Allegiances

Chapter 3: Raising Ares

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The sharp clicks of boots on marble echoed through the long tunnel, resounding off of the hard walls and thick doors leading into undistinguished rooms. A long hallway stretched out, with the ending just barely coming into sight. The whole pathway was lit surprisingly well, enough so that no shadows were visible anywhere in this buried labyrinth.

Asuka walked down the hallway in her plug suit. Two soldiers led her, with another pair following behind her. Their insignias marked all of them as lieutenants. The red and black of the badges contrasted interestingly with the light brown of the soldier's uniforms. For some reason Asuka thought she had seen that color scheme before…

Already they were approaching the end of the tunnel. At this end a pair of majors stood at strict attention. Each held a rifle in his hands, with it crossing from their inside to their outside shoulder. But it was the thick oak door between them that held Asuka's attention now. That was fine with the soldiers. Both of the majors stared straight ahead, ignoring Asuka and the lieutenants completely.

'Dolls,' Asuka thought with a small smirk, 'Just like Rei and all those others at NERV.'

The two lieutenants in front of Asuka reached the doorway and paused. They both pulled out an ID card and simultaneously swiped them through scanners. Next, they both typed out an eight-digit code into a receptor. Finally they pulled the heavy doors open. Asuka immediately stepped into the room ahead of her.

The first thing she noticed was the absence of light. Compared to the hallway she'd just exited it seemed like no light entered this room. Once her eyes adapted she noticed the sheer size of it. She'd expected something grand but this was more massive then she'd thought possible.

'Why wouldn't they light this?' she asked herself mentally. Intimidation quickly surfaced as the most likely option.

Asuka continued into the room nearly blind. However, just because she couldn't see didn't mean she didn't stride confidently. She reached what she guessed to be the center of the room and stopped. Planting her hands on her hips she called out, "Anybody home?"

She didn't even blink when the twelve monoliths surrounded here instantaneously. All she did was slowly turn about, looking at each of the numbers and smirking slightly at the "sound only" depicted on the black faces. "None of you will face me?" she asked mockingly, "I'm disappointed."

"That will be enough child," hissed the monolith marked 08.

"Silence 8," ordered the leader of the group. Asuka finished her turn and faced number 1 once more.

"Why have I been called here?" Asuka demanded to the twelve who had been gathered. Impatience had become thick in her voice.

"You have been called here to be judged," spoke the monolith marked 1. All the other monoliths were strangely silent. Asuka wondered if they really were on "sound only" or just on "listen only". She decided not to let it bother her.

"Judged?" she asked, "By the likes of you shadows?"

"We have orchestrated countless conflicts through our time," said 1, "and we have shaped your life in ways you cannot even begin to comprehend. Why-"

"Save it Keel," Asuka said, her mocking smile disappearing to be replaced by a face of brutal anger and sharp seriousness, "I know all about you and SEELE! I know how you sent my mother's soul into Unit 02 and I know how you ruined my childhood!"

She turned to face the monolith marked 08 and stared into its depth. Her eyes showed a deeper resentment then she'd ever felt towards anyone else before. "Isn't that right," she growled, "father!"

If a computer generated depiction could be said to step backwards, then the monolith representing SEELE 08 did it. "Asuka!" he began.

But SEELE 01 would not allow him to speak. "Number 8," he said, "you are dismissed for the moment." The monolith marked 08 sullenly vacated its position.

Asuka turned back to glare at 01. She released her anger by tightening her fists into solid balls and then releasing them quickly. It was oddly relaxing. She couldn't begin to imagine where she'd picked it up.

The monolith marked 01 shimmered and was replaced by an elderly man with white hair and a visor covering both of his eyes sitting at a desk. His clothes were a deep green, with a yellow trim. "Perhaps face to face will suit you better?" he asked. His posture was leaning forward and slightly to his left. He supported his enormous body weight on his left arm, his hand balled into a hammer grip.

"It always does," Asuka said. She walked forward until she appeared to be leaning on the desk. "Now, I ask again, why have I been called here?" she asked with more then a hint of teeth.

"How did you learn about us?" he demanded, unscathed by Asuka's venom.

Asuka sighed and appeared to push off of the desk. She turned and began walking back to the center of the room. She reached it and turned again. She crossed her hands beneath her breasts and said, "Chief Ikari told me."

'Ikari?' Keel couldn't believe she was saying it. "His treachery runs deeper then we expected," he remarked. 'Best to let her think we believe her,' he decided.

"Yeah. I guess so," Asuka said with a smirk.

"I suppose NERV looks after its own then," remarked the only speaking SEELE member.

Asuka snorted, "Hardly! He only told me so that I could tell him of your plans."

Keel didn't show any fear, but he felt an inkling of it. Gendo had turned into a much more formidable opponent then he'd expected. Already it was becoming a game of influence, rather then a game of wits. Perhaps this girl wasn't lying. It would be just like Ikari to put something out in the open like this, expecting the council to see right through it. "And will you?" he asked coolly.

"I'm not sure yet," Asuka said. Her expression had turned to one closely resembling boredom. "Hey! Are you ever going to answer my question?" she said calmly.

Keel bowed his head slightly. "We had originally called you here to ask you in a matter of war but…leave us."

The other ten monoliths faded instantly and in a perfectly synchronized manner. All at once.

"Now it's just you and me," Asuka remarked with a smirk.

"I think perhaps I underestimated you Asuka," Keel said, leaning forward more, "I had wanted to use you as a pawn in my games but now I am having allusions of bigger plans for you. Tell me, how suited are you to commanding troops?"

Asuka smiled devilishly and began walking to the desk again. "Better suited then anyone else you'll ever meet," she said. Reaching the desk, she leaned across it and put her face inches away from Keel's. "I'll play your game Keel, just remember one thing. She's mine. No one else's. Got it?"

Keel nodded calmly. He could tell from her face that he wouldn't need to explain to her who she would be fighting. She knew her opponents. Somehow she'd known everything that he'd planned to say to her. This would warrant investigation.

"Good," Asuka said. She turned and began walking back the way she had entered from. The doors opened for her and the soldier's outside saluted smartly.

Keel sat in the room alone. "She will be difficult to use," he remarked to himself. He made his smile, a sick thing that showed malice instead of teeth. "But she will be worth every manipulation that is necessary," he finished before his visage faded from the room, leaving it in absolute darkness.

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'It still smells of blood,' Shinji Ikari thought as he climbed down from his entry plug. The vile orange liquid dripped off of his blue and white plug suit, but a great deal still remained in his every pore and duct.

But nothing was worse then the smell of the blood.

He grabbed a specially lubricated towel and began walking down the barren hallway towards the control tower for the synch test. As he began toweling himself off he thought, 'Why do I have to keep doing these? Rei said that the Angel Asuka's fighting was supposed to be the last one.'

His thoughts were drawn to Asuka on pure instinct, his previous thoughts having led him back down the now familiar trail. Try as he might he couldn't get any information about Asuka's condition. He could no more then guess whether she had beaten the angel and was on her way home or if she was dead and buried.

Even Misato hadn't known anything. Shinji had finally gathered up the courage to talk to her and had initiated an awkward conversation on both their parts. In the end it had all been pointless, Misato hadn't known any more then Shinji did.

'Isn't it strange?' a voice in his head asked him, 'How the director of operations doesn't know anything about an operation? It almost has to have been under her control. She has to know some details.'

But Shinji was too mad at Misato for other reasons to be mad at her about this. He reached the bridge and made a b-line for Ritsuko, bypassing Misato without a glance.

"How did I do?" he asked in a quiet voice. He neatly folded and put the towel over one of the command chairs, having finished drying his hair and body. There was on reason to keep carrying it, and he had no

"Up another fifteen points," Ritsuko reported from her position leaning over Maya's console. Neither female even turned to look at Shinji. For all they cared Shinji was already was gone. Unsurprisingly, this didn't bother him in the least.

Shinji nodded and started on his trek for the showers. Ritsuko watched him go out of the corner of her eye, noticing that he avoided Misato by going out the doors opposite from her. 'That way will take him another fifteen minutes,' she thought to herself. Part of her thought that Shinji knew that.

She put it off as an adolescent phase and returned to reading the communication from Gendo. After her release from imprisonment for the second time she'd decided she wouldn't go after him again. Finding her in the air ducts with a gun had forced Section Two to step up their protection of the commander. Ritsuko knew she wouldn't be able to get as close the second time and that she wouldn't be freed for multiple attempts at murder. Gendo had limits on these things, no matter how useful the person in question was.

So now she was left reading long distance communications from him. Worse, about the very project she'd been arrested for the first time. Her eyes skimmed over the reading, picking up the more important details. 'Begin the next series… true mass production Evangelions…produce at Matsushiro…begin end of the month…' It went on for ten pages. If Ritsuko hadn't been hyped up on caffeine and nicotine she'd have drifted to sleep on her feet. If she hadn't known of the war that was to come she wouldn't have kept going on the project.

'The true mass-production Evangelions will put an end to the war,' she thought with clarity. The only real question on her mind was whether or not they'd be finished in time to end it.