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 18: When Angels Fall
Author: Ryan Xavier
Rei opened her eyes.
She'd heard it: not with her ears, but with her mind. Something within
her was resonating, feeling the rush of battle mere kilometers from
where she lay in confinement. She could sense Units 00 and 04
struggling, giving ground to their enemy. And then, she'd heard the
scream.
She could no longer tolerate being kept here. She sat up on the mat
she had for a bed, getting to her feet moments later. There was no
haste in her actions, simply a cold determination. Squaring her
shoulders, she moved to the door, and ran her fingers along its edge.
It was locked from the outside, and made of good steel. The only
opening in it was a small window made from bulletproof glass. This
thing would resist even the most determined strikes; unarmed, she would
not be able to open it. However, as the feeling of power welling up
within her proved, Rei was not unarmed.
The guard outside half-turned his head, looking in through the small
window. "There a problem, girl?" he asked in English. "Don't think
you can get me to open this door, 'cause the only way _that's_
happening is - "
The man never got to finish his sentence, as the window suddenly
cracked, then shattered. The door buckled, as though struck by a
gigantic fist from within the cell. The guard jumped back just in time
to avoid being hit by the door as it was ripped clear out of the wall,
flying away as though it weighed no more than a tissue.
On the other side of the hole the door had previously occupied, Rei
stood serenely, her eyes focused, her arms hanging limp at her sides.
Slowly and deliberately, she walked forwards, through the cloud of dust
hanging in the air, her feet crunching on ruined stone.
The guard, meanwhile, had reached for his gun. A .45 came out, the
safety snapping off almost before it was out of the holster. The guard
pointed it shakily at Rei.
"H...hey," he said, trying to sound in control. "Don't you try
anything...I...I don't want to..."
Rei sharply turned her head, catching him with her eyes. The man
paled, looking at that face, at the eyes the color of blood, that froze
him like ice. Barely even aware of what he was doing any more, he felt
his finger tighten on the trigger.
The gun bucked in his hand, the loud bang from the shot washing over
him too quickly for him to even notice. As the smoking shell casing
hit the ground near his foot, he blinked.
Where Rei had been standing just a moment ago, there was nothing. It
was as though in between the time he'd fired and the time the bullet
had reached her, she had just vanished. He blinked again, dropping his
gun to the ground. His hand fumbled at his belt, finding a radio.
"Uh...sir?" he said into the radio, fighting to keep control over his
voice. "You're not going to believe this."
* * *
Kaoru watched as the enormous MP Eva struck Unit-04. An open-handed
hammer blow to the face, hard enough to make Unit-04's head jerk back
for a moment, before the MP Eva got a hold. Now, the MP Eva was
holding Unit-04 by its head, suspended off the ground. It was
squeezing, hard enough that Kaoru could hear Unit-04's armor cracking.
Unit-04 itself was motionless, its limbs hanging useless at its sides,
like some kind of overgrown doll.
"Shinji! Shinji!" Kaoru shouted into his radio. "Can you hear me?
Shinji, please respond!"
The line stayed quiet, going full of static as the MP Eva continued to
crush Unit-04's head with its bare hand. Suddenly, though, the static
vanished, as a connection was made.
"Shinji?" Kaoru asked, hopeful.
"Far from it, Tabris," came a deep voice from the radio, cold and even.
Kaoru felt a chill. "No..."
"This body has given me intimate knowledge of how the Lilum speak with
one another. Though these airborne energy waves they use for distance
communication are painfully inefficient, they serve my purposes."
"You...what do you want?"
"I believe you know the answer to that question, Tabris." The MP Eva
squeezed a little harder. Blood from Unit-04's ruined cranium was now
oozing down between its assailant's fingers. "I want to find _her_."
Kaoru hesitated. "Ayanami?" He moved Unit-00 into a more solid
fighting stance. "I won't let you have her, you monster."
"You insult me, Tabris. I care little for Zero. Without one of these
copies of Father to protect her frail body, she is of little
consequence to me. I want to see the one who fought me earlier. The
great warrior who maimed me. I need to test myself against that one."
Kaoru, seeing Unit-04 still hanging helpless in the demon-mech's grasp,
started Unit-00 towards it. "The warrior you are referring to is no
more," he said, firmly. "I took care of that."
"What?" the voice over his radio said. The MP Eva's head whipped
around to stare at him, its tongue lolling out of its mouth, over its
array of sharp teeth.
"She was a danger to the people I protect," he explained. "So I put
her to sleep." He took a breath. "It is me you want, Zeruel."
The MP Eva regarded him curiously for a moment, then its grin widened.
"As you wish," it said, coldly.
Before Kaoru could even shout to stop, the MP Eva whipped Unit-04
through the air by its head, smashing it bodily into the ground. The
impact was hard enough that the armor on its body fractured, spiderweb
cracks appearing all over its surface. Its form sank deep into the
ground, spread-eagled and motionless.
The MP Eva finally released its grip, revealing Unit-04's crushed
skull. The damage was so severe that it was barely even
distinguishable as a head, anymore. Kaoru froze, looking at it.
"You...you monster..."
"Words are of little consequence, Tabris. Now, champion of free will,
you will show me what you are capable of."
The MP Eva simply moved too fast for Kaoru to have any hope of dodging.
Unit-00 was backhanded across the chest, the force such that the
tremendous form of Unit-00 went flying. Kaoru struggled to control the
Eva in mid-air, trying to land softly. He was somewhat successful, if
not graceful. Unit-00 slammed back into the earth, rolling with the
impact before grinding to a halt, now almost a kilometer from the enemy
Eva.
The MP Eva wasted no time, jumping into the air. As a flash of
lightning highlighted its form, Kaoru could see its black wings spread
at the apex of its jump, and its arms go to liquid, becoming ribbon-
cutters once again.
He had time to dodge this time, but only just barely. Unit-00 rolled
out of the way just in time. The MP Eva crashed back down where the
blue Eva had been just moments before, its ribbon-cutters digging deep
into the ground. Had Kaoru not moved, they would have surely cloven
him in half.
A twitch from Unit-00's muscular arms got the Eva back on its feet. As
he moved the Eva through this motion, Kaoru felt a slight tingling, a
sensation of another entity at the edge of his consciousness. Chancing
a look, he focused briefly on Unit-00's energy flows and saw that,
indeed, its S2 output was being divided, approximately half of its
energy going to another unit. Kaoru did not have time to make sure,
but the feel of it was similar to Unit-04. A brief surge of hope
rushed into him; it was possible that Shinji had survived that assault.
It was even possible that, despite appearances, Unit-04 was not yet
down for the count. He hoped so; as it stood, he did not like his
chances.
"You disappoint me, Tabris," came the deep voice over his radio again.
The MP Eva spread its arms wide, almost invitingly. "I would have
expected more from the last of us. The one to come closest to finding
Father."
Kaoru shook his head, quietly thankful that the clashing AT fields were
stopping all radio transmission past line-of-sight. It wouldn't do for
the others to be hearing this conversation, right now.
"I did not find Adam," Kaoru replied quietly, starting towards the MP
Eva. "The Lilum tricked me...tricked us. Even though we were
physically stronger, it was not by their strength that the Lilum were
the ones to start the Unification."
The response to this was a quiet laugh. "An odd way to beg for your
life, Tabris. You would tell _me_ that might is of little
consequence?" As if to punctuate this, the MP Eva took several steps
forwards, its heavy footsteps causing tremors Kaoru could feel in his
bones, even at this distance.
Unit-00 clenched its fists tightly. "Just think, Zeruel. The ones who
came after you...Arael, Armisael, and myself...none of us were so
brazen in our assaults as you. We did not rely on our strength, yet we
came so much closer."
"Life among the Lilum has corrupted you, Tabris. You should know that
strength is our way of life. Had I not encountered such a capable
warrior...I would have been the one to succeed." The MP Eva paused,
grinning its toothy grin at him. "And now, even that warrior has
fallen to my might. Such a pity...I would have expected more of a
battle from one of that caliber. But no. He was, in the end, just a
boy. A little, helpless, _boy_."
Kaoru's eyes widened, not with surprise, but with restrained anger.
"You have no right," he countered, his voice steely. "You cannot speak
of Shinji that way." He closed his eyes momentarily. "He may not be a
warrior in the way that you are, Zeruel...but Shinji's strength is far
greater than yours ever will be. No matter what you do to yourself.
No matter how many Lances you absorb into yourself."
A chuckle. "That weapon was quite powerful, was it not, Tabris? Even
in our first encounter, it nearly destroyed these toys you are using.
Now, integrated into me, it has made me stronger than ever," the MP Eva
said, flexing one arm. "Say what you will about your compatriot,
Tabris. He has already fallen."
Unit-00 was in motion by the time the voice had finished speaking.
Unable to tolerate what it was saying any longer, Kaoru charged the MP
Eva, swinging back Unit-00's fist.
Again, the MP Eva made no effort to dodge the blow. This alone should
have warned Kaoru, but he did not care. He knew that this was what it
came down to. If he could not damage this thing...if he could not
penetrate its AT field...then they were all doomed.
Unit-00's fist connected solidly with the thing's chest. Once again,
the MP Eva did not so much as sway from the impact. For Kaoru, it was
as though he'd punched a solid, unyielding wall. Unit-00's fist broke
under the force of its own punch. Slamming his eyes shut in the sudden
burning pain, Kaoru made his move. The Eva was distracted, thinking
that he'd simply been trying to attack it again. But at this range,
the intricacies of its AT field would be visible. Kaoru reached out
his senses, finding this barrier, the outline of his opponent's AT
field, and the source of its strength. He felt for any seams, any weak
spots to exploit, tear apart with his own field...
...and found none.
The MP Eva, grinning as it sensed what he was doing, counterattacked.
Its fist halfway converted to a ribbon-cutter, it punched Unit-00 in
the gut. Kaoru ducked reflexively, his synch with Unit-00 failing as
something violated his sanctum. For a moment, he found himself sitting
in the entry plug. Looking up in the cold LCL, he saw his own
reflection looking back at him, in the metallic surface of the MP Eva's
own ribbon-cutter, sitting not more than a hand's breadth away from his
head.
Unit-00 fell again, toppled by the force of the blow. The ribbon-
cutter was pulled free in one quick motion, letting LCL spurt from the
entry plug like blood. Kaoru's head emerged from the surface of the
orange liquid as the entry plug drained. Suddenly cold from the
exposure to air and the rain coming in through the rent in the plug,
Kaoru closed his eyes and tried to block it out.
Using his particular talent as an Eva pilot, he did what no human could
have done in that situation: re-synched with the Eva. Once again, he
was seeing through Unit-00's eye, and felt the burning pain from his
gut where the last blow had been landed. There was a warm trickling
falling over his stomach, and he looked down to see the LCL draining
out.
Unit-00 kept moving, slowly and stiffly getting up into a sitting
position. Its ruined fist served as nothing more than a stump,
something to balance against. Its good hand was covering the wound in
its stomach, trying to stem the flow of fluid, as well as protect the
pilot.
The MP Eva was upon it. A vicious kick connected with the sitting
Eva's chin, forcing his head back so hard its neck cracked. Kaoru's
body went numb suddenly as the nerves were cut. As Unit-00 skid
backwards along the muddy ground, he felt the armor plate come away
from Unit-00's chin, ruined by the force of the blow.
The MP Eva stood over its fallen adversary, towering and horrible in
the glare from lightning bolts. It lifted up one foot and placed it on
Unit-00's torso, leaning heavily on that foot, slowly crushing Unit-00
under its mass.
Kaoru suddenly felt very claustrophobic, as though the figurative walls
were closing in. He realized what it was a moment later: the entry
plug itself was collapsing under the sheer weight being forced down on
it. In a moment, his body was going to be crushed.
Unit-00 grabbed at the ankle, trying to lever it off. He might as well
have tried to move a mountain, for all he did. Unit-00 simply did not
have the strength left in its one good arm to move the demon that
stood atop it.
Kaoru watched, frozen, as the MP Eva's arm went liquid again, slowly
shifting over to a ribbon. It lifted up the razor-sharp weapon, aimed
down at Unit-00.
"Take heart in the knowledge that you went down fighting, Tabris," came
the sadistic message in his ears. "For that, I shall grant you a
warrior's death."
Then the arm descended, and Kaoru felt something he'd only experienced
once before.
* * *
Inside Unit-04's cockpit, nothing lived.
The entry plug was smashed, its sides buckled by the tremendous impact
with the ground. Its delicate electronics were broken, its power feeds
cut. As for its pilot...
The LCL had absorbed most of the impact with the ground, but the raw
inertia of the Eva had simply been too much for Shinji's frail body.
He was slowly going cold.
Had anyone been there to watch, they would have seen something happen
in this lifeless, dark place. Coming through the wall like a ghost,
Rei Ayanami appeared. Her skin glowed faintly, casting a pale light
onto the destroyed entry plug, and Shinji's still form, floating in the
LCL.
Floating in the tight confines of the entry plug with its other
occupant, she looked down at Shinji's broken body. Her face betrayed
nothing. Slowly, she floated towards Shinji's body, reaching out an
ethereal hand towards him.
Effortlessly, her hand passed into his chest. Rei closed her eyes,
concentrating briefly. Her eyes suddenly snapped open again when
Shinji took a breath.
She floated away from him, closing her eyes again as she began to pass
through the wall of the plug. Shinji opened his own eyes just in time
to glimpse Rei's ethereal face and see...
...a smile.
* * *
Shinji came around groggily, groaning in pain.
His head felt like it was trying to implode. Putting one hand on his
forehead, he tried to wake up. He opened his eyes, seeing first a flash of light, followed too soon by total darkness.
"Wh...where am I?" he felt around, finding the solid walls of the entry
plug around him. "What's going on?"
Slowly, he began to recall what had happened just moments ago.
Attacking...only to find that it was utterly useless. Pain...
transmitted directly to him through the Eva...his vision going red from
the agony of it all. He must have passed out.
Yet he did not have time for the trauma of it all to hit him, as at
that moment, Unit-04 began to come alive.
Screens lit up, throwing a harsh light on him. Squinting, Shinji
looked around.
The entry plug looked heavily damaged. Crushed, actually. But even as
Shinji watched, it repaired itself. Metal walls un-buckled, circuits
reconnected, and shattered screens spontaneously came back together.
Next to him, there was a loud 'beep' as the timer came back online,
showing a solid 99:99:99.
A screen materialized next to him, reading in large red text: AUTO-
REPAIR INITIALIZED. STATUS: 40%.
The plug was suddenly haunted by sounds coming from all directions.
The groan of metal, along with the crack of bones and flesh, mixed
together. The plug shifted, as Unit-04 began to put itself back
together. Thrown off-balance, Shinji re-seated himself and gripped the
controls in front of him.
Shinji took in a sharp breath as Unit-04 suddenly re-synched with him,
its mind ramming into his like a steel nail through the skull. Through
the sudden pain, he saw the walls shift colors, switching back to the
full view of the world outside.
His head hurt. Or rather, Unit-04's head hurt. Shinji blinked,
turning his head a bit, getting a crick out of his neck. His eyes
seemed to be working, even that mechanical one the Americans had
installed. Now, all that was left was...
A window opened in front of him, giving him a radar view of the field.
There was a single blue dot representing him, and about a kilometer
away there was another blue dot, and a large red one, signaling the
enemy. Kaoru, he realized, was fighting alone.
"Kaoru-kun..." he said, slowly. "I'm coming."
There was no response to this. Shinji wasn't even sure whether or not
the radio had even picked up on his muttered words of support. He
didn't care, though. He had to get moving. Shinji took a breath, and
tightened his grip on the control sticks. "All right now...just
move..."
Unit-04 responded. Slowly, it sat up, got its legs under it, and stood
again. Shinji became aware of water running over his body; the rain
had picked up again. He looked down.
"Ouch..." was all he could say. In the ground, there was a perfect
imprint of Unit-04, limbs splayed out, now filling with water from the
rain. It was going to make a very interesting lake, once this was
over.
Shinji kicked Unit-04 into motion, guiding it over the terrain, towards
where Unit-00 and the target were appearing on radar. He tried not to
look as the battery indicator beeped, counting down as the external
power supply from Unit-00 was suddenly cut off. As Unit-04 crested a
small hill, he found them.
He'd hoped to arrive in time to support Kaoru; working together they
could take this thing down. Shinji had made himself believe that. But
Unit-00 was through fighting, it seemed. Even from where Shinji stood,
he could tell the blue Eva was heavily damaged, stripped of any glory
it might have once posessed. Its entire torso was caved in, the armor
cracked severely around the imprint of a gigantic foot. It had a slash
across its midsection, which spurted LCL, not unlike blood. Its head
armor had been damaged as well; the lower portion had been forcibly
ripped away, leaving Unit-00's recently grown mouth gaping open, jagged
teeth glinting in the glare of lightning.
But what got Shinji's attention was that Unit-00's head was no longer
attached to its body. It lay a ways off, its ragged jaw gaping
mindlessly, its single, lifeless red eye staring blankly into the
stormclouds.
Amid the carnage stood the MP Eva. Even as realization of Kaoru's
likely fate dawned on Shinji, the monster Eva was turning to face him,
the ground itself quaking under its footsteps.
^You...^ a voice rasped directly in Shinji's brain. He covered his
ears, wincing in the pain and violation of it.
^I admire your resilience, boy. But you are not worthy of my time.
Leave me.^
Shinji opened his eyes, looking at the enemy Eva. It was just standing
there, looking at him intently with its eyeless, oblong head. The
skull-like growth on its chest was motionless, but Shinji could not
shake the feeling that those black eye sockets were also looking at
him. One of the Eva's arms was still the long, muscular limb it
normally was. The other one, at some point, had become a ribbon, and
whipped quietly next to the Eva, moving apparently of its own volition.
As Unit-04 regarded its target, something triggered. Shinji felt
something, like a memory coming to the surface. But he knew it was not
one of his own memories. That other presence that always accompanied
him when he was synched, the feel of the Eva's own consciousness, was
what remembered.
The right shoulder pauldron of Unit-04 snapped open, and the
Progressive Knife deployed. Shinji stared at the weapon, hanging there
in its sheath in the rain. He had given no command to open that
shoulder pauldron. Was the Eva moving on its own?
Even as he thought this, the Eva's right arm began to move, again with
no input from Shinji. It slowly reached up, fingers grasping at the
knife.
Shinji reflexively took control, fighting to keep the arm down, keep
the Eva from trying to engage the demon in front of it. But Unit-04
resisted him. Even as Shinji pushed with all his might against it,
Unit-04's arm kept moving, reaching for the knife, grasping it, pulling
it free of the sheath. The shoulder pauldron closed, and Unit-04 stood
resolute, knife steaming as rain hissed off of its heated surface.
The MP Eva cocked its head to one side, regarding him curiously. ^You
would use such an inferior weapon against my might?^ Following this
was a hollow, inhuman laugh, short but chilling. ^Very well, boy. I
shall grant you the same honor I gave Tabris.^
Before Shinji could react, the MP Eva's arm shot up, the ribbon
flashing out across the distance between them, aimed directly at his
neck. Shinji slammed his eyes shut, even as he felt Unit-04 move,
aligning the knife directly in the path of the oncoming ribbon-cutter.
Death, it seemed, was loud. A horrible screeching of metal on metal
filled Shinji's ears, drowning out all else, even as he felt Unit-04's
arms tense, fighting an almost insurmountable force.
But then, it ended. After a moment of utter silence, in which Shinji
wondered if he'd gone deaf, he opened his eyes. A heartbeat later, he
blinked, opening his eyes wider, trying to believe what he saw.
Unit-04's Progressive Knife was nearly destroyed, its blade cut down to
a hair's thickness where it had been struck. But it had, by some
miracle, held. The ribbon-cutter had struck its superheated blade
full-on, but instead of the knife, it had been the ribbon that failed.
It had been sliced neatly down the middle, its perfect surface ruined
by the blow. Friction had superheated the already hot knife, to the
point that Shinji could feel it branding Unit-04's hands. Twisting
helplessly in the air on either side of Unit-04 were the halves of the
blocked ribbon cutter.
Then, the MP Eva realized what had happened.
It opened its enormous mouth, and again, Shinji was deafened by a
horrible screeching, this one coming from the MP Eva itself. Shinji
slammed his hands over his ears, Unit-04 doing likewise, dropping its
knife in the process. Already nearly cut through by the ribbon, the
knife snapped in half the moment it struck the ground.
Wincing, Shinji opened his eyes, seeing screens popping up by the
dozen. Alert windows appeared all around him, giving status on the Eva
and its target, warning him that the battery only had three minutes
worth of activation time remaining, that his AT field was negated, that
the ambient temperature was dropping...
Shinji took a closer look at that last window. It read that the air
temperature around the Evas, previously an even twenty degrees
Centigrade, was steadily decreasing. Shinji looked to the MP Eva, his
hand flying over the keypad for Unit-04's cybernetic eye.
The MP Eva had retracted its ruined arm, which now hung limply, still
in ribbon form, at its side. The Eva itself, was standing, muscles
tensed, jaw clenched, growling. What got Shinji's attention was its
appearance in the infra-red spectrum. Its body was practically glowing
with heat, even though the air temperature around it was steadily
dropping. It was almost as though the MP Eva was drawing the energy
right out of the air...
The radio crackled, and Shinji's ears were assaulted by a half-dozen
voices at once.
"Shinji! What's going on out there!" Asuka was shouting.
"Shinji, run! Something big's coming!" Misato's voice said,
simultaneously.
Unit-04 took a few hesitant steps backwards, easing away from its
opponent even as the rain began to turn to hail. Shinji's eyes went
wide as the MP Eva finally threw its arms apart, spreading its wings at
the same time. On those jet-black wings, a pair of eyes opened,
disturbingly human in their appearance. The eyes flickered briefly, as
did the skull on its chest.
"SHINJI!" Asuka's voice screamed.
Not that it was possible with most of the satellites destroyed, but had
anyone been watching from geosynchronous orbit, even they would have
seen the sudden flash in the middle of Japan, bright enough that it
completely blocked out the shockwave that rippled over the shattered
land. Such an observer might absently wonder if a large-scale nuclear
explosive had been set off.
Shinji, however, did not have to wonder. He didn't have the time to do
anything but brace for the impact, and pray for a miracle.
* * *
The MP Eva stood victorious and alone, amid a field of destruction.
The rain had stopped, the clouds themselves obliterated by the intense
energy. The ground had been hollowed out, blasted into a crater
kilometers across. The Eva moved slowly, feet crunching on soil that
had been baked into glass. It showed no fear, simply a slight fatigue
at its recent exertion. Though it was difficult to read emotion off
such an inhuman visage, it looked satisfied.
Unit-00 was almost indistinguishable from the rest of the terrain, now.
Its blue armor had been scorched black, melting into slag. It was now
little more than a vaguely humanoid lump on the ground. Unit-04 was
nowhere to be seen; where it had been standing moments before, there
was nothing. Victory, the MP Eva concluded.
But then, it froze, sensing something. Slowly, the giant turned, the
only sounds the crunch of its own footsteps and the slight wind gusting
across the lip of the blast crater. Its gaze fell back to where Unit-
04 had been standing.
At this very point, the air seemed to warp, distort as though being
seen through a bad lens. It tore, coming apart like a curtain, as
Unit-04 stepped through, materializing once again in the physical
plane. It landed with a loud crash on the glass floor of the crater,
staggered for a moment, then caught itself and looked at its opponent.
Sitting at the controls, Shinji was a little disoriented. He'd seen
the attack coming. Every nerve in his body had been screaming at him
to _run_, get out of there, escape the tremendous blast that was
coming. But something within him had known that even in Unit-04 he
would not have been able to move that fast. Right as the MP Eva had
fired, his eyes had gone to one wall of the entry plug, to the button
that had been marked DO NOT PUSH. He'd disregarded the warning this
time, knowing that even if he ended up like Kensuke had, it would have
been better than sitting here and letting this monster annihilate him.
The feeling of suddenly teleporting had been jarring, as though he'd
stuck his finger in a wall socket. His skin burned, and his stomach
was churning so violently he was sure he was going to be sick. But,
surveying the distruction around him, Shinji felt that he'd taken the
better choice. He saw Unit-00, and suddenly he _was_ sick, his stomach
expelling out its contents into the LCL.
"Kaoru..." he mumbled to himself. "I'm...I'm sorry."
In front of him, the MP Eva opened its demonic jaws and roared its
frustration at him, its skull starting to glow with the beginnings of
another shot. Seeing this, Shinji's first instinct, which he'd been
repressing since the beginning of this battle, finally took over. He
turned Unit-04 around and ran away, as fast as the Eva could go.
Hearing the MP Eva fire behind him, he turned Unit-04, just in time to
avoid a cross-flare blasting out of the ground where he would have
been. He crested the edge of the crater and kept running.
^COWARD!^ the other voice in his head was shouting at him. ^Come back
here and fight like a true warrior!^ Shinji ignored it, concentrating
on dodging as the MP Eva continued firing. The ground erupted all
around him, one cross-flare after another ripping through the earth,
threatening to blast him apart.
Shinji's radio crackled. "Shinji?!" came Misato's surprised voice.
"You're still alive?"
"Yes!" he shouted back, dodging another shot. "I don't know how,
Misato-san! I think I've used up my luck!" He paused, realizing
something. If the radio was working, then...
"Misato-san!" he asked, quickly. "Are the AT fields down?"
There was a pause of a few seconds, during which Unit-04 was clipped by
another blast, and went tumbling to the ground. It was back on its
feet in a heartbeat, and running again. Looking over his shoulder,
Shinji could see the MP Eva had taken to the air, its massive wings
standing out against the now-cloudless afternoon sky. It was
continuing to fire even as it flew.
"Yes, Shinji!" Misato finally answered him. "I don't know how,
but...but you did it, Shinji! It's field is down!"
"Then - "
"They're on their way, Shinji! Jets are on their way, just hold on for
one minute."
Shinji glanced to the timer on the wall. It currently read 1:58:03.
"One minute's about all I have, Misato-san!" he shouted. "Tell them to
hurry up!" Another blast shook the earth. "Another thing! Does this
thing EVER RUN OUT OF AMMO?"
^No, I do not.^
Shinji looked over his shoulder again just in time to see the grinning
face of the MP Eva as it slammed into him in a powerful dive. Both
machines were driven into the ground, digging a rut that could have
swallowed a skyscraper. Unit-04's arms were pinned to its sides by the
more powerful MP Eva, which was using the remains of its ruined arm
almost as effectively as its undamaged arm. The monster Eva got to its
feet, pulling Unit-04 up along with it, still crushed into a tight grip
that Shinji could not break.
Before Shinji could say anything, the MP Eva had spread its wings and
lifted off, taking them both into the sky. Shinji watched the ground
shrink away underneath him.
^You will not escape me, boy,^ the voice said in his head. ^You have
proven yourself to be a skillful warrior. Now we just have to get away
from these pests that would interfere with our battle. I must see
which of us is the stronger.^
Unit-04 struggled in the monster's grip, but was barely able to move
under the herculean strength.
^Rethink that strategy, boy,^ the voice told him firmly, almost
chiding. ^Without your barrier of the soul, would you survive the
fall?^ At this, its wings swept back severely, and their airspeed
began to increase. Underneath them, the ground became a rust-colored
blur, as Unit-04 finally gave up struggling, waiting for the demon-mech
to take them to where it wanted to fight.
* * *
Going more than twice the speed of sound, Lucifer Squadron should have
made it to firing range in less than two minutes. The HEAD missiles
hanging off the wings of each F-15 could be safely fired well before
the jets entered the estimated range of the target's energy blasts; the
pilots liked it that way. With a flight of 14 jets, each carrying a
pair of missiles, it was expected that Lucifer squadron would be able
to take down the enemy with a single salvo, once its AT field was down,
of course.
All the Evas had really had to do was keep the target relatively
stationary for those critical two minutes it would take for the jets to
get into range. Unfortunately, it looked like they hadn't even been
able to do that.
"Sir," the captain of Lucifer squadron said into his radio. "We've got
the target moving away, estimated speed in excess of Mach 7. We can't
keep up with it, sir."
There was a pause on the other end, followed by a strained response
from Colonel Lewis. The captain wondered what was going on at the HQ,
but knew it was none of his business, and even if it was, it wasn't
like he could do anything about it.
"Slow to cruising speed, captain," Lewis ordered. "No use wasting fuel
on this. Assume holding position, while we figure out what to do."
"Roger that."
The captain relayed orders to his flight. The other men were
disappointed at this new development; after all, this had been their
chance to shine. But it couldn't be helped.
If what his co-pilot had told him was true, according to the radar this
thing was moving away from them so fast it was like they were standing
still. He shook his head, disbeliving. It just wasn't _possible_ for
something so big to move so fast...
He felt a thump, a sudden shift in the weight of the jet. The
captain's trained eyes flew over the indicators, checking to make sure
none of the warning lights had gone off. Everything looked normal...at
least until he looked up.
"What in the..."
Outside the plane, hanging onto the cockpit glass itself, was a girl.
Her clothes and her short blue hair whipped violently in the wind, but
she otherwise seemed unfazed by the fact that they were still moving
faster than Mach 1. Despite all the years of combat training, of
flying jets so long that it was second nature to him, the captain
froze. For just a moment, he was held fast, petrified by those
piercing, crimson eyes he had seen two years ago, just before his body
had dissolved into goo.
Something was happening. A glow was emanating from the girl, slowly
moving over the rest of the plane. Behind the captain, his co-pilot
looked up from the radar long enough to notice the girl.
"What the f - "
There was a flash. It was like looking at a nuclear blast, momentary
and blinding.
" - uck is that?"
As the captain's eyes cleared from the sudden light, he looked at the
cockpit glass again. There was nothing, now. The girl had vanished.
He felt a slight queasiness in his stomach, something no amount of
high-g maneuvering had ever been able to induce in him. He looked out
his limited view window, trying to see if she'd fallen off.
"Did you see that?" the co-pilot was shouting. "Did you see that?!"
"Yes! Yes, I saw, what in the fuck's going on?!"
"I don't know, I...sir?"
The captain shook his head, clearing it, checking the controls again.
"What?"
"Uh...if the map's right, we've...changed position, sir."
"What're you talking about?"
"I don't know myself, sir. It's like we just..._moved_. If this map's
right, we're currently about fifty miles off the west coast of Japan,
headed east."
The captain paused, thinking this over. Their bearing had been due
west, just a moment ago.
"HQ?" he asked into his radio. "Don't know what just happened, but
I..." he stopped, hearing the roar of static in his ears. "Dammit."
Changing frequencies, he checked in on the other jets. They were all
still in formation, flying behind him. Over the radio, they confirmed
that their maps all read the same thing his was, that they'd suddenly
done a one-eighty and skipped over most of Japan without noticing.
What really got the captain's attention were the questions he was
getting, if he'd seen a girl hanging on his window. Each pilot he
talked to had seen the same thing happen to himself.
He cut the radio for a moment as he thought things out. Something
clicked in his brain, and he called back to his copilot.
"Hey, the target was west bound, right?" he asked.
"Uh...yeah, sir. Why?"
"Call it a hunch." He switched back on the radio, calling all the jets
to get back up to maximum speed, continuing in their current heading,
back towards the country they'd so inexplicably skipped over.
* * *
The MP Eva had apparently picked up on Unit-00's trick at some point;
during the high-speed flight, Unit-04's batteries had actually
recharged, going back up to maximum capacity. Apparently, the MP Eva
wanted its opponent at full strength for this fight. Shinji took some
consolation in knowing that no matter which way the fight went, it was
likely that Unit-04 would not have time to run out of battery power.
That said, the fight was not going well for Unit-04. Shinji groaned
from within another Unit-04 shaped crater.
Above him, the MP Eva circled like some kind of mutated vulture,
flapping its wings gently to keep its enormous body aloft. It hadn't
been so gentle a moment ago, when it had dropped him like a rock, into
the lake of LCL that had come up below them. Shinji had managed to
alter Unit-04's fall so it became an improvised dive instead of a
bellyflop. He'd managed to survive the impact with the surface, but
Unit-04's inertia had plowed it straight through the LCl and into the
ocean floor. Even with the LCL to eat up some of the velocity, it had
still been a jarring impact, enough to nearly throw Shinji from the
entry plug seat.
His head was still swimming when the ground shook again, as the MP Eva
made its own landing on the shoreline.
^Get up, boy,^ came the voice in his head. ^Now we are free of all
interlopers, and we will do battle. Come at me.^
Shinji groaned in pain, reaching for the control sticks in front of
him. Before he could even touch them, Unit-04 began to move, again
without any input from Shinji. It began to get up, LCL washing over
its surface as it came back into view.
"What are you doing?" he shouted at the Eva. He grabbed the controls,
tried to wrestle them into obedience. He tried everything he could,
reaching out, touching the Eva's mind, struggling to turn it away from
its certain demise on the shore.
"Don't you know this is suicide?" he pleaded. Then something happened
that he hadn't expected. Unit-04 answered him.
"A death in battle is an honorable one, Ikari-kun."
Shinji blinked, hearing the voice. "Ayanami?" he asked. "Rei? Are
you in here?"
"Negative, Ikari-kun. The original contacted me, and asked me to
protect you. Hers and the word of Tabris are reason enough to do
this."
Shinji shook his head, not wanting to think about just who or what it
was he was speaking to. "But this isn't protecting me! We're just
going to die!" He closed his eyes, covering his head with his hands.
"I just want to go home..."
"Would running really accomplish anything?" Rei's voice asked.
Shinji's eyes opened again, at this.
Unit-04 was back on its feet and walking, now. Shinji got a view of
the MP Eva. It was waiting for him, wings slightly spread, shoulders
hunched, fists clenched in an image of unstoppable power. He noticed
that at some point its arm had healed.
"Oh...god..." Shinji muttered. Unit-04 did not answer him this time.
It fell silent, as though it had never spoken to him at all.
^So,^ the monster Eva said, as Unit-04 finally emerged from the LCL.
^You have finally chosen battle.^ It spread its arms before him,
inviting him to charge straight into the fight. Its wings flared
briefly, the eyes on their inner surfaces regarding him unblinkingly.
Shinji did not take the challenge. He looked around, trying to get a
feel for where they were. When he'd hit LCL he'd thought the Eva had
carried him all the way to the coastline, but that was apparently
wrong. They had instead stopped at an enormous lake. As he looked,
Shinji could see the twisted remains of what might have been a city.
What got his attention was that the few ruins still standing did not
have the abandoned, shattered look of most buildings after Third
Impact. Rather, they looked like their destruction had come earlier,
and in the form of great heat and pressure. It was almost as though
they'd been melted. As Shinji climbed out of the lake, he began to
wonder what could have possibly done such a thing.
A memory tried to surface, at this thought. He remembered
something...a monster, shaped as a double-helix. There had been a
battle...someone had been injured. And then, something had happened
that he'd never expected in his life. Someone had given their life to
save his...
"I don't want to fight," Shinji said, evenly, as he fought off the
memory. "I just want to make this a place where people can live."
^Useless, boy,^ the voice said. ^Your cause may be noble, but it means
nothing to those who have no life.^ Its arm morphed into a ribbon-
cutter. ^My existence is defined solely by battle. To deny me that is
to deny me all. Now...^ it said, raising its arm. ^Come at me!^
Shinji swallowed, looking at the certain death that stood resolute
before him. He closed his eyes and took the first step towards it.
It was then that he felt something whiz by his head, feeling not unlike
a bee, grown to Eva proportions. Shinji opened his eyes just in time
to see a smoke trail shooting past his head, flashing across the
distance to the MP Eva in an eyeblink, and burying itself in its chest.
Shinji had to look away, then, as the fireball that erupted from the
impact was like a small sun. The MP Eva swayed backwards, staggered by
the explosion. As the smoke cleared, Shinji could see a crater in its
previously invincible hide.
A warning indicator suddenly lit up, beeping insistently as Shinji
glanced at it. There were incoming projectiles, coming from behind
him...
Shinji's reflex response was simple enough: duck. Unit-04 dove down,
flattening itself against the hard soil. Above it, more than a dozen
other smoke trails flashed by, through the space it had just recently
occupied, and found their marks in the MP Eva.
The ground shook under the force of so many explosions in so short a
time. Shinji chanced a quick look, in time to see the MP Eva jerking
wildly under the impacts, before it vanished under a pall of smoke.
He felt the tremor from the MP Eva tumbling to the ground under the
massive assault. Silence fell, just for a few moments. Then his radio
crackled.
"Shinji? Shinji, respond!"
Still reeling a bit from what he'd just seen, it took him a moment to
answer. "I...I'm here, Asuka." Slowly and carefully, he eased Unit-04
back to its feet.
"Thank god..." came the whispered reply. "Shinji, don't ask how, but
the American jets just..._appeared_ right off the west coast of Japan.
They're telling us they've got you in their sights."
"Asuka, I don't know where I am," he half-lied. "By a lake,
or...something." A blast crater, that was what this was. Made by...
"Well, Misato and the others are all still trying to guess your
location on the map. That big guy's faster than he looks."
"You're telling m - " Shinji cut off as he saw a group of dark forms
streak overhead, followed closely thereafter by the tremor of a sonic
boom.
"Shinji?"
"Don't worry, it's just the jets. They just did a fly-by."
"Probably making sure they killed that thing. What's your take,
Shinji?"
"I can't see anything, Asuka," Shinji replied. "Those missiles make a
lot of smoke."
"Hey, if it wasn't loud and flashy the Americans wouldn't be using
it," Asuka joked.
"Right," Shinji replied, smiling a little. He got Unit-04 to its feet.
The Eva responded perfectly fine to him, this time, showing none of the
rebelliousness it had earlier. "I'm going to go have a loo..."
He trailed off as he saw a flash from within the dust cloud, a brief
flicker of intense light. There was a heart-stopping moment, just long
enough for Shinji to think that perhaps he'd just imagined it. But
then, the earth rumbled.
In the distance, the American jets had broken formation and were
swinging around for another pass. Even at the speed they were moving
at, though, there was no way they could have dodged the shot. It was
simply too sudden. Fully half of the jets simply vanished, as the
earth erupted, spitting forth a pillar of white-hot fire that reached
up, consuming them, and splitting into the shape of a cross.
Another flash, and still more jets were consumed. The remaining
planes, already down to so few Shinji could count them on one hand, had
split up, taking evasive action. Even as they did this, more cross-
flares erupted around them, forcing them to maneuver wildly to avoid
burning up instantly.
Shinji's radio came alive with chatter, most of it in English, going so
fast that he couldn't follow. He could guess at what was going on,
though. Most of the jets retreated, gaining altitude and veering off
into the distance. One, however, did not. It suddenly dove, pulling
up at the last possible second so as to skim along the ground. Its
engines flared, leaving a fire trail behind it as it roared up to its
maximum speed, aimed directly at the cloud from which the shots were
coming.
Shinji saw what the pilot intended, and started yelling into his own
radio, asking...no, begging, the man to stop, turn away, run while he
still had his life. His voice was lost among the others, though,
obscured by Lewis' shouting and Misato's own warnings.
The jet began to pull up, putting some slight distance between it and
the ground, before it finally loosed the one remaining missile it had
under its wing. The fire trail of the projectile streaked towards the
cloud, spanning the distance before Shinji could even blink.
It was then that the MP Eva reappeared. Emerging from the cloud like a
demon straight from hell, it simply held out its hand, catching the
missile in its rocklike palm. The missile detonated, sending shivers
through the MP Eva's body and rocking Unit-04 with the explosion.
Seemingly unaware of the injury it had just suffered, the MP Eva lashed
out with the same arm, turning it to a ribbon almost instantly, aiming
it at the jet that had dared fire upon it.
The jet was neatly sliced in half. As the ribbon retracted, the halves
of the ruined fighter came apart, spinning out of control as the engine
continued to burn for a few seconds before finally giving out. The
debris smashed into the ground at nearly Mach 2, leaving a pair of
sizeable craters. There were no ejection chutes.
The MP Eva turned to face Shinji, now. If it had been a frightening
opponent before, it was horrifying now. Its head was nearly destroyed,
only a part of the lower jaw remaining, sharp teeth hanging by threads
over its pockmarked body. Its torso was full of holes, oozing thick
red Eva blood as it walked. Its limbs were misshapen, warped by the
heat and the impact of the explosions. But the skull-like growth on
its chest still stood proud, the eye holes now burning with an inner
fire. The abomination that had once been an Eva stepped towards him.
^So...^ came the voice in Shinji's mind again. ^You...you would not
have us do fair battle.^
"Wh...wh..." Shinji stuttered. He shook his head, getting a grip on
himself. "What _are_ you?!" he shouted at it.
^What am I?^ the voice asked, almost mocking. The MP Eva spread its
deformed arms, melting them into ribbons as it did so. The razor-edged
weapons whipped sinuously in the air, like metallic snakes. ^I am the
epitome of the warrior, boy. I will not admit defeat until my body is
utterly destroyed.^ It began walking towards him, unsteady but
resolute. ^Take away my legs, and I will crawl. Take away my arms,
and I will bite.^ The gory remains of its lips actually curled at
this, in a smile that dripped blood around ruined teeth. ^I do not
surrender. I do not turn away from battle, not until I have taken my
last breath.^
Shinji blinked. "You...you _did_ run. I remember. Last time - "
^Was a mistake,^ the MP Eva interrupted. ^Yes, I retreated. Yes, I
shamed myself. But I will recover my pride. That thing you ride
within will fall to my might.^ A pause, here. ^I suppose it is
fitting that you are the one to stand before me. You, the only one who
has ever shown me true defeat.^
Shinji blinked, then gasped as something triggered in his mind.
Forcefully forgotten memories tore through all his mental defenses,
coming to the fore once again. He remembered...
A warrior, insurmountable. A red giant facing it bravely, but unable
to scratch it. The warrior had defeated it in seconds, casting away
its severed head. The head had nearly crushed Shinji. He remembered
fear, seeing this. Not for the red machine, but for the one who had
ridden within it, who felt its pain as though they were one being.
A blue giant had charged it, then, in a suicide strike against its main
core. But it had been useless; the giant had posessed a final defense
even the blue giant's bomb had been unable to penetrate. A flash of
ribbons, and the giant had fallen.
And then, it had been his turn...
"You..." he muttered. He looked back to the MP Eva, standing before
him, still waiting for him to charge. "It's you. H...how is that even
possible?"
^A question no one has been able to resolve, little one. I myself do
not care for the technicalities of it all. All I know is that I once
again stand here on the field of battle with you. Perhaps there is
something to this concept of 'fate'.^
Shinji shook his head violently, the realization of who his opponent
really was rocking his consciousness. "But..." he began, hesitantly.
"But why? You get a second chance...you get to live again. Why are
you throwing away your life by fighting?"
^I have answered that question. Battle is my life. Only in the clash
of war can I find definition.^
"How can you say that?" Shinji asked. "We...everyone's getting a
second chance. We can try again at life, and we're trying to make the
world a place to live again. You...you're just repeating the same
mistake!"
^Mistake? I think not. This is our way.^
"Why?" Shinji asked. "Why do you fight? I don't want to be here. I
hate sitting in this _thing_. I just want to go home."
^So then, why are you here?^
"Because..." Shinji paused. "There are people depending on me. They
need me, to protect them, to protect our home." He took a breath. "I
don't want to die out here, in this...but if I do, it's all right.
I'll have been protecting the people I love, and the home I've made."
Another memory tried to surface. One connected to the ground they now
stood upon. He remembered someone else had made that decision, to die
for the sake of someone else. For the sake of him...
"You don't have a home to protect!" Shinji shouted, both out of anger
and to shut up the unwanted recollection. "You're just making war, for
no reason at all!"
^War is reason enough, boy,^ came the icy response. ^It seems you
cannot understand. Not all of us can go the way of the Fifteenth.^
"What?" Shinji asked, not quite grasping what he'd just been told.
There was no verbal response, this time. It seemed the MP Eva was
tired of talking. The lights within the skull's eyes began to grow
brighter, approaching sun-like intensity. Shinji, backing away, held
Unit-04's arms defensively over its face, knowing that it was useless
but knowing also that he was out of time, and out of places to run.
* * *
Rei simply appeared from nowhere, seeming to step right out of the air
itself. She alighted, head down, hands clasped in front of her. Her
eyes were closed, her face peaceful, as though in deep thought.
Approximately half a kilometer away, Unit-04 was watching as the MP Eva
built up for a another devastating blow. By now, its batteries were
likely taxed to their limit; even if the shot did not utterly destroy
the Eva, it could not keep fighting for much longer.
Aside from that, the fighting might well turn out to be moot, soon. In
her mind, Rei could feel something happening. Off the coast of Japan,
some elaborate machine was being activated. It was not quite so
surgical or precise as the jets the Americans had sent, but it was
tremendously powerful. Indeed, Rei could in fact feel a glimmer of a
power within it that previously had only been found in Evangelions.
And now, this powerful thing, something that would turn this entire
area to dust and ashes, was coming. She did not have much time.
Rei opened her eyes, still looking down at her feet. The ground lay a
few hundred meters away from her. Under her lay the undulating surface
of the lake of LCL, the one that had broken Unit-04's fall earlier.
She stood upon this surface, unmoving, unaffected by the gentle push of
the tide. Slowly, she looked up. She said a single word.
"Zeruel."
Though she'd been so quiet that she'd barely even heard herself, the
effect was immediate. The MP Eva froze, its body locking up. The glow
that had been gathering in its skull died down, becoming no more than a
dull glimmer. Slowly, the MP Eva turned, its shattered visage looking
straight at her.
"You do not need to fight him," Rei whispered. "He is not the enemy
you seek."
The skull twitched, jaw flexing in a hollow roar. The MP Eva's fists
clenched, as it began to walk, not towards Unit-04 but towards Rei.
Rei's eyes glazed momentarily, hearing something speak to her. She
shook her head.
"No," she said. "She is a facsimile. She is a pale copy of the
original."
The MP Eva was speeding up now, in a hobbling run. It dripped hot
blood on the ground as it moved. Behind it, Unit-04 fell to its knees,
not comprehending what was going on. Turning its head, the white Eva
also spotted Rei.
Rei tilted her head, hearing something else. "He is not the one you
seek," she said. "Though he is the same boy, conditions
are...different, from when last you saw him."
The MP Eva approached her, now slogging through the thick LCL. Waves
rippled under Rei's feet, lifting her up briefly, then lowering her
back down. Rei looked down to her feet, again hearing something.
"I wish to see him live," she answered the silent question. "As for my
reasons...they are my own."
The MP Eva loomed over her now, taller than a skyscraper, blocking out
the sun with its bulk, casting Rei into shadow. It glared down at her
with eyes of flame.
"Your injuries may not be mortal, Zeruel," Rei whispered to it. Her
eyes glanced to its arm, which was becoming liquid, slowly thinning,
gaining a razor edge. "You do not need to continue this battle. Death
is not the only option."
The skull roared at her again. The freshly formed ribbon-cutter arced
up into the air, drawing back for a blow that was aimed precisely at
her neck.
Rei closed her eyes. "If it will stop your rage," she said, again in
answer to something only she could hear. The ribbon-cutter descended.
Rei felt no impact, however. Instead, there was a low scream, coming
from a distance, but growing louder, closing on her in an eyeblink.
She opened her eyes, just in time to see Unit-04 slam into the enormous
MP Eva in a flying tackle. The impact pushed both combatants down,
slamming forcefully into the sea of LCL, deep enough at this distance
that the MP Eva was swallowed entirely by the liquid. Its ribbon-
cutter arm went wide, but only just barely enough. Rei felt a rush of
air as the metal blade sliced the LCL next to her, then whipped back,
retracting back to the MP Eva.
"Ayanami!" Shinji's voice called out over Unit-04's loudspeaker. "Rei!
What're you doing here!"
"Ikari-kun..." Rei whispered. "Please...please leave."
"What are you asking?" Shinji asked back. Underneath him, the MP Eva
began to fight back, reshaping its cutter back into an arm. Both Evas
were suddenly locked in a wrestling match, both clawing at each other,
trying to get a grip with LCL-slicked fingers. The MP Eva definitely
had the advantage of mass and strength, but it was also heavily
damaged. Unit-04, on the other hand, was relatively unhurt. But Rei's
trained eyes could see that already its arms were growing heavy,
slowing as its batteries ran down.
"You know I can't do that!" Shinji shouted, even as he continued to
fight. "What're you trying to do? Do you want to die?"
"If it will save you," Rei replied, immediately.
Shinji, locked in the fight of his life, did not answer. The MP Eva's
clawlike hands were locked around Unit-04's neck. But Unit-04's own
hands were clamped onto the skull on the MP Eva's chest, pulling and
twisting, trying to rip it off entirely. Flesh, sinew, and bone all
began to tear apart as the Evas neared the end of their contest.
"You...idiot..." Shinji managed to get out, the tightness in his voice
showing he was definitely feeling the MP Eva's efforts to strangle
Unit-04. "I can't...just let that happen..."
Rei dared to step closer to the two struggling Evas. "Ikari-kun, you do not understand - "
She was cut off as the MP Eva twisted in Shinji's grip, its skull
looking at her. Rei heard one final statement in her mind.
^It is _you_ who does not understand, Zero.^
The MP Eva lashed out with one enormous arm, clipping Rei's body
solidly with the edge of one hand.
The impact alone would have been enough to kill a human being. That
much mass, moving that quickly, should have torn her apart. As if that
were not enough, the edge of the MP Eva's hand had been morphing into a
razor, so she had been caught across the abdomen with an almost perfect
cutting edge. Rei gasped in sudden pain as she felt her body nearly
come apart. A warm fluid sprayed from her wound, filling the air with
a fine mist as she flew backwards from the blow. Unable to control her
fall, she followed a ballistic path towards the shore.
^Battle is my life,^ the MP Eva said to her, as she fell.
Rei hit the ground hard, bouncing from the hit and rolling several
times in the dirt before finally grinding to a halt. She felt the warm
fluid pouring out of her, pooling underneath her, staining the ground.
^To deny me that...is to deny me all.^
Unit-04 watched, unspeaking, as Rei was hit, as she fell, as she
bounced to the ground like some kind of discarded toy. Slowly, it
looked back to its opponent, currently on top of it, pinning it in the
LCL with its superior weight. Though now only one hand was on Unit-
04's neck, it was still enough to be choking the life from it. It was
at this moment that the battery indicator in the entry plug went
critical, emergency lights going on as Unit-04 passed the one-minute
mark in remaining activation time.
Unit-04 shifted its grip, putting one hand on the offending wrist, and
the other gripping the MP Eva's skull "face". Finding a grip, it
twisted, the skull writhing under its fingers before finally giving
way, cracking and tearing away from the main body. The lights in its
eye sockets flickered, then died.
Unit-04 was not done. It rolled, flipping them both over so that the
MP Eva was now on the bottom. Now in the superior position, Unit-04
found its legs, getting its feet under it, as it dragged the larger Eva
up.
Unit-04 wrapped its arms around the MP Eva. With a sort of cold,
inhuman determination, it began to squeeze. Every muscle in its body
went tight, crushing the already motionless MP Eva in its grip. A low
groaning sound could be heard, as the MP Eva's body began to give.
Finally, with a sound like a thousand trees cracking all at once, the
MP Eva's spine gave out, and it split, its upper torso hanging limply.
Unit-04 dropped its enormous cargo into the LCL, with a tremendous
splash. It looked down on the MP Eva with a cold, unfeeling gaze. Its
fists clenched when it saw that, despite it all, the MP Eva was still
trying to move, its limbs twitching and its "face" actually recovering,
one eye socket beginning to glow again. Unit-04 reached down and
grabbed the MP Eva by one wrist.
From Unit-04's speakers came a scream, one born of fear, of
frustration, and raw hatred. It carried on, as Unit-04 lifted the
massive MP Eva completely out of the LCL, swinging it around to build
momentum. It was such that it gave even the MP Eva pause, feeling the
tingle of fear in its heart once again. Unit-04 released its opponent,
sending it flying, wings trailing uselessly behind it as it arced
through the air. LCL exploded into huge fans as the MP Eva struck the
surface again, and sank.
Shinji's scream died almost as soon as he'd released the MP Eva.
Without bothering to see where it had landed, he turned Unit-04 around
and started running for the land. Zooming in with the cybernetic eye,
he could see Rei's body lying there in a dark pool of damp mud. She
wasn't moving.
"Rei!" he called out over the loudspeakers. No response. "Rei, can
you hear me?!"
A loud warning beep managed to tear Shinji's attention off of the
girl's broken form. He looked to the wall just in time to see the
battery timer finish its countdown. As it hit 00:00:00, the lights
flickered and died. Shinji felt a chill as the presence of Unit-04
suddenly and rapidly removed itself from his mind. And then, he was
sitting blind, in the slowly cooling LCL of the entry plug.
There was a too-long sense of falling as Unit-04 lost its balance and
tumbled forwards. The impact was softened by the LCL lake itself, but
Shinji was still rocked in his seat. Mumbling a small curse, he felt
around in the darkness until he found the button for the emergency
release. He thumbed it, triggering Unit-04's last glimmer of battery
energy. It was just enough to part the Eva's back plates and extend
the entry plug far enough for him to get out. After the sudden jerk of
being popped out of the Eva's back, Shinji got out of his seat and felt
on the walls, finally locating the latch for the exit.
The door popped open, pouring out LCL into the lake below. Shinji
emerged moments later, spitting out more of the orange liquid. Unit-04
had almost made it to shore. Lying face-down on the ground, its back
just barely emerged from the surface of the lake of LCL. Shinji
scrambled across the white armor of Unit-04 and dove off the edge, into
the lake.
The swim to shore did not take long. The whole time, Shinji kept his
eyes on Rei's body, looking for some sign, anything, to show that she
was still breathing. As soon as he felt land under his feet, he
started running, slogging through the last of the LCL and emerging
soaked on the shore.
"Rei!" he called out, running up to her. He skidded to a halt, falling
down to a crouch next to her body. She was lying on her side, face
covered by the hair that had haphazardly fallen over it. Carefully, he
rolled her onto her back, his breath catching when he saw the wound.
The gash in her went from her right hip up to her left shoulder, and
was so deep that she had nearly been sliced through. Yet still, it was
oozing fluid onto the sand. Hands shaking, he tried a meager attempt
to stem the bleeding, putting pressure on her wound.
"Come on," he whispered. "Come on, you're all right. You can't bleed
if you're dead, right?" He shivered, feeling her wound.
"You..." he swallowed. "You must be wet, or something...right? Right
Rei? Stop...stop it...stop getting so...cold..."
He didn't notice at first, but in the background, there was a dull
roar. Not the feral roar of an enraged Eva, but rather the constant,
throaty rumble of a rocket. As Shinji knelt by Rei, the noise grew
ever louder, until he finally realized it, and looked over his
shoulder.
With the distance, it looked no larger than a pencil. Just a narrow,
black smudge against the sky. It couldn't possibly be dangerous. But,
as he watched, it descended, falling like the finger of God, down
towards the MP Eva.
The MP Eva, for its part, had risen, in a display of resiliency that
Shinji could not even begin to fathom. It tilted its body back,
letting its half-broken skull "face" look to the sky, at the noisy
thing that was coming down towards it. It paused, looking at the thing
for a long time as it came down. Finally, the MP Eva moved, slowly
spreading its arms wide, like a person greeting their lover. Despite
its injuries, despite its fate, it had never looked more triumphant.
Then the missile struck it.
Shinji reflexively looked away, crying out in pain as all of a sudden
he was blinded. The flash from the strike was such that it made the
sun itself look dim. Squinting his burning eyes, he turned back to
Rei, her pale form thrown into sharp relief by the intense light.
The temperature rose rapidly, going from cool to hot to blistering in a
matter of seconds. Shinji screamed as he felt his back burning, and
was vaguely aware of steam coming off his skin as the LCL clinging to
his body began to boil. Behind him, he could hear a roaring, so loud
it was drowning out all else, as the shockwave approached them, an
unavoidable tide of utter oblivion.
Through the pain, Shinji reached down, taking Rei up in his arms,
holding her ruined body against his, feeling his shirt go damp with her
blood. He saw their shadows growing long, etched into the air itself
as the light moved to consume them.
"Rei..." he whispered. "I'm sorry..." He thought he felt her twitch.
But that had to be the panic from the explosion; with death
approaching, he must have gone mad. He didn't care, not any more. It
would be over, soon.
He felt the energies falling on him, and could only give in as he felt
his body disintegrating.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Endnote: Admit it, you knew I was going to blow something up. One does
not introduce something with the yield of a hydrogen bomb and then
simply let it fade into the background. Of course, that still leaves
the question of whether or not I'll vaporize the rest of Japan while
I'm at it.
Yes, yes I know the scenes are a bit one-sided. I know everyone wants
to know what was going on in the HQ while all this fighting was going
on (and if you didn't, too bad). I had quite a bit planned for that
side of things, but realized as I was writing this that I in fact had
so much planned that I could probably stick it all in a side story or
even a separate chapter altogether. That, and I didn't want to break
up the flow by switching back and forth between the HQ and the fight.
Don't worry, the next installment will cover what everyone else was
doing while Shinji was busy getting his butt kicked. Stay tuned.
Now then, how does one write a romance story in which two of the main
characters have been reduced to sub-atomic particles? Hmm...
Ah yes, I can also hear those geography buffs in my reading audience
getting ready to write small novels about how the site of the Rei II's
demise couldn't possibly be that far from NERV. I say it's my fic, and
so there. Maybe in a later rewrite I'll come up with a more plausible
locale for the final confrontation.
For the observant ones: the whole bit of "cutting the ribbon-
cutter" is something I got from watching Vision of Escaflowne. All
terms in the above disclaimer apply to this series as well. It's not
mine, and I make no claim to it.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Started: August 18, 2003
Version 1 Ended: September 14, 2003
Version 2 Ended: October 16, 2003
Evangelion belong to GAINAX. They're not mine, and I make no claim to
them.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
" " = speech
^ ^ = thoughts
_ _ = italics
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Angels of Armageddon
Chapter 18: When Angels Fall
Author: Ryan Xavier
Rei opened her eyes.
She'd heard it: not with her ears, but with her mind. Something within
her was resonating, feeling the rush of battle mere kilometers from
where she lay in confinement. She could sense Units 00 and 04
struggling, giving ground to their enemy. And then, she'd heard the
scream.
She could no longer tolerate being kept here. She sat up on the mat
she had for a bed, getting to her feet moments later. There was no
haste in her actions, simply a cold determination. Squaring her
shoulders, she moved to the door, and ran her fingers along its edge.
It was locked from the outside, and made of good steel. The only
opening in it was a small window made from bulletproof glass. This
thing would resist even the most determined strikes; unarmed, she would
not be able to open it. However, as the feeling of power welling up
within her proved, Rei was not unarmed.
The guard outside half-turned his head, looking in through the small
window. "There a problem, girl?" he asked in English. "Don't think
you can get me to open this door, 'cause the only way _that's_
happening is - "
The man never got to finish his sentence, as the window suddenly
cracked, then shattered. The door buckled, as though struck by a
gigantic fist from within the cell. The guard jumped back just in time
to avoid being hit by the door as it was ripped clear out of the wall,
flying away as though it weighed no more than a tissue.
On the other side of the hole the door had previously occupied, Rei
stood serenely, her eyes focused, her arms hanging limp at her sides.
Slowly and deliberately, she walked forwards, through the cloud of dust
hanging in the air, her feet crunching on ruined stone.
The guard, meanwhile, had reached for his gun. A .45 came out, the
safety snapping off almost before it was out of the holster. The guard
pointed it shakily at Rei.
"H...hey," he said, trying to sound in control. "Don't you try
anything...I...I don't want to..."
Rei sharply turned her head, catching him with her eyes. The man
paled, looking at that face, at the eyes the color of blood, that froze
him like ice. Barely even aware of what he was doing any more, he felt
his finger tighten on the trigger.
The gun bucked in his hand, the loud bang from the shot washing over
him too quickly for him to even notice. As the smoking shell casing
hit the ground near his foot, he blinked.
Where Rei had been standing just a moment ago, there was nothing. It
was as though in between the time he'd fired and the time the bullet
had reached her, she had just vanished. He blinked again, dropping his
gun to the ground. His hand fumbled at his belt, finding a radio.
"Uh...sir?" he said into the radio, fighting to keep control over his
voice. "You're not going to believe this."
* * *
Kaoru watched as the enormous MP Eva struck Unit-04. An open-handed
hammer blow to the face, hard enough to make Unit-04's head jerk back
for a moment, before the MP Eva got a hold. Now, the MP Eva was
holding Unit-04 by its head, suspended off the ground. It was
squeezing, hard enough that Kaoru could hear Unit-04's armor cracking.
Unit-04 itself was motionless, its limbs hanging useless at its sides,
like some kind of overgrown doll.
"Shinji! Shinji!" Kaoru shouted into his radio. "Can you hear me?
Shinji, please respond!"
The line stayed quiet, going full of static as the MP Eva continued to
crush Unit-04's head with its bare hand. Suddenly, though, the static
vanished, as a connection was made.
"Shinji?" Kaoru asked, hopeful.
"Far from it, Tabris," came a deep voice from the radio, cold and even.
Kaoru felt a chill. "No..."
"This body has given me intimate knowledge of how the Lilum speak with
one another. Though these airborne energy waves they use for distance
communication are painfully inefficient, they serve my purposes."
"You...what do you want?"
"I believe you know the answer to that question, Tabris." The MP Eva
squeezed a little harder. Blood from Unit-04's ruined cranium was now
oozing down between its assailant's fingers. "I want to find _her_."
Kaoru hesitated. "Ayanami?" He moved Unit-00 into a more solid
fighting stance. "I won't let you have her, you monster."
"You insult me, Tabris. I care little for Zero. Without one of these
copies of Father to protect her frail body, she is of little
consequence to me. I want to see the one who fought me earlier. The
great warrior who maimed me. I need to test myself against that one."
Kaoru, seeing Unit-04 still hanging helpless in the demon-mech's grasp,
started Unit-00 towards it. "The warrior you are referring to is no
more," he said, firmly. "I took care of that."
"What?" the voice over his radio said. The MP Eva's head whipped
around to stare at him, its tongue lolling out of its mouth, over its
array of sharp teeth.
"She was a danger to the people I protect," he explained. "So I put
her to sleep." He took a breath. "It is me you want, Zeruel."
The MP Eva regarded him curiously for a moment, then its grin widened.
"As you wish," it said, coldly.
Before Kaoru could even shout to stop, the MP Eva whipped Unit-04
through the air by its head, smashing it bodily into the ground. The
impact was hard enough that the armor on its body fractured, spiderweb
cracks appearing all over its surface. Its form sank deep into the
ground, spread-eagled and motionless.
The MP Eva finally released its grip, revealing Unit-04's crushed
skull. The damage was so severe that it was barely even
distinguishable as a head, anymore. Kaoru froze, looking at it.
"You...you monster..."
"Words are of little consequence, Tabris. Now, champion of free will,
you will show me what you are capable of."
The MP Eva simply moved too fast for Kaoru to have any hope of dodging.
Unit-00 was backhanded across the chest, the force such that the
tremendous form of Unit-00 went flying. Kaoru struggled to control the
Eva in mid-air, trying to land softly. He was somewhat successful, if
not graceful. Unit-00 slammed back into the earth, rolling with the
impact before grinding to a halt, now almost a kilometer from the enemy
Eva.
The MP Eva wasted no time, jumping into the air. As a flash of
lightning highlighted its form, Kaoru could see its black wings spread
at the apex of its jump, and its arms go to liquid, becoming ribbon-
cutters once again.
He had time to dodge this time, but only just barely. Unit-00 rolled
out of the way just in time. The MP Eva crashed back down where the
blue Eva had been just moments before, its ribbon-cutters digging deep
into the ground. Had Kaoru not moved, they would have surely cloven
him in half.
A twitch from Unit-00's muscular arms got the Eva back on its feet. As
he moved the Eva through this motion, Kaoru felt a slight tingling, a
sensation of another entity at the edge of his consciousness. Chancing
a look, he focused briefly on Unit-00's energy flows and saw that,
indeed, its S2 output was being divided, approximately half of its
energy going to another unit. Kaoru did not have time to make sure,
but the feel of it was similar to Unit-04. A brief surge of hope
rushed into him; it was possible that Shinji had survived that assault.
It was even possible that, despite appearances, Unit-04 was not yet
down for the count. He hoped so; as it stood, he did not like his
chances.
"You disappoint me, Tabris," came the deep voice over his radio again.
The MP Eva spread its arms wide, almost invitingly. "I would have
expected more from the last of us. The one to come closest to finding
Father."
Kaoru shook his head, quietly thankful that the clashing AT fields were
stopping all radio transmission past line-of-sight. It wouldn't do for
the others to be hearing this conversation, right now.
"I did not find Adam," Kaoru replied quietly, starting towards the MP
Eva. "The Lilum tricked me...tricked us. Even though we were
physically stronger, it was not by their strength that the Lilum were
the ones to start the Unification."
The response to this was a quiet laugh. "An odd way to beg for your
life, Tabris. You would tell _me_ that might is of little
consequence?" As if to punctuate this, the MP Eva took several steps
forwards, its heavy footsteps causing tremors Kaoru could feel in his
bones, even at this distance.
Unit-00 clenched its fists tightly. "Just think, Zeruel. The ones who
came after you...Arael, Armisael, and myself...none of us were so
brazen in our assaults as you. We did not rely on our strength, yet we
came so much closer."
"Life among the Lilum has corrupted you, Tabris. You should know that
strength is our way of life. Had I not encountered such a capable
warrior...I would have been the one to succeed." The MP Eva paused,
grinning its toothy grin at him. "And now, even that warrior has
fallen to my might. Such a pity...I would have expected more of a
battle from one of that caliber. But no. He was, in the end, just a
boy. A little, helpless, _boy_."
Kaoru's eyes widened, not with surprise, but with restrained anger.
"You have no right," he countered, his voice steely. "You cannot speak
of Shinji that way." He closed his eyes momentarily. "He may not be a
warrior in the way that you are, Zeruel...but Shinji's strength is far
greater than yours ever will be. No matter what you do to yourself.
No matter how many Lances you absorb into yourself."
A chuckle. "That weapon was quite powerful, was it not, Tabris? Even
in our first encounter, it nearly destroyed these toys you are using.
Now, integrated into me, it has made me stronger than ever," the MP Eva
said, flexing one arm. "Say what you will about your compatriot,
Tabris. He has already fallen."
Unit-00 was in motion by the time the voice had finished speaking.
Unable to tolerate what it was saying any longer, Kaoru charged the MP
Eva, swinging back Unit-00's fist.
Again, the MP Eva made no effort to dodge the blow. This alone should
have warned Kaoru, but he did not care. He knew that this was what it
came down to. If he could not damage this thing...if he could not
penetrate its AT field...then they were all doomed.
Unit-00's fist connected solidly with the thing's chest. Once again,
the MP Eva did not so much as sway from the impact. For Kaoru, it was
as though he'd punched a solid, unyielding wall. Unit-00's fist broke
under the force of its own punch. Slamming his eyes shut in the sudden
burning pain, Kaoru made his move. The Eva was distracted, thinking
that he'd simply been trying to attack it again. But at this range,
the intricacies of its AT field would be visible. Kaoru reached out
his senses, finding this barrier, the outline of his opponent's AT
field, and the source of its strength. He felt for any seams, any weak
spots to exploit, tear apart with his own field...
...and found none.
The MP Eva, grinning as it sensed what he was doing, counterattacked.
Its fist halfway converted to a ribbon-cutter, it punched Unit-00 in
the gut. Kaoru ducked reflexively, his synch with Unit-00 failing as
something violated his sanctum. For a moment, he found himself sitting
in the entry plug. Looking up in the cold LCL, he saw his own
reflection looking back at him, in the metallic surface of the MP Eva's
own ribbon-cutter, sitting not more than a hand's breadth away from his
head.
Unit-00 fell again, toppled by the force of the blow. The ribbon-
cutter was pulled free in one quick motion, letting LCL spurt from the
entry plug like blood. Kaoru's head emerged from the surface of the
orange liquid as the entry plug drained. Suddenly cold from the
exposure to air and the rain coming in through the rent in the plug,
Kaoru closed his eyes and tried to block it out.
Using his particular talent as an Eva pilot, he did what no human could
have done in that situation: re-synched with the Eva. Once again, he
was seeing through Unit-00's eye, and felt the burning pain from his
gut where the last blow had been landed. There was a warm trickling
falling over his stomach, and he looked down to see the LCL draining
out.
Unit-00 kept moving, slowly and stiffly getting up into a sitting
position. Its ruined fist served as nothing more than a stump,
something to balance against. Its good hand was covering the wound in
its stomach, trying to stem the flow of fluid, as well as protect the
pilot.
The MP Eva was upon it. A vicious kick connected with the sitting
Eva's chin, forcing his head back so hard its neck cracked. Kaoru's
body went numb suddenly as the nerves were cut. As Unit-00 skid
backwards along the muddy ground, he felt the armor plate come away
from Unit-00's chin, ruined by the force of the blow.
The MP Eva stood over its fallen adversary, towering and horrible in
the glare from lightning bolts. It lifted up one foot and placed it on
Unit-00's torso, leaning heavily on that foot, slowly crushing Unit-00
under its mass.
Kaoru suddenly felt very claustrophobic, as though the figurative walls
were closing in. He realized what it was a moment later: the entry
plug itself was collapsing under the sheer weight being forced down on
it. In a moment, his body was going to be crushed.
Unit-00 grabbed at the ankle, trying to lever it off. He might as well
have tried to move a mountain, for all he did. Unit-00 simply did not
have the strength left in its one good arm to move the demon that
stood atop it.
Kaoru watched, frozen, as the MP Eva's arm went liquid again, slowly
shifting over to a ribbon. It lifted up the razor-sharp weapon, aimed
down at Unit-00.
"Take heart in the knowledge that you went down fighting, Tabris," came
the sadistic message in his ears. "For that, I shall grant you a
warrior's death."
Then the arm descended, and Kaoru felt something he'd only experienced
once before.
* * *
Inside Unit-04's cockpit, nothing lived.
The entry plug was smashed, its sides buckled by the tremendous impact
with the ground. Its delicate electronics were broken, its power feeds
cut. As for its pilot...
The LCL had absorbed most of the impact with the ground, but the raw
inertia of the Eva had simply been too much for Shinji's frail body.
He was slowly going cold.
Had anyone been there to watch, they would have seen something happen
in this lifeless, dark place. Coming through the wall like a ghost,
Rei Ayanami appeared. Her skin glowed faintly, casting a pale light
onto the destroyed entry plug, and Shinji's still form, floating in the
LCL.
Floating in the tight confines of the entry plug with its other
occupant, she looked down at Shinji's broken body. Her face betrayed
nothing. Slowly, she floated towards Shinji's body, reaching out an
ethereal hand towards him.
Effortlessly, her hand passed into his chest. Rei closed her eyes,
concentrating briefly. Her eyes suddenly snapped open again when
Shinji took a breath.
She floated away from him, closing her eyes again as she began to pass
through the wall of the plug. Shinji opened his own eyes just in time
to glimpse Rei's ethereal face and see...
...a smile.
* * *
Shinji came around groggily, groaning in pain.
His head felt like it was trying to implode. Putting one hand on his
forehead, he tried to wake up. He opened his eyes, seeing first a flash of light, followed too soon by total darkness.
"Wh...where am I?" he felt around, finding the solid walls of the entry
plug around him. "What's going on?"
Slowly, he began to recall what had happened just moments ago.
Attacking...only to find that it was utterly useless. Pain...
transmitted directly to him through the Eva...his vision going red from
the agony of it all. He must have passed out.
Yet he did not have time for the trauma of it all to hit him, as at
that moment, Unit-04 began to come alive.
Screens lit up, throwing a harsh light on him. Squinting, Shinji
looked around.
The entry plug looked heavily damaged. Crushed, actually. But even as
Shinji watched, it repaired itself. Metal walls un-buckled, circuits
reconnected, and shattered screens spontaneously came back together.
Next to him, there was a loud 'beep' as the timer came back online,
showing a solid 99:99:99.
A screen materialized next to him, reading in large red text: AUTO-
REPAIR INITIALIZED. STATUS: 40%.
The plug was suddenly haunted by sounds coming from all directions.
The groan of metal, along with the crack of bones and flesh, mixed
together. The plug shifted, as Unit-04 began to put itself back
together. Thrown off-balance, Shinji re-seated himself and gripped the
controls in front of him.
Shinji took in a sharp breath as Unit-04 suddenly re-synched with him,
its mind ramming into his like a steel nail through the skull. Through
the sudden pain, he saw the walls shift colors, switching back to the
full view of the world outside.
His head hurt. Or rather, Unit-04's head hurt. Shinji blinked,
turning his head a bit, getting a crick out of his neck. His eyes
seemed to be working, even that mechanical one the Americans had
installed. Now, all that was left was...
A window opened in front of him, giving him a radar view of the field.
There was a single blue dot representing him, and about a kilometer
away there was another blue dot, and a large red one, signaling the
enemy. Kaoru, he realized, was fighting alone.
"Kaoru-kun..." he said, slowly. "I'm coming."
There was no response to this. Shinji wasn't even sure whether or not
the radio had even picked up on his muttered words of support. He
didn't care, though. He had to get moving. Shinji took a breath, and
tightened his grip on the control sticks. "All right now...just
move..."
Unit-04 responded. Slowly, it sat up, got its legs under it, and stood
again. Shinji became aware of water running over his body; the rain
had picked up again. He looked down.
"Ouch..." was all he could say. In the ground, there was a perfect
imprint of Unit-04, limbs splayed out, now filling with water from the
rain. It was going to make a very interesting lake, once this was
over.
Shinji kicked Unit-04 into motion, guiding it over the terrain, towards
where Unit-00 and the target were appearing on radar. He tried not to
look as the battery indicator beeped, counting down as the external
power supply from Unit-00 was suddenly cut off. As Unit-04 crested a
small hill, he found them.
He'd hoped to arrive in time to support Kaoru; working together they
could take this thing down. Shinji had made himself believe that. But
Unit-00 was through fighting, it seemed. Even from where Shinji stood,
he could tell the blue Eva was heavily damaged, stripped of any glory
it might have once posessed. Its entire torso was caved in, the armor
cracked severely around the imprint of a gigantic foot. It had a slash
across its midsection, which spurted LCL, not unlike blood. Its head
armor had been damaged as well; the lower portion had been forcibly
ripped away, leaving Unit-00's recently grown mouth gaping open, jagged
teeth glinting in the glare of lightning.
But what got Shinji's attention was that Unit-00's head was no longer
attached to its body. It lay a ways off, its ragged jaw gaping
mindlessly, its single, lifeless red eye staring blankly into the
stormclouds.
Amid the carnage stood the MP Eva. Even as realization of Kaoru's
likely fate dawned on Shinji, the monster Eva was turning to face him,
the ground itself quaking under its footsteps.
^You...^ a voice rasped directly in Shinji's brain. He covered his
ears, wincing in the pain and violation of it.
^I admire your resilience, boy. But you are not worthy of my time.
Leave me.^
Shinji opened his eyes, looking at the enemy Eva. It was just standing
there, looking at him intently with its eyeless, oblong head. The
skull-like growth on its chest was motionless, but Shinji could not
shake the feeling that those black eye sockets were also looking at
him. One of the Eva's arms was still the long, muscular limb it
normally was. The other one, at some point, had become a ribbon, and
whipped quietly next to the Eva, moving apparently of its own volition.
As Unit-04 regarded its target, something triggered. Shinji felt
something, like a memory coming to the surface. But he knew it was not
one of his own memories. That other presence that always accompanied
him when he was synched, the feel of the Eva's own consciousness, was
what remembered.
The right shoulder pauldron of Unit-04 snapped open, and the
Progressive Knife deployed. Shinji stared at the weapon, hanging there
in its sheath in the rain. He had given no command to open that
shoulder pauldron. Was the Eva moving on its own?
Even as he thought this, the Eva's right arm began to move, again with
no input from Shinji. It slowly reached up, fingers grasping at the
knife.
Shinji reflexively took control, fighting to keep the arm down, keep
the Eva from trying to engage the demon in front of it. But Unit-04
resisted him. Even as Shinji pushed with all his might against it,
Unit-04's arm kept moving, reaching for the knife, grasping it, pulling
it free of the sheath. The shoulder pauldron closed, and Unit-04 stood
resolute, knife steaming as rain hissed off of its heated surface.
The MP Eva cocked its head to one side, regarding him curiously. ^You
would use such an inferior weapon against my might?^ Following this
was a hollow, inhuman laugh, short but chilling. ^Very well, boy. I
shall grant you the same honor I gave Tabris.^
Before Shinji could react, the MP Eva's arm shot up, the ribbon
flashing out across the distance between them, aimed directly at his
neck. Shinji slammed his eyes shut, even as he felt Unit-04 move,
aligning the knife directly in the path of the oncoming ribbon-cutter.
Death, it seemed, was loud. A horrible screeching of metal on metal
filled Shinji's ears, drowning out all else, even as he felt Unit-04's
arms tense, fighting an almost insurmountable force.
But then, it ended. After a moment of utter silence, in which Shinji
wondered if he'd gone deaf, he opened his eyes. A heartbeat later, he
blinked, opening his eyes wider, trying to believe what he saw.
Unit-04's Progressive Knife was nearly destroyed, its blade cut down to
a hair's thickness where it had been struck. But it had, by some
miracle, held. The ribbon-cutter had struck its superheated blade
full-on, but instead of the knife, it had been the ribbon that failed.
It had been sliced neatly down the middle, its perfect surface ruined
by the blow. Friction had superheated the already hot knife, to the
point that Shinji could feel it branding Unit-04's hands. Twisting
helplessly in the air on either side of Unit-04 were the halves of the
blocked ribbon cutter.
Then, the MP Eva realized what had happened.
It opened its enormous mouth, and again, Shinji was deafened by a
horrible screeching, this one coming from the MP Eva itself. Shinji
slammed his hands over his ears, Unit-04 doing likewise, dropping its
knife in the process. Already nearly cut through by the ribbon, the
knife snapped in half the moment it struck the ground.
Wincing, Shinji opened his eyes, seeing screens popping up by the
dozen. Alert windows appeared all around him, giving status on the Eva
and its target, warning him that the battery only had three minutes
worth of activation time remaining, that his AT field was negated, that
the ambient temperature was dropping...
Shinji took a closer look at that last window. It read that the air
temperature around the Evas, previously an even twenty degrees
Centigrade, was steadily decreasing. Shinji looked to the MP Eva, his
hand flying over the keypad for Unit-04's cybernetic eye.
The MP Eva had retracted its ruined arm, which now hung limply, still
in ribbon form, at its side. The Eva itself, was standing, muscles
tensed, jaw clenched, growling. What got Shinji's attention was its
appearance in the infra-red spectrum. Its body was practically glowing
with heat, even though the air temperature around it was steadily
dropping. It was almost as though the MP Eva was drawing the energy
right out of the air...
The radio crackled, and Shinji's ears were assaulted by a half-dozen
voices at once.
"Shinji! What's going on out there!" Asuka was shouting.
"Shinji, run! Something big's coming!" Misato's voice said,
simultaneously.
Unit-04 took a few hesitant steps backwards, easing away from its
opponent even as the rain began to turn to hail. Shinji's eyes went
wide as the MP Eva finally threw its arms apart, spreading its wings at
the same time. On those jet-black wings, a pair of eyes opened,
disturbingly human in their appearance. The eyes flickered briefly, as
did the skull on its chest.
"SHINJI!" Asuka's voice screamed.
Not that it was possible with most of the satellites destroyed, but had
anyone been watching from geosynchronous orbit, even they would have
seen the sudden flash in the middle of Japan, bright enough that it
completely blocked out the shockwave that rippled over the shattered
land. Such an observer might absently wonder if a large-scale nuclear
explosive had been set off.
Shinji, however, did not have to wonder. He didn't have the time to do
anything but brace for the impact, and pray for a miracle.
* * *
The MP Eva stood victorious and alone, amid a field of destruction.
The rain had stopped, the clouds themselves obliterated by the intense
energy. The ground had been hollowed out, blasted into a crater
kilometers across. The Eva moved slowly, feet crunching on soil that
had been baked into glass. It showed no fear, simply a slight fatigue
at its recent exertion. Though it was difficult to read emotion off
such an inhuman visage, it looked satisfied.
Unit-00 was almost indistinguishable from the rest of the terrain, now.
Its blue armor had been scorched black, melting into slag. It was now
little more than a vaguely humanoid lump on the ground. Unit-04 was
nowhere to be seen; where it had been standing moments before, there
was nothing. Victory, the MP Eva concluded.
But then, it froze, sensing something. Slowly, the giant turned, the
only sounds the crunch of its own footsteps and the slight wind gusting
across the lip of the blast crater. Its gaze fell back to where Unit-
04 had been standing.
At this very point, the air seemed to warp, distort as though being
seen through a bad lens. It tore, coming apart like a curtain, as
Unit-04 stepped through, materializing once again in the physical
plane. It landed with a loud crash on the glass floor of the crater,
staggered for a moment, then caught itself and looked at its opponent.
Sitting at the controls, Shinji was a little disoriented. He'd seen
the attack coming. Every nerve in his body had been screaming at him
to _run_, get out of there, escape the tremendous blast that was
coming. But something within him had known that even in Unit-04 he
would not have been able to move that fast. Right as the MP Eva had
fired, his eyes had gone to one wall of the entry plug, to the button
that had been marked DO NOT PUSH. He'd disregarded the warning this
time, knowing that even if he ended up like Kensuke had, it would have
been better than sitting here and letting this monster annihilate him.
The feeling of suddenly teleporting had been jarring, as though he'd
stuck his finger in a wall socket. His skin burned, and his stomach
was churning so violently he was sure he was going to be sick. But,
surveying the distruction around him, Shinji felt that he'd taken the
better choice. He saw Unit-00, and suddenly he _was_ sick, his stomach
expelling out its contents into the LCL.
"Kaoru..." he mumbled to himself. "I'm...I'm sorry."
In front of him, the MP Eva opened its demonic jaws and roared its
frustration at him, its skull starting to glow with the beginnings of
another shot. Seeing this, Shinji's first instinct, which he'd been
repressing since the beginning of this battle, finally took over. He
turned Unit-04 around and ran away, as fast as the Eva could go.
Hearing the MP Eva fire behind him, he turned Unit-04, just in time to
avoid a cross-flare blasting out of the ground where he would have
been. He crested the edge of the crater and kept running.
^COWARD!^ the other voice in his head was shouting at him. ^Come back
here and fight like a true warrior!^ Shinji ignored it, concentrating
on dodging as the MP Eva continued firing. The ground erupted all
around him, one cross-flare after another ripping through the earth,
threatening to blast him apart.
Shinji's radio crackled. "Shinji?!" came Misato's surprised voice.
"You're still alive?"
"Yes!" he shouted back, dodging another shot. "I don't know how,
Misato-san! I think I've used up my luck!" He paused, realizing
something. If the radio was working, then...
"Misato-san!" he asked, quickly. "Are the AT fields down?"
There was a pause of a few seconds, during which Unit-04 was clipped by
another blast, and went tumbling to the ground. It was back on its
feet in a heartbeat, and running again. Looking over his shoulder,
Shinji could see the MP Eva had taken to the air, its massive wings
standing out against the now-cloudless afternoon sky. It was
continuing to fire even as it flew.
"Yes, Shinji!" Misato finally answered him. "I don't know how,
but...but you did it, Shinji! It's field is down!"
"Then - "
"They're on their way, Shinji! Jets are on their way, just hold on for
one minute."
Shinji glanced to the timer on the wall. It currently read 1:58:03.
"One minute's about all I have, Misato-san!" he shouted. "Tell them to
hurry up!" Another blast shook the earth. "Another thing! Does this
thing EVER RUN OUT OF AMMO?"
^No, I do not.^
Shinji looked over his shoulder again just in time to see the grinning
face of the MP Eva as it slammed into him in a powerful dive. Both
machines were driven into the ground, digging a rut that could have
swallowed a skyscraper. Unit-04's arms were pinned to its sides by the
more powerful MP Eva, which was using the remains of its ruined arm
almost as effectively as its undamaged arm. The monster Eva got to its
feet, pulling Unit-04 up along with it, still crushed into a tight grip
that Shinji could not break.
Before Shinji could say anything, the MP Eva had spread its wings and
lifted off, taking them both into the sky. Shinji watched the ground
shrink away underneath him.
^You will not escape me, boy,^ the voice said in his head. ^You have
proven yourself to be a skillful warrior. Now we just have to get away
from these pests that would interfere with our battle. I must see
which of us is the stronger.^
Unit-04 struggled in the monster's grip, but was barely able to move
under the herculean strength.
^Rethink that strategy, boy,^ the voice told him firmly, almost
chiding. ^Without your barrier of the soul, would you survive the
fall?^ At this, its wings swept back severely, and their airspeed
began to increase. Underneath them, the ground became a rust-colored
blur, as Unit-04 finally gave up struggling, waiting for the demon-mech
to take them to where it wanted to fight.
* * *
Going more than twice the speed of sound, Lucifer Squadron should have
made it to firing range in less than two minutes. The HEAD missiles
hanging off the wings of each F-15 could be safely fired well before
the jets entered the estimated range of the target's energy blasts; the
pilots liked it that way. With a flight of 14 jets, each carrying a
pair of missiles, it was expected that Lucifer squadron would be able
to take down the enemy with a single salvo, once its AT field was down,
of course.
All the Evas had really had to do was keep the target relatively
stationary for those critical two minutes it would take for the jets to
get into range. Unfortunately, it looked like they hadn't even been
able to do that.
"Sir," the captain of Lucifer squadron said into his radio. "We've got
the target moving away, estimated speed in excess of Mach 7. We can't
keep up with it, sir."
There was a pause on the other end, followed by a strained response
from Colonel Lewis. The captain wondered what was going on at the HQ,
but knew it was none of his business, and even if it was, it wasn't
like he could do anything about it.
"Slow to cruising speed, captain," Lewis ordered. "No use wasting fuel
on this. Assume holding position, while we figure out what to do."
"Roger that."
The captain relayed orders to his flight. The other men were
disappointed at this new development; after all, this had been their
chance to shine. But it couldn't be helped.
If what his co-pilot had told him was true, according to the radar this
thing was moving away from them so fast it was like they were standing
still. He shook his head, disbeliving. It just wasn't _possible_ for
something so big to move so fast...
He felt a thump, a sudden shift in the weight of the jet. The
captain's trained eyes flew over the indicators, checking to make sure
none of the warning lights had gone off. Everything looked normal...at
least until he looked up.
"What in the..."
Outside the plane, hanging onto the cockpit glass itself, was a girl.
Her clothes and her short blue hair whipped violently in the wind, but
she otherwise seemed unfazed by the fact that they were still moving
faster than Mach 1. Despite all the years of combat training, of
flying jets so long that it was second nature to him, the captain
froze. For just a moment, he was held fast, petrified by those
piercing, crimson eyes he had seen two years ago, just before his body
had dissolved into goo.
Something was happening. A glow was emanating from the girl, slowly
moving over the rest of the plane. Behind the captain, his co-pilot
looked up from the radar long enough to notice the girl.
"What the f - "
There was a flash. It was like looking at a nuclear blast, momentary
and blinding.
" - uck is that?"
As the captain's eyes cleared from the sudden light, he looked at the
cockpit glass again. There was nothing, now. The girl had vanished.
He felt a slight queasiness in his stomach, something no amount of
high-g maneuvering had ever been able to induce in him. He looked out
his limited view window, trying to see if she'd fallen off.
"Did you see that?" the co-pilot was shouting. "Did you see that?!"
"Yes! Yes, I saw, what in the fuck's going on?!"
"I don't know, I...sir?"
The captain shook his head, clearing it, checking the controls again.
"What?"
"Uh...if the map's right, we've...changed position, sir."
"What're you talking about?"
"I don't know myself, sir. It's like we just..._moved_. If this map's
right, we're currently about fifty miles off the west coast of Japan,
headed east."
The captain paused, thinking this over. Their bearing had been due
west, just a moment ago.
"HQ?" he asked into his radio. "Don't know what just happened, but
I..." he stopped, hearing the roar of static in his ears. "Dammit."
Changing frequencies, he checked in on the other jets. They were all
still in formation, flying behind him. Over the radio, they confirmed
that their maps all read the same thing his was, that they'd suddenly
done a one-eighty and skipped over most of Japan without noticing.
What really got the captain's attention were the questions he was
getting, if he'd seen a girl hanging on his window. Each pilot he
talked to had seen the same thing happen to himself.
He cut the radio for a moment as he thought things out. Something
clicked in his brain, and he called back to his copilot.
"Hey, the target was west bound, right?" he asked.
"Uh...yeah, sir. Why?"
"Call it a hunch." He switched back on the radio, calling all the jets
to get back up to maximum speed, continuing in their current heading,
back towards the country they'd so inexplicably skipped over.
* * *
The MP Eva had apparently picked up on Unit-00's trick at some point;
during the high-speed flight, Unit-04's batteries had actually
recharged, going back up to maximum capacity. Apparently, the MP Eva
wanted its opponent at full strength for this fight. Shinji took some
consolation in knowing that no matter which way the fight went, it was
likely that Unit-04 would not have time to run out of battery power.
That said, the fight was not going well for Unit-04. Shinji groaned
from within another Unit-04 shaped crater.
Above him, the MP Eva circled like some kind of mutated vulture,
flapping its wings gently to keep its enormous body aloft. It hadn't
been so gentle a moment ago, when it had dropped him like a rock, into
the lake of LCL that had come up below them. Shinji had managed to
alter Unit-04's fall so it became an improvised dive instead of a
bellyflop. He'd managed to survive the impact with the surface, but
Unit-04's inertia had plowed it straight through the LCl and into the
ocean floor. Even with the LCL to eat up some of the velocity, it had
still been a jarring impact, enough to nearly throw Shinji from the
entry plug seat.
His head was still swimming when the ground shook again, as the MP Eva
made its own landing on the shoreline.
^Get up, boy,^ came the voice in his head. ^Now we are free of all
interlopers, and we will do battle. Come at me.^
Shinji groaned in pain, reaching for the control sticks in front of
him. Before he could even touch them, Unit-04 began to move, again
without any input from Shinji. It began to get up, LCL washing over
its surface as it came back into view.
"What are you doing?" he shouted at the Eva. He grabbed the controls,
tried to wrestle them into obedience. He tried everything he could,
reaching out, touching the Eva's mind, struggling to turn it away from
its certain demise on the shore.
"Don't you know this is suicide?" he pleaded. Then something happened
that he hadn't expected. Unit-04 answered him.
"A death in battle is an honorable one, Ikari-kun."
Shinji blinked, hearing the voice. "Ayanami?" he asked. "Rei? Are
you in here?"
"Negative, Ikari-kun. The original contacted me, and asked me to
protect you. Hers and the word of Tabris are reason enough to do
this."
Shinji shook his head, not wanting to think about just who or what it
was he was speaking to. "But this isn't protecting me! We're just
going to die!" He closed his eyes, covering his head with his hands.
"I just want to go home..."
"Would running really accomplish anything?" Rei's voice asked.
Shinji's eyes opened again, at this.
Unit-04 was back on its feet and walking, now. Shinji got a view of
the MP Eva. It was waiting for him, wings slightly spread, shoulders
hunched, fists clenched in an image of unstoppable power. He noticed
that at some point its arm had healed.
"Oh...god..." Shinji muttered. Unit-04 did not answer him this time.
It fell silent, as though it had never spoken to him at all.
^So,^ the monster Eva said, as Unit-04 finally emerged from the LCL.
^You have finally chosen battle.^ It spread its arms before him,
inviting him to charge straight into the fight. Its wings flared
briefly, the eyes on their inner surfaces regarding him unblinkingly.
Shinji did not take the challenge. He looked around, trying to get a
feel for where they were. When he'd hit LCL he'd thought the Eva had
carried him all the way to the coastline, but that was apparently
wrong. They had instead stopped at an enormous lake. As he looked,
Shinji could see the twisted remains of what might have been a city.
What got his attention was that the few ruins still standing did not
have the abandoned, shattered look of most buildings after Third
Impact. Rather, they looked like their destruction had come earlier,
and in the form of great heat and pressure. It was almost as though
they'd been melted. As Shinji climbed out of the lake, he began to
wonder what could have possibly done such a thing.
A memory tried to surface, at this thought. He remembered
something...a monster, shaped as a double-helix. There had been a
battle...someone had been injured. And then, something had happened
that he'd never expected in his life. Someone had given their life to
save his...
"I don't want to fight," Shinji said, evenly, as he fought off the
memory. "I just want to make this a place where people can live."
^Useless, boy,^ the voice said. ^Your cause may be noble, but it means
nothing to those who have no life.^ Its arm morphed into a ribbon-
cutter. ^My existence is defined solely by battle. To deny me that is
to deny me all. Now...^ it said, raising its arm. ^Come at me!^
Shinji swallowed, looking at the certain death that stood resolute
before him. He closed his eyes and took the first step towards it.
It was then that he felt something whiz by his head, feeling not unlike
a bee, grown to Eva proportions. Shinji opened his eyes just in time
to see a smoke trail shooting past his head, flashing across the
distance to the MP Eva in an eyeblink, and burying itself in its chest.
Shinji had to look away, then, as the fireball that erupted from the
impact was like a small sun. The MP Eva swayed backwards, staggered by
the explosion. As the smoke cleared, Shinji could see a crater in its
previously invincible hide.
A warning indicator suddenly lit up, beeping insistently as Shinji
glanced at it. There were incoming projectiles, coming from behind
him...
Shinji's reflex response was simple enough: duck. Unit-04 dove down,
flattening itself against the hard soil. Above it, more than a dozen
other smoke trails flashed by, through the space it had just recently
occupied, and found their marks in the MP Eva.
The ground shook under the force of so many explosions in so short a
time. Shinji chanced a quick look, in time to see the MP Eva jerking
wildly under the impacts, before it vanished under a pall of smoke.
He felt the tremor from the MP Eva tumbling to the ground under the
massive assault. Silence fell, just for a few moments. Then his radio
crackled.
"Shinji? Shinji, respond!"
Still reeling a bit from what he'd just seen, it took him a moment to
answer. "I...I'm here, Asuka." Slowly and carefully, he eased Unit-04
back to its feet.
"Thank god..." came the whispered reply. "Shinji, don't ask how, but
the American jets just..._appeared_ right off the west coast of Japan.
They're telling us they've got you in their sights."
"Asuka, I don't know where I am," he half-lied. "By a lake,
or...something." A blast crater, that was what this was. Made by...
"Well, Misato and the others are all still trying to guess your
location on the map. That big guy's faster than he looks."
"You're telling m - " Shinji cut off as he saw a group of dark forms
streak overhead, followed closely thereafter by the tremor of a sonic
boom.
"Shinji?"
"Don't worry, it's just the jets. They just did a fly-by."
"Probably making sure they killed that thing. What's your take,
Shinji?"
"I can't see anything, Asuka," Shinji replied. "Those missiles make a
lot of smoke."
"Hey, if it wasn't loud and flashy the Americans wouldn't be using
it," Asuka joked.
"Right," Shinji replied, smiling a little. He got Unit-04 to its feet.
The Eva responded perfectly fine to him, this time, showing none of the
rebelliousness it had earlier. "I'm going to go have a loo..."
He trailed off as he saw a flash from within the dust cloud, a brief
flicker of intense light. There was a heart-stopping moment, just long
enough for Shinji to think that perhaps he'd just imagined it. But
then, the earth rumbled.
In the distance, the American jets had broken formation and were
swinging around for another pass. Even at the speed they were moving
at, though, there was no way they could have dodged the shot. It was
simply too sudden. Fully half of the jets simply vanished, as the
earth erupted, spitting forth a pillar of white-hot fire that reached
up, consuming them, and splitting into the shape of a cross.
Another flash, and still more jets were consumed. The remaining
planes, already down to so few Shinji could count them on one hand, had
split up, taking evasive action. Even as they did this, more cross-
flares erupted around them, forcing them to maneuver wildly to avoid
burning up instantly.
Shinji's radio came alive with chatter, most of it in English, going so
fast that he couldn't follow. He could guess at what was going on,
though. Most of the jets retreated, gaining altitude and veering off
into the distance. One, however, did not. It suddenly dove, pulling
up at the last possible second so as to skim along the ground. Its
engines flared, leaving a fire trail behind it as it roared up to its
maximum speed, aimed directly at the cloud from which the shots were
coming.
Shinji saw what the pilot intended, and started yelling into his own
radio, asking...no, begging, the man to stop, turn away, run while he
still had his life. His voice was lost among the others, though,
obscured by Lewis' shouting and Misato's own warnings.
The jet began to pull up, putting some slight distance between it and
the ground, before it finally loosed the one remaining missile it had
under its wing. The fire trail of the projectile streaked towards the
cloud, spanning the distance before Shinji could even blink.
It was then that the MP Eva reappeared. Emerging from the cloud like a
demon straight from hell, it simply held out its hand, catching the
missile in its rocklike palm. The missile detonated, sending shivers
through the MP Eva's body and rocking Unit-04 with the explosion.
Seemingly unaware of the injury it had just suffered, the MP Eva lashed
out with the same arm, turning it to a ribbon almost instantly, aiming
it at the jet that had dared fire upon it.
The jet was neatly sliced in half. As the ribbon retracted, the halves
of the ruined fighter came apart, spinning out of control as the engine
continued to burn for a few seconds before finally giving out. The
debris smashed into the ground at nearly Mach 2, leaving a pair of
sizeable craters. There were no ejection chutes.
The MP Eva turned to face Shinji, now. If it had been a frightening
opponent before, it was horrifying now. Its head was nearly destroyed,
only a part of the lower jaw remaining, sharp teeth hanging by threads
over its pockmarked body. Its torso was full of holes, oozing thick
red Eva blood as it walked. Its limbs were misshapen, warped by the
heat and the impact of the explosions. But the skull-like growth on
its chest still stood proud, the eye holes now burning with an inner
fire. The abomination that had once been an Eva stepped towards him.
^So...^ came the voice in Shinji's mind again. ^You...you would not
have us do fair battle.^
"Wh...wh..." Shinji stuttered. He shook his head, getting a grip on
himself. "What _are_ you?!" he shouted at it.
^What am I?^ the voice asked, almost mocking. The MP Eva spread its
deformed arms, melting them into ribbons as it did so. The razor-edged
weapons whipped sinuously in the air, like metallic snakes. ^I am the
epitome of the warrior, boy. I will not admit defeat until my body is
utterly destroyed.^ It began walking towards him, unsteady but
resolute. ^Take away my legs, and I will crawl. Take away my arms,
and I will bite.^ The gory remains of its lips actually curled at
this, in a smile that dripped blood around ruined teeth. ^I do not
surrender. I do not turn away from battle, not until I have taken my
last breath.^
Shinji blinked. "You...you _did_ run. I remember. Last time - "
^Was a mistake,^ the MP Eva interrupted. ^Yes, I retreated. Yes, I
shamed myself. But I will recover my pride. That thing you ride
within will fall to my might.^ A pause, here. ^I suppose it is
fitting that you are the one to stand before me. You, the only one who
has ever shown me true defeat.^
Shinji blinked, then gasped as something triggered in his mind.
Forcefully forgotten memories tore through all his mental defenses,
coming to the fore once again. He remembered...
A warrior, insurmountable. A red giant facing it bravely, but unable
to scratch it. The warrior had defeated it in seconds, casting away
its severed head. The head had nearly crushed Shinji. He remembered
fear, seeing this. Not for the red machine, but for the one who had
ridden within it, who felt its pain as though they were one being.
A blue giant had charged it, then, in a suicide strike against its main
core. But it had been useless; the giant had posessed a final defense
even the blue giant's bomb had been unable to penetrate. A flash of
ribbons, and the giant had fallen.
And then, it had been his turn...
"You..." he muttered. He looked back to the MP Eva, standing before
him, still waiting for him to charge. "It's you. H...how is that even
possible?"
^A question no one has been able to resolve, little one. I myself do
not care for the technicalities of it all. All I know is that I once
again stand here on the field of battle with you. Perhaps there is
something to this concept of 'fate'.^
Shinji shook his head violently, the realization of who his opponent
really was rocking his consciousness. "But..." he began, hesitantly.
"But why? You get a second chance...you get to live again. Why are
you throwing away your life by fighting?"
^I have answered that question. Battle is my life. Only in the clash
of war can I find definition.^
"How can you say that?" Shinji asked. "We...everyone's getting a
second chance. We can try again at life, and we're trying to make the
world a place to live again. You...you're just repeating the same
mistake!"
^Mistake? I think not. This is our way.^
"Why?" Shinji asked. "Why do you fight? I don't want to be here. I
hate sitting in this _thing_. I just want to go home."
^So then, why are you here?^
"Because..." Shinji paused. "There are people depending on me. They
need me, to protect them, to protect our home." He took a breath. "I
don't want to die out here, in this...but if I do, it's all right.
I'll have been protecting the people I love, and the home I've made."
Another memory tried to surface. One connected to the ground they now
stood upon. He remembered someone else had made that decision, to die
for the sake of someone else. For the sake of him...
"You don't have a home to protect!" Shinji shouted, both out of anger
and to shut up the unwanted recollection. "You're just making war, for
no reason at all!"
^War is reason enough, boy,^ came the icy response. ^It seems you
cannot understand. Not all of us can go the way of the Fifteenth.^
"What?" Shinji asked, not quite grasping what he'd just been told.
There was no verbal response, this time. It seemed the MP Eva was
tired of talking. The lights within the skull's eyes began to grow
brighter, approaching sun-like intensity. Shinji, backing away, held
Unit-04's arms defensively over its face, knowing that it was useless
but knowing also that he was out of time, and out of places to run.
* * *
Rei simply appeared from nowhere, seeming to step right out of the air
itself. She alighted, head down, hands clasped in front of her. Her
eyes were closed, her face peaceful, as though in deep thought.
Approximately half a kilometer away, Unit-04 was watching as the MP Eva
built up for a another devastating blow. By now, its batteries were
likely taxed to their limit; even if the shot did not utterly destroy
the Eva, it could not keep fighting for much longer.
Aside from that, the fighting might well turn out to be moot, soon. In
her mind, Rei could feel something happening. Off the coast of Japan,
some elaborate machine was being activated. It was not quite so
surgical or precise as the jets the Americans had sent, but it was
tremendously powerful. Indeed, Rei could in fact feel a glimmer of a
power within it that previously had only been found in Evangelions.
And now, this powerful thing, something that would turn this entire
area to dust and ashes, was coming. She did not have much time.
Rei opened her eyes, still looking down at her feet. The ground lay a
few hundred meters away from her. Under her lay the undulating surface
of the lake of LCL, the one that had broken Unit-04's fall earlier.
She stood upon this surface, unmoving, unaffected by the gentle push of
the tide. Slowly, she looked up. She said a single word.
"Zeruel."
Though she'd been so quiet that she'd barely even heard herself, the
effect was immediate. The MP Eva froze, its body locking up. The glow
that had been gathering in its skull died down, becoming no more than a
dull glimmer. Slowly, the MP Eva turned, its shattered visage looking
straight at her.
"You do not need to fight him," Rei whispered. "He is not the enemy
you seek."
The skull twitched, jaw flexing in a hollow roar. The MP Eva's fists
clenched, as it began to walk, not towards Unit-04 but towards Rei.
Rei's eyes glazed momentarily, hearing something speak to her. She
shook her head.
"No," she said. "She is a facsimile. She is a pale copy of the
original."
The MP Eva was speeding up now, in a hobbling run. It dripped hot
blood on the ground as it moved. Behind it, Unit-04 fell to its knees,
not comprehending what was going on. Turning its head, the white Eva
also spotted Rei.
Rei tilted her head, hearing something else. "He is not the one you
seek," she said. "Though he is the same boy, conditions
are...different, from when last you saw him."
The MP Eva approached her, now slogging through the thick LCL. Waves
rippled under Rei's feet, lifting her up briefly, then lowering her
back down. Rei looked down to her feet, again hearing something.
"I wish to see him live," she answered the silent question. "As for my
reasons...they are my own."
The MP Eva loomed over her now, taller than a skyscraper, blocking out
the sun with its bulk, casting Rei into shadow. It glared down at her
with eyes of flame.
"Your injuries may not be mortal, Zeruel," Rei whispered to it. Her
eyes glanced to its arm, which was becoming liquid, slowly thinning,
gaining a razor edge. "You do not need to continue this battle. Death
is not the only option."
The skull roared at her again. The freshly formed ribbon-cutter arced
up into the air, drawing back for a blow that was aimed precisely at
her neck.
Rei closed her eyes. "If it will stop your rage," she said, again in
answer to something only she could hear. The ribbon-cutter descended.
Rei felt no impact, however. Instead, there was a low scream, coming
from a distance, but growing louder, closing on her in an eyeblink.
She opened her eyes, just in time to see Unit-04 slam into the enormous
MP Eva in a flying tackle. The impact pushed both combatants down,
slamming forcefully into the sea of LCL, deep enough at this distance
that the MP Eva was swallowed entirely by the liquid. Its ribbon-
cutter arm went wide, but only just barely enough. Rei felt a rush of
air as the metal blade sliced the LCL next to her, then whipped back,
retracting back to the MP Eva.
"Ayanami!" Shinji's voice called out over Unit-04's loudspeaker. "Rei!
What're you doing here!"
"Ikari-kun..." Rei whispered. "Please...please leave."
"What are you asking?" Shinji asked back. Underneath him, the MP Eva
began to fight back, reshaping its cutter back into an arm. Both Evas
were suddenly locked in a wrestling match, both clawing at each other,
trying to get a grip with LCL-slicked fingers. The MP Eva definitely
had the advantage of mass and strength, but it was also heavily
damaged. Unit-04, on the other hand, was relatively unhurt. But Rei's
trained eyes could see that already its arms were growing heavy,
slowing as its batteries ran down.
"You know I can't do that!" Shinji shouted, even as he continued to
fight. "What're you trying to do? Do you want to die?"
"If it will save you," Rei replied, immediately.
Shinji, locked in the fight of his life, did not answer. The MP Eva's
clawlike hands were locked around Unit-04's neck. But Unit-04's own
hands were clamped onto the skull on the MP Eva's chest, pulling and
twisting, trying to rip it off entirely. Flesh, sinew, and bone all
began to tear apart as the Evas neared the end of their contest.
"You...idiot..." Shinji managed to get out, the tightness in his voice
showing he was definitely feeling the MP Eva's efforts to strangle
Unit-04. "I can't...just let that happen..."
Rei dared to step closer to the two struggling Evas. "Ikari-kun, you do not understand - "
She was cut off as the MP Eva twisted in Shinji's grip, its skull
looking at her. Rei heard one final statement in her mind.
^It is _you_ who does not understand, Zero.^
The MP Eva lashed out with one enormous arm, clipping Rei's body
solidly with the edge of one hand.
The impact alone would have been enough to kill a human being. That
much mass, moving that quickly, should have torn her apart. As if that
were not enough, the edge of the MP Eva's hand had been morphing into a
razor, so she had been caught across the abdomen with an almost perfect
cutting edge. Rei gasped in sudden pain as she felt her body nearly
come apart. A warm fluid sprayed from her wound, filling the air with
a fine mist as she flew backwards from the blow. Unable to control her
fall, she followed a ballistic path towards the shore.
^Battle is my life,^ the MP Eva said to her, as she fell.
Rei hit the ground hard, bouncing from the hit and rolling several
times in the dirt before finally grinding to a halt. She felt the warm
fluid pouring out of her, pooling underneath her, staining the ground.
^To deny me that...is to deny me all.^
Unit-04 watched, unspeaking, as Rei was hit, as she fell, as she
bounced to the ground like some kind of discarded toy. Slowly, it
looked back to its opponent, currently on top of it, pinning it in the
LCL with its superior weight. Though now only one hand was on Unit-
04's neck, it was still enough to be choking the life from it. It was
at this moment that the battery indicator in the entry plug went
critical, emergency lights going on as Unit-04 passed the one-minute
mark in remaining activation time.
Unit-04 shifted its grip, putting one hand on the offending wrist, and
the other gripping the MP Eva's skull "face". Finding a grip, it
twisted, the skull writhing under its fingers before finally giving
way, cracking and tearing away from the main body. The lights in its
eye sockets flickered, then died.
Unit-04 was not done. It rolled, flipping them both over so that the
MP Eva was now on the bottom. Now in the superior position, Unit-04
found its legs, getting its feet under it, as it dragged the larger Eva
up.
Unit-04 wrapped its arms around the MP Eva. With a sort of cold,
inhuman determination, it began to squeeze. Every muscle in its body
went tight, crushing the already motionless MP Eva in its grip. A low
groaning sound could be heard, as the MP Eva's body began to give.
Finally, with a sound like a thousand trees cracking all at once, the
MP Eva's spine gave out, and it split, its upper torso hanging limply.
Unit-04 dropped its enormous cargo into the LCL, with a tremendous
splash. It looked down on the MP Eva with a cold, unfeeling gaze. Its
fists clenched when it saw that, despite it all, the MP Eva was still
trying to move, its limbs twitching and its "face" actually recovering,
one eye socket beginning to glow again. Unit-04 reached down and
grabbed the MP Eva by one wrist.
From Unit-04's speakers came a scream, one born of fear, of
frustration, and raw hatred. It carried on, as Unit-04 lifted the
massive MP Eva completely out of the LCL, swinging it around to build
momentum. It was such that it gave even the MP Eva pause, feeling the
tingle of fear in its heart once again. Unit-04 released its opponent,
sending it flying, wings trailing uselessly behind it as it arced
through the air. LCL exploded into huge fans as the MP Eva struck the
surface again, and sank.
Shinji's scream died almost as soon as he'd released the MP Eva.
Without bothering to see where it had landed, he turned Unit-04 around
and started running for the land. Zooming in with the cybernetic eye,
he could see Rei's body lying there in a dark pool of damp mud. She
wasn't moving.
"Rei!" he called out over the loudspeakers. No response. "Rei, can
you hear me?!"
A loud warning beep managed to tear Shinji's attention off of the
girl's broken form. He looked to the wall just in time to see the
battery timer finish its countdown. As it hit 00:00:00, the lights
flickered and died. Shinji felt a chill as the presence of Unit-04
suddenly and rapidly removed itself from his mind. And then, he was
sitting blind, in the slowly cooling LCL of the entry plug.
There was a too-long sense of falling as Unit-04 lost its balance and
tumbled forwards. The impact was softened by the LCL lake itself, but
Shinji was still rocked in his seat. Mumbling a small curse, he felt
around in the darkness until he found the button for the emergency
release. He thumbed it, triggering Unit-04's last glimmer of battery
energy. It was just enough to part the Eva's back plates and extend
the entry plug far enough for him to get out. After the sudden jerk of
being popped out of the Eva's back, Shinji got out of his seat and felt
on the walls, finally locating the latch for the exit.
The door popped open, pouring out LCL into the lake below. Shinji
emerged moments later, spitting out more of the orange liquid. Unit-04
had almost made it to shore. Lying face-down on the ground, its back
just barely emerged from the surface of the lake of LCL. Shinji
scrambled across the white armor of Unit-04 and dove off the edge, into
the lake.
The swim to shore did not take long. The whole time, Shinji kept his
eyes on Rei's body, looking for some sign, anything, to show that she
was still breathing. As soon as he felt land under his feet, he
started running, slogging through the last of the LCL and emerging
soaked on the shore.
"Rei!" he called out, running up to her. He skidded to a halt, falling
down to a crouch next to her body. She was lying on her side, face
covered by the hair that had haphazardly fallen over it. Carefully, he
rolled her onto her back, his breath catching when he saw the wound.
The gash in her went from her right hip up to her left shoulder, and
was so deep that she had nearly been sliced through. Yet still, it was
oozing fluid onto the sand. Hands shaking, he tried a meager attempt
to stem the bleeding, putting pressure on her wound.
"Come on," he whispered. "Come on, you're all right. You can't bleed
if you're dead, right?" He shivered, feeling her wound.
"You..." he swallowed. "You must be wet, or something...right? Right
Rei? Stop...stop it...stop getting so...cold..."
He didn't notice at first, but in the background, there was a dull
roar. Not the feral roar of an enraged Eva, but rather the constant,
throaty rumble of a rocket. As Shinji knelt by Rei, the noise grew
ever louder, until he finally realized it, and looked over his
shoulder.
With the distance, it looked no larger than a pencil. Just a narrow,
black smudge against the sky. It couldn't possibly be dangerous. But,
as he watched, it descended, falling like the finger of God, down
towards the MP Eva.
The MP Eva, for its part, had risen, in a display of resiliency that
Shinji could not even begin to fathom. It tilted its body back,
letting its half-broken skull "face" look to the sky, at the noisy
thing that was coming down towards it. It paused, looking at the thing
for a long time as it came down. Finally, the MP Eva moved, slowly
spreading its arms wide, like a person greeting their lover. Despite
its injuries, despite its fate, it had never looked more triumphant.
Then the missile struck it.
Shinji reflexively looked away, crying out in pain as all of a sudden
he was blinded. The flash from the strike was such that it made the
sun itself look dim. Squinting his burning eyes, he turned back to
Rei, her pale form thrown into sharp relief by the intense light.
The temperature rose rapidly, going from cool to hot to blistering in a
matter of seconds. Shinji screamed as he felt his back burning, and
was vaguely aware of steam coming off his skin as the LCL clinging to
his body began to boil. Behind him, he could hear a roaring, so loud
it was drowning out all else, as the shockwave approached them, an
unavoidable tide of utter oblivion.
Through the pain, Shinji reached down, taking Rei up in his arms,
holding her ruined body against his, feeling his shirt go damp with her
blood. He saw their shadows growing long, etched into the air itself
as the light moved to consume them.
"Rei..." he whispered. "I'm sorry..." He thought he felt her twitch.
But that had to be the panic from the explosion; with death
approaching, he must have gone mad. He didn't care, not any more. It
would be over, soon.
He felt the energies falling on him, and could only give in as he felt
his body disintegrating.
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Endnote: Admit it, you knew I was going to blow something up. One does
not introduce something with the yield of a hydrogen bomb and then
simply let it fade into the background. Of course, that still leaves
the question of whether or not I'll vaporize the rest of Japan while
I'm at it.
Yes, yes I know the scenes are a bit one-sided. I know everyone wants
to know what was going on in the HQ while all this fighting was going
on (and if you didn't, too bad). I had quite a bit planned for that
side of things, but realized as I was writing this that I in fact had
so much planned that I could probably stick it all in a side story or
even a separate chapter altogether. That, and I didn't want to break
up the flow by switching back and forth between the HQ and the fight.
Don't worry, the next installment will cover what everyone else was
doing while Shinji was busy getting his butt kicked. Stay tuned.
Now then, how does one write a romance story in which two of the main
characters have been reduced to sub-atomic particles? Hmm...
Ah yes, I can also hear those geography buffs in my reading audience
getting ready to write small novels about how the site of the Rei II's
demise couldn't possibly be that far from NERV. I say it's my fic, and
so there. Maybe in a later rewrite I'll come up with a more plausible
locale for the final confrontation.
For the observant ones: the whole bit of "cutting the ribbon-
cutter" is something I got from watching Vision of Escaflowne. All
terms in the above disclaimer apply to this series as well. It's not
mine, and I make no claim to it.
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Started: August 18, 2003
Version 1 Ended: September 14, 2003
Version 2 Ended: October 16, 2003