The midday sun's glare reflects off the gentle waves that lap at the waist of the Seventh Angel as it walks ashore.
The waters of Tokyo bay -as in, the bay that was once Tokyo- drip off Israfel's limbs, but the creature continues to plod ahead...
It's stopped by a most peculiar sight. Three giants, standing on a hill. They are like him in that they posess an Absolute Territory, but not like him in that they 'feel' like dead kindred posessed by a Black Moon's mind.
The nanites flowing through Israfel's bloodstream had interfaced with his crystalline mind and warned him about these creatures, these not-alive meat-puppets, controlled by young little Lilim.
Israfel found it fitting. He was himself just a newborn, he reasoned...
It would be appropriate, in a way, to fight against defective Lilithspawn its own age.
After Tabris had injected him with the Lilim nanotechnology, he had stood up from the arctic seafloor and marched all the way to this 'Tokyo' place. And now, after many days of patiently plodding along he has come face to face with the creatures that have killed the four Angels that have came before him.
For the first time since he'd awoken, Israfel stands still as he sees the three Lilim monsters, one purple, one red, one blue, standing in the distance. Then, with perfect form, he ignites the light of his soul and attempts to smite the three Evangelions he sees, two cross-shaped blasts of light exploding out of his eyes and lancing toward his foe.
Evangelion Audio Communications
"Evasive action." Rei warns as she takes a step sideways.
"No, I've got it!" Shinji shouts with cautious entheusiasm as Unit 01 steps into the attack, and a flat pane of Absolute Territory forms in front of the purple Eva's outstretched arms. With only a grumble of effort from Unit 01, the rectangular wall of sliding amber octagons stays in place as it dissipates the plasma blast.
Israfel
Just after finishing his probing alpha strike, The 'Angel of Dance' (?, why the hell had the Lilim called him that!?) is suddenly blindsided by a torrent of soul-enriched plasma spheres raining into its upper back and exploding, followed by a focused beam of the same origin digging into his spine.
Dani grins at her big brother as they descend down to the ground, hands still glowing sickly green from all the ectoplasm they threw around. For all Danny's mastery of fancy tricks, his slender sister had always found it so much easier to just focus on volume of fire and saturate the area with a truly incredible quantity of plasma bolts.
An unnatural, trilling rumble rolls over Tokyo beach as a piqued Israfel turns around to find the gnats that had shot at him. What he sees is two bright-green pinpricks of light, each about the size of a Lilim, disappearing into the sand.
What Israfel doesn't see is Unit 02 running forward behind him and readying the Lance of Longinus to strike.
But even through the sand and mud of the beach, Israfel can feel the pulsing of the Evangelion's heavy footfalls coming towards him. Realizing the real fight is about to start, he expands his Absolute Territory into a sphere as he angrily turns around to come to blows with his foe.
With an evil grin hidden inside the Entry Plug, Asuka jukes to the left as her Absolute Territory grazes Israfel's own.
VREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEM! A blinding white and green light slams into and pierces Israfel's defensive barrier.
PAIN! Right arm... gone... Feels like my AT-field got kicked in... Israfel staggers back, trying to stay standing as his body seals itself back up.
Rei compensates for the recoil of her Ectobeam cannon, correcting for the kick of her oversized and heavily modified Positron Cannon. Her shot has severed her target's right arm, along with obliterating about a third of its torso...
Before Israfel can react further, Unit 02 steps back into view, diagonally slashing the red crystal Spear of Longinus across and through the Angel's torso. With the Angel's Absolute Territory buckled, Asuka doesn't have to worry about her hands snagging on the invisible barrier if she would swing the Lance through.
Indeed, Unit 02's other hand has the opportunity to pull down on the shaft of the Lance as it catches on the Core. With even a small application of pressure on the hilt, the sharp edge of the ultimate weapon slides further through the Angel.
To Asuka it feels more like dragging a knife through water-syrup-water than slicing an indestructible spear through a mountain of LCL-soaked muscle, bone and crystal-stone core.
The blade of the Lance comes free with a sickening wet rip and Asuka twirls around, purposefully imitating the '90's Sentai... or, well, Power Rangers... she'd seen as a kid, conveniently also flicking the majority of the Angel's blood off her weapon as she does so.
With Unit 02's back to the diagonally bisected and collapsing Angel, Asuka slices her spear through the sand, causing a sheet of sand to spray up in front of her, glittering, as the Angel collapses into a melting heap. A picture-perfect moment, she muses. Can't have the Third Child be the only celebrity Angel-slayer, hm?
Central Dogma
"Angel is... down." Aoba confirms. "Both pieces of core are becoming iner- ...Hang on... " He sees a certain number rapidly jumping up to triple digits. "Core halves are heating up. Several hundred degrees and rising."
"Heads up! This isn't over yet!" Misato shouts into her microphone.
To her credit, Asuka wastes no time, instantly sprinting back to the safety of Unit 00 and Unit 01, both of whom warily step forward to link up with their red, bloodsoaked teammate.
All of a sudden, an omnidirectional pulse of pale blue light, a bubble of strange, skittering electricity, washes over the corpse of Israfel, the three Evangelions, the Phantoms, and the surrounding area.
Misato looks to the side, only to find Ritsuko frantically tapping her keyboard. "Pulse was some kind of magnetic waveform... Not a normal EMP..." More opening of submenus, search results...
"It's a scan. Like sonar." All eyes turn to Maya, who simply brings up a bird's eye overview of the battlefield, and the scan pulse's propagation. "Epicenter is located... exactly where the original core was when Unit 02 cut it in half..."
Tokyo Beach
The two slumped-over halves of Israfel's body curl in on themselves, flesh and bone becoming almost like putty as the two halves reconstitute into two seperate, smaller Israfel beings. Each seems to have taken on different traits.
The top half has become a ruddy red creature, with black striations. It stands up, short but extremely stocky. Something glitters on its arms...
The bottom half of Israfel is a tall, almost gaunt creature. Exoskeletal ribs like Sachiel, its limbs white as death, but its torso chimerically splashed with red.
Neither creature seems to posess a core.
"MAGI has labeled the left (white, gaunt) Israfel Lambda, and the right (black, stocky) Israfe-Sigma!"
Israfel-Lambda stands up fully, still a bit wobbly from the whole 'being born' thing, and two nacelle-shaped bone protrusions burst from its back, glowing cherenkov blue as it begins to slowly levita-
VREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEM!
And a charred and burning Israfel-Lambda is unceremoniously blown back into the sea, leaving a wake in the water as it is punted into the shallows by the explosion of Unit 00's full-power shot.
"Huh?" Asuka's voice rings out over the otherwise dead quiet comm. "Oh... Right!" Unit 02 now also goes in for the attack. "German fencing school, bitch!" Asuka doesn't say it, but she's thinking it as she raises the Lance high above her head. She coaxes Unit 02 to take a flying leap at the stocky, almost dwarflike parody of Israfel that is still standing, intending to to split the Angel in half again, skull to tailbone this time.
But Israfel-Sigma crosses his arms in front of his face as the blade comes down. Its hands, shaped almost like jagged shovels, glitter in the midday sun as they block, and stop, the First Ancestral Race's finest.
"Material seems to be- The fuck? A carbon crystalline lattice..." Aoba reads out with an incredulous deadpan.
"DIAMOND!? How, what-" Ritsuko sputters impotently.
"Doesn't matter. REI, ASUKA, SWITCH TARGETS!" Misato shouts out, balling her fist because she knows her instructions are easier said than done.
Israfel-Sigma pushes its arms up, forcing the Lance's blade back, and with a glass-on-glass wail, the Lance's blade slides along the edge of Israfel's claws, coming loose only to almost rebound into Unit 02's face.
Almost.
Unit 02 shifts its grip, and Asuka changes the weapon's arc of motion into a sideways slash. Again, Sigma parries.
But now the Lance is off to the side, and the Angel is left wide open. It only takes a grand kick for Israfel-Sigma to fall flat on its ass.
After sinking to the bottom of Tokyo Bay and taking a few seconds to regenerate, Israfel-Lambda bursts back out of the water, levitates vertically for a moment, and then dashes back to the beach at full speed, flying just above the water's surface and extending his AT-field into a bubble to create a tremendously intimidating spray in its wake.
Just before it reaches land, it even hits land, Lambda's AT-field is neutralized and a full-gallop Unit 01 delivers a hammerblow of a punch to the Angel's face.
"BOOM!" Asuka shouts passionately, and Shinji grins as he hears the remark. Then he picks the dazed Israfel-Lambda out of the shallows by its neck and starts slamming Unit 01's other fist into its torso a few times, trying to find the-
PZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZEW!
An crash of crimson sparks is all Shinji can see for a moment, then the trinity of entities that make up Unit 01 are sent tumbling end-over-end through the shallows. At the behest of Yui, the computers compensate and Shinji regains enough equillibrium to stop himself and pull up into a crouch as he rolls up the beach.
"New contact. Designation: Israfel-Delta"
Israfel-Lambda had done more than just regenerate in those few seconds underwater! Out of the deep end of Tokyo Bay rises another gaunt, white humanoid Angel. Unlike Lambda however, this Israfelim has a billowing membrane that provides its lift hanging around it. It almost looks like a white cloak or a labcoat.
Danny, who's stayed out of the big super-brawl for the moment, can't help but notice that Israfel-Delta is using his flying trick.
In addition to hovering high above the sea, Israfel-Delta's head seems to be entirely built around a single red eye. Another familiar feature.
Rei also seems to have noticed some similarities, as the Ectobeam Cannon's blast cuts through the air mere feet away from Delta. Delta responds in kind, its eye seems to dilate open and a beam of electric, baleful red light, thankfully far weaker than the one that knocked Unit 01 end-over-end, lances out toward Unit 00. Rei can only barely dodge, and fires a low-power shot of her own immedeately after.
Even as Unit 00 and Israfel-Delta square off in their little sniper duel, Unit 01 scrabbles back onto his feet and lunges at the diamond-clawed Israfel-Sigma, who is just getting up again as well after getting knocked down by Asuka.
Though what Shinji didn't expect was Sigma diving down and being swallowed up by the ground to evade both the red Evangelion's Lance thrust and Shinji's diving tackle.
"It BURROWS?!" He hears Misato shout in a 'not fair!' sort of tone. "Okay Unit 01, Unit 02, move slowly and deliberately but KEEP MOVING. Keep one foot on the ground at ALL times. As SOON as you feel a tremor, jump away, got it?"
"Yes Major." Shinji answers calmly. He pulls his Progressive Knife from its sheath on Unit 01's cooling pylon, and brandishes the blade the way a knife-fighter would. The way he's been taught these last few months, he could probably beat an untrained Yakuza thug in a knife-fight now. ...A very big part of Shinji is not okay with that notion, but sadly it can't be helped.
Meanwhile Asuka is slowly and carefully wading into the surf, trying to find (and then spear!) the dazed form of Israfel-Lambda. The fact that she'd be kill-stealing Shinji didn't actually cross Asuka's mind, 'making sure it's dead' being a far bigger priority. Unit 02's four-eyed face scans the gentle waves...
And then she hears an incredibly loud rumble, like an Eva-scale freight train rolling toward her. Asuka goes with her instinct and ducks, just like she'd done facing Gaghiel. A wise decision, as a pillar of swirling dirt and soil flies over her head. She turns her downward motion into a sideways one, splays out her Absolute Territory and brandishes the Lance.
"Blue Pattern detected!"
"Another one!?" Asuka bites out. They are now officially outnumbered, (not counting the Fantomen,) a little voice in her head points out.
"This one is has been tagged Israfel-Zeta. Though the MAGI is displaying it as Israfel-Seta. Correcting now." Lieutenant Maya Ibuki reports neutrally.
The Angel bursts out of the ground, a grayish thing of suprisingly average build. Its sickly slate-gray skin couldn't be more different from the original Israfel, but its silhouette is about the same. A swirling maelstrom of rock and dirt cloaks most of the monster from view.
A burst of Pallet rifle fire from Unit 01's sidearm distracts the Angel just long enough for Asuka to wind up a throw of the Lance...
She remembers Rei's warning, that, if she did this wrong, the Lance would end up in space.
Surely pinning this Angel to the ground would work, right?
But as Unit 02 reaches the apex of its lineup, it gets kicked in the back of the head by a recovered Israfel-Lambda exploding out of the sea. Telemetry reveals a psychostigmatic concussion for Asuka and some real damage to the base of Unit 02's skull.
Meanwhile, even as Unit 01 dives into the whirlstorm of soil kicked up by Israfel-Zeta in an attempt to lay a hand on the earthmoving Angel, Israfel-Sigma bursts up out of the ground behind Unit 00. Rei instantly spins around and unleashes a 38%-charged Ectobeam shot at point blank range.
Sigma hisses in pain as it flops backward, a tremendous gash across its chest.
The First Child makes the decision to ignore her sniper opponent for the moment. She takes her hands off her primary weapon and draws her progressive knife to more permanently disable the burrowing Angel.
But Delta takes the opportunity to shoot a focused beam of holy light at its chosen nemesis.
Unit 00 is lucky. Rei's decision to draw her progknife and pounce on Sigma means the energy beam merely lances through her left leg just as she dives onto her prey. Nevertheless, Unit 00's knee is severely damaged.
She buries her progknife up to the hilt into Sigma's chest (without finding the Core), then falls into a crouch and turns back to face fire their respective charged plasma blasts simultaneously.
One hellish red and crackling with electricity, one venomous, luminescent green. They collide and collapse into eachother and explode with a riotous boom above Tokyo Beach.
The cloud of dirt around Unit 01 and Israfel-Zeta is blown away by the shockwave, revealing an Angel and Eva viciously tearing at eachother with their claws. Black-tinged, oily LCL is flowing out of the Angel from many gashes and slashes and Unit 01's armor plates are showing telltale cracks.
The water around Lambda and Unit 02 is also blown away. The Angel was about to pounce on the concussed red Evangelion, in a bit of vindictive revenge for getting instantly knocked out by the Lilim monsters two times in a row now.
Asuka takes advantage of the sudden shockwave and jumps up, hidden by the spray and the shockwave.
Unit 02 rises and smashes its head into the Angel's own. As it recoils, Asuka grabs one of its glowy bone nacelle-wings and pulls as hard as she can with one hand, pushing its body away with the other. With a crack of bone, the fragile limb breaks off under the red Evangelion's unnatural strength, its blue glow instantly dimming to nothing in Unit 02's hand.
The agonized Angel steps away as its wing is shorn off by Unit 02. It seizes its moment of hard-bought freedom to slash at Asuka's power cable drifting in the water, but she responds by bonking the creature over the head with its own severed bone wing before it can reach her lifeline.
Unit 01 has thrown his adversary off him and with a burst of exertion, Shinji rolls his AT-field over Israfel-Zeta, keeping it encased in a bubble, and preventing it from either burrowing like Sigma or kicking up more dirt. "Code NOVA, repeat, code NOVA!" Shinji shouts.
Zeta attempts to scrabble back up, as if it knows what is about to happen. But Shinji clenches his fist and Unit 01's eyes glow bright red. The bubble of Unit 01's Absolute Territory shrinks around the Angel, and in the process leaves the purple Eva's direct vicinity. Unit 01's S2 engine goes to full power and the Beast, the Child and the Mother are unified in the purpose of pinning the Israfelim in place.
Finally the AT-field shatters, letting Israfel-Zeta clatter to the ground. An instant later, fragmentation shells, fired from the Pacific fleet's battleship cannons, slam into the ground around it.
Even as the cacophony of explosions shakes the very earth, An exhausted Unit 01 falls to one knee. Its core has suffered a hairline fracture from overexertion. Yui bites back a scream, and indeed, after a few lashes of electricity stab out of the purple Eva's chest, the crack in the S2-engine-containing core heals and Evangelion Unit 01 shakily stands back up.
Delta and Unit 00 simply continue to keep eachother off-balance. Even while hobbled and facing a flying foe, Rei manages to keep the upper hand. By 'wiggling' the beam of her Ectocannon, she even manages to clip the Angel a few times. Neither Sigma nor Delta has managed to get at her power cord yet.
Having gone without supervision, Sigma has burrowed back underground and now once again attempts to ambush Unit 00. But Danny and Dani Phantom have been tracking the burrowing Angel by phasing down into the ground and chasing it.
"Rei, on your six!" Dani shouts, as Danny channels a bolt of lightning from the blue sky down through Israfel-Sigma's spine just as it bursts out of the ground. The Angel's flesh actually catches fire as the thunderbolt hits.
With her rifle at only 3% charge, Rei decides to simply kick the Angel in the face, following through by violently pulling her Prog Knife out of its chest. As the Israfelim falls to the ground Dani and Danny split apart and pelt the Angel with ectoblasts from all sides.
"This Angel does not appear to have a core." Rei's statement is punctuated by Unit 00 viciously slashing apart the Angel's flesh, and both Phantoms further pummeling the open wounds, essentially maiming the Israfelim together.
Just as Misato is about to answer that at least this Israfelim is now incapacitated for the moment, the MAGI flashes a red warning onto all the viewscreens.
[Pattern Orange Detected!]
For a second time, the battle is quieted. This time, not because of some one-in-a-hundred-shots collision of energy beams, but because of a near-palpable wave of AT-field presence rolling over the scarred beach and hills that make up this battlefield. Only Rei bothers to continue fighting, finishing up her out-and-out disassembly of Israfel-Sigma's corpse.
Up on a high hill, near the edge of the crescent of sand, a pinprick of darkness expands to a swirling maw of nothingness.
"There's a strange type of spatial anomaly forming just to the south of the battlefield! The Magi is calling it a Pattern Orange but it's inconclusive, it could also be another Pattern Blue!"
Out of the Sea of Dirac, the spatial anomaly, step two Evangelions.
One, bone-white, even more gaunt than is normal for an Eva, clad in rounded, reflective armor, with an eyeless head and a maw of sharp teeth that reminds a silent Gendo and Fuyutsuki very much of the plans for the Mass Production Evangelions. The fact that it's wearing a hood and a robe-like cape might have something to do with concealment? At least this one doesn't seem to have wings.
It seems to sniff the air and lurch forward with every step. As the creature clears the anomaly, the MAGI gets a ping from the Eva's transponder and labels the deathly-white Evangelion as Unit 04.
The other, covered in angular, deep green armor with yellow trim. The gilded techno-knight's V-shaped helmet and broad shoulders are accentuated by its rigidly upright posture.
Eight narrow blade-like appendages are seemingly plugged into the creatures spine, and flutter like a bug's wings as the Evangelion walks forward.
The insectile blades are highlighted on Ritsuko's terminal by the MAGI as 'extremely significant' though neither Akagi nor the MAGI themselves can guess at their function.
Its IFF transponder is also recieved by the MAGI, revealing the second newcomer to be Evangelion Type 06.
An instant of absolute silence passes. Evangelions and Israfel-splits look quizzically at eachother. Then, with a loud animalistic whoop broadcasted on the Eva's speakers, Unit 04 jumps down and throws itself into the fray just as a mass of plants bursts out of the ground and the MAGI identifies yet another Israfel-split.
Type 06's palm smacks into its snout. It shakes its head sadly as battle recommences on the seashore below.
"Goddamnit Makinami..." Nagisa sighs dejectedly within his Entry Plug.
Asuka
(Music - Rammstein: Morgenstern)
Upon hearing the girl inside Unit 04 scream at the top of her lungs, broadcast through the speakers in her Eva (rather than the radio) and then seeing her leap into the beachside brawl of Evas and Israfels, I didn't know whether to grin or grimace.
She's got guts, but... She's surrounded on all sides. Sure enough, with Shinji still being dazed from overexerting himself (baka should be more careful...) Zeta, the pallid looking one that's been throwing around dirt, charges her. So does a wing-clipped Lambda, but I catch the cheeky bastard in the act and shoulder-chuck him into the sea instead.
Similarly, I can hear the Ectobeam Cannon going off, and loudly too. It sounds like Rei built up quite a charge, and unleashed it on her own sparring partner. But knowing the Angels, Delta-
"Delta has been crippled, unable to-" I hear the First Child say, continuing into something about not being able to fight the Angel in the water.
I exhale deeply, venting my frustration by plunging my hands so deep into Lambda's torso that a blot of blood obscures the... ah, found it. Spine.
Crack.
Right, where were? Knowing the Angels, it wouldn't be this much of a rollover, but of course we have Wondergirl the purebred pilot on her side. Shit, she doesn't even have stereo vision in that outdated cyclops of hers! Still, that's one more Angel down, at least for a little bit...
And then I see it. If Ayanami's aimbotting, then this new girl is out-and-out using TK.
No, literally. With just a theatrical push of Unit 04's hand against thin air, Israfel-Zeta is sent flying backward. The sound of a thunderclap reaches my ears, -or, ehm, Unit 02's microphones, -an instant later and I realize that is the sound a thirty-tonne Kaiju makes when finger-flicked by God.
Israfel-Zeta flips end-over-end, then lands on a still flabbergasted Unit 01. Purple and grey roll onto the dunes and grass in a tangle, all the while recommencing their fistfight.
While I could go the low road and roll my eyes at Shinji's pathetic reflexes, I remember that he and that AI-mom of his were doubled over in pain not a minute ago, and so he was probably still gathering his wits.
Nevertheless, despite the feat Unit 04 just pulled, perhaps because of the revelation that the white little god-machine looks to be perfectly capable of throwing people around from a distance, I'm scratching my head at just why its pilot jumped into the fray like this.
Hearing the Fourth Child whoop with glee as she sends a whiplike filament of white light downrange at a surfaced Israfel-Sigma, actually blowing off one of its cyan-diamond arms and forcing it back underground.
Meanwhile, I have bigger problems. I can feel the water shift around my armored feet. Lambda doesn't know how to stay dead. I absentmindedly hold out my arm, and with the sound of resonating crystal the Lance of Longinus synchs up with my AT-field and flies into my waiting grasp.
Without so much as a flourish I stab Lambda in the face (...mask) and twist the blade.
Angel dissolves into LCL, turning the sea red.
Still no core.
I still don't quite realize I've done a Force Pull on the Lance, so I hold my blade next to me and bolt onto the beach.
Before I, or anyone for that matter gets a chance to open a channel to Misato and ask what the hell we're going to do now, Unit 04's cowled head snaps up toward me and it gathers a... is that a singularity... in its hand and flings it at me!
I can only try and dodge, and just as the orb passes me (visible spatial distortion, like looking through a soapbubble. Not a real black hole, probably just AT-field madness... God I love being a genius) I notice a black-and-purple shade having formed behind me.
Israfel-Rho, as I'd later find out. No idea which of the Israfels managed to conjure THIS one into existence. It gets hit in the chest by the not-singularity, shrieks in agony for a bit as its torso collapses, and then teleports off. Shredded chunks of orange-red meat blow out of its chest as it leaves and the AT-field 'soapbubble' pops.
This is just as Delta explodes back out of the sea, accompanied by yet another Israfel. This one's on fire, and immedeately starts throwing around fireballs. (Israfel-Omega if you're curious.)
It's at this point that I realize that that... pulse the original Israfel emitted after it died scanned all of us, especially Danny and Dani, and is basically stealing all our tricks.
Danny splits into four, Dani splits into three, and they start firing off ectoblasts to keep Omega's fireballs from bombarding the beach.
...I hope Israfel still doesn't care about the Pacific Fleet. They'd be defenseless...
Shinji seems to be on top of things with Zeta. Literally. He's ripping off its muscles one by one, even while he's using his infinite-battery AT-field to keep the Kaiju from dragging him underground.
Finally, under the schwiing of the Ectobeam cannon and pattering barrage of little bitesize black holes being launched from Unit 04's open palms as it levitates just above the ground like a Starcraft High Templar, I hear Misato's voice. Like manna from the heavens, she's finally ready to give us some damn direction.
"Pilots, the situation is spiraling out of control! Unit 02, help finish off Zeta. Unit 00, and Unit 04 if you can hear me, please direct fire to Delta!"
Meanwhile, the vainglorious green form of Type 06 still stands impassively on its little hill, exuding a Batman-like aura of 'don't touch me'.
Curiously, the Angel/Angels are complying wonderfully. So is Misato, heh.
With a snort of bemused contempt, I amble up to Shinji and he seems to sense me coming. He rolls off what's left of Zeta... Less than half, wow. Little Ikari is a messy eater. I dispel my admiration/disgust (disgust of admiration?) and plunge the Lance in this Israfel drone as well.
"We've gotta find where the real core is!" I shout into the radio as yet another Israfel bursts like a waterballoon, drencing the sand in not-quite-blood.
Unit 04 halts its little flak barrage and turns, still floating, over to me. "Any idea where it could be?" The owner of 04 purrs. And the girl's voice is... interesting. Very light british accent on the Japanese. She sounds like a hungry cat. Happy bloodlust and all that. Crazy bitch.
"It's where the scanning pulse came from. Mom,- er, yeah, AI mom, can you upload the co-ordinates to everyone's HUD?" Shinji of all people answers. With a ping of 'incoming data' a virtual-reality orange sphere designates the point where Israfel's core is probably located. And my respect for that weak little Shinji, who... well, who tried to comfort me when I was having a bad day, increases another notch.
"Okay, good!" Misato exclaims with that trademark entheusiasm of someone who's making it all up on the fly. "Eh, Danny, can you phase through the- UNIT 04, LOOK OUT!"
Sigma had burst out of the ground. Its severed arm had regrown (because of course it had) and the red-brown Angel now starts doing what I'd been dreading would happen ever since Unit 04 entered the field. He starts beating the absolute crap out of her.
An attempted shock blast gets pre-empted by Sigma who simply slices Unit 04's hand off at the wrist just as the plastic Eva's AT-field coils. Then he elbows the Eva in the jaw with its other arm, and follows that up by kicking one of its little legs so hard the femur audibly shatters like the world's biggest turkey sternum.
As if to punctuate this sudden turn (and very probably waiting in ambush) a purple, corrupting-looking noxious cloud of gas and fibrous moss explodes out of the ground to envelop Rei, while I am suddenly in the crosshairs of a re-emerged Rho, who is charging a cross-blast JUST out of reach of throwing my Lance or a good old-fashioned charge.
Then a lot of things start to happen very quickly
Shinji leaps beside me just as I decide to extend my AT-field to try and block the cross-blast. My cable gets severed as I don't focus on the field's shape, only its strength, but that soon wouldn't matter. Anyway, Unit 01 and Unit 02 synchronize their AT-fields, (or rather, as I'd later find out, Shinji just went all the way across the aisle and attuned to me) and as we tank Israfel-Rho's cross-blast, our minds touch for the briefest instant.
I see that Unit 01's AI isn't really an AI at all. It's the actual, genuine Yui Ikari. I know this in my heart, because my nervous system was in direct communion with hers. (And Shinji's, but I can freak out about that later). My buried memory of meeting her in the GEHRIN-Japan daycare, so very long ago, is coupled by an image of a sheepish-looking Yui in a labcoat waving at me and giving a flustered smile.
"Hi Asuka... Eh, oops?"
Indeed.
But at that same timeless moment, I also see that little Shinji had a very bright idea when he rushed over to help me instead of Rei.
With no small amount of entheusiasm, I hurl the Lance through Israfel-Sigma's chest, while Shinji shouts louder than I've ever hird him before.
"04, free 00!"
Lance goes shnik through the stocky Angelkin's chest (and gets stuck in because I chose that to happen, not that I realized that), throwing it off the mangled and profusely bleeding plastic Eva.
Without hesitation, Mari raises her one still halfway-intact arm and with a flash of light that seems to halfway melt the lightweight polymer armor on 04 (I did say 'plastic Evangelion'), a storm of force, almost like a tornado, snaps Unit 00 loose of the fibrous webbing.
Rei stumbles forward, puts weight on her wounded leg, crashes down and lets herself roll down to the beach.
Now if that would've been the end of it, that would've been nice. But Delta and Omega come divebombing in and start punching Shinji and me, respectively, in the face even as we're still falling down to the ground.
As I try and fight back, I hear a panicked Danny shout that the Core is phased in a way that he can at least see if he's phasing, but still can't touch!
I later heard that Dani had apparently tanked not one but TWO of Delta's red lightning lasers and dropped into the sea, out cold.
Sigma has pulled the Lance out of his chest and thrown it onto the sand before approaching the shattered Unit 04, and Rho and the purple gooey one (Kappa, of all designations) are circling Rei.
As the Lance clatters on the sand and I take another punch to the Eva-face, I can't help but think we might be just a little bit boned.
And it seems I'm not the only one who thinks so. "Fiver! You albino asshole! HELP ME! HELP US!" I hear Makinami scream. Though she sounds more annoyed than agonized.
One second passes. Two... Three...
Crack goes Unit 02's skull, even as I get my claws on Israfel-Omega's fire-wreathed facemask and start to pull.
(2:44)
With the sound windchimes and a harmonizing church choir, Type 06's eight blade-wings suddenly extend outward and project what are unmistakably four pairs of glowing golden wings of exactly the same kind Unit 01 manifested when it blew up half the Geofront.
I can feel the... static electricity(?) build in the atmosphere, and with a tremendous whoosh, the green, caped Type 06 with the V-shaped helmet now has a halo on its head and is floating just an inch above the ground, wings emitting almost-blinding waves of warm rainbow light.
"Soul and body."
"Wanderer..."
"It's perfectly okay to throw SEELE the middle finger and save your damn friends. You're one-third of God but... you're also human..."
Kaworu Nagisa smiles faintly and Type 06 teleports into the middle of the beach with a violent blast of displaced air and sand.
The green Eva pulls back his armored fist and, enveloped in the nimbus of absolute power, shatters young Israfel's hidden core.
Shards of ruby glass and a lake of LCL spills onto the beach, but before anyone could even blink at the spectacle, Type 06 teleports to each of the Israfel drones in turn, stares them down, and with a slash of its wing-blades, a blast of cross-shaped light or simply sheer telekinetic might, tears them into pieces. One after the other is obliterated under the incarnate Evangelion's gaze. The body of ADAM. The soul and body of ADAM.
They would be no more trouble.
And just like that, in a dizzingly rapid series of flashes across the whole battlefield, the remains of the Seventh Angel are so much LCL and offal.
Briefly, the green Eva pauses to look down upon the obliterated, but probably still salvageable Unit 04.
Inside her Entry Plug, bleeding from a bunch of places and probably needing a few muscles reattached, Mari grins.
"Thanks, sexy." She breathes out hard. "I understand the... consequences... of what you just did. Good luck, bunny-kun."
Mari finally lets herself pass out from the loud, loud song of pain thrumming in her head.
Without further fanfare except the twisted and in places molten sand, Type 06 teleports away one final time, destination unknown.
While basically everyone at NERV, even Ikari, stands slack-jawed at the display, even as they rally the emergency services for cleanup and retrieval of four Evas, somewhere deep within Terminal Dogma, a vat containing a single eye on a piece of slowly growing skin, blinks. "Rise, my child, and become legend."