October 22, 1570

Dear Nikita Romanovich Zakharin-Yuriev

I am sending you this letter because you must act urgently. I am writing from Pressburg, where my epigoni and I conducted interviews with a number of merchants from Buda and with one who was coming up from Constantinople. They are all blinded by optimism and remain blissfully unaware of the danger we face, but danger we face indeed. The Pashas are hiring Gönüllüs, and the Akinjis more men, [1] on a scale unprecedented since the Act of God, and grain and materiel are being stored in great warehouses throughout the Balkans. The Pasha of Buda has led several expeditions to suppress the Hungarian rebels, settling Serbs in the areas they once controlled, all while they entreat to the Hungarian lords in the Habsburg part of Hungary. I fear the long period of relative peace the frontier of Christendom has enjoyed is coming to an end.

If I am correct, our men in Constantinople have either lost political favor, died, or most likely both. Thus, I have decided to ignore the restrictions they gave during our last meeting with them (I'm sure you will be pleased). You are to assemble a force for use against the Tatars, and you will strike once war between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans has been declared. While Kazan is the main target, it is critical that you at least make raids into Crimean and Astrakhani territory [2]. I will go to Vienna to give warnings, and then I will go to Valladolid[3] to coordinate with our men there. As they are believed to still possess the third Evangelion, I will also send a man to confirm its presence and track its movements; for redundancy's sake I suggest you should as well.

Ugo Cardinal Boncompagni


Siegfried ran after Reidun, yelling at her to stop. She ignored the first few calls, but then stopped and turned around. The two had just finished training in the Evangelions, and she was looking forward to lunch. Recently the cooks had been on a run of uncharacteristically good food (the meat was only somewhat overcooked, the bread hadn't been stale, and the beer was less watered-down). Reidun hoped this trend would continue, but at the same time she was worried about what might happen if it did. The boys had developed such an appetite for the new, better food that they were now requesting second helpings, and sometimes even thirds. If the food was better, they would eat even more, and then they would get fat, and then they would be unable to repel the Angels, and then divine intervention would be necessary. The food would have to be made worse than ever, to bring the decadent wastrels back onto the path of temperance and moderation. But it was all out of her hands, so Reidun only hoped the food would still be good today. As Siegfried came closer to her, she began walking again; she would not be delayed by whatever he had to say.

"Reidun," Siegfried asked, "How are you doing? You did well today." Reidun could tell he had meant to say something else but had chickened out.

"I am feeling well, but I haven't done anything notable today," she said.

"That's not true! You're always so much better at me in the drills," Siegfried said. He emphasized, "Always!"

The drills they went through in the EVAs were simple, and it really wasn't possible to do "notably" well in them. Even if it was, Reidun didn't think she was that much better at them than Siegfried. In some of them he in fact was better. It was flattery, another sign of the decadence brought on by overly well-tasting food. "If I always am better than you, then it is not notable," she said.

"I have a question for you," Siegfried said.

Hopefully this would be what he had come here to say. If he didn't get it over with soon enough, they would have to sit together at lunch. "Ask," she replied.

"I've been around you so long, and I, well, I haven't gotten to know you all that well."

"And?"

"What's your last name?" Siegfried asked.

"My surname is Ásmóðrsdóttir," Reidun said.

Siegfried tried saying the name a few times in his head. "I can't pronounce that, and I just heard you say it," he complained. But no matter how the name was pronounced, it was definitely not pronounced 'Von Ingolschen'. It was relieving not to have to worry about that. On the other hand, that woman from the EVA yesterday had lied to him, and he'd told her the truth about everything she'd wanted to know. If people were to find out, there would be embarrassment on top of everything else.

"It's Icelandic," Reidun said. They were in the dining hall now, and the place was crowded as it usually was at this time of the day. The food line was long, and they were squeezed in between Kenneth and a short monk whom Marcellus sometimes seconded to help him carry out training exercises.

"You're from Iceland?" Kenneth said, forcing himself into the conversation. "Wasn't that the place that was hit hardest by the Act of God?"

"Yes, around two-thirds of the population died after the Act of God," Reidun said. "But now that there's no winter there and farming is possible year-round, the population is booming. In ten years it will be up to the level before the Act. But I've actually never been there. I was born in Copenhagen." Reidun had in fact been to Iceland before, and she'd always been interested in its culture and history. Since the Norse came there had been terrible famines, brutal war, and so many deaths, but the island stayed intact. It was like a microcosm of the Earth.

"So you don't miss it?" Siegfried asked.

"No," said Reidun.

Kenneth asked, "How long have you been here?"

"Five years," Reidun replied.

That was the longest time of any of the Children; the first one aside from her had come in March. Kenneth had come in April, and Tomas had arrived towards the end of July. Most of them just assumed Reidun had been there forever. "Do you think we'll be here for that long?" Siegfried asked.

Reidun said, "No, once the Angels are defeated you will be dismissed. Although you will return home as heroes, and the Vatican will pay for your educations."

"When this is done I'll probably apply to become a novice here," Kenneth said. "My parents are dead, and it's not very healthy to be a Catholic back in England." [4]

"Sorry about your parents," Siegfried said. He felt sort of ashamed for not knowing about them. Everyone in the complex knew his own family situation; some had strong opinions about it. Although in that case, it wasn't really his fault.

"Don't worry, you didn't kill them." Kenneth winked. "Or did you?"

Initially missing the joke, Siegfried backed up and put his arms in front of him. Then he rushed back to his spot in the food line. Reidun commented, "Although we all await the answer to whether or not a Croatian villein murdered two people in England without his own knowledge, meals are supposed to be silent. Let us refrain from speaking."

Kenneth said, "Actually, my parents moved to Köln whe-" Reidun shushed him, and he stayed quiet.

Going up to the counter, the three Children each received a plate and a stein. In each stein there was a mixture of two parts beer to one part water, and on each plate there was blutwurst, sauerkraut, stewed turnips, and a slice of bread. They found seats: Kenneth and Siegfried next to each other and Reidun a few seats away and on the other side of the table. As soon as everybody had sat down, and the reader had prayed and begun to read from the bible passage of the day, Reidun formed all the sauerkraut on her plate into a ball and swallowed it whole. In rapid succession she gobbled down the turnips, bread, and the blutwurst. By the time the passage was finished, she was finished with the beer. Taking up her empty plate and stein, she stood to leave.

By that time, Siegfried had only finished about half his beer, most of the sauerkraut, and one slice of blutwurst. After stuffing the bread and remaining blutwurst in his pocket, he stood to follow Reidun. Kenneth shoved the remaining food onto his own plate and bid Siegfried adieu with a thumbs up and a smile.

Did Kenneth think he was trying to... go after Reidun? Romantically? He just wanted to ask Reidun another question. Although...

Seeing her back as he left the dining hall, Siegfried ran after Reidun and caught up with her. He placed his hand on her shoulder and turned her around. But as she faced him down, his words evaporated in his throat and refused to come out. For a minute they faced each other silently, Siegfried stuttering occasionally and Reidun blinking once or twice.

"Do you have anything to say?" Reidun finally offered.

"No, ah, yes. What do you think about the Angels?" asked Sigfried.

"I'm against them," said Reidun.

Siegfried asked, "Anything else?"

"The Angels are a blight on humanity. If we kill them all, they won't be. So we should kill them all."

"Maybe it's a threat to Pommerners, but it can't be that big a problem for humanity, you know, as a whole. Couldn't we just evacuate everyone in the area?", Siegfried mused. As an afterthought he added, "What have they ever actually done to us, anyway?"

"The Angels are indeed an existential threat to every human being; evacuation wouldn't work. Already they have begun to despoil the Earth."

"Now, I know you probably won't explain that-"

"Correct," Reidun confirmed.

"But I wanted to ask you how you feel about fighting them," Siegfried said.

"What do you mean?" Reidun asked.

"Aren't you afraid one of them will kill you?" When the Second Angel tore Reidun's arm off, Siegfried had been certain she was dead. Although she had survived, Siegfried assumed that wouldn't last forever. His Croatian parents had had three boys; all strong, brave, and pious. They'd all died before he was born, fighting Turks. Thus he'd been told, "He who presents his life to the enemy, will eventually relinquish it."

"What do you mean? I'm only one human, of millions. Could any true Christian fear his own death so much as to run away from saving others?" These were bold words; if Reidun developed her rhetorical talent she could make well from it. But in truth, she simply didn't believe she would die fighting the Angels. As long as God and Gerhard watched over her, she had faith in her safety. Her bravado was aimed at Siegfried.

Siegfried, who did fear his own death, left without responding. Reidun kept watch on him until he disappeared into the barracks, then went off faster than she had been going before. Gerhard had a lot of work today, and it would be best if she got there as soon as possible to assist him.


October 26, 1570

The call came stealthily; Siegfried never had the opportunity to object to it even if he had the guts to. It was a fairly normal Sunday noon, and the boy was grateful that his EVA time was cut short for church. While Gerhard was saying Mass, he got a tap on the shoulder and a whisper in his ear, "Come with me". With no idea as to why he was being called, Siegfried ducked his head and escaped the pews. When he finally stopped worrying about being noticed leaving, he noticed that his summoner was Oberdorfer, the Order's other Siegfried. "What is it?" von Ingolschen whispered.

"We think we've sighted an Angel," came the reply in sotto voce.

A jolt went through von Ingolschen. "Now? During Mass?" he protested.

Oberdorfer confirmed grimly, "The devil works in the most inconvenient ways."

"You said you think you saw one. Does that mean there might not be one?" von Ingolschen asked.

"Come and see," said Oberdorfer.

The two Siegfrieds went up the long set of stairs to the viewing platform. Standing there with a telescope [5] by her side was Rolanda Acquisto. Rolanda was staring off into the distance, and another woman (Rolanda's second assistant; they had met before but barely knew each other) was looking at the telescope. Oberdorfer asked her to let the pilot look into the telescope, and she obliged. "Come and see," she instructed.

What he saw was small even with the magnifying effect of the miraculous new technology that was the telescope, but there was no mistaking it. Floating in the sky a ways away, somewhere over the Baltic Sea, was a gigantic octahedron. It was blue, looked somewhat reflective, and to Siegfried didn't look all that threatening from a distance. Of course, if it was an Angel, his initial judgement would most likely be far off. Silently he prayed it would just go away.

"Maja [6], has the thing come closer since I left?" Oberdorfer asked.

"I'm afraid it has," Rolanda's second assistant (Maja was her name, Siegfried now remembered) replied.

Marcellus appeared at the top of the stairs. "I've got Reidun," he panted as the girl passed him.

"Good. Come and see this, Reidun," Rolanda said. Reidun went to the edge of the overlook, but she didn't make a movement for the telescope. Instead she stared off into the distance. A look that almost seemed startled came over her face.

"Is that an octahedron?" she asked.

"Yes," Rolanda admitted. Sometimes Reidun astounded even her. The thing was closer to Sweden than Germany, if the calculations were correct.

"So we all see it," Marcellus said. "The question is, what is it, and how do we defeat it?"

Maja chided him, "For all we know, it might not be an Angel at -"

"RUN!" someone screamed. It was Reidun; most of the people present hadn't ever heard her screaming voice before. She pushed Rolanda and Siegfried over the side of the overlook, sending them sprawling onto the grass and gravel a few feet below. Marcellus, his old instincts kicking in, ducked for cover on the other side. Oberdorfer grabbed Maja and pulled her off the platform. Everyone who could ran away from the overlook as it began to burst into flames.

At first it looked a ray of light, emanating from the north and illuminating the overlook. Then it became brighter and brighter, until it was too radiant to look at. Everything still on the platform was incinerated, down to the glass lens of the telescope. The whole surrounding area briefly heated to a bit under the boiling point of water. And then it was over.

"Is everybody alright?" Marcellus asked in a quavering, distant voice. The others got up and looked around, but he was on the other side of the destroyed overlook. They considered the question. Altogether, they could be said to have gotten off quite easily. Rolanda and Siegfried (von Ingolschen) were in the worst shape, having fallen face first into the gravel. Their faces and hands were cut and scraped, but their clothing had protected most of their bodies. Everyone had burns on whatever uncovered parts of their bodies had been facing the overlook, but they were more uncomfortable than anything else and no one had blisters. Oberdorfer also had an injury to his metaphorical face, when it was discovered that he'd had his hand on Maja's breast. "Come over here," Marcellus said.

Marcellus was lying prone on the gravel, staring into the distance. "I can't see... someone help me up." Siegfried and Reidun hoisted him by the arms. "It's my fault, I looked at the light. Dottoressa, will this get better?" It was unnerving, the way he looked at Rolanda with his head but not his eyes.

"Yes, in a few minutes it should be better," she assured.

"We should get moving," Reidun said. Her suggestion had the same effect as her more imperative one earlier.

"Ja, we can't let the Angel take aim again," Marcellus added. Unfortunately, all they could do at the moment was make themselves moving targets. If they could get below tree cover they would be safe, but that was fifteen minutes of walking down. Plenty of time for the Angel to wipe them off the face of the Earth. The group moved down the mountain, with Oberdorfer in the lead and Siegfried, Reidun, and Marcellus at the back. Right behind the group, the ground lit up faintly. As everyone ahead of them began running for their lives, Reidun urged Siegfried, "Go ahead. Run. I'll take Marcellus."

Siegfried wanted to refuse, but he bolted off ahead like he was racing the girl. His head-start didn't help him, though, as Reidun soon caught up to him even with Marcellus on her back. A crack came from the Angel's target area; a boulder had exploded. One fragment pelted in their direction, its jagged point tumbling for Reidun's skull. In a momentary peek behind him, Siegfried spotted it. He tackled her, wrapping his arms around her knees, and her body slammed into the earth. The rock buried itself in the dirt ahead. A shower of gravel sprinkled on the three, dirtying their clothes even more. Siegfried was afraid Reidun wouldn't appreciate the danger she'd been in, and the utter confusion on her face initially confirmed the fear. But when Reidun noticed the shrapnel ahead, her expression cleared. "Thank you," the girl mouthed, as she picked herself up.

Now Reidun looked almost as bad as Siegfried. This part of the trail had more soil than gravel, but what gravel there was had been enough to gash up and down the right side of her face, and the soil stained the remaining skin brown. Marcellus, falling on Reidun, was uninjured. He got up before Reidun did, and informed the pilots that his vision was getting better. And then the light shined once more.

This time the light was a hundred feet closer, and the three broke into a sprint. The light followed them, swallowing up first Marcellus, then Siegfried, and then Reidun. "Gott mit uns!" Marcellus cried. But the light continued moving, and Marcellus was the first it passed over. Siegfried and Reidun were also passed over with only a few more sunburns. Marcellus, although he got the least of the burns, was weeping and kneeling to God and wouldn't budge until the light stopped a bit downhill and incinerated a few shrubs.

Once Marcellus was up, the three continued downhill, this time at a run. The Angel was gunning for them, and only God had saved them. Now they only had themselves to confuse the beast's aim. They spread out over the mountainside, although not as much as they should have. No one was willing to let either of the others out of their sight. Reidun on the left, Siegfried on the right, and Marcellus on the trail, they descended.

In short time they caught up to the other Abbey staff. Marcellus urged them to follow at their pace, and another short time later, they were all in the safety of the tree cover. When the Military Order of St. Gerbert of Aurillac's men finally made it to the bottom of the mountain, they witnessed the Angel's most devastating strike yet. This beam was aimed at the viewing platform which had already been hit, and was this time completely obliterated. It knocked a gigantic hole, which must have been over 400 feet wide, into the mountain. As the monks, nuns, and Children re-entered the geofront, they could only hope no one had gone up there since the first beam of light. The only comfort they received was that the Angel did not strike again until it eventually reached Stettin-Drei.


"So the telescope is broken?" Gerhard asked.

Marcellus was the last to be debriefed. Couldn't the abbot have asked this question to someone else? He replied, "Indeed. Totally destroyed, lens melted, we need a new one." He wasn't mad at Gerhard for asking a question that he already knew the answer to. He was mad at the damned Angel for taking them by surprise and destroying the lookout. At first he had wanted to kill it personally, but he'd calmed down while waiting to be debriefed. The angels were invincible to a mere human; the octahedron was frying them like bugs. He could still kill them, but he would have to use strategy instead of an arquebus. And he would have to put on a calm, cool demeanor to hide his rage.

"Those things are expensive. We don't have the luxury of Moses, of receiving provisions from heaven," Gerhard lectured.

"Although the Spanish would like us to think of their subsidy that way," Marcellus said.

That drew a laugh from Gerhard. "Ha! So who's the golden calf in that case?"

If there was anything Marcellus had learned in years of soldiering (and there were many things he'd learned) it was the value of distracting a superior officer. "If the King of Spain is God, then the Pope is Aaron," he quipped.

"And building Evangelions is the golden calf," He went on, "You wouldn't believe the sorts of letters I get from Rome and Valladolid. I had one from a cardinal suggesting that I could defeat the sea beasts at a much lower price by creating a Christian army equipped with swords and pila. [7] And another from a Spanish courtier threatening to expose my 'perversions and corruption' unless I came up with 50% efficiency savings and gave him a fifth. I tell you, if I was a corrupt pervert, I wouldn't be in crippling debt, and I would also be happier! But that's not the matter we're here to discuss. Why did you let the beast destroy our only mode of reconnaissance?"

"You mean the telescope?" Marcellus asked. Gerhard nodded. "The angel was over a hundred miles away, Father Abbot. We could only see it through a telescope. I believe that is why it targeted us: to eliminate our ability to ascertain its location."

"I see. So now it can catch us by surprise even though it's a gigantic blue octahedron. Fantastic," Gerhard said. "But Siegfried, Reidun, Rolanda, and you were all up on that lookout when the monster struck. If you hadn't survived – actually, how did you survive – the Order would have been decapitated! Are you sure that wasn't its intention?"

Marcellus said, "I do not believe the Angel was aiming for a decapitation strike, because it simply could not have had the intelligence necessary to arrange such a thing." He explained, "Our value comes from how we fit into the broader organization that is the Order. Siegfried would never be a threat to any Angel if he was not the pilot of the Evangelion. Rolanda would be entirely irrelevant to the Angels if she wasn't the research leader. And I would be entirely irrelevant to the Angels if you didn't let me command the Evangelion pilots. The Angel rose from the sea just today, I believe. It's never seen us before and it doesn't know the army it is fighting, only the general location of the force that dispatched its two brethren." Marcellus stared at Gerhard, and received a nod in response. He had a theory that the Angels were aware of each other and of the first pair's deaths. He didn't know enough about the angels (he barely knew anything about the angels) to confirm this theory, but if Gerhard agreed, then it seemed to be on solid ground.

Marcellus continued. "We know the Angel does not know the organizational structure of the Order. While we don't know whether it knows of the connections between humans and Evangelions, we do know it doesn't know which humans are connected to the Evangelions. It also almost certainly doesn't know what assets we have in the mountain, how we plan to use them, or any other defensive measures we might have. It's going in blind. Now, when one force is tactically blind and the other has tactical awareness, the latter will win as long as they are not either comparatively much weaker or massively incompetent. The Angels may be vile animals, but they are cunning enough to realize this fact. So what it's doing is levelling the playing field by making us blind."

"Its total lack of knowledge of our defensive plans is a lot less of a disadvantage if we don't know enough about what it's doing to decide on one," Gerhard observed.

"Yes. It's betting that its strength will be enough to see it through in a blind melee, meaning it's probably quite strong. We need to find another way to reconnoiter it."

"Didn't you say it stopped trying to kill you when you got to the forest?" Gerhard asked.

"Yes. What of it?" Marcellus asked.

"If it can't see us under the tree cover, we could post scouts there, to warn us when it gets closer."

"So we could post teams, maybe four for redundancy, with telescopes in the forest. I'll need twelve men and twelve horses, as well as the telescopes. Do I have permission to acquire them?"

"No," Gerhard said, shaking his head. "We only have one telescope left, and I don't want to risk it. You can gather the men and horses, though."

Marcellus complained, "If we don't use telescopes, we won't be able to see it until it's practically on top of us!"

"But it will come here, so we will be able to see it before it attacks us. It doesn't particularly matter what it does before."

"What it does before... That gives me an idea!" Marcellus shouted. "After we got below the trees, the Angel blasted the lookout again, and put that big hole in. The spot was already destroyed, so the only reason it had to hit it again was to blast a hole to go in through. Meaning, it will most likely go through that hole. If we ambush it there, that's our best shot at killing the Angel."

Gerhard looked skeptical. "Letting the monster into the GeoFront is risky. If it bypasses the Evangelions there, then there are no fallback lines of defense. I don't want to tell you what will happen if the monster breaks through. Are you sure you can't defend further out?

What would happen if the Angel did break through? Gerhard had hinted at the Angels wanting to do or get something in the GeoFront, but what that thing was was completely unclear. Marcellus understood the Angels were a threat, but he believed they were a threat because they would maraud the world in person. "Look, there can be only one line of defense against an Angel like that," he said. "A line of defense against that Angel requires Evangelions to guard it. A wall of rock is no more to the angel than a wall of paper would be to you or I. The line immediately inside the Geofront is the most defensible line of all we could set, because the Angel can't see the EVAs there until they attack. Outside they could."

Gerhard nodded. "Alright, I understand. Get the men, get the horses, and plan your ambush. I will evacuate the geofront. Godspeed!"


Reidun and Siegfried stood parallel to the entrance to the Wien's entry shed. In front of them was Marcellus, wrapping up his lecture on the battle plan. After coming back and being debriefed, they barely had time to get their burns looked at before Marcellus took them aside. They were starting to seriously itch now, but Marcellus hadn't paid any heed even though his entire face was beet-red. "Men! Recite your orders!" he belted out.

In that moment, Siegfried could barely suppress a giggle. Men? They were a boy and a girl. And there were only two of them. You could take a soldier out of the army, but not the army out of the soldier... Rei began without him. "We will take positions near the hole in the roof. I will hide at the bottom of the pond."

"And I will go against the wall on the near side of the hole," Siegfried said.

"You'll come in waving a colored flag at some point. If the flag is red, the Angel is headed for the hole. If the flag is blue, it is going around to a different point, and you'll give further instruction. If the flag is green it's stopped being a problem somehow and we go back to the pits."

Siegfried said, "If the flag is red, I'll go up as close to the hole as I can get climbing the stairs. When he comes through, I'll stick him. I'll aim for the center, where the red jewel probably is." He had the first opportunity to slay the Angel, but he didn't for a moment believe he would get it on the first attempt. The idea felt like a massive breach of custom.

"If the Angel comes closer to ground level, I'll rush him the moment the Wien isn't in my way," Reidun said.

"And the rest is up to our own initiative," said Siegfried.

"Yes," Marcellus said. Siegfried looked a little dispirited, and he knew they were all a bit discomfited from the previous angel attack. He knew just how to solve that. "Now, how about an aperitif?" He pulled a bottle of wine and two flagons from his bag.

"No, I will not imbibe of the potion that brought down Holofernes [8]," Reidun said. Siegfried ignored her. He'd only had wine about five times in his life, most of them the last time he was in Stettin-Drei. He and Marcellus each filled their flagons about half-way full and drank. Marcellus had it down in two gulps, and Siegfried had it down in four. It was good; while not as strong as the rakia back in Croatia, it was a lot more alcoholic than the pisswater the Abbey served with meals. On a related note, Siegfried felt much better about the odds of winning this mission. If they were the last line, they couldn't lose, right? Even if neither of the planned ambushes worked, God would make it so that they would win. He couldn't help but thinking, Is Reidun getting to me?

Unbeknownst to Siegfried, his distaff partner's doubts about the mission were growing by the minute. She wasn't really worried about Siegfried and Marcellus drinking before the mission, although she wasn't supportive either. So she shut them out of her head. What she was worried about was the Angel. They knew so little about it. It had a powerful long-range attack, and it was octahedral in shape. From that which they knew, a close-up ambush seemed like a good tactic. But the Angel could easily have more tricks up its sleeve. Reidun tried to suppress her doubts. We can win. We will win. All I have to do is my duty.

At last, they got back in formation. Marcellus saluted, Reidun and Siegfried saluted back, and Marcellus dismissed them both. Reidun took off to her own EVA and Siegfried sauntered into his. He waved Jean out and took his seat in the Cord. After a generous wait for Jean to leave the EVA, he stood up and took a good look at the battlefield. The hole in the ceiling, from where the Angel was assumed to be making its entrance, looked even bigger from the inside. That nearly endless set of stairs which had once led to the lookout now petered out before the hole. The top steps looked fragile, but the middle flights seemed sturdy enough to support the EVA for some time. In practically no time at all thanks to the Evangelion's long legs, he took his position near the steps. There was a grassy hill to his 12:00. The hole was to his 10:00, although he was almost under it. He was actually a bit cramped trying to stay within close range of the steps while not being visible from above the hole. To his 2:00 was the pond in which Reidun would hide. It occurred to him that this plan was very similar to the one they had used against the last Angel. The only difference was that last time, he was doing the second ambush, while this time he was going to surprise attack the Angel first. But Reidun was still hiding in water for her part. Behind the pond and to his 3:00 were Order buildings, now evacuated. He would have to keep the fight away from there. And to his 4:00 was the main entrance.

A man on a horse came in waving a red flag. There was only a limited amount of time left. Reidun put herself at the bottom of the pond, and Siegfried pressed himself against the wall. And then it came.

It went through the hole not as the octahedron seen earlier, but as a cone. It went through at an incredible speed, leaving no room for interception. It crashed at the top of the hill. As Siegfried rushed to intercept the Angel, it transformed back into its octahedral form, which was about twice as tall as the EVAs. Its nearest vertex glimmered red for a second, and it fired a beam. But Siegfried dodged, and the beam hit around the middle flights of the stairs and knocked down everything above that point. The Angel then started rising. Before it could gain much height, though, Siegfried stuck his poleaxe's spike overhand into one of its vertices. It was a perfect hit; the poleaxe was aligned precisely with the opposite vertex. Siegfried pushed, and blood oozed onto the Angel's shiny blue exterior. But before he could get to the core, the Angel rolled backwards, sending the EVA tumbling over its top and expelling the poleaxe.

The Angel quickly shot off three blasts. They were miniscule in power compared to the earlier ones, but the first two perforated the Wien's chest before Siegfried could raise his AT-Field. He prayed those parts weren't as vital to the EVA as they would be to a human. Siegfried attacked as soon as he got his poleaxe back; the Angel was strongest at range and he couldn't let it get too high up in the air. He buried the axehead in one of the Angel's faces and yanked down, but it only pushed up harder. A red glow appeared at its vertex, aimed right for the EVA's neck. Siegfried frantically pulled himself onto the Angel, and the blast landed on the other side of the Geofront with a loud explosion. It began twisting gyroscopically to launch the Wien off, but it was stopped in its tracks by a skewering poleaxe. Reidun had joined the fight.

Unfortunately, although the poleaxe had penetrated deep enough to hit the core, it was misaligned and the shaft missed it by a few feet. The Angel zoomed away from Reidun and up. Siegfried clung to its top, being sure to avoid placing any body parts above the top vertex. He dug his fingers into the surprisingly pliant flesh and skewered the Angel under the top vertex with the shaft of his poleaxe.

When the Angel was near the top of the Geofront, Siegfried's efforts to hold on became for naught. The octahedron expelled the poleaxe, leaving him hanging by one hand. Then it activated its AT Field. In a burst, the Wien was pushed above the Angel, resting on thin air. Its top vertex began glowing, and the AT field cupped to hold him straight above it. Siegfried jumped out, landing on his feet but with enough force to twist both of his ankles. The Angel flipped upside down, its glowing vertex facing straight down. Siegfried and Reidun both activated their AT Fields in anticipation.

The Angel fired. Siegfried tried to limp away, but he was too slow and it landed on his AT Field. He tried to resist, but after only a few seconds the beam shot through, incinerated his right leg, and dug 40 feet into the ground. It hurt like nothing had ever hurt before, at least for the first few seconds. Then he couldn't feel it at all. It had disintegrated.

Siegfried bawled his eyes out. "God - Why!" he yelled. He didn't even notice the follow-up beam the Angel was charging.

Reidun grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the blast's way. She hoisted Siegfried on her back and made a run for the hill. When she was behind it, she pulled the Wien to the Trent's face and looked into it.

Siegfried looked into the Trent's narrow face and for some reason saw exactly what Reidun wanted to tell him. She was going to try to leap up to the Angel and stick it through the core. She needed his EVA to help her launch with the AT-field, and to take a beam meant for her. For some reason he nodded.

Reidun dropped Siegfried off at the top of the hill. He stood on his hands and knees, like a three-legged table. At this point the abbot's son began to feel his leg again. This sensation took the form of sudden, overwhelming pain. He pounded the earth; he cried out. Nothing would make the pain better. And then he noticed the brilliant glow on the Angel's bottom vertex.

Now, at last, Siegfried could say he was truly doomed. Why had the fight gone so much against him? Was it the wine; was Reidun right about that? Had he made overly rash decisions? Yes, he had tried to ride the Angel. But otherwise how could they have touched it in the air? Was it Marcellus's fault? No, his plan would have worked if the Angel hadn't gone through the hole too fast to be intercepted; he couldn't have known the Angel could do that. Which meant it was God's fault. For not letting them know what the Angel could do before they fought it. For putting him in the way of these sea monsters. For creating the Angels in the first place! It was God that created all the animals on the 6th day. What was the point of creating a monster like this?

Then the Angel fired. In a split second, Siegfried began screaming again. But this wasn't a scream of pain or a scream of fear. It was a scream of anger, yelled by a person who believed that his life could be saved only by the volume of his voice. Siegfried threw everything he had into an AT field. The beam impacted against the shield futilely at first, but its power only increased. But after two seconds, the AT field was beginning to falter. And then the pressure was relieved.

Was the Angel's beam over? No, Reidun was to credit. She was projecting her AT field over Siegfried's as she rushed over with poleaxe in hand. She jumped into the beam, aiming for Siegfried. He couldn't help but wonder if she was sober like she'd said. Nevertheless, he sent his AT field upwards in a pulse at the moment she landed on it. The beam now flowed through without interdiction. The fluid of the Cord became hotter and hotter, and the EVA's skin self-ignited. Leaping off the AT field, and protecting herself with her own, Reidun progressed upward through the beam. Just as her own field began to falter, she drove her poleaxe into the Angel's bottom vertex. The beam lost coherence, sending smaller but destructive rays all over the geofront. Another push, and the spike of the poleaxe popped the Angel's core. At last, the beam stopped entirely. Reidun threw the poleaxe and the Angel it was stuck in aside.

Siegfried couldn't believe it. His EVA's leg was gone, and its lungs were filling with blood. Most of its skin was on fire, and all of his was scalded. But the Angel was dead. The Trent, singed and wounded, landed on the Wien's abdomen, and Siegfried finally blacked out. If his EVA was in a better shape it would have gone berserk.

[1] The Ottoman military maintained a number of auxiliary forces on the frontiers. The Akıncı were a group of registered raiding clans in the Balkans numbering around 50,000, recruiting volunteers on their own initiative. They paved the way for Ottoman conquest by pillaging areas, on the proceeds of which they paid tax to the central government. Additionally they provided intelligence, served as a vanguard, and harassed enemy units. The Ottoman government tried to keep a rein on the larger groups and harness their raids to their operations, but the smaller groups were too hard to keep track of. These Haramis, or Bandits, were groups of less than 100 that were given free rein in exchange for paying taxes and coordinating with regional akıncı officers.

Akıncıları eventually fell out of favor by the late 16th century for several reasons. The first is that they were politically unreliable, intervening in every single Ottoman succession conflict over the period of their existence. The second is that the establishment of fortified military frontiers on the Habsburg borders reduced the effectiveness of their raids. The third is that their presence was a negative influence on the discipline of all other troops (Indeed, Ottoman commanders always sought to keep the akıncı away from the rest of the army). And the fourth is that the Crimean Tatars began sending large expeditionary forces to Ottoman wars. These expeditions could number in the tens of thousands, and they performed the Akıncıs' job better than they did. For peacetime raiding, provincial governors began to raise Deli units which were only loyal to the governor. These were easier to coordinate, did a fine job of raiding, and were more usable on the battlefield. In 1595 they were decimated at the battle of Yergöğü, where Koca Sinan Pasha forced them to cross the Danube last so as to ensure the escape of the rest of his army from a renegade Wallachian ambush. The Akıncı never recovered.

Gönüllü were volunteers recruited in times of emergency by provincial governors in return for a salary or a Timar fief. If not enough volunteers were recruited, one in every five households would have to provide conscripts (Beşli) whom would serve without pay or a promise of a fief.

[2] Kazan and Astrakhan were Islamic khanates historically conquered by Russia in the 1550s. They were minor powers of the region, being subject to the influence of the stronger Muscovite, Crimean, and Nogai powers. In 1554, Russia captured Kazan and placed a puppet in the Astrakhan Khanate. However, their puppet Dervish Ali turned to the Crimeans (backed by the Ottomans) and for this Ivan the Terrible sent troops to depose him and conquer Astrakhan for Russia in 1556. Here, Ivan didn't have the troops to spare, for the Livonian Order collapsed almost immediately after the Act of God (OTL it ceased to exist in 1558). Russia tried to claim the territory, and the Polish-Lithuanian union contested them, so by the time Dervish Ali's treachery became apparent Russia was embroiled in a major ground war. Russia scrounged up a few thousand men in 1557, hoping to be aided by pro-Moscow nobles, but those had already been purged and the Astrakhanis easily fought off the Russians. The Crimeans saw this failure as a sign of weakness and attacked north. Assisted by the Ottomans and Astrakhanis, they liberated Kazan and helped the Poles escape defeat in the war.

Historically, the Ottomans tried to reconquer Astrakhan in 1568 and build a canal between the Volga and Don Rivers. They failed. Although here they have the land for the canal under their allies' control, and the idea has been seriously posited in the Porte, the money has not been forthcoming.

[3] Valladolid was the location of Spain's court until 1561. The capital was moved to Madrid that year so that Felipe II could supervise the construction of El Escorial, a massively expensive palace northwest of Madrid that took 21 years to complete. Here, Felipe II hasn't commissioned El Escorial due to budget constraints, so the capital is still in Valladolid.

[4] Historically, Elizabeth I didn't persecute the Catholics until a papal bull in 1570 declared her a heretical usurper and urged all Catholics to overthrow her. In Evangelizare Jadid, she soured on the Catholics earlier. In 1560, after the dust from the Act of God had settled, the Catholic Church declared that the incident was the fault of traitorous protestant rulers that had led their people to reject the Church. They provided a list of these rulers, on which Elizabeth was included at Spanish request. She was understandably livid, especially since she hadn't even been Queen when the disaster struck.

[5] The telescope wouldn't be invented for another few decades, but the basic science and production capabilities to make telescopes were already present in the 1550s so I've allowed the invention of the telescope to be moved up a bit.

[6] Maja von Ibbenbüren = Maya Ibuki

[7] Many Renaissance intellectuals advocated a return to the military methods of the Romans, especially Italians. This strain of thought is very apparent when reading the military works of Machiavelli.

[8] In the deuterocanonical Book of Judith, the titular character decapitates the Assyrian general Holofernes in his sleep after inducing him to drink far too much wine.

[9] The Angel seen here is mostly like Ramiel, but somewhat weaker. Although this concept was never demonstrated in Evangelion, I presume that the strength of his beam is dependent on the amount of time it is charged.