This Chapter has been edited for your enjoyment!

(A/N Okay, so what if it's not saturday. I got impatient and you all get the benefits. So enjoy my first action scene as well as a look into the true nature of this story...NOT! This is only the beginning.)

Disclaimer: I don't own Halo, Evangelion, or Ace Combat. My armies are making there final preperations though and soon, I shall liberate these three things. mwahahahahahah!!!

Chapter 3

Awakening and Arrival

The void, a vast darkness, an emptiness that spans on forever, a place where one goes when they have nowhere else to run. I would much rather avoid its imprisoning ties, but I seem to find myself drawn back here time and time again. However, it appears that this time I've been pulled back involuntarily. I can't even remember what I was doing just before I ended up here. Everything just seems so far away, almost as if it's trying to reach out and pull me back through the way I came, but I'm too far out. What can I do now? I'm stuck here, bound by invisible chains, unable to move or even feel my own body. But I can hear some sounds, barely audible and roaring off from a distance. A small peck of light illuminates the far edge of this black shell. The light remains motionless, bound to a single point at the edge of this existence.

Yet the sounds are starting to get louder and a tiny image in the light begins to grow. I squint to ascertain the picture in the window of light. It looks like the cockpit to an Eva. Yes, it is, but I can't quite piece together the whole picture. It looks like there is light, an endless tube of white and blue just beyond the control panel. The image seems to be growing at a greater pace, enveloping my field of vision. It gets so close I swear I can almost reach out and touch it. The image continues to grow in size and shrink in distance ever more rapidly as it…

LCL is sucked deep into my lungs as I immediately burst upright in my seat. The alarms ring uncontrollably as the shaking tosses me around. Emergency monitors pop up all over the place, trying to tell me exactly what's wrong. I immediately reach for the control yokes at my sides in a desperate attempt at gaining back what little control I had to begin with. Gripping the controls, I yank them in a counter-intuitive motion to try and maintain stability. A flashing light in the upper left-hand corner of my helmet's HUD informs me that my armor has been switched to full capacity due to my recent incapacitation.

What could have made me fall unconscious like that? It takes a lot of force to simply daze a Spartan, but a near impossible amount to knock one out. What if the rumbling is really that powerful? Than who's to say it won't happen again in the near future? What would become of me should I lose touch with reality again? Maybe it was just a one time occurrence! I need to concentrate, focus only on navigating this endless stream of light. There's no sense in worrying about the unpreventable, so I just need to forget about it.

I look forward out the main viewer once again, finding something to have just shifted a moment before. The light begins to dim and the endless tube that encases my Eva starts to spread and fade as well. Taking advantage of this prime opportunity, I use my helmet's electronic binocular feature to zoom in and look for any signs of the other Evas. Exiting the now soft glowing light, I manage to catch three shadows flashing out where the tube of light had recently blocked my field of vision.

The light still continues to fade, gradually replaced by a background of black, speckled with the twinkling of stars. The three shadows shift closer into a better view and, with help from the reflections of a seemingly far-off source of yellow light, are more than affirmed as being the other Evas.

"The others made it as well." I speak to myself with an inward sigh of relief.

The reunion of the group is shortly followed by 3 requests for communication, all of which are marked as 'urgent'. And, with the whole ordeal that just happened, they're a bit overdue for a chat with me…and I to them.

"Captain, you're alive!" Edge is first to come up on screen, looking almost purely ecstatic.

"We lost contact with you early in the jump and couldn't relocate you with all the interference." Swordsman and his deep booming voice pops up next, his confidence and professionalism seemingly unaffected by the separation.

"I was really worried there captain. I thought we lost you back there." And last, but not least, Archer, admitting to his early doubt and skepticism about the jump.

Yep, these are my pilots, the friends who have stuck by my side through odds such as these. They're a little worrisome at times, but I still wouldn't trade them in for anything else because within them, beneath each of their surfaces, lies the heart of a warrior. They are all strong, swift, and brave, just as any Spartan should be.

"Well, it'll be more than one crazy ride through hell for you guys to lose me. I'm just glad to see you all made it here in one piece." My response is followed by three sighs of relief, the tension flowing from their bodies at the sound of my voice. But, as a rule of thumb, it's back to business once everyone's been confirmed as combat capable.

"So…where are we exactly?" Archer inquires.

" I don't know, but it sure as hell isn't where we started from!" Swordsman's doesn't answer the question, but it does make a valid point…where was this jump to exactly?

"Um, guys. You ought to take a look at this." Edge speaks up immediately follows by opening a Video Link. I notice she's looking in an upward direction compared to where she's drifting.

So, following her advice I peer straight upward. I quickly take a deep breath and hold on to it as I stared in disbelief. The sight before me just has me in awe, causing me to gape in disbelief and feel pissed off at the same time.

I slam the control panel with my fist! What in god's name are we doing orbiting the Earth. We were launched approximately 500 light-years away from Earth, so don't tell me that our jump through that hell-hole was all for naught.

"Um…Captain, are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Archer begins rambling, probably didn't hear Nagase when she said it.

"Yeah Grimm, I see the Earth, what about it?"

"N-N-NO captain, I m-mm-mean that over there." Through the new video-link, Grimm stumbles over his words as he points off to the planet's horizon.

I shift in my seat in order to look off toward where Grimm is pointing. However, once my eyes lock and focus, I find myself at a loss for words as well. My sight betrays me as I catch sight of an impossibly large pale-white apparition standing over the Earth. Between her two ghostly palms, she holds what appears to be a large black orb, floating in the blackness of space.

"What in God's name is that thing?" I continue to stare, my mind still trying to get a grasp on the scope of the situation.

"I couldn't even hazard a guess! But whatever it is, it certainly can't be any good for us." Swordsman sounds no more confident about the whole ordeal than we do.

"I'd bet that's the source we've been looking for. My god, it's enormous. How are we going to capture something like that?" Archer shakes his head as he too, sits and watches.

"Figures, securing something with this much power would have been too easy. What do you think we should do about it now?" As for me, tan out of ideas the moment I saw that thing. No, there's got to be another way!

"Look, something's happening!" Edge screams, pointing off toward the apparition.

At that moment, the thing seems to violently ark back. Wings shoot off into the sky from along her back. These wings, as white as her body itself, seem to fill up the entire sky. The wings stop growing, but her hands never leave their place beside the black orb. As the wings suddenly stopped growing, the ghost woman remains entirely still. Straying my gaze away from the enormous wings, my sight finds its way right next to the black orb as the Earth itself starts to turn a blood red just where the sphere was hovering over. The blood red coloring continues to spread across the planet's surface as crosses spring up in its wake.

"Oh my god." Edge nearly chokes as she covers her mouth, or where it would be if she weren't wearing a helmet.

I look onward in horror as the spreading coloration reaches the part of Earth which lies beneath us, with crosses sprouting out of the red soil, all reaching up towards us in orbit. I swear I can hear the screams of people being wiped out as the tidal wave of crosses wipes them from the planet. It's awful, the cry of millions of desperate people suddenly extinguished as they fade away into the night. Small lights that dot the surface, probably city lights, begin to wink out as the wave of red engulfs them.

I look over to Edge's com link in sadness, wondering what she could possibly be thinking. Shortly into this line of thought, the video screen winks out, replaced by a static image.

"Edge, I've lost you, is everything all right?" Swordsman, probably noticing the same thing, calls out in concern.

"AAAAGH!!!" Edge screams at the top of her lungs, "What are these things!!? GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME!!! DON'T COME ANY CLOSER!!!

I hear gunshots from the background, but I can't understand why she'd pull her pistol, much less what she would be shooting at from way up here. A window monitoring her psychograph pops up in front of me and the readings it gives are all but encouraging. The lines slowly climb off the scale, increasing in direct relation to the fury held deep within her screams. They flow further off the edge of the charts and becoming more erratic as her gunshots continue to increase in rapidity. Than, as suddenly as they had began, the readings ceased and her psychograph flat-lined.

"Edge, what's going on over there!!? Edge respond! Come in Edge, answer me Goddammit!" My cries go out, but find nothing in return. What the hell just happened, everything seemed fine just a minute ago…

More screams follow through the com link as Archer's and Swordsman's graphs pop up in place of Edge's. But not only that, their Evas have started to move as well. They seem to be reaching for their own heads, grasping at it as if something is causing the Evas a great deal of pain. I can only watch as their communications shut down and all transmissions from the Evas cease, flushed out in the blink of an eye.

Dammit, guess that's it for me. I'm completely screwed now. Everything that could have gone wrong just did, with change to spare.

Okay, why go over the list as well? Well, I've just fallen out of contact with my allies who are giving off no signs of life to speak of. There's a giant ghost woman a thousand miles off in the distance who is somehow the cause of my worries! My energy capacitors are currently at 35 and draining, so I can only assume I have about 15 minutes of power left. And finally, whatever just took out my comrades will probably come for me next and surely share their fate with me. Yup, that pretty much sums it up, unless someone would like to add to the list?

And of course, as if to answer that cry and add to this luck streak, the monitors for the other 3 Evas pop back up. Only this time, it isn't their psycho-graphs, it's their…

"Nerve connections and neuron read-outs," I read aloud as they pop up in front of me, "The Evas are still functioning, even after their pilots have been incapacitated. That can only mean…SHIT!"

And shit is right. S-Unit 3 reactivates with a red glow in its eyes as it slowly lifts its right arm and reaches for something along its back. I know what it's going for though, the Marasawa Mk III it carries as its primary armament. The Unit unlimbers the Marasawa and slowly brings it to bear, turning to face me and my S-Unit 1.

"Oh god…Snow…Snow, if you're there, please respond!" I cry out hoping it's just a case of temporary insanity.

But there's no response in return! Nothing comes back over the com system as I see a soft blue glow emanate from the barrel of the Marasawa. Quickly, I pull up the control yokes and command the Eva to charge the over-boost. I hear it winding up in the back but the glow of the Marasawa finally reaches its brightest. The boosters still haven't kicked in!

"Well, it's now or never, either I move or I die at the hands of my own comrade!" I scream in futility at the Eva, desperately yanking the controls to make something happen.

The beam of light shoots from the barrel, traveling towards me at a rocketing pace that can't be matched. I have only one hope now! I close my eyes for the inevitable as the light grows brighter. Suddenly, I'm forced off to the side of my seat as I'm sent barreling off to the right of S-Unit 3. The laser blast passes by, but the plasma shockwave pushes me back.

I tumble through space, keeping the boosters warm while using them to straighten out my Eva. Staring right back at S-Unit 3, I consider my options while the Marasawa cools and recharges. The way I see it, it all boils down to this:

1) I can use my Eva's superior speed to get around the Marasawa's fire. If I time it right, I can be right on top of S-Unit 3 and can completely destroy it from close range. However this is very risky towards my comrade and I owe it to myself as his commander to try and conserve his life and if at all possible, prevent as much pain as possible.

2) The other option is to try and get around to the Unit's back panel and try and release its entry plug. However, this put me at risk from the Marasawa and if I can't time it well enough trying to get the Eva's back, than I'll be blown back to my maker. This is the option I would like to pull off if I could but can I really do it?

Deciding quickly, I fire the boosters and move head-on towards S-Unit 3, using all the power my boosters can possibly give. The glowing from his rifle's cooling system stops and I realize that this can only mean one thing and that one thing is bad news for me. Using the pedals at my feet, I push them in such a way as to move the boosters on my back so that they pointed to the right. G-forces crush against my body as I struggle to keep up with my sudden change in vector. The movement is not a moment too soon as another laser blast flashes by to the right.

Re-maneuvering the boosters and bracing myself for the impending forces, I straighten out my flight path straight towards S-Unit 3. The enemy Eva fires up its own boosters and flies off to my left, trying to get an angle for another shot! It tries to get above me as well, but I swing the boosters in order to send me upwards. With more G-forces pressing down on me, I quickly gain on the retreating Eva. The distance between us shrinks as I maneuver in for the kill. However, just feet away from the Eva, it suddenly aims the Marasawa right at my Eva from point blank range. I can't believe I fell for that god-awful and obvious trap.

"Dammit, MOVE," I yell in final desperation as I try to force my Eva to overshoot the Marasawa. It works, just barely, as I fly right over the barrel. It fires right as I finish my pass, with the shockwave sending me flying away from my intended target. Straightening up again, I use the gap between firing as my chance to get in close. Aiming the over-boost back towards S-Unit 3, the strong G-Forces return as I flip directions in almost less than a second, all while trying not to pass out.

I hurtle at top speed towards the enemy as it desperately tries to get in one last shot at me, but the shot would not come. Spinning around just after grasping S-Unit 3, I wrap my left arm around its neck from behind to keep it from moving. With my right hand, I tear away the metal covering that houses the Entry Plug. The Entry Plug comes up smoothly and stops just half-way out, but is more than enough to stop the Eva from functioning.

"Well, now that that's over…GAH!" I feel it, but I can't believe it. Something is wrapping itself around my waist and squeezing harder with each passing second. Finding it getting harder to breathe, I look down to find the cause. Two bright-red energy whips are wrapped around my Eva's waist, trying to both crush and melt the armor there. Looking back behind me, I locate the culprit, S-Unit 2, holding both the whips in its hands as it pulls harder on the end, causing the whips to constrict further.

"Great, first I had to fight Swordsman and now Edge! Next thing you know I'll have Archer on me too."

I noticed something block out the sun above me and quickly hover toward me. I squint at the new shadow, with its own blood red eyes staring back at me. It's holding something over its head, preparing to strike me as it rapidly descends toward S-Unit 1.

"Well, now S-Unit 4 is trying to kill me. This fight just got much harder!"

Quickly separating myself from S-Unit 3, I fling away just in time to allow S-Unit 4 to pass right between us. This also seems to loosen the grip of the whips S-Unit 2 has on me, forcing the Eva to pull them back in. The whips retract, shortening to such a length so that they look more like short swords than whips. The armor along my left thigh opens up, revealing a new weapon. I take out a progressive knife from my left thigh holster and hold it with my right hand. The blade extends from its encasing and begins to glow white.

With S-Unit 2 as my next target, I charge the Over-boost and burst rapidly over towards the Eva's location. Noticing this, the Eva launches the whip in its right hand out towards me. I adjust the boost so that I swing out to the right of the attack, having it miss me by just 2 feet as it slips between two of the wings on the left. A message pops up, warning me about a target approaching from behind. Choosing to ignore it I put all of my focus on my primary target.

S-Unit 2 now throws out its left hand whip, which quickly approaches. I repeat my maneuver, only to have it go in the opposite direction, yielding similar results to before. In apparent desperation, S-Unit 2 throws both whips in my direction at the same time. With not much distance and very little time to react, I quickly cock the control yokes upward, sending S-Unit 1 into a forward roll. The world in my main viewer screen changes colors, blurring between deep red and black as the two whips slide along my back, giving a slight burning sensation as the energy of the whips melts away my Eva's armor. However, with the danger now under me, I slam my right foot into S-Unit 2's face. Using my remaining momentum, I slide over S-Unit 2 and use my left hand to grab its right shoulder. After I feel my Eva's hand latch on to the shoulder, I pull its back right alongside my Eva's torso and use the carried momentum in my right arm to cut off the hatch covering the Entry Plug. The entry plug slides up just like S-Unit 3's and the Eva ceases to operate.

"Two down, one to go." Whispering to myself, I peer up over S-Unit 2's now limp body. Than I remember the warning about the attack from behind, but now that I'm facing the other way, it now applies to the front! I push S-Unit 2 away to try and get as much distance as possible from it as S-Unit 4 swiftly approaches from out front. It begins to swing the sword that it's carrying, to which I raise my Prog-knife in a last ditch effort to defend myself. The sword impacts the Prog-knife with deadly force, but it holds together…for half a second, before shattering into a thousand pieces. With my remaining left hand, I try to catch the sword, to which I'm greeted with the sting of the sword's piercing blade. The sword begins to slice into my Eva's hands, as I too feel every waking bit of it. I use my now Knife-less hand to assist the other one in this losing struggle. It won't be long before S-Unit 4's sword completely cuts down through my hands, so I boost backwards in an attempt to gain some distance. This fails as S-Unit 4 Over-boosts towards me, quickly shutting the small gap I had created.

Scanning the movements of the Eva, I stare in fear of the end…of death. I raise my arms up in hopes that they'll stop the blade, but even I know that's pointless. As S-Unit 4 raises its sword for the killing blow, it lunges forward only to be stopped mere inches from my outstretched arms by a bright glowing orange wall of energy.

"All right, so the Technicians weren't lying about the AT-field. Now I'll use it to save my comrade." I stare in awe at what I had just created…and I also feel sorry for calling the technicians back home crazy for telling me about the AT field. When I glance back though, S-Unit 4's sword begins to stretch into the field, attempting to tear at the only thing keeping me from being cut in two. Using the time I have just bought for myself, I boost off to the right just as my field goes under. S-Unit 4 over-swings and goes barreling past me with all its excess momentum. Finally given the opportunity, I boost over and latch onto the Eva's back. S-Unit 4 tries to put up a struggle but ceases as I tear off the hatch for the Entry Plug, once more letting it slide up and out into the open.

With the threat to myself finally gone, I sit back in my seat. A trembling starts as the adrenaline hits the bloodstream. Is it really over? …Well, at least I managed to keep the others safe…I hope. I try to relax and convince myself everything will be okay when I hear an annoying beeping sound.

"Now what!!?" But before I can find out where it's coming from, the beeping ceases as the viewing screens around me phase out. With the power out, I'm left sitting inside of a practically empty Entry Plug with nothing but iron colored walls to stare at. I wonder what's going on, as I hear another noise, but not like the beeping prior to this sudden shutdown. No, this sounded more like…

"A giggling little girl?" And this proves to be more than I can imagine as a bunch of figures, similar to the white giant we had seen earlier, start slipping into my Plug…naked and continuously giggling as they slowly approach me.

"What the…What the hell are these things? Get the hell away from me…!"

But they don't listen, still giggling and floating ever closer. I reach for my pistol as a warning, but a hand slowly descends on my arm. Startled at the sudden contact, I look over to my left to find Edge sitting next to me with her helmet off. Her pale skin glows, complimented by her light brown hair.

"Nagase…what are you…?"

But before I can finish, she puts her finger to her lips, shushing me. I fall silent as she puts her hand on my helmet. Slowly, she lifts it off and, before I can protest, presses her lips to mine. Everything grows lighter as I'm lifted from my seat and than…the whole world goes white…

(A/N Okay, I think I fixed all the errors, but we'll just see, until I decide to put up chapter 4: After Impact. (I don't own J.Alana's After Impact...it was the only name I could come up with! But I love that Story)