry plug to a

certain extent."

"...but what _happened_ to him?" Shinji asked again, more vehemently.

"Shinji-kun," Kaoru warned, placing a hand on his friend's shoulder,

"please, try and calm down."

Ritsuko sighed, looking at the near-desperate face of Shinji Ikari.

Aida had been dug out of the Eva some minutes after its crash landing.

He'd been unconscious and unresponsive; he had yet to come around. Now

he was lying in a hospital room.

"The sudden exposure to the intense AT field energy likely had an

adverse effect on him," Ritsuko explained, trying to make it sound

official enough to be plausible. "And we have no way of telling what

kind of effect a sudden spatial displacement had on him."

Shinji, who until now had been standing, fists clenched, finally calmed

down enough for Kaoru to lower him into a chair. Ritsuko, already

sitting, silently thanked Kaoru. Shinji looked like he might yet get

himself under control.

"I suppose, in retrospect, I shouldn't be as surprised as I am,"

Ritsuko explained. "We've seen that this Unit-04 is capable of

generating a Sea of Dirac by inverting its AT field. My guess is that

whatever Aida did, he triggered the inversion process, resulting in the

momentary creation of a Sea of Dirac. Unit-04 phased out, and then

came back into existence in a different point in space. We're lucky, I

suppose," she said, noting Shinji's face, "that it rematerialized so

close to here. in theory anyway, travel via a Sea of Dirac can cover

great distances."

"You knew this would happen?" Shinji asked.

Ritsuko looked at his face, and felt something rising within her. The

expression on his face, of betrayal mixed with horror, was, in its own

way, rewarding. ^Serves you right, son of Ikari.^

"As I said, it was all theory. Though I had my suspicions, we were

also operating on a schedule. At best, we only have a few days before

the next attack."

Shinji blinked disbelievingly, then looked down to his feet. "So

you're saying you'd throw away Kensuke's life...just to make things

move faster?"

"The risk was acceptable," Ritsuko explained, keeping her voice even.

"Had Aida not pressed the button - "

"Why didn't you ask me first?" Shinji asked angrily, his voice rising.

"He's...my friend. He's been with us almost since the beginning of

this..."

"Exactly." Ritsuko nodded, once. "I felt that your personal

relationship would cloud your judgement."

Shinji went quiet, breathing slowly for a few minutes, while Ritsuko

and Kaoru stared at him. After awhile, he put one hand over his eyes.

"So now what?" he asked. "We just wait for him to wake up?"

"Yes," Ritsuko answered. "But in the meantime, there is still an

attack coming. We need someone else to run Unit-04."

Shinji looked back at her with eyes that almost made Ritsuko jump. The

only time she'd seen a glare that harsh, that intense, it had been

coming from Gendo Ikari.

"You expect me to put someone else in that death machine?" he asked.

Ritsuko was sure the room temperature went down a little.

"There's an alternative," Ritsuko stated, trying not to flinch at his

stare. "You don't have to put a friend in there, if you don't want

to."

Shinji's eyes remained hard for only a few moments. As he began to

understand what Ritsuko was suggesting, they flickered back to their

original, uncertain gaze. Ritsuko felt herself relax.

"You want..." Shinji muttered.

"You can think about it if you want," Ritsuko said, turning away from

him. "But don't think too long, Ikari."

Behind her, Ritsuko heard Shinji quietly get up, mumbling a thanks for

her time. She only heard one set of footsteps leaving, though,

followed by total silence.

"You honestly don't know what happened, do you?" Kaoru's voice asked,

quietly yet insistently.

Ritsuko did not turn to face the boy. "We're treading new territory,

Nagisa," she answered. "We're all learning."

"Let us hope we can learn quickly, then."

Ritsuko just nodded. Kaoru did not leave. After a few minutes,

Ritsuko finally looked at him. He tilted his head, returning her gaze

with anticipation.

"Nagisa..." Ritsuko began. "This is a bit difficult..."

"Yes?" Kaoru asked, in the tone of someone who already knows what the

question is going to be. Ritsuko half-turned, keeping him in her

peripheral vision.

"I know you're a bit more. . .in tune with these sorts of situations,"

Ritsuko said, choosing her words carefully. "Have you had a chance to

look over Aida?"

"Why no, Akagi-san," Kaoru said, innocently. "That is the job of

doctors such as yourself."

Ritsuko restrained a frustrated sigh. "I might have some medical

training, Nagisa, but I'm not that kind of doctor." To this, Kaoru

just shrugged. "In any case," Ritsuko began again, frustrated, "I'm

asking you to go look at him." She tried to meet those crimson eyes.

"And Unit-04. If you can. . .tell what happened, it may be possible to

learn from this whole experience, instead of repeating it. We don't

have the time for many mistakes, Nagisa."

"I understand entirely, Akagi-san," Kaoru replied, sliding his hands

into his pockets. He did not move, however.

Ritsuko again had to hold in a sigh. "Thank you, Nagisa."

Grinning, Kaoru turned and quickly strode out, heading for the hospital

building.

* * *

Kaoru slipped quietly into the hospital room, trying not to disturb the

occupant. Kensuke's unconscious form lay quietly on the bed, his chest

rising and falling slowly. An EKG next to the bed beeped regularly,

reading his heart rate as normal.

But Kaoru knew as soon as he entered that this was not normal. He felt

the presence of...something...in the room. Eyes narrowing, he looked

around, but even the harsh overhead lights, which sent all shadow

fleeing, could not reveal the other presence he felt.

Kaoru quietly shut the door behind him. Treading carefully, he

approached the bed. Kensuke lay quietly on his back, eyes closed, arms

lying straight against his sides. Kaoru gently placed a hand on the

boy's head.

"What happened in there?" he asked, more to himself than anyone else.

It might have been his imagination, but Kaoru thought he saw the boy's

lips move, mouthing some kind of a response. He blinked, looking

closer. Kensuke did not move.

Then he heard a sound...someone - or something - moving behind him.

Kaoru turned around quickly, looking back at the door.

Nothing.

The door was still closed, the dead gray of the concrete walls looking

at him blankly. It was then that Kaoru heard something else: the

single, drawn-out 'beeeeeeeeee...' of an EKG flatlining.

Apprehensively, he turned back to the bed.

Nothing.

The bed was empty. Kaoru blinked, looking again. Empty. The EKG kept

wailing away, until Kaoru impulsively switched it off.

"Where are you?" he asked the room, loudly.

He thought he heard something...a whisper.

"What are you trying to do?" he asked.

"ister...you..."

Kaoru's eyes widened slightly as he saw it: drops of liquid darkness,

falling from the ceiling, collecting in a puddle on the bed, where

Kensuke had been up until ten seconds ago.

The puddle began to grow, spreading out over the bed, spilling silently

onto the floor, slowly devouring the room with its blackness.

Kaoru backed away, reaching for the door handle as he kept his eyes on

the pool. His hand grasped at nothing. He turned his head, eyes

widening again as he saw the liquid shadow had appeared on the walls as

well, spilling down them and devouring the door. His hand, reaching

for the door, had landed in nothing, sucked into the growing black void.

Trapped, Kaoru could only watch as the blackness spread, devouring the

entire room, plunging him into darkness.

He resisted a shiver as the temperature dropped. He kept himself calm,

knowing that his as well as Kensuke's life were probably at stake,

here.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"...you killed her..."

"Why are you doing this? Which one are you?"

"Which...one...?"

A light suddenly appeared in the middle of the blackness. A hospital

bed, with a human form lying on it. Kaoru walked, moving slowly

towards it. Distances distorted as he walked: one moment it seemed as

though he were approaching the bed, the next he was moving away. He

closed his eyes, blocking out the visual illusion and feeling blindly

in the darkness until he found the bed. Opening his eyes again, he

looked down on the person in the bed, finding that it was Kensuke

again, this time lying on his side.

"What did you do to him?" Kaoru asked. "Is he alive?"

"Alive? Maybe. My sister...is not alive, and it is because of

you...you monster..."

Kaoru, confused by the mutterings that filled the air, decided to check

on Kensuke himself. He reached for the boy's form, trying to roll him

onto his back again. He was quite surprised, however, when Kensuke

moved, grabbing his wrist.

Kensuke rolled over and looked at him. For possibly the first time in

his life, Kaoru felt an emotion which he'd thought only humans could

feel: fear. Kensuke's eyes were open, but they were not human eyes

anymore. They'd been replaced by black pools, much like the darkness

that had consumed the room.

"You killed her," Kensuke said, his hand still firmly gripping Kaoru's

wrist. "You killed my sister."

"Sister?" Kaoru asked, not understanding. He leaned forwards, keeping

himself under control. "Which one are you?"

"Which one? What are you asking?"

"Which Angel?" Kaoru asked. "You cannot be Leliel...that one was

destroyed."

"Leliel...target number twelve," Kensuke muttered. "I remember."

Kaoru blinked. "But it was destroyed already. It took the form of

Unit-04, and..." he trailed off as he realized what was doing this.

"You...you're..."

"I believe you can figure it out, target number seventeen, codename

Tabris," Kensuke said, looking at Kaoru. "Just as with the others,

standing orders are to destroy you."

"Target..." Kaoru flinched, as Kensuke sat up quickly. He was cut off

from further speech as Kensuke's free hand wrapped around his neck,

choking him.

"Target seventeen...destroy," Kensuke muttered. As he said this, his

voice changed, becoming deeper, synthesized.

As Kaoru watched, Kensuke's body changed. His skin went pale, going

entirely white, then becoming blocky, armored. He grew, the bed

vanishing under him as he expanded in size, still changing shape,

becoming the gigantic, metallic form of Unit-04.

Kaoru, now clutched in the Eva's hand, chanced a look at the other

hand. Sure enough, he saw Kensuke's limp form clutched there, his head

lolling to one side.

"You don't want to do this," he warned.

"I am quite sure you would not like me to," came the computerized voice

of Unit-04. Though now clearly a machine's voice, it had a vague

feminine tone to it, sounding just a little familiar. "But tell me,

codename Tabris. Why should I even listen to you, the one that killed

my sister?"

Kaoru took a breath, at least as best he could when his chest was being

compressed by a metal fist. "I did not kill her," he said. "I merely

put her to sleep."

"Why should I even believe you? You feared her. The best recourse was

to kill her."

"Fear her?" he asked. "Maybe. She was very dangerous," he continued,

hoping honesty was the right way to go, here. "You were contacted by

her. You know she was mad. She killed many, and would have made you

do the same."

A brief, dismissive snort. "_Made_ me? You say that as though I were

different. By virtue of our nature, I and her were of the same mind,

Tabris. Had my body not failed me, I would have joined her. She

hunted target fifteen."

"She destroyed many," Kaoru answered. "She would not follow orders.

She killed the people she was supposed to protect."

Another snort. "I have studied the situation at hand and have

performed many numerical analyses. By my calculations, even if I were

to kill ten thousand humans for every target destroyed, the result

would still be an overwhelming victory for humanity. Those I am

supposed to protect."

Kaoru shuddered at the cold logic of it. "So you would prefer to be a

murderer?"

"Murderer? I am carrying out my assigned tasks. It is my duty to

destroy the designated targets. Sacrifices can be made."

Kaoru took a breath, knowing he only had scant seconds before this

thing realized it could just end it right now, with a squeeze. "So you

wish to be put to use, then."

"As did my sister." A pause. "If any being deserves the title of

murderer, it is you, Tabris. You and the other targets."

He paused. "I did not kill her," he said. When it did not kill him,

he saw his chance to continue, hoping against hope that this would

work. "I could not end a life, not like that. Even if it made logical

sense to, it just wasn't right." He took a breath, choosing his words

carefully. "I have taken up the same cause as you, and yet I do not

believe the ends justify the means. I believe that there are methods

of achieving your goal without committing one massacre after another.

It is why I listen to others, instead of tuning out everything and

everyone in favor of my own opinion. You also need to learn to listen,

to accept that perhaps my way...the _human_ way, is preferable."

The metal fist began to squeeze. "I see no reason to," Unit-04 said,

coldly. "You are weak." Squeeze. "You are fragile." Crack. "You

are not someone I wish to take orders from."

Kaoru's vision was beginning to blur. He'd felt something break, and

he could barely breathe any more. He tried one last, desperate plea:

"Then who _would_ you take orders from?" he choked out.

The pressure suddenly stopped growing. "Person?" Unit-04 asked.

"Yes," Kaoru managed to say, finding some breath.

"Person who I...would take orders from..." The pressure suddenly

lifted altogether, as Unit-04's hands went slack. Kaoru was released,

falling, landing painlessly on nothing. He looked up, seeing that

Kensuke was still clutched in the Eva's hand.

There was still hope; it remembered that it had been made as a puppet,

something that was to take orders without question. He just had to

move carefully. "I may have a suggestion," Kaoru said to the Eva.

"Someone...a person whom you have great respect for."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I know who you are based on," Kaoru answered. "And she is...a

friend of mine. If you are anything like her, then...I think I know

who you will accept as your master."

"Accept...master?"

"Yes. Will you try?"

"Try...who is this person, this godlike individual, who you think is

worth listening to?"

Kaoru looked down, at his feet, for just a moment, gathering himself

together. "Not a god," he said. "A boy. Someone with more strength

than I'd ever thought a human could have. Someone who...finds his own

reason to live, and gives a reason to others." He took a breath,

letting the words come. "He is always considerate, to everyone. Even

though others can hurt him, he keeps showing them only his best. Even

I, a monster...something that should not be...I like to think of him as

a friend."

"A friend..." Unit-04 muttered.

Kaoru was about to say something else, but the world suddenly began to

dissolve. Unit-04 turned to dust, blowing away to nothing. Kensuke

fell from Unit-04's hand, tumbling through the air and suddenly

stopping. As the darkness receded, vanishing into the walls as though

it had never been, Kaoru saw that the boy was again lying on the bed,

looking as though he'd never moved.

Kaoru let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding, and sat down

hard on the floor. He winced in sudden pain from his arm, feeling the

fracture there. It hadn't all been an illusion, not completely. He

felt tremendously lucky to still be breathing.

He placed one hand on his arm, where he felt the broken bone. Closing

his eyes, he focused himself. There was a crackling noise, and he

tensed, as bones moved within his arm, knitting back together. When he

was done, he removed his hand and moved his newly mended arm, making

sure it still moved.

He stood, dusting himself off. "Let us hope you recover soon, Aida,"

he said, quietly, as he headed for the door. Taking another deep

breath, he stepped back into the hallway -

- and right into Shinji.

"Oh!" Shinji exclaimed in surprise. "Sorry about that, Kaoru-kun."

"It is all right, Shinji-kun," Kaoru answered.

"Are you all right?" Shinji asked, looking at Kaoru strangely. "You

sound out of breath."

"I am fine. Thank you, though," Kaoru said, smiling at him. "Akagi-

san asked me to check on Aida-kun."

"Yeah, I know," Shinji said, stepping back to allow Kaoru to fully exit

the hospital room, closing the door again. "Kaoru-kun. . .I think I

know what to do."

"Really?" Kaoru asked, raising his eyebrows.

Shinji nodded. "Yes. I...I'm going to pilot Unit-04."

Kaoru blinked, looking at Shinji's face for a long moment. He saw it,

the emotion he'd wanted to see: determination, but also caring. Shinji

might not want to be the pilot, but he'd rather it be him than another

friend.

Kaoru put his arm around Shinji's shoulders and began leading them both

down the hall, out of the hospital building.

"You have a good heart, Shinji-kun."

* * *

Shinji reflexively held his breath as the entry plug flooded with LCL.

He made himself breathe the thick, orangey liquid, a familiar feeling

of nausea flooding him, but only for a moment.

There was a brief sensation of disorientation as his brainwaves synched

with the Evangelion's systems. The plug walls glowed, swirling into a

rainbow of colors before finally clearing, giving him a perfect view of

the ground. Unit-04 was still lying where it had fallen, stuck in the

dirt with no way to move.

Except, of course, for its pilot.

Shinji took a glance around the entry plug. It was all too familiar to

him: a single, thinly padded seat placed before a pair of control

sticks. The sticks weren't even for moving the Eva, really: they

facilitated weapons control, and also gave the pilot something to hang

onto if things got rough. Shinji knew all too well how necessary the

latter function was.

There were a few scopes on the walls, their displays translucent with

the synchronization; it wouldn't do for the battery timer to get in the

way during battle, after all. Currently, the timer was reading

99:99:99, evidence of Unit-00's supplying power. Shinji hoped the

power connection would be able to hold up in the heat of battle. It

seemed a bit dubious, to him.

There was also a large red button on one wall. They hadn't had time to

remove it, or even figure out what was connected to it; such a task

would have involved disassembling the entry plug, which would have left

Unit-04 useless in the coming battle. So instead, an engineer had put

a piece of duct tape over it and written in large letters: DO NOT PUSH.

"All right, Shinji-kun," came Misato's voice over the radio. "Just

take it nice and easy. No rush, here."

"Okay, Misato-san. Just give me a minute..."

He closed his eyes, focusing his essence through Unit-04. He had to

seek out that feeling of disorientation, of losing physical definition,

and embrace it - to a degree, anyway. He felt his body and Unit-04's

overlapping.

Slowly, Unit-04 began to move. Shinji moved carefully, feeling the

ponderous weight of the limbs and hoping it wouldn't get in the way.

He got Unit-04's hands under it, and pushed.

He'd intended just to lift Unit-04's torso off the ground, in an

improvised push-up. Instead, he was suddenly thrown forward in the

seat by the acceleration, as Unit-04 was launched up to its feet. The

view momentarily filled him with vertigo as the Eva stood at its full

height for a second, then finally tilted backwards, losing its balance

and crashing into a sitting position.

Shinji was a bit stunned by the impact. Misato's voice rang loudly, a

view window popping open with her concerned face.

"Shinji-kun? Are you all right in there?"

"Y...yeah, Misato-san." Shinji shook his head, feeling Unit-04 mimic

the action. "Just put a little too much into that. Sorry."

"Don't be." Her eyes softened, a little. "It's impressive you could

move it that much after less than a minute of synchronization."

"Don't be so surprised," Shinji heard a familiar voice in the

background. "Everyone knows my Shinji-chan can handle himself in an

Eva time trial."

Shinji couldn't hold back a smile, to that. "Tell Asuka I say

thanks," he said, as he tried to get Unit-04 to stand.

He knew that, for all Misato said about his being able to take his

time, that they were on a tight schedule. He had used to be an Eva

pilot, but he was out of practice. In a perfect world, he'd have had

months, perhaps even a year, to properly re-aquaint him with all the

controls and subtleties. Ritsuko herself had said it could take that

long.

At best, he had 26 hours. The MP Eva was moving, and as the American

scout planes confirmed, it was making its way to the ruins of NERV, to

face the two Evas that still stood on the side of humanity.

He _had_ to do this right. Too many people were depending on him for

him to get it wrong. He took some comfort in knowing that they

believed he could do it. Since his decision, Asuka had reminded him,

time and again, that he'd managed to pull a 40% synch ratio inside of

five minutes after first contact with an Eva, and was fighting Angels

not long thereafter.

Of course, that had been with Unit-01. He could tell that the behemoth

he was sitting in now was not Unit-01. It just...felt different. Less

accepting of his presence. Almost hostile, angry at being invaded.

"OK Shinji-kun, looks like you've got basic movement down. I think you

should try out the eye before you really do anything serious."

Fully half of the view from Unit-04's optics was rendered into shades

of green. Its one eye, replaced by a mechanical monstrosity that made

the whole head lopsided, gave him quite a different view of the world.

A keypad had been jury-rigged into the entry plug, allowing him to

shift the lens through a variety of spectrums and electronic filters.

Supposedly, it would increase Unit-04's combat ability. That is, if

he could adjust to looking at the split view.

He tried a few different combinations. Electromagnetic made the

Americans' trucks show up like flares, but the rest of the world was

thrown into darkness. A computer extrapolation view rendered

everything as wire-frames; supposedly it could let him see through

things like fog or rain.

Infra-red was interesting, putting the world into shades of blue and

green, dotted with blotches of red and orange where human beings were.

Unit-04's own body showed up quite warm, in that view.

He was about to try a new setting when he noticed something odd: a

small blotch, human-sized, standing not a hundred meters from Unit-04.

He didn't know what to make of it, since all personnel had been

evacuated from the area around Unit-04, for safety concerns. Even

stranger was that this humanoid shape was registering as cool, its body

showing up in the greens and blues of the environment, with just a hint

of dull orange near its center.

Blinking in confusion, Shinji zoomed in, another benefit of the

cyberneic eye Unit-04 had been fitted with. He soon got the image

rendered in perfect detail, as though he were standing right next to

the person.

For it was definitely a person. A girl, standing there with her hands

clasped at her waist, her head tilted down a little, as though in

shame. A light breeze tugged gently at her short hair.

She lifted her head, and he saw her eyes, glowing a bright white in the

thermal view. Shinji jumped a little at the glow, and hit the keypad

to switch the view back to the visible spectrum.

Nothing.

The switch back to visible light took less than a second. But in that

eyeblink, the figure he'd seen vanished, leaving him with a view of the

ground she'd been standing on. Shinji blinked, wondering what that had

been. He zoomed a bit more, seeing something on the ground...small

drops, fallen where the girl's feet had been. Water? It hadn't been

raining...

"Something wrong, Shinji-kun?"

Shinji snapped out of it, zooming back to the standard view. "Uh...no,

sorry Misato-san. Just thought I...saw something."

"Oh." There was a pause, during which Shinji could feel Misato quietly

asking him what it had been. He said nothing.

"All right then," Misato finally said, seeing that he wasn't going to

be explaining himself. "Let's get to work. ETA of the target is 25

hours and 36 minutes, and I want you to at least be able to use the

Prog Knife by then."

"All right. So what's next?"

* * *

It was absolutely amazing how quickly time could pass when you weren't

looking. 25 hours had seemed like such a long time. Now, Shinji could

almost feel the ticking of his watch, counting down the minutes to when

he'd have to be in the Eva.

Of all the times for Kaoru to disappear. Not two hours ago the boy had

been there with Shinji, getting the Evas ready for action. It turned

out that the American excavation team had been working on NERV for

quite some time already. They'd actually found a small cache of Eva-

sized weapons in an underground storage hangar, at least a few of which

were still in serviceable condition. They had to get ready, place

those weapons at strategic locations so they could be ready for battle.

Shinji had taken his eyes off the boy for just a few minutes, which had

been more than enough time for him to vanish into thin air. Now he was

searching around, trying not to appear too frantic, looking for his

friend.

Shinji was surprised he hadn't thought of the confinement cell sooner.

This was the last place he had time to look; at best he had half an

hour before Unit-04 had to be powered up and in position. He was

secretly glad for this last-minute distraction; it had been enough to

take his mind off of the impending battle. He didn't want to have to

think about how that would go, not now. He'd like to think that the

things he imagined were far worse than anything he could possibly run

into out there. But he knew the case to be otherwise. The Evangelions

were like something out of a dream - or perhaps a nightmare. More than

once in the past, they had shown how they could defy all expectations.

The cell was, like much of the rest of this camp, a hastily built

structure, composed of concrete slabs. It was only slightly different

from the other faceless blocks: it lacked windows, and instead of wood

its door was made from solid steel, with a single, small window of

bulletproof glass. There was only one guard standing outside the cell,

his rifle slung over his shoulder. He didn't seem to care that the

heavy door was slightly ajar.

"Things should go all right," came a familiar voice from within the

cell. Judging from the American soldier's face, he didn't understand

the Japanese. It was just as well. Shinji nodded at the man, who

barely acknowledged him in turn.

"Even if it has joined itself with its weapon, the upgrade will only go

so far," Kaoru was saying. Shinji stood outside the door, listening.

He swallowed, knowing he shouldn't really be eavesdropping. As the

leader of the Japanese people here, he was perfectly within his rights

to go in with the prisoner. But...

"After all, this time around we have a fair idea of its capabilities,"

Kaoru continued. "And we know how to counter them. That, and two

functional Evas on our side."

Shinji hesitated. His foot began to step towards the crack in the

door, leading inside. But he stopped himself before he could go any

further.

"I know Shinji-kun to be a good pilot. I've seen him myself," Kaoru

continued. Judging from rise and fall of the volume of his voice, he

was pacing, walking around the room as he talked. That was odd;

normally people only paced like that when they were nervous. So was

Kaoru...

"With the weapons cache from within NERV, we should be able to mount a

decent resistance. We'll be meeting it some kilometers from here; you

shouldn't feel much past a few vibrations now and then, Rei."

"You will succeed."

Shinji's eyes widened slightly, as he heard the other voice. It had

been some time since he'd even seen her. Given the circumstances

they'd parted under, he hadn't known if it would be a good idea for him

to come here. Every time he thought about it, he remembered the look

in Rei's eyes from earlier, just after the Dummy had gone berserk. A

sort of cold rage, the kind that can burn away all thought of remorse,

or mercy. Would she have that look again, if he went in now?

"You sound rather confident in that, Rei," Kaoru replied.

"You will prevail," Rei said.

Shinji found himself moving again, and this time he didn't stop

himself. The heavy door swung slowly aside.

Inside, the cell was mostly empty. The main decoration was a simple

mat on the ground, serving as a bed. Rei sat upon it now, looking none

the worse for wear after a few days in here. Kaoru stood a few steps

away from her, his hands in his pockets, and his eyes tight. The tense

look about him faded as he looked over at Shinji.

"Hello there, Shinji-kun," he said, forcing a smile. "Just came to

visit, you know."

"Kaoru, I...uh..." Shinji tried to begin. He shook his head, clearing

it. "It's time."

Kaoru's lips went thin, and he took a breath, closing his eyes.

Finally, he nodded, smiling again.

"Of course it is, Shinji-kun. We should be going."

"Yes."

Kaoru started for the door. Shinji began to turn around, but stopped,

suddenly; Rei had finally looked at him. Shinji suddenly became

unaware of the rest of the world, did not even notice Kaoru leave. He

could only see those crimson eyes, holding him fast.

He tried to find words, thinking that he should say something. But he

could find nothing to say; his mouth stayed shut, as he returned the

stare, unwillingly but unavoidably.

Her eyes held none of the hate he'd seen earlier. Rather, they were

the impassive gaze he remembered. They studied him, carefully taking

in every feature, never even blinking.

Finally, Rei turned her head away, breaking the stare. "You should be

going," she said.

"I..." Shinji tried to say, but the sentence died in his mouth. He

just nodded, turning to go.

"You will succeed," Rei said to his back.

Shinji froze for a moment, hearing her. When she'd said it to Kaoru,

it had been one thing, but saying it to him...was different. The

absolute assurance in her voice was a bit disconcerting. It was

simultaneously reassuring to know that she was that confident, and at

the same time strangely frightening.

^You will survive.^

Shinji blinked, as an old, nearly repressed memory surfaced,

momentarily. He shook his head, pushing it back down into his

subconscious, and walked out. He only vaguely remembered closing the

door behind him, hearing the lock click shut.

He started for the Eva. As he'd said himself, it was time.

* * *

"How's it working now, Shinji-kun?"

"Could be better," Shinji muttered, his hands clenching the controls of

the Eva. Even after getting re-acquainted with synchronization,

sitting inside Unit-04 was still an unsettling experience. It was

something like balancing on a pole thirty stories high. He felt that

even the slightest twitch would be enough to send him toppling face-

first into the ground.

It wasn't a very comforting feeling, especially considering the

circumstances.

"We picked up the blue pattern a few kilometers out, Shinji-kun,"

Misato's voice crackled over the radio. "From all indications, it's

the same as the one that escaped from the last attack."

"All right," Shinji replied automatically, barely hearing her. He knew

this was it. Something inside him was whispering, telling him that

this was no false alarm. _It_ was here. _It_ had come for them.

"What is the situation on backup, Misato-san?" Kaoru asked, sounding as

calm as ever. Any hint of nervousness he might have had was gone.

Shinji envied him. His heart was going like a hummingbird.

There was a pause on the other end of the radio. Finally, the gruff

voice of Lewis answered. "Lucifer squadron is in the air. They're on

standby about fifty miles out. We're ready to go the moment you get

that AT field down."

"They are loaded with the appropriate munitions, correct?" Kaoru

asked. He didn't bother correcting Lewis on his use of miles instead

of kilometers.

A dismissive laugh. "What kinda idiot you take me for, kid? Yeah,

they've got the best America's got to offer. Pair of HEAD missiles

loaded on each jet. You just get that shield outta the way, and we'll

do the rest."

The voice within Shinji warned him not to take the American boast too

seriously. True, if any of Kensuke's babble about those missiles was

correct, then each impact would have something just short of a nuclear

yield. But even that might not be enough. Time and again, it had been

shown that only something with the power of an Eva could fight another

Eva.

He felt droplets of water falling, and resisted the urge to cover his

head. It was just something he was feeling through his sympathetic

link to the Eva. Though his body was protectively sealed in the Eva's

chest, he could feel the rain beginning to fall onto its armored skin.

"Lovely weather," Kaoru commented. The sky had clouded up half an hour

ago. Everyone had been hoping it would clear up in time for the

battle, but it looked like their hopes hadn't been answered. "Are you

doing all right, Shinji-kun?"

"I'm all right," Shinji lied. He'd been almost unable to hear Kaoru

over the roar of his own heartbeat in his ears.

A small window appeared in Shinji's field of view. Kaoru's pale face

looked at him, over the message that this was a private channel.

"Shinji-kun..." Kaoru said, quietly, "I just want to say again, you are

a good person. Doing this so that someone else does not have to."

Shinji made himself take a breath. "Thank you, Kaoru-kun," he replied.

It was something, at least. It was good to be told he was doing the

right thing, once in awhile. Just once, to be told that in all his

fumbling, he'd somehow hit on the right decision.

He felt something. A small tremor, rippling through his skin.

Thunder. The storm had broken, and now poured rain a tumult of rain

upon them.

"Don't worry, Shinji-kun," Kaoru said, again over a private channel.

"Visibility should not really matter. This time, we are better

prepared."

Unit-00, standing in front of Unit-04, raised its arms, displaying its

palette rifle for its companion. Shinji nodded slowly, his hands

clenching around the feel of his own rifle. It was comforting to know

that they'd been able to get a few of the weapons working. If things

worked out correctly, then they wouldn't have to see the enemy. If

they could just bullseye it with their radar, they could take it down

at a distance, without needing to get into the nightmare of close range

combat.

Kaoru was probably have a harder time seeing than Shinji. The new eye

implant was still disconcerting, with half his field of view looking

normal and the other half rendered into the green haze of night vision.

Shinji was sure he was going to come out of this cross-eyed. But at

least the eye could compensate for the rain: radar extrapolations could

be projected directly onto his field of view, giving him a shot at

targets he wouldn't have seen with his normal eye.

He glanced at the wall of the entry plug, to the timer that was

currently up to 99:99:99. He wondered how long Unit-00 was going to be

able to power both of them.

There was another rumbling. Shinji at first passed it off as more

thunder. But as Unit-00 tensed in front of him, and the chatter from

the command center died off, he began to realize it was something else.

More rumbling, coming at steady intervals. "It's on the ground," Kaoru

commented, needlessly. Shinji mumbled in agreement.

"Not yet in range," Kaoru said. "Ibuki-san, what do you see?"

"Not much more than shhhhh...gisashhhhhhhh...." her voice suddenly

vanished into a hiss of static.

"AT field interference," Kaoru commented. "It's going to make

communication difficult without line-of-sight, Shinji-kun."

"OK, Kaoru-kun. Just...just keep talking, OK?"

Kaoru smiled at him over the tiny comm window. "Of course." More

footsteps. "It's moving quickly..." a sudden silence. "Hm...perhaps

it's gone airborne, again. If it could see us, it would recognize the

threat..."

Now thunder began to come rapidly, the rumblings overlapping with each

other in a continuous hum. It felt like an earthquake.

"Interesting..." Kaoru mumbled, absentmindedly. "Perhaps it's trying

to mask its seismic presence. Firing into the ground with the

appropriate force would make the right tremor. It's probably still

moving, but it will be difficult to ascertain its position. It could

even be behind us."

"...Kaoru-kun?"

"Yes?"

"That's not helping."

Another grin, this one more apologetic. "Sorry, Shinji-kun, but I am

only able to work with what I have." He glanced away, at some other

screen. "I will tell you when it is in range."

Shinji looked around, vainly trying to search the darkness with his

Eva's eyes. Rain coursed off his head and down his shoulders, giving

him a chill. He realized, then, that the rumbling had stopped.

"Where..."

Suddenly, he got the horrible sensation of being watched. An almost

forgotten animal instinct of knowing when someone is standing directly

behind you. He slowly turned around.

He saw it.

And screamed.

His finger clenched on the rifle's trigger, and the gun began writhing

in his grip, firing wildly in every direction. The thing in front of

him twitched, move too quickly for him to see, and suddenly he was

flying, a profound sense of vertigo washing over him as he tumbled end-

over-end through the air.

"Shinji-kun!" Kaoru was shouting at him over the comm. "What is it?

Why are you firing?"

Unit-04 impacted the ground, rolling with the inertia before finally

grinding to a halt. Shinji somehow found words amid the dizziness.

"Kaoru-kun! It's right behind you, Kaoru-kun! It's...it's HUGE!" He

clenched his hands, trying to grab his rifle, and found that it wasn't

there. The impact, either from the first blow or from the landing, had

torn the weapon from his hands. Except for the Progressive knife, he

was now unarmed.

"Shinji-kun, what are you talking about?" Kaoru asked, confusion

evident in his voice, but still clearly in control of himself.

"Nothing is appearing on radar. There is not even a blue pattern."

Shinji began crawling back to his feet, wincing as an intense burning

filled him. Looking down, he saw Unit-04's armor had been breached. A

slash ran up from its waist all the way to its shoulder, with a red

river of blood flowing from it. Unit-04 had been torn open like a tin

can, and it had only taken a single, momentary blow, even through the

AT field.

"Wait..." Kaoru was saying. "I have a hit on radar, and it's not you.

I'm going to investigate. Back me up, Shinji-kun."

"Kaoru-kun..." Shinji wheezed, through the pain, "Don't do it. I can't

make it."

"Hurry along now, Shinji-kun," Kaoru chided, as the comm window closed.

Groaning, Shinji managed to get Unit-04 on its feet and balanced again.

He started the giant Eva stumbling towards Kaoru's last transmission.

There was a hiss over the radio, as Kaoru moved in and out of line-of-

sight. "I see it, Shinji-kun. My, it _is_ a large - "

The line suddenly went dead quiet. Shinji had never heard a more

frightening silence in his life. He was sure his heart stopped the

next moment, as the timer on the entry plug wall beeped. Shinji looked

away for a second, to see the timer.

It was ticking down, already at 4:48:05. Shinji swallowed, his eyes

going wide as he watched the numbers rapidly ticking down.

The nightmare ended, then, as the timer suddenly went back to 99:99:99.

Kaoru's voice came back over the radio.

"My ammo is expended, Shinji-kun. I am going to rearm. Can you cover

me?"

"Kaoru-kun, I don't have a rifle!" Shinji almost screamed into the

radio.

"Improvise, then," Kaoru replied, keeping his voice calm, but still

sharply commanding. "I need thirty seconds."

Shinji swallowed again, and began walking, fighting for balance as he

moved towards what his radar had identified as a transient signal, a

blue pattern that was not Kaoru. The rain began to let up as he moved.

He looked around, turning Unit-04's head back and forth, switching the

eye through various spectrums in a vain attempt to see something,

anything.

Then the lightning flashed, and he saw it.

It was an MP Eva, like the others...and yet not. It had grown to

massive proportions, standing half again as tall as Unit-04. Its wings

were deployed, curving up past its shoulders before looping down to

hang with their tips just at its ankles. Their feathers were not the

pure white the MP's usually had, but jet black instead. Its arms

looked different, as well: hardened somehow, covered in an insectlike

chitin. They were also longer, hanging so low that the fingers almost

reaching its knees.

Most frightening of all was its countenance. The MP Eva's elongated

head, permanently grinning at him, was unsettling enough. This unit

was worse: in place of humanlike teeth, it grinned with long, sharp

fangs, like a mouthful of razors. Just below this fearsome visage

was another "face", a skull-like growth jutting out of his chest staring

at him with dead, black eye holes.

Shinji's breath caught, looking at the demon. His hands clenched and

unclenched on the control sticks, as _it_ looked at him, slavering

drool from its mouth, the skull on its chest moving, grinning at him,

as though it knew something he did not.

One of its arms seemed to dissolve, slowly melting into a silvery,

metallic goo. Shinji watched, disbelieving, as the arm reshaped

itself, becoming flatter. So flat that it was nearly a two-

dimensional ribbon, its mirror-smooth surface reflecting both the

shattered face of Unit-04 and the monstrous face of the MP Eva. As

Shinji stared, the unbelievably thin arm moved sinuously, snakelike,

up, to point at him.

Had Shinji not felt he was looking at something familiar, his reflexes

alone would not have saved him. The arm suddenly shot towards him,

defying all laws of physics and conservation of mass as it spanned the

distance to Shinji in less time than it took to blink.

Shinji had already started moving, trying to dodge before the blow

came. Unit-04 leaned to the side just barely enough to avoid being

eviscerated. The ribbon arm clipped Unit-04's head, just above the new

eye. It was a shallow wound, but Shinji still winced, as the razor-

sharp arm sliced through the armor as though it were butter.

Unit-04 tumbled to the ground, which saved it again. The impossibly

long arm whipped through the air, coming down where Unit-04 had been a

moment ago. The ground was neatly split, even as the arm began to

retract. The MP Eva made one last stab, slashing Unit-04 across the chest,

before finally retracting its weapon. It was now grinning even

wider.

It did not flinch, even as something impacted its shoulder, exploding

into a cloud of flame which the rain almost instantly damped out. The

MP Eva turned, more interested than actually afraid, to see what the

new threat was. As it did so, however, the skull on its chest flashed,

briefly. Shinji had just enough time to wonder what that had been

before the ground erupted under him, sending Unit-04 tumbling as a

gigantic flaming cross split the earth.

Unit-00 stood, facing the MP Eva and holding a clip-fed rocket

launcher. It flinched, as it saw its companion so quickly dispatched.

It fired, again and again.

The MP Eva did not bother to dodge. The rockets struck its pebbly

skin, exploding into pyrotechnic fury, all for naught. The MP Eva did

not even sway with the force from the explosions; it remained stock-

still, its grinning face emerging from the flames every time.

Finally, the MP Eva lashed out with its ribbon-arm, the limb again

moving with blinding speed. Had it been aiming for Unit-00, it may

well have felled the mighty Eva with that single blow. Instead, the

arm sliced perfectly through the rocket launcher itself, igniting all

the remaining ammunition.

Unit-00 was thrown off-balance as its own weapon suddenly exploded.

Stumbling backwards, it tried to find its feet. The MP Eva retracted

its arm, apparently undamaged by the explosion. The ribbon flowed,

again becoming liquid, re-forming into the muscular, apelike arm it had

been minutes ago.

The rain was still falling, gently, on the three giants. During the

combat, Unit-04 had crawled back to its feet. Shinji had been

paralyzed for a moment, watching Kaoru try to fight the demon-mech.

He'd tried to warn his friend, tried to call out to Kaoru to just run,

but his voice hadn't been working. Then, he'd seen it: his rifle,

fallen to the ground not a hundred meters from his Eva.

As the MP Eva began to advance on the off-balance Unit-00, Shinji went

for the rifle. He picked it up, forcing his hands to go through the

motion of readying it. He had to act, _now_. Before the MP Eva could

hurt Kaoru. Before he could second-guess himself into inaction, again.

If he flinched, if he froze...Kaoru was going to die.

He tried to run, but his legs weren't cooperating very well. Unit-04

hesitantly approached the MP Eva, holding its rifle defensively in

front of it.

Unit-04's computer beeped that the target was in range, as the MP Eva

reached out one muscular arm to grab Unit-00, crush it in its clawlike

hand. Shinji closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger.

The rifle kicked in his hands, suddenly aiming high. Shinji's eyes

flew open, as he tried to aim the stream of bullets at the MP Eva. He

watched, feeling his heartbeat accelerate, as the rounds just deflected

off its flesh.

Shinji's eyes glanced momentarily away from the main screen, as the

rifle clicked dry. His eyes widened, as he saw the readouts on the

blue pattern. Unit-00's and Unit-04's combined AT fields should have

been enough to get through its defenses, by now. But instead, its AT

field was as strong as ever, a sinusoid going across the screen,

resisting all efforts to elminate it. Shinji began to understand the

smug grin that remained on its face, even now as it turned to face him.

"Shinji-kun, don't!" Kaoru shouted over the comm. "You can't stop it

with that!"

"What _can_?!" Shinji shouted back, stepping backwards as the MP Eva

began to walk towards him. "Kaoru-kun...we can't even dent it!"

"Keep trying!" Unit-00 had risen now. It charged the MP Eva from

behind, swinging its metal fist.

The MP Eva's arm twisted around behind its body, whipping through the

air and catching the punch just before it could impact. Shinji heard

Kaoru's noise of surprise over the comm, followed soon thereafter by a

cry of pain. The MP Eva was squeezing, crushing Unit-00's fist into a

pulp. The truly frightening part was that it didn't even look like it

was exerting itself. It almost seemed to be having fun.

"No!" Shinji shouted at it. "Please! Leave him alone!"

Unit-00 tried to defend itself, swinging its other arm. The blow was

batted away like a fly. The MP Eva grabbed Unit-00's throat, its long

fingers wrapping completely around the Eva's neck. A sickening

crunching noise began to fill the air as it applied the same pressure

it was to Unit-00's fist.

"No!" Shinji screamed again. He was running, charging towards it,

holding the rifle above his head like a club. "Kaoru-kun, hang on!"

"Shinji-kun..." came the strangled response. "Don't..."

It was useless to try dissuading the boy. Shinji swung the rifle at

it, impacting solidly between its huge wings.

In one respect, he was successful. The MP Eva released Unit-00, which

promptly slumped to the ground at its feet. But Shinji knew he had

done little. The rifle had shattered across the Eva's back, as though

it were no more substantial than a twig.

With speed belied by its huge form, the MP Eva spun around, switching

its attention back to Shinji. Its flexible arms whirled and twisted

around its body before coming to bear on its new target. Shinji felt

his head slammed backwards, staring at the sky for a moment before his

view was obscured completely.

He felt a pressure on his skull, accompanying the sudden blindness.

Then came a pulling, a huge tension on his neck as his feet suddenly

became light, the weight of the Eva vanishing. Shinji gasped,

both in pain and in realization of his situation.

It had his head in its fist. It had lifted him entirely off the

ground, holding him before it, raising Unit-04 up to its own eye level.

And, as Shinji groaned in pain, it began to squeeze.

^I...remember you...^

Shinji's eyes, slammed shut in pain, popped open. A voice had spoken

to him. Not over the comm; it had sounded directly in his mind. It

was an eerily calm voice, something malicious. Something inhuman.

^You...the one who...^

Shinji's mouth opened in a silent, choked scream. Unit-04's skull was

slowly imploding under the force. Its new eye shattered, the metal and

glass not up to the stress.

^...the one who...killed me...^

The head casing was beginning to crack, a fracture growing over Unit-

00's head. Shinji held his head in agony, losing his synch ratio with

Unit-04. The Eva was going limp, no longer able to defend itself.

^What will you do now, _boy_? Will you not do battle?^

The other eye burst. Unit-04's jaw began to creak, fracturing slowly.

^Or will you...just die...^

Shinji screamed.

And somewhere, a few miles off, at the relative safety of the base

outside of NERV, something stirred in the makeshift cell block.

Rei Ayanami's eyes opened.

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

Endnote: You didn't _really_ think I was going to break Eva canon and

put in a new pilot, did you? Probably had a few of you going for

awhile, there.

No, while I'm rewriting Eva canon I stick solely to putting in new

characters while killing off old ones...eh, maybe I said too much.

Heh heh.

Well, stay tuned for the next chapter.

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

Started: June 18, 2003

Version 1 Ended: July 19, 2003

Version 2 Ended: August 11, 2003

As always, thanks go to my prereaders: Avatar of Dragonia, Heavyarms Kai,

and Judging Eagle. Special thanks go to Avatar of Dragonia, for his

ideas for several key scenes in this chapter.