After a five-year hiatus, the long-lost and slightly short (because unfinished) Part Six of SEELE: Privy of Souls has surfaced on a hitherto forgotten floppy disk. I've resisted the urge to tamper with it, to preserve ye olde worlde flavour (i.e. my writing ability as of half a decade ago).I won't say 'enjoy!', 'cos that's so bloody American, mate. No worries. Stone the flamin' crows.

(PART SIX)

THE END OF EVANGELISTS

(by Zenithfleet)

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Chapter 18

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The walls shook as the rumblings of a huge distant explosion reverberated through NERV HQ.

"What the hell was that?" yelled Misato.

"Hmm, hard to say, I'm not sure, but it sounded like a huge distant explosion," Hyuuga mused.

"Control room," said Misato. "Now. And stop misquoting badly dubbed Captain Harlock episodes."

"External cameras online," announced a technician, as Misato, Rei and Hyuuga ran (and in Rei's case, bounced) into the Magi command deck. The screen flashed into life, revealing a serene and peaceful vista across the topside lake. The view was slightly marred, or perhaps improved depending on your point of view, by a ragged column of fiery smoke arising from amongst the buildings on the far shore.

"Is it an Angel?" demanded Misato breathlessly.

There was a long pause, which ended when Rei's chest settled down and the technicians were able to reconnect their brains. Then, "We don't know ma'am, we're trying to get a blood pattern reading now."

Across the lake, a blast of vivid and surprisingly pink fire sent a penthouse apartment back into terminal poverty.

"I want EVAs 01 and 02 online and ready for launch in one minute!" Misato ordered.

"But we're not finished the virus cleanup yet, ma'am!" someone protested.

"Of course we're not, we need an extra element of unstability in the plot, don't you watch any anime at all?" Misato glanced around urgently. "Where's Ritsuko? And Maya?"

"Here and in here, in that order," said a voice. The door slid open to reveal a bedraggled Dr Akagi, dragging a large metal filing cabinet. "Asuka's already at the EVA cage," she said. "Rei, you'd better get down there now."

"Yes ma'am," said Rei demurely, swaying her way out of the control room and managing to only hit her hips once on the doorframe.

"Can I get out yet?" asked a muffled voice from inside the filing cabinet.

"Quiet you," said Ritsuko.

"Is it safe for Rei to pilot again?" Misato asked, concernedly.

"I hope n – I mean, yes, sure, of course," Ritsuko corrected herself hurriedly.

"Ma'am," said the filing cabinet, worriedly, "which EVA will Miss Soryu be piloting?"

Ritsuko shrugged. "Unit 01 should work fine. We don't want to risk cross-contamination from any traces of the virus in Rei's nerve links."

"Can we activate it?" Misato asked dubiously. "Without whatshisname – "

"Shigeru," said Hyuuga wearily.

"Right, right, and… whatever his job was?"

"I've done a bit of study on his methods," Hyuuga said tentatively. "It might not work but I'll give it a try."

"Ma'am?" said the filing cabinet again. It rocked a little, managing to shuffle nearer to Ritsuko, and lowered its voice. "Remember when we were doing those tests for the dummy system and we decided Asuka wouldn't even be compatible with Unit 01?"

"Mmm?" said Ritsuko out of the corner of her mouth.

"How come she's able to pilot it now?"

Ritsuko rubbed her lips thoughtfully. "Well, either the EVA has altered its genetic matching patterns and soul-jar carrier capacity since it attained awareness, displaying a level of independent sentience beyond our initial scenario assumptions… or the author threw continuity out the window several chapters back in favour of a dodgy plot development with fan-service on the house."

"Oh," said the cabinet. "Um. Can I – "

"Quiet you."

Ritsuko assumed an air of control. "I want that blood pattern analysis fed through the Magi as soon as possible," she ordered. "And see if we can get a transmission through to Commander Ikari's jet."

There was an even longer pause from the technicians than before. Ritsuko glanced down at herself. "And get me a towel," she added.

Kaoru was bored.

Currently he was sitting on a park bench, flipping through a mildly trashy yaoi manga he'd picked up in the store across the road. Odd, but no-one had asked him to pay for it. In fact, they'd seemed totally engrossed in hiding beneath the shop counter. It had taken him a few minutes after leaving the store, when he saw a squad of Tokyo-3 Nuclear Waste Containment Division ("If You Can Read By Its Light, It's Not Safe") members running at him wearing orange suits and waving large radiation stickers, to realise he'd accidentally left his glow switched on all afternoon again. It had been amusing to watch them smack headlong into his AT field, though. It was when they'd tried to paste the radiation stickers to it that he'd gotten fed up and, cough, sent them to the Next Dimension, cough.

Occasionally he glanced up from his reading to idly point a finger in the general direction of a building, then listen for the resulting explosion and screams.

They were late. What the FLCL were those Lilim brats doing, anyway? He was going to run out of skyscrapers soon, and then he'd have to start on the ramen restaurants, and he DIDN'T want to have to start on the ramen restaurants. It was hard enough to find a decent meal these days, and Noodle Flambé with Your Choice of Cindered Chef wasn't on his menu at the moment.

After a while, though, he became aware of a strange humming sound, coming from deep beneath the ground. Frowning, he pocketed the manga with faint disappointment (he'd just gotten up to the bit where they'd unpacked the garden hose and the Pen Pen masks) and stood up. The sound seemed to be emanating from the street.

Kaoru stood on the bitumen where it joined a large metal plate set into the road, and looked down thoughtfully.

"All nerve paths secured," reported a technician.

"Move Unit 01 to the launch pad," said another.

"That's my line," muttered the filing cabinet, and then yelped as Ritsuko kicked it.

"Are we ready?" asked Misato urgently.

"Well, I… I think so," Hyuuga replied, a little nervously.

"Then hurry up!"

"Yes ma'am. Er…" Hyuuga fumbled in his pocket and extricated a small notepad, which he peered at. Then he took his glasses off, cleaned them hastily on his lapel, put them back on and peered at the notepad again. Then he cleared his throat theatrically, leaned over to the microphone on the desk, clicked the 'on' switch, took a deep breath and said in a deep, clear voice:

"Wop."

The word echoed ominously around the control room.

There was a sound like five thousand people saying what Hyuuga had just said right back at him, and a huge gleaming white spaceship materialized from out of nowhere and apparently stuck halfway through Unit 01's head.

There was silence, except for the dripping of the sweatdrops.

"Um. Oops?" said Hyuuga.

An unfeasibly long ramp unfolded from beneath the spaceship and a dozen white robots clad in oversized cricket gear marched down to the floor.

"Pardon me for asking, but what the hell is going on?" asked Misato, to the world in general.

"Oh," said Hyuuga suddenly, holding the notepad close to his face. "Damn these glasses… I want the 'Kick It Into Waking' section, not the 'Krikkit Interstate'… Sorry. Sorry." He feverishly flipped through the pages. "I know it's here somewhere…"

The robots took up positions around the available space on the launch pad, holding out long flat wooden devices in a threatening manner. One of them started to hit the motionless Unit 01 on the ankle.

"Just how much sugar did I have on my cereal this morning?" asked Misato vaguely, a frozen grin on her face.

"Not enough," muttered Ritsuko.

"Ah," said Hyuuga with relief. "Right. Here we are. Okay, hang on…"

He leaned over again, even more carefully this time, and said: "RIGHT YOU LAZYCHROMOSONES! SHAVE THAT MUG AND IN WITH PLUG! IT'S ANOTHER GLORIOUS DAY IN THE U.N. ARMY! GETUPGETUPGETUUUUUP!"

Unit 01's eyes flared white. Then it yawned, stretched and surreptitiously adjusted itself.

"Well done, that man," Misato said, still smiling in that A-Few-Synapses-Short-of-a-Synch-Ratio way.

"All systems are go," said a technician.

Ritsuko nodded. "Asuka!" she said. "You're the first line of defence. Rei will back you up in Unit 02 if you get into trouble."

The com channel fizzled to life. "Yeah, yeah, sure," Asuka said impatiently. "Can we go already? These little white robot things are kinda annoyi – OW! Gerroff!"

Unit 01 slapped at one of the robots which had climbed up onto its pelvis and was experimentally whacking various bits with its cricket bat.

"Dammit, even the homages are perverted in this fanfic," Asuka growled. The robot scored another hit and she yelped. "Where do you think you're poking that thing, you overdressed toaster oven?"

"EVA launch!" Ritsuko ordered.

"Can't we watch just a few seconds longer – " one of the technicians protested.

"No! Open the topside hatch and roll the stock footage!" Dr Akagi instructed.

"Fine then," someone muttered.

Kaoru walked over to stand in the centre of the metal plate, tapping it with the toes of his sneakers. It seemed quite solid. Maybe if he –

A sudden blast of music made him wince. As several ridiculously jovial trumpets blared out to the tune of "BAHM bamba BAM bamba BAM baddada bam," the metal beneath his feet calmly slid out from under him and retracted into the sides of what appeared to be a bottomless shaft.

Kaoru stood on the air and looked down expectantly.

Something seemed to be rushing up the shaft towards him, growing larger and nearer by the second. It looked like a purple robot with something white stuck to its head –

The EVA reached street level with a flash and a massive "PERSHWHIIING…" noise as Kaoru's horizontally spread AT field did to its skull armour what small irritating yellow birds often do to lisping cats' scalps by means of a frying pan. A dozen small explosions flowered under the orange octagons of phase distortion as the Krikkit robots went to the great test match in the sky. After a pause long enough for the comedic gag value of the scene to be exhausted, Unit 01 was grabbed hold of by gravity, which demanded to know what the hell it thought it was doing and why didn't anyone respect Newton anymore, I don't know, talk to people about falling apples these days and all you get is a three-pass frozen frame of animation showing the fall from three different angles with an unnecessarily epilepsy-inducing background, talk about rude…

With the beginnings of a descending whistle, Unit 01 departed at great speed back down the shaft.

Kaoru waited.

Eventually there was a thud, followed by an audible stream of German curses.

The Seventeenth Angel sighed. A second later he irritably flicked a hand in the direction of the CD storefront across the road, which immediately blew out all its glass panes.

The trumpet music stopped.

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(NOT QUITE THE END OF PART SIX)

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Author's rant: Yes, yes, I know… only one chapter? Well, I always did intend to write more. No, really. I had it planned and everything. Remember those sixty-four budget-priced Seele EVAs? Yes, I had the groundwork all laid down, folks. Ah well. Time moves on. There's still just a skerrick (lit: tiny speck) of a chance there'll be more in the future. Yep. About a three percent chance, I reckon. Still... as Ritsuko would say, "that's not a zero or a minus"...