Geofront, AEL Headquarters
November 6, 2041

1635 hours

For Kaworu, things seemed to have returned to normalcy for now: the monotony of school, Tōji's antics, Asuka's jabs, all the usual. Pretty much the only thing that wasn't usual was Rei constantly hovering around him, following him everywhere like a hired bodyguard. Kaworu suspected that's exactly what she was doing, minus the 'hired' part. It was an interesting reversal of the 'big brother protects younger sibling' formula – as Rei conceded seniority to him without him even asking –, but he had no intention of complaining.

To some extent, Kaworu appreciated the company, even though he still wasn't completely used to it.

On the other hand, normalcy now also included the hour-long sync tests at the AEL. Kaworu sometimes wondered whether he would even enjoy them if they weren't so damn boring. And he had a lingering suspicion Rei thought the same way, if the earphones plugged into her ears during every session were of any indication. He couldn't follow suit, however, for the simple reason that he didn't have a music player... and even if he did, he wouldn't know what to put on it and where to acquire it. A lifetime of poverty wasn't exactly conductive to forming a musical taste, after all.

And if there was anything he disliked almost as much as the boredom when it came to sync tests, it was getting the LCL's scent out of his body. Which usually took about half an hour of thorough scrubbing under the employee locker room's showers.

"It's just my luck that they'd use something that stinks so much..." – he grumbled, reaching for the shower gel for the third time.

"Why are you so concerned about how you smell?" – Tabris asked. – "Your species' sense of smell is not even that sophisticated."

"So? I still smell like I came out of a slaughterhouse."

At least whatever happened didn't affect his ability to synchronize. Kaworu did not want to find out whether Yui would make good on her threat of making him disappear in order to shut him up.

To the boy, it felt like it happened a whole lifetime ago that he got caught up in everything. He had no illusions that he was in control of events in any way – and more than once he found himself questioning whether he wasn't in over his head. Especially after his head almost got fried inside out for real.

The next moment, his head felt like it was stabbed through by a white-hot spike of pure agony.


Geofront interior
Same time

Had any outsider managed to sneak a peek down the Geofront without getting caught, they would have been astonished at the sheer amount of vegetation at the ground level. Not just fields of grass, entire forests were grown inside the massive cavern. Due to obvious reasons regarding ventilation, humidity and ambient lighting, the cavern was chosen to have the local climate and plant life. The ground itself was mostly flat, with a few hills strategically placed to lead groundwater into the lake next to the pyramidal main facility. Once every month, the lake was tapped by giant pumps, forcing the water through a massive sprinkler system mounted onto the Geofront's inner wall to produce artificial rain.

With a mirror system providing light from the surface, the presence of vastly more plant life than humans, coupled with the general lack of herbivorous animals eating the vegetation, made the Geofront almost completely self-sustaining in terms of an oxygen supply. In fact, the cavern sometimes had to be ventilated to keep oxygen levels constant, although it wasn't easy. The cavern's sheer depth underground meant that, if it wasn't hermetically sealed off from the surface, air pressure at the bottom would be significantly higher than in the city's ground level. As it is, the Geofront's ground level air pressure was already higher than sea level, albeit not by much; just enough for the personnel elevators and vehicle access tunnels to double as low-level hyperbaric chambers under the MAGI's control, to eliminate any possibility of decompression sickness while exiting the facility.

This served the AEL's purposes just fine. With the Geofront's overall interior air pressure being lower than it should be, any leaks and ventilation system malfunctions would result in air flowing inwards, preventing the escape of airborne contaminants in case of a containment break. That is, if those contaminants would even be capable of surviving the thin air at the tip of the cavern, comparable to that found on the tallest of Earth's mountains.

The AEL was, after all, a biological research firm with a wide research portfolio. Like many other similar companies, part of that portfolio was finding ways to undo the ecological damage wrought upon the planet. Second Impact introduced a number of invasive species into Earth's ecosystem that flourished in the comparatively mild environment, driving hundreds of indigenous species into extinction and endangering thousands of others in a mass extinction event not seen since the end of the Permian age. Not every species was adversely affected by the newcomers, however; bullsquids rarely wandered far from rivers and swamps while houndeye packs usually roamed the steppes and savannas. Terrestrial life in more remote areas was barely affected and sometimes even flourished, with the forced mass-relocation of humans into larger urban centers by the Combine allowing nature to reclaim many formerly inhabited areas. The new lifeforms also settled into the food chain, with the introduction of headcrabs as easily caught prey benefiting some larger carnivores and omnivores... but not all. Those living near Far Eastern forests quickly learned that the only thing worse than the parasite itself is when it latches onto a black bear.

The AEL briefly became the center of public attention in 2037 when their scientists successfully engineered a gene-modified strain of fungi that produces a modified version of the BTX-C1 botulinum toxin. While the new chemical is harmless to a wide range of high-level life, it is extremely lethal to headcrabs: aside from paralyzing the creature to make it unable to attach firmly to the host, the fast-acting neurotoxin is capable of killing the parasite before it can begin the victim's gruesome biological assimilation. After extensive testing, the toxin was mass-produced and introduced as a highly effective vaccine against headcrab infection. Thanks to this, the reported number of deaths by headcrab dropped sharply, with the would-be victims surviving with "merely" a severe cranial fracture 95% of the time.

Naturally, Yui took it seriously to convince the project leaders to find a formula that's harmless to Vortigaunts. Biochemical barriers between humans and Vorts were discovered to be not serious enough to prevent the two races from digesting each other's foodstuffs (with a few exceptions like Vortigaunts having an allergic reaction to lactose), though they do have slightly different nutritional requirements due to anatomical and biochemical differences. Of course, that doesn't account for the difference in tastes the two species have: to a human, headcrab meat is somewhat bitter but edible, while antlion flesh is outright repulsive. At the same time, Vortigaunts frequently consume the former and actively farm the latter for food and various organic materials, even as the humans painstakingly tried to abuse the antlions' tendency to hibernate during winter to exterminate them.

While quite large, the lake in the Geofront lacked both the volume and the depth to support a larger ecosystem. Terrestrial saltwater marine life became all but extinct with the introduction of Xenian leeches that took advantage of the warm temperatures around the tropics to breed to the billions, swiftly consuming anything not protected by a carapace. Luckily, the critters, once adapted to saltwater, couldn't survive in fresh water anymore, which kept most of the rivers and lakes clean - that is, whenever the several-meter drop in global ocean levels didn't prevent the leeches from swimming up the now shallow estuaries. Still, the AEL explored the possibility of eliminating the infestation by chemically mass-sterilizing the leeches, until they realized that with the disappearance of pretty much everything else, the leeches became part of the food cycle for certain bird species as well as supplemental foodstuff for coastal settlements.

Rei knew most of these, even though it wasn't part of her job. All she really needed to concern herself with was the Evangelions, but that didn't mean she was unaware of the world's state at large. She knew a great many things people didn't expect her to... and not all of it was something as innocent as public knowledge.

Part of her knowledge included a general layout of the Geofront's ground level. As employee, she had free passage on this level, so nobody bat an eye at her coming and going whenever she felt like. Especially since she was the big boss' daughter, whom nobody wanted to be caught heckling. Not that Rei would be incapable of defending herself if that happened; far from it.

Thus, nobody was present at the clearing roughly a kilometer from the AEL's pyramid. Rei had the clearing all to herself, and she was putting it to good use. Trenchcoat hung onto a nearby branch, she wore only her sweater and jeans, although if anyone would've seen her, they might have had trouble telling exactly what the vaguely feminine figure was wearing.

Rei was on the move. Like the whirring of some machine, the clearing was abuzz with the whistling sound of her sword cleaving the air at high speed. Her arms barely more than a blur, the girl relentlessly attacked the air with blinding speed, twisting and turning, slashing and stabbing, the improvised kata alternating between one-handed and two-handed on the fly. Rei never expected to ever go up against someone else skilled with the sword, what with living in the age of firearms. However, that didn't mean she wouldn't be prepared for it.

Over the years, Rei studied many forms of swordfighting: short sword, long sword, kenjutsu, even fencing. While she could learn and mimic the various forms and styles, it still wasn't enough. Rei felt like her hands were tied, that she couldn't unleash everything she had due to some unseen limitations. It took her a long time until she finally realized what those limitations were: the limitations themselves. Modern fighting styles were designed around duels, involving rules and guidelines to minimize accidental risks to either party. She wasn't seeking to duel on equal grounds; she was looking to gain the upper hand as fast as possible and steamroll her enemy into the ground. It was like the difference between boxing and Krav Maga (which she was thinking of introducing Kaworu to).

So she drew upon what she saw in other styles to design her own style, combining the extended reach of the sword with the speed of eskrima and the fluidity of capoeira.

If a professional swordfighting instructor would've seen her, they would've dismissed her as unnecessary flashy and no doubt self-taught from action movies. But what differentiated Rei from others is that she had the speed and strength to back her style up and turn visually impressive blows with insufficient power behind them into terrifyingly deadly attacks. No matter what kind of martial skill one considered, literally inhuman muscle power and reaction times translated into combat prowess above and beyond human limits. In fact, Rei had doubts any ordinary human would be capable of successfully imitating her with a real sword.

Launching a high roundhouse kick into the air, Rei used the momentum to slam her foot into the ground and launch herself airborne with the same movement, nimbly twisting her body to slash below her before landing ten meters away. Without pausing for even a split second, she stabbed her blade forward before, in a single movement, stepping forward and turning around to put her entire weight behind a two-handed reverse slash diagonally upwards. Any single one of these attacks would kill and Rei knew it. She existed to crush her enemies, to see them laid out before her and carry in her heart the lamentations of their families.

That was all she was good for.

Lowering her blade, Rei released a small sigh she was holding. Strong as she was, her endurance still had limits.

A second later, her head snapped towards the pyramid in the distance.


Low Earth orbit
Same time

"Report!"

"Contact at five klicks, dead ahead!"

"Five klicks? Why the hell did you wait until now to sound the proximity alarm?!"

"It came out of nowhere! No approach, just popped into existence right on top of us! All gravimetric arrays simultaneously shorted out the instant it appeared, so we only got radar, IR and visual."

"Trasmit IFF challenge!"

"Already did, no response. No radio emissions whatsoever."

"Carthago confirms contact being non-responsive and is calling a battlegroup-wide general quarters. We have green light to engage."

Outside, a frigate's anti-aircraft guns came to life, its starboard and top batteries spitting a hailstorm of proximity-fused fragmentation shells while the ship turned to bring its portside and bottom batteries to bear. It never had the chance to do that, however, before a beam of light lanced out from the void of space and swept over the vessel in a split second, the guns dying down instantly before a series of explosions was followed by the ship literally drifting apart in two diagonally-bisected halves.

Slowly the rest of the carrier group started to move, gun batteries turning to fire and missile launch tubes opening up. The lone carrier in the middle of the formation immediately took cover behind the large, flat bulk of a battlecruiser, the 968-meter behemoth ponderously turning into a broadside position to physically shield the flagship with its own, thicker armor. Around them, the carrier group's two destroyers fired a hasty retro-burn to hang back while what was left of the frigate complement scattered in a loose formation to provide three-dimensional anti-aircraft cover. It was a classic formation, designed to take advantage of each ship class' individual strengths and cover their weaknesses... but not against this opponent.

Ahead of them, the deep blue octahedron's entire bulk shifted in a manner impossible for a solid object, morphing into a five-pointed starfish shape that further split open in the middle to reveal a red orb. Incandescent light drew into the middle, building up into an almost ethereal glow before a massive beam erupted from the focal point. All crew in the carrier group who happened to be looking out a window at the time could do nothing but watch as the painfully bright beam crossed the distance in barely more than a second and hit the battlecruiser dead on, erupting on the other side with barely any pause to core through the carrier.

The battlecruiser, critically damaged but not dead, nevertheless let off a salvo from its main guns that, had the fight taken place in atmosphere, would have thundered like the wrath of an angry god. However, its quarry shifted back into an octahedral shape at the same time and the rounds abruptly detonated against an octagonal wall. Then the entity returned fire, the focused beam cutting through the wounded titan's armor with ease to rip open two containment vessels deep inside the aft section. Those who were unfortunate enough to be nearby were vaporized near instantly by the hot plasma erupting from two of the battlecruiser's four zero-point catalyzed nuclear fusion reactors, surging through whatever nooks and corridors they could and melting through whatever they couldn't. At the same time, the beam reached the ammunition stockpiles of the two heavy gun turrets above the reactors. Engines sputtering and dying from a sudden lack of critical components, the massive ammunition explosion caused the battlecruiser to drift out of control a moment before the next beam found the other two reactors in the bow and the other two turrets above them, to deadly effect.

What was left of the carrier, a mangled, mostly unrecognizable mess, soon found itself company in the form of the wrecked battlecruiser crashing into it. And the debris from that collision too found company in the form of more debris as the other ships in the carrier group were obliterated one by one.

One of the few bomber pilots who managed to launch before the carrier went down opened his mouth to yell out a command to the scant few wingmates he had, but never managed to make a single sound before his VTOL craft was speared through by an energy beam from the left. As if on cue, a flurry of identical beams erupted from every direction at once, each finding a different target, each a lethal blow. Only one pilot managed to catch movement from the corner of his eye, that of a small, blue shard-like object, before said object spat a beam through his body and made sure he wouldn't live to tell the tale.

In the void, the blue octahedron dipped below the fleet-turned-debris-cloud, soon wrapped in the red glow of atmospheric reentry.


Kaworu felt like he was in hell.

He still faintly remembered the weird, almost headache-like pressure he felt around Sachiel. He felt the same around Shamshel too, but it seemed to lessen while he was inside an Evangelion for some reason. Now, it was back – and it was a million times worse.

It was an indescribably powerful sense of wrongness; he could not describe it any other way. It was as if a gigantic spear made of acid-coated liquid nitrogen was shoved through his entire body, from head to toe. Chilling cold and searing hot at the same time, coupled with the most agonizing pain he ever felt in his life. Not even what happened to him against Shamshel could come even close to this. And whatever it was, it completely sapped his strength, both physically and mentally, a feeling of terror and helplessness rising from his gut as he felt himself touched by the oppressive presence.

It felt like an eternity before he finally felt the wrongness lessen, a third presence wrapping itself around him like a comfortable embrace, veiling the wrongness like a cooling breeze on a summer day.

When he finally came to, Kaworu realized he was lying on the floor butt-naked, a pool of vomit splattered over the tile in front of him. He also felt an arm around his waist, another arm cradling his forehead, and a breath tickling the upper side of his face.

"Are you feeling better now?" – Rei asked in a soft tone.

Kaworu had to work his numb lips several times before he managed to force out an answer. – "...y-yeah... what...?"

"It would seem that your interaction with that Sealing Weapon has weakened a mental block." – Tabris replied. – "This block has now become undone, possibly as a result of the presence of another Angel."

"Another one?"

"It is still distant, but I feel it too." – Rei added.

"What did you do? To make it stop."

"I am shielding you from its influence. If what Tabris claims is true, your adverse reaction just now was caused by a sensory overload from never having been exposed to such stimuli. You are oversensitive."

"What about you?"

"I find it... unsettling but bearable. Do not concern yourself about me."

Rei finally disentangled herself from Kaworu, allowing him to shakily sit up. He still felt weak.

"How long can you keep doing it?"

"Do not concern yourself about me." – she repeated. – "I will do it for as long as required."

"But if it hurts you–"

"I will not let you suffer." – she cut him off. – "I told you I will help in whatever way I can. This is something only I can do. And I will do it."

Kaworu just mutely nodded, not feeling the strength to keep pressing the issue. – "I'm cold."

"Then let us get you dressed."

Rei slid an arm under his and helped him up, though his legs felt like they could give out at any moment. At the same time however, Kaworu felt her bare breast pressing against him and he looked down to see her rather... scantily dressed, jeans haphazardly shoved down to below her knees and top lying off to the side to leave her wearing nothing above knee level.

"...why are you almost naked?"

"I needed skin contact."

"What for?"

"To calm you down." – She paused and glanced downwards. – "It worked."

Kaworu didn't especially like to feel awkward but right now, aside from explaining a crucial thing, it was a welcome distraction.


Chapter rewrite completed on 15/11/23.

Having an internal air pressure lower than the ambient pressure outside in order to create a directional airflow inwards makes the entire Geofront biosafety level 3 compliant with both US and European standards. For reference, a facility's biosafety level may range from 1 to 4, from lowest to highest. Level 3 is suitable for work on potentially lethal but treatable biological agents; level 4, which ups the ante to lethal agents with no cure, requires a vacuum room, multiple sterilizers and those pressurized hazmat suits often seen in viral disaster movies.

The exposition in this chapter refers to several lifeforms unknown to those not familiar with Half-Life. All arrived to Earth during Second Impact from Xen, although none are actually native there. Not much is known about their biochemical makeup, although their extended stay on Earth, coupled with houndeyes and bullsquids both being observed to consume human corpses without ill effects, indicates that they are compatible with Earth life. The biggest difference is probably the fact that they all have yellow-greenish blood.

Headcrabs are creatures about the size of a watermelon, sporting a pair of spindly forelegs and a number of shorter beaks along their bottom. Their bottom itself is practically a large mouth. No eyes or other sensory organs are visible, but they can still navigate by sight somehow, despite usually preferring dark and cramped places. While headcrabs trudge around at a slow pace, they are capable of using their forelegs to leap across a surprisingly large distance in one bound, which brings us to the creature's biggest hazard. As headcrabs have no natural weaponry aside from clawing with their forelegs, they developed a rather nightmarish way to escape predation: they leap onto a larger lifeform and use their beaks to grab onto the top of the victim's head, cracking the skull open and directly interfacing with the victim's brain through unknown biological processes. Through this parasitic attachment, the headcrab basically hijacks motor control of the body while riding the host's head, utilizing unknown mutagenic processes to warp the host body: the front of the chest splits open into some kind of maw and the fingers elongate into makeshift claws. Coupled with the fact that the headcrab is only able to move the host around in a slow shuffle, the result is, for all intents and purposes, a zombie - and they are indeed referred to as such in-universe. For those familiar with Halo and Alien, the headcrab is basically a hybrid between a Flood infection form (though Half-Life predates Halo by years) and a facehugger. Once it is attached, the headcrab is impossible to remove without killing the host - which is made even more disturbing by the fact that said host is fully conscious the whole time and retains enough control over the lungs and mouth to scream and beg for death, even as their body rots away around them.