Evangelion: Continuum Chapter 11, an evangelion fanfic

Evangelion: Continuum

By Daetor

Chapter 11: The war truly begins

Disclaimer: Don't tell me that you STILL don't get it...

A/N: Ok, here's the next chapter, it's a miracle that I was able to get it out at all, so I might have let more mistakes slip through or have more formatting problems caused by FF(dot)Net's filters and so on. The chapter is slightly shorter than the rest of them so far, but it should be ok. For those of you also reading "Children of Angels", the next update to that one should come in with the next chapter of this one. I wanted to get it out with this one, but real life has a very annoying way of getting in my way...

Hope you like this, so send me some opinions, now on with the story...

It was the whole fleet, something that no one in Sanctuary or outside of it had ever seen fully assembled, now complete when joining the stray ships and mechs that had fled on their own. Misato was literally mouth gaping, never in her entire life had she seen such a display of power just by floating there in the sky.

The flag ship of the fleet made contact with their command ship and one of the techs put it on screen more because of reflex than any normal reaction.

"Commander Katsuragi, Sir Black Knight, what are your orders?" asked the communications officer from the ship. "The fleet is prepped and ready for combat."

"Wha?" Misato said, not even a full question. Her mind was trying to figure out what the fleet was doing here, how were these THINGS taken from a sci-fi movie even possible, what he meant with the commander bit and what she should say… all at the same time.

"Could you please explain what is going on?" The Black Knight asked, obviously more used to such strange things due to his the longer time spent in Sanctuary.

"Yes… she did say you might not understand what's going on…" The officer said thoughtfully, looking as if he was sending some commands in his console. "I've been told to put this on in case you asked."

The screen flickered as a recording was played to them. The screen switched to showing Sarah looking rather haggard and tired, it was obvious that whatever happened after they left took its toll on her. Misato didn't know if she should pity the woman or say that she got what she deserved for avoiding to do her job properly in that situation. So her life had been royally screwed by John's death and whatever else happened to her, big deal, she should have gotten over it and done her job. That was Misato's opinion, who as a soldier knew that during war, you had to set your grief aside for when the war was over not during it when lives could be lost due to inactions.

"Ok, I'll be as brief as I can… I'm not sure if I'm doing the right thing here, but, I'm mobilizing the entire fleet under your command. It's literally ALL that Sanctuary produced over the centuries, all of our soldiers and all of our war orientated resources. The fact is right now I have two options, leaving you out there to do who knows what and possibly lose any chances of winning because I have no way of commanding all of these troops effectively and I don't think the officers that were left are prepared either. Or… I could send you two these forces, and hope that you two re as good as the rumors say you are. Frankly, for me it's a no win situation either way… but I think that seeing all that John invested in those two kids, this is the least I can do…" Sarah took a brief pause, looking like she was placing the rest of her thoughts in order.

"These powers are driving me insane… I understand better than ever WHY John doesn't want those people to succeed… They would gain far more power than this and they would lose their minds for sure, damning all of humanity as a result. As much as I wish I could use them to aid you out there, I can't extend my influence outside the sea of Dirac and if I leave, Sanctuary would be destroyed for the most part. All I can do is ensure that the fleet arrives at your location all at the same time with a minimal delay, ensuring that if things do go wrong, at least they'd be able to react immediately. So, do what you must and get rid of those four monsters, they have caused too much pain to the world, I think it was time they were paid back for all that pain!"

The screen flickered once more, the face of the communications officer returning. "That was all of it, ma'am, Sir, what are your orders?" He then waited patiently for them to decide whatever they wanted to decide, it was painfully obvious that his new superiors weren't prepared for this turn of events, then again, who would have been.

"Wait up there while we get these ships prepped and ready then we'll join you." Misato said, ideas rushing through her head. She might not know the full capacity of the fleet, but she did know how to use troops in battle and with the Black Knight explaining everything she needed to know about the Sanctuary forces, she could proceed to get a plan ready and make sure that SEELE paid for all the suffering they caused. "We have a lot of plans to make…"

It was about 12 hours later when the fleet was on the move, Misato's first move was to get all of those ships outside German airspace and into orbit before anything else happened. Those people might not know what Sanctuary was, but you didn't have to be a genius to realize that it was a fleet of warships, so, it would be safe to assume that they would cause panic. Already a lot of people were talking about an alien invasion and stuff like that. Some were even saying that the angels had been merely scouts for the real force of aliens that were meant to destroy humanity.

Of course, the soldiers on board of those ships were laughing their heads of while listening to the news reports around the globe. They were all currently in orbit, hidden from the view of satellites or anything else that might be looking for them with the help of the cloak ships in the fleet. Where else to hide then where no one can reach you? Obviously, there were other factors that lead to this course of action. They had more to deal with than simply not looking as a threat for the whole world, that was certain.

All the while Misato, the Black Knight, Asuka and several officers had been busy discussing their next move. With this fleet and SEELE going in hiding, they could probably make one decisive strike if all of the bastards were in the same place.

So, the end plan was simple but hopefully efficient. First of all they needed to locate the four heads of SEELE that were the source of all this trouble. This was another one of the reasons they were in orbit, it was far easier to look for something from space, especially with sensors like theirs. That was Asuka's department, all she had to do was locate an area that was heavily protected by AT fields against any conventional type of scanning. They suspected that SEELE might try to set up decoys with the use of the Evas in several locations around the world in their hidden bases, but apparently that was not the case.

Asuka scanned all of the bases given to them on the list with her amplified senses, the ships in the fleet even had devices that were used to further amplify this type of abilities, this being the way in which most of the sensors worked. All conventional sensors would have been fully blocked by even basic AT fields, so apparently the Sanctuary forces ignored standard sensor arrays altogether on their ships at least. That also ensured that no human without knowledge of how to use an AT field could ever operate these things. Also, as proven a long time ago by Shinji in his Eva, any kind of technology based sensors were useless in a Dirac Sea which quite literally defied several laws of physics when studied in its depths.

Though, even with those excellent sensors, it seemed like SEELE had made a full withdrawal from all of the bases that was on the list extracted from Gendo's mind. Which made no sense if you really looked at it… how could so many forces and tons of equipment vanish in so little time? Normally someone could say that it was impossible, but then again, Asuka could have said the same about what happened during Third Impact and it still happened.

She was about to give up on her search when her mind found something, in a different location. It was an area heavily shielded by AT fields, a lot of them too, too many to be able to take that place out with orbital bombardment. Asuka wondered what was so special about that location around the Equator, the computer answered for her as she requested the analysis of the data.

The area was one of the best spots on Earth for the launch of a space ship, but aside from that, there was no other useful information about the location. The fact that it was in the middle of an ocean with no odds of there being an island there didn't really make it look like the kind of place to make a permanent base. Still, with the kind of powers SEELE had at their disposal, Asuka wouldn't be surprised if she found an entire military facility there.

"I think we have enough Asuka… You can stop." Misato said from behind her while looking at the screen which displayed the data. This was enough for them to get the operation going to its next steps, at least for now.

"So… that's where the bastards are hiding… and it looks like they gathered everything they own there." Asuka said, disconnecting from the sensor array and relaxing a bit. "What do you think that they're planning to do from that place?"

"They might try to make a run for it." Misato said, thinking about the computer's assessment of the data. "I doubt they like being cornered and they don't know that Shinji is out of it for now."

"I'm not sure how he is now…" Asuka said. "I'm getting this feeling of incredible anger from him, I'm not sure what the hell is going on, but he's doing something right now and I have no idea what."

"We still can't count on him for the battle." Misato replied, taking what Asuka said into account and hoping that Shinji would return safely. Still this was not the time for such worries. "It looks like we'll have to go with our full forces to them. I don't like giving them home field advantage, but we really have to make sure that those bastards don't get away."

"So, what's your proposal then?" One of the officers in the meeting asked. "Surely we're not going to charge in there blindly?"

"No, I want scout drones sent, as many as we can afford to get as much data as possible. I want to know what defenses they have, how many troops and if possible to find out where in that base are those bastards hiding." Misato said, as all wise tacticians she knew that you had to know your enemy before you could defeat it. "Also, we're moving the fleet in geo-stationary orbit above their base, just in case they try to move out before we're ready to strike, we'll try to intercept them like this. Though, I wouldn't want to give them any chance of escape."

Several agreements came from the officers of the fleet, the Black Knight remained silent along with Asuka, there was no reason to dispute this plan and it wasn't as if SEELE could run away to another location on Earth without them noticing and descending on them like birds of prey. The real question was if they could truly defeat those armies in time, or if they could truly defeat the four bastards when thy reached them.

The four surviving SEELE members were waiting more or less patiently for the completion of their preparations for their departure from the planet. Even they knew when a tactical retreat was in order, they didn't survive for so long by being stupid and reckless after all. They were sure that they would escape, but they were still afraid more or les of the two Children that held such incredible powers in their hands. It seemed like a cruel joke that their mentor would leave his powers in the hands of someone else instead of allowing them to complete their plans, then again, they did intend to betray him.

"Hm… here's something odd…" Keel said. "Wait… those are sensor drones and some are pulling in close." He was currently in the control room of that impromptu launch base and factory. The base had been built after Third Impact failed with the help of their powers for just such an occasion. He never expected them to need this base ever, but fate had a strange way of playing with people and after their first supposedly infallible plan did just that, they all agreed that playing it safe was the best idea.

Keel quickly alerted the others, if Sanctuary was sending sensor drones, it meant that an attack would soon follow. The sensors didn't even pick them up, it was his own power influenced senses that found one of the drones. They would have to hold out, he was confident that their forces could buy them the necessary time to get out of there. The ship was almost complete and the launch preparations wouldn't take long, he also was confident that they could dart out of anything Sanctuary could throw at them.

He knew that Sanctuary most likely had the upper hand where powers and technology was concerned, but they had the numbers of the clones and a lot of Evas, while they had only those few Avatars of theirs, which wouldn't be enough to stop them in time. It would be a very mixed up battle, but as long as the fools weren't aware of their true goal, they could succeed, and once out in space, there would be no way for them where they had gone and no way for them to make preparations that were good enough, especially if they gave them enough time to cool off.

They could easily go out there, wait a few hundred years, gather an invincible army and then return and complete their plans through other means seeing that the two Children were obviously beyond their reach right now and forever. They would have to terminate the two of them when they would return, perhaps they could achieve their plans before having to fight those two, with the power obtained like that, even those two would have no chance against them, even if that bastard John helped them.

It was more or less the perfect plan to follow with the maximum chances of success, so it was obvious why they were trying it. After all, it would not do to foolishly attempt to make a last desperate stand against forces which were so determined to defeat them. They had odds of winning, but there was nothing certain and they didn't want to tempt fate like that. Still, even this plan had its odds of failure if they couldn't maintain their defenses, he knew that all too well, but he wasn't afraid of that, he was certain they could pull it off.

The other three were just as confident in this matter, for the simple fact that they believed that there was no way that they could ever be defeated. They had endured so much and they would endure whatever else was thrown at them and they would be successful, no matter what. They had fought throughout the ages, deceiving and manipulating people for their needs, even serving people when they needed to, but they had always worked for their own agenda.

Little did they know about what was coming against them…

As soon as they got their data, the meeting was once again in progress back on the flag ship of the Sanctuary fleet. The drones encountered minimal problems from the base and all reported back more or less useful information. So, it was time to see what they had and get down there to crush their enemies once and for all.

"The base has almost no defenses of its own… only the swarms of clones and Evas are actually defending it." Asuka commented while looking over the data reported by the drones.

"It seems like it." Misato said while doing the same thing as Asuka. "They're evenly distributed and there are a lot of them too. It won't be easy because of those numbers and we have a snowball's chance in hell to take pot shots at the base with all those AT fields in the way. We'll have to take out a lot of those Evas and clones so that they can't protect the base with their fields simply because they're there. We'll also have to keep those ugly flying beasts away from the ships…"

"We'll be able to take care of that issue." One of the officers in charge with a large group of mechs said.

"Well, simple plans are the best." Misato said continuing to look over the data, there wasn't much to take into account regarding the base in itself. "So here's what we'll do. I want the mechs to keep those Evas away, focus only on them and on staying alive out there. Don't bother to actually take them out, it's to much of a hassle, unless you have a really good shot at it. Still, mostly I want the ships to use their superior fire power on their forces to take out especially the Evas. The clones will either attempt to take out the mechs, in which case we change fire on them or they'll attempt to take us out, in which case let's hope that the shields hold out along with the armor. Also, we'll be rotating, so no one ship stays too long under fire, that way they won't even get through the shields since we still have the longest range and they can't exactly follow us to keep firing on the same ships."

"Seems simple enough, but what about me?" Asuka asked, she didn't have any preferences as to what she would do, just as long as those bastards got what was coming for them.

"Well, you'll be down there with the mechs, try to take out as many Evas as you can, but don't try to attack the base to get those guys, we don't know where they are and the enemy has too great numbers to ensure that we can cover you properly." Misato said as she looked over a tactical display, she really hoped that Asuka would stick to the plan, she had witnessed a lot of changes in the girl, but she had no idea how they applied to the battlefield. "We'll go after them after we get rid of the goons. Now, I want some brain storming about the overall mech tactics."

"Well, we group them up in teams, five members each and each team will harass an Eva and cover one another." The Black Knight replied, him being the local expert in mech tactics due to John's training. "It will prevent the Evas from isolating any of them and working like that would increase efficiency."

"Sounds good enough to me." Misato said, hoping that the Black Knight was as good as his reputation said he was. "Ok, I also want our support ships to try to scan the base while also keeping a constant surveillance on the enemy forces. I want to be able to know what they're doing in real time no matter where on the battlefield. I want the cloak ships to stay in the back and project their shields up front to lessen the assault on the front ships. I hope that this will be a short battle, but I have no idea exactly how resilient those bastards are."

"They didn't seem too tough to me, but I have different methods than the rest of you or the ship's cannons." Asuka said, thinking about her previous encounters with these strange new versions of the Eva series, at a certain level they were better, at least in the weapon department, but they still seemed less resilient compared to a more traditional Evangelion. "I wish I could say that I know how they'll react to your weapons, but I have no idea."

"Don't worry, all of our weapons were designed to fight against things with AT fields, from the mechs to the flag ship." The Black knight replied, sharing his insight on Sanctuary weapons, which were based on the weapons developed in the great war back on the Old Earth. "The problem is that we haven't had the chance to use them against anything else except those clones back in Tokyo-2."

"It's still better than nothing." Misato said, hoping that they wouldn't have any problems. This situation reminded her of the war with the angels, since they were often forced to work with untested equipment to some extent. "Unless anyone has any ideas, I suggest that we get this show on the road. As soon as everything is ready, we go right down on them as fast as we can. I just hope that they can't launch with us in the way…"

Everyone left from the room to prepare for the upcoming battle, hopefully, the first and only battle of the Sanctuary fleet, against the evil left behind by the wars of the Old Earth. This was in a way, the moment of truth.

The Kaworu clones and their monstrous Evangelion counterparts were standing guard patiently, expecting an attack at any moment. They didn't have to wait long, the whole fleet descended from orbit at high speed, the air burning around their shields, but not damaging them. It looked as if an apocalyptic rain of meteors was coming down on the small SEELE base. The Evas opened their wings and most of them took of as the clones readied their heavy weapons and raised their AT fields in a combined effort to protect the base from the attack.

The ships stopped quite high in the atmosphere, all of them pointing down as they opened fire on the upcoming Evangelions. From the ships swarms of war mechs flew out towards the Evas, all of them lead by a raging Asuka who was more like dropping than actually flying, scythe end of her weapon first. The first Eva that got in her way was split in two despite the fact that it used a large sword like weapon to attempt to block the attack.

Asuka spread her avatar's wings suddenly and with her AT field she literally stopped in the air while swinging her weapon and impaling one of the Eva through its left wing with the spear end. Before the Eva could pull itself free from the attack, Asuka used her powers to fry the Evangelion to a crisp, it's S2 engine exploding up front and threw of course a couple of other Evas. She then proceeded to blast the crap out of two other Evas that were distracted by the mechs, two cross flares obliterated them, leaving no trace behind, not even ashes.

She was then hit by a rain of smaller attacks from the clones bellow, but the attacks had no chance to pierce through her AT field. Asuka wasn't really the target, since the clones were not programmed idiotically enough to imagine that they could harm her even if they could get through her AT field. The problem was that she was in their way and it was hard to not hit something as big as an Eva if it wasn't moving.

Obviously Asuka had no way of knowing that and took the attack personally, so she sent two more cross blasts, only that this ones hit the combined AT field. The field managed to hold, but the whole base shook under the assault and several clones collapsed on their knees because of the strain. The Evas instantly received orders to prioritize her, but that wasn't as easy as it seemed because the teams of war mechs were doing their jobs pretty well in this situation.

"I'll show you bastards!" Asuka screamed in her avatar, and it screamed with her, the yell coming out as a monstrous voice that was both her voice and that of the Evangelion. If the Evas could have felt fear, they would have ran long ago from the battlefield.

Asuka did indeed show the Evas what she was capable of when two of them charged at her with a third trying to come from behind. She used her weapon with one hand, holding it in her left as he parried the attack from one of them. At the same time, she used her right wing as a giant blade to deflect the hit from the second and swoop in to catch it by the neck with her right hand. Before the third could strike Asuka pushed back the first one in a spinning motion and with the same move she placed the second Eva in the way of the attack.

The second Eva took the attack of the third counterpart right in chest, partly cracking its S2 as the armor and flesh covering it was torn by the blade wielded by its counterpart. Asuka had already released it and then blasted it in the back knocking it into the third, forcing them to fall in a tangled mess. That gave her just enough time to parry the second strike from the first Eva and then to blast its head and neck of with her powers. By the time the other two managed to recover and turn their attention back to her, she already launched a cross blast that turned them into nothing.

All this, took only a few moments, in the madness that begun, Asuka was moving much faster than any human could conceive and with the support of the fleet and mechs, the Evas couldn't use the advantage of their vast numbers to take her down, she was far to good for them, this time, she couldn't loose.

Toji and Kensuke were both in the same mech team and even though Toji was more or less assigned as team leader, both of them came up with ideas depending on the situation. The mechs had to be far more careful compared to Asuka, their AT fields weren't as strong and their armor couldn't take an N2 mine and survive without a scratch like she could.

The fire from the clones was dangerous and one direct hit in the main body from any of the Evas and they were toast. Still, they were faster and smarter than those things, and they had to capitalize on that advantage as much as possible, otherwise they were pretty much dead in this fight. Also, they couldn't take down an Eva in one hit, it took quite a lot of hits from their ranged weapons to impress one of those things, their real tactic against an Eva was to tie it up and then chop it to pieces with their melee weapons. That was pretty hard, as in impossible, to do without landing, and they couldn't exactly land in the ocean or in the base.

"Man, this is crazy!" Toji yelled over the com as he avoided the shots from an Eva while sending back some of his own. He was acting as bait for said Eva to distract it from what his team mates were planning. He had volunteered for the job and started acting before anyone could complain. It wasn't as if you had much time to stay and think things through in these conditions, it was pretty much do or die right now. Not that anyone besides Kensuke would ever complain about his actions right now. Well… there was Hikari, but she would never know unless something went wrong right? Which he would make sure that it wouldn't happen.

Tell me about it! Kensuke replied. The four mechs that were in the team with Toji arrived behind the Eva and harpooned its wings, tying it up. It began to fall and they strained to keep it up, they didn't really have the power to keep it up for long, just enough for Toji to sweep by and cut its wings out, letting it to fall on the base like a rock. It wouldn't kill it, unless some of the ships or Asuka focused on it while it fell, but it would still hit the AT field and weaken it.

The clones couldn't form holes in it for the Eva because they risked to be hit by the ships, which would surely target some of them, meaning that the field would overall get weaker than what it would happen if it just took a hit from a falling Eva. So, said Eva, along with others that fell prey to similar tactics hit the AT field like a boulder, even if it didn't do what you could call much damage, combined with the stray shots the field received, hits from the ships and Asuka's occasional cross blast when she felt particularly offended by the fire from the base mean that the clones were getting really strained and it was only a matter of time until they broke through and started returning them to nothing as they were supposed to be in the first place.

Still the Sanctuary forces were not without their losses, the mechs were steadily being destroyed in the fight, guaranteeing the pilot's death, unless the mech was just damaged and could retreat to one of the ships for repairs if possible or complete removal from battle. Also, the ships were taking hits and only Misato's rotation tactic and the buffering shield projected by the unused cloak ships prevented them from taking actual damage to their armored hulls.

Misato was watching all this from the command deck of the flag ship, she was surprised that the damn AT field that protected the base was still up, despite their attacks. Still, she noticed one thing during the fights, the most damage to it was created by Asuka's cross blasts for some reason. She had no idea why, but the fact was still there.

Also, she had been studying the enemies tactics in the little time that passed and she observed one thing, this wasn't the kind of defensive that attempted to push the enemy back or defeat them, these forces were trying to buy time for something. They were more concerned with keeping the base undamaged than actually doing damage to the attackers. With those kind of tactics, Misato assumed that SEELE didn't need much time to get ready for whatever they were planning regarding their escape.

That meant only one thing, they had to speed this thing up and focus on the base, otherwise who knew what could happen. After all, these things were all just a large amount of cloned flesh without the lead bastards behind them, so if they died, the fight was over as well. At least that was what everyone hoped the case was.

"Asuka pull back between the ships, there's a change of plans!" Misato said over the com, she had an idea that would hopefully even the odds for them, but in these things, there were no guarantees. Still, it wouldn't hurt to try.

(What do you want Misato?) Asuka asked only slightly irritated by the request. Misato could clearly see Asuka cleaving another one of the Evas before pulling back amongst the ships. Asuka would have been more annoyed before, but she wasn't the same person and she knew that unlike during the war with the angels, Misato was actually gathering useful information upon which you could actually act.

"They're just buying time, we need to do something about it and as weird as it seems, you have the hardest punch out of everything we have here." Misato replied while checking some of her data, just in case she missed something from the reports she kept receiving. "So, we're switching fire completely on the base and you're helping us take that damn AT field down and make sure that it stays like that."

(Ok, you want me to fire in any way in particular or just let all hell break loose?) Asuka inquired as she took her firing position.

"The cross blasts seemed particularly effective on it, aside from that, just hit them as hard as you can!" Misato said, acting more on her instincts than on anything else right now. Though, those instincts were pretty useful before, so she knew when to trust what she felt.

(You're the boss.) Asuka replied with a shrug, she couldn't really see the difference caused by her attacks.

Misato also made sure that all the ships changed their firing pattern, now they were supposed to ignore the Evas completely and fire through them and hit the AT field, preferably hitting the same spot as often as possible. Hopefully under this firing regime, the field wouldn't last long and they could blast the hell out of the base and those damn clones, hopefully also killing the bastards that were controlling them.

She noted that Asuka alternated between cross blasts and showers of lighter fire channeled through her avatar's wings. While the cross blasts did damage to the field itself, the other form of attack seemed to occasionally pass through the field and hit some of the clones if any were in the way, injuring them or even killing them if the shots landed on their heads.

Again she noted that Asuka was doing the most damage, which was probably due to her powers that were off the scale anyway, even if she couldn't use them up fully. So she had hopes that they could win before those old bastards could escape. This was her last chance to avenge her father, those men were responsible for his death in Second Impact, for her trauma after that and so many other crimes. She had no idea how great the sins of these men were, but she was going to make sure that they were never going to commit any kind of act.

They were past redemption…

"What do you think about all of this Keel?" SEELE 02 asked as he looked over what was going over on the battlefield through a screen on the ship. They were going through the last stages of their launch preparations and they passed the time looking at the fight outside. Even if the attackers could break through the AT field in record time, the base itself should be able to hold long enough for them to escape.

"I think that they have no idea just how futile their efforts are right now." Keel said also checking his displays, he wasn't worried by these circumstances, he knew the facts and he was familiar enough with the effects of the weapons used against them. The original five may have never known how to produce weapons like those, but they were aware of what they could do, so they knew how long the base could handle the attack. "I suppose that they have quite good ideas and tactics, too bad that they are blind and fight for the wrong cause."

"Indeed." Number 04 noted. "They would have been useful servants in our plan and they could have had such glorious positions in our new order. Still, they are without vision and incapable of seeing the true brilliance of our designs."

"So it was fated." 02 replies, not bothering with the battle at the time, there were no surprises, it was to some extent quite predictable. "If humans were all intelligent enough to understand what we were trying to achieve, we wouldn't have been in this situation in the first place. We would have reached our goals long ago, back on the Old Earth, without destroying our glorious civilization. We wouldn't have had to work with these lesser human versions that cover this planet and struggle for so long without our powers to aid us."

"We still need patience brothers." Keel cautioned, last time they were in a hurry, meaning the deal with Third Impact, they only managed to get themselves screwed in the process. "It will be a long time before we would be able to return to this planet and finish our work. At the very least a century of work awaits us, if not more."

"It looks like they realized what we're trying to pull off." SEELE 03 noted while observing then new firing pattern of the ships. He realized that of all the forces against them, the only wildcard was the avatar that was opening fire along with the ships, it was the only unkown. "Accursed Second Child with Lilith's powers… Even dead our old nemesis torments us, at this rate the AT field won't last long and our grounded forces won't last much longer after it fails."

"It's irrelevant." Keel said. "Breaking through all of our defenses will achieve nothing, we are almost ready to leave."

The ships systems began to come online as the four foul men prepared to control it through their powers. Despite Misato's best efforts, they had more than enough space to fly through the fleet because of the rotation tactics, they only had to wait for the right moment to make their move and then, nothing would ever stop them again.

Asuka was getting sick of all this shooting, they weren't doing damage fast enough, that was when an idea struck her, it was a brilliant idea as far as she was concerned and it was easy enough to use. The source of the AT field were the clones, so if you got rid of enough of those, then the AT field would be destroyed and they could move on and hopefully end this battle already. She knew that they didn't have time to lose, she had a very bad feeling about all of this, so she had to act, no time for anything else.

She pulled her wings back, folding them over her back and began to descend head down straight for the base. She used her powers to accelerate her descent, allowing her to move at least three times as fast as she should have been able to in those conditions. She also channeled energy in the spear end of her weapon and when she hit the AT field she sliced right though it, striking the base like missile.

She broke through a few layers of armor before she could stop, she wasn't damaged, but her weapon was completely trashed as a result, not that she was going to need it in what was going to follow. She jumped back to the surface and released energy as two horizontal cross blasts from her extended arms destroying clones on her left and right, the distraction causing the AT field to collapse, forcing the clones to change strategies to avoid being splattered by the fire from the ships.

You should have warned us about that Asuka! Misato's angry voice came over the com. Misato didn't like what happened, even though she knew how to take advantage of this new development, she didn't appreciate Asuka's lack of discipline. The girl had acted without the slightest hint of a warning and who could say what could go wrong with that plan of hers.

"I think it was time for action not idle chatter." Asuka replied as her avatar rose proudly from the middle of burning debris and ashes. It looked like some sort of demonic creature as it rose from the earth with its burning red eyes and red armor as if bathed in blood. The flames around it did not hinder the beast, they only seemed to make it even more fierce against before its soulless enemies, and even their minds could perceive fear now that she was so close to them. "Too bad I messed up the scythe with that one, I'll have to get a new one later."

With that said she took off and headed back for the Evas, it would be a waste of power and effort to focus on the clones right now when the mechs needed help with the Evas and when the ships could handle the clones with better efficiency anyway. So she jumped on the back of an unsuspecting Eva while it was distracted by one of the mech teams and proceeded to rip it apart with her bare hands. In a strange way, it seemed oddly satisfying to do something like that, though she didn't really have time to think about things like that right now.

SEELE was doomed as far as she was concerned, they were going to pay!

"That child is far more dangerous than we have anticipated." SEELE 03 mused as the ship was charging up for its initial blast off. It would be only a few moments until they would be off and nothing would be able to threaten them.

"As I said it is irrelevant, there is nothing she can do about what will happen." Keel said dismissively, as far as he was concerned, the game was already over and Sanctuary had lost, since nothing could stop the launch now. "It's time to leave, let us depart brothers!"

The ships was a rather large contraption, it was basically an entire kilometer long, as quarter of this length being used just for the engines. The ship was designed to be large enough to carry anything the four men needed to start their work while also being able to move at extreme speeds and then when far enough from the Solar system, to be able to fold space and jump to their destination.

This ship was based on the technology of Old Earth, while SEELE didn't have the archives that John did, they still managed to scavenge enough to build this thing in a hurry. Its power source was an S2 engine which was in the center of the machine, it provided all the power it would ever need and it meant that only the four of them could ever control the thing. It was controlled through a direct mental connection as further assurance in case someone that knew how to deal with that kind of technology managed to get on board.

The engines were nothing conventional, since they were designed to work in places where the normal laws of physics did not apply and thus required a soul to command them. They generated energy that didn't exactly push the ship ahead as it happened to normal engines instead, it moved the ship, it forced it to change its position in time and space and thus move along to where ever you needed to move. It also had another trick, it could move in bursts at incredible speeds, allowing the ship to jump from 0 to near light speed in an instant for a certain period of time. Enough for them to jump out of orbit and out of the range of the Sanctuary ships, then continue to fly away until they could fold out and permanently be out of their reach, until it was too late.

The base almost split in half, revealing the ship just as the engines performed their burst, if the ship would have had exhausts like any normal creation, it would have probably burned the whole base to ashes to obtain the energy to move like that. As it was, just the friction with the ship's shields caused any unwanted reactions and the explosive displacement of air that caused something beyond your normal sonic boom.

For Misato, it seemed to happen in slow motion, the base opened up and the ship seemed to explode out of it. After all of their work, it seemed that they were doomed to fail due to this unexpected turn of events. She wanted to scream, knowing that there was no ship in its way, nothing that could stop it from its escape.

'All of this work, all of our plans and efforts… failed… I'm sorry…' She thought, she didn't know what to do anymore given the current situation, presuming that she could have even reacted to something that happened so fast.

She might have shed a tear or two for her failure, they didn't know the full extent of their failure, this might have been more than a simple escape, since they didn't really know what resources SEELE still had, for all she knew, they could be going to initiate yet another impact or something. If everything wouldn't have happened so fast, Misato would have shed that tear.

Something still knew…

Asuka didn't even notice the base opening up, she was far too busy with the opposition. Still, she felt it when the ship became active and her superhuman senses and reflexes saved her from ending up on a direct collision course with it as it exploded through their blockade. She watched as the ship passed right next to her, her senses allowing her to keep up with what was happening despite the speed at which it was happening. Asuka screamed as it happened in rage, and… something roared back from across the void, answering her call of anger.

"Damn you! Damn you to hell! You damn sneaky bastards… DAMN COWARDS!!"

She wanted to stop the bastards, but she knew that without Lilith's full powers coursing through her, she couldn't do that. The bastards were going to escape, it just wasn't fair after all of their efforts. She felt angrier than ever before, but it seemed that something was even angrier…

For Toji and Kensuke, it just happened, they didn't have the sensors to keep up with an event like that, they didn't have their powers developed enough either. For them it was just the same as it was for the rest of the fleet, something burst from the ground at incredible speed apparently with no regard to anything that happened to them.

Toji had been close enough to the ship's path to lose the left arm from his mech, ripped from him by the current generated all while he was thrown around through the air like a rag doll. He wasn't the only one that had that problem, many others, including Evas were just as thrown around by the passage of the ship. Something that big moving at such a speed had a drastic effect around it in a planet's atmosphere.

'What the hell is going on?!' Was all that Toji could think while he was thrown around, sensing that his mech was occasionally colliding with this or that. Still, he felt that something was terribly wrong at that time, he could feel it in his bones.

Kensuke had the fortune of being farther away than Toji, so he was only thrown around instead of receiving any kind of severe damage directly because the ship past him. Also, he managed to understand that something big moved at speeds that shouldn't be normal in these conditions, it was almost as if it was shot out of a massive particle accelerator. Still it was pretty obvious that there was no such thing on the base and that whatever it was that passed them wasn't some sort of projectile. He also barely noticed that the life signs of one of their team mates were simply terminated, instantly, with no sort of damage warning anything.

'This is not good…' Kensuke thought, realizing that said team mate must have been in the path of whatever just passed them and that he must have been completely splattered before he even knew that he was going to die. At least it was painless.

Inside the ship, things were being looked at from a very different perspective, for obvious reasons. As far as the four inside were concerned, things couldn't look any better for them, everything was going to be fine. At last, a clear victory, at last, there was no last minute failure, it was the first stage of what they wanted to accomplish, it was more than enough though.

The four men were congratulating themselves for a well done job, the ship blasted through both their Evas and the mechs, anything that was in their way was crushed against the ship's shields. An instant later they were passing

through the Sanctuary fleet which didn't even have time to target them. It was obvious to them that they had won, there was nothing that could stop them now.

They were dead wrong…

Before the ship, as it was passing through the Sanctuary fleet, a breach was formed in normal space and time, the breach then was enlarged in an instant, revealing what looked like a massive rift made of flaming blue energy. The source of the light was not the rift itself, but what came out of it. The powerful creature, surrounded by the same flames, floating on twelve wings of light roared in the void of space, the roar crossing through it despite the lack of air, being sensed by the soul directly, not by the ears. All that felt it knew that something very big was going to happen, and for four men, this signified a disaster like no other in their career so far.

The ships acceleration was too great and with that burst performed, it couldn't stop in time or change direction, presuming that the ones controlling it could have realized that something was wrong in time to do anything. It never stood a chance, it struck the barrier formed before it, a barrier formed of energy that should not be there and that defied any normal laws. The only thing that preventing the ship from being completely destroyed was the combination of energy shields and the desperate last minute defense raised by the four men within.

As the ship disintegrated, a beast managed to jump out and spread its wings, it was an Evangelion sized creature, but it fit the description of beast better than any of those before it. Its elongated head resembled something from an Alien movie, including the mouth parts, but it also had eight eyes, six were orientated to the front while the other two were positioned one on each side. It had four arms, with three fingers each, all covered in dark armor, which seemed to shine somewhat in the light projected by its foe and that of the sun beyond them both. Somewhat from the shoulders, a pair of insect like arms rose tipped with deadly claws which looked capable of shredding through the toughest of armors. Bellow them, extending from the possible position of the shoulder blades were the before mentioned wings, they were large and leathery, more resembling the wings of demonic creatures from man's nightmares than the wings of any animal. Its whole body was covered in black armor, black as the night but with an organic feel as if the creature had grown the armor, which was most likely the case. The feet of the creature were formed after a somewhat reptilian design, made so that they were tipped with claws at everyone of their three toes.

In it were four evil men, men that sought power far beyond their comprehension, a power that would most likely forever elude them because of their own greed and obsession. They had joined their powers in the same construct, which had been created from the time that their fourth member died, knowing that when the time would come, they would have to fight as one against the challenge before them. All of their plans so far had failed, this was truly their last chance to achieve anything with all of their designs, if only they could defeat and consume the power of this particular foe.

Before them stood a similar construct in size, but nowhere near as revolting. It was covered in blue armor with streaks of red over its chest that highlighted the red core in the middle. Its whole body was surrounded by an aura of power that was partly manifesting in the physical plain as a blue fire with occasional bursts of what looked like blue lightning around said aura. It was floating in space maintaining its position with the help of twelve enormous wings of the same blue energy from within, all looking like incredible insect like wings formed from a web of light, screens of almost transparent energy forming between the "strings". Though its most particular feature right now were its eyes, which blazed with such anger and power that it was a wonder that the monster before it was still alive. All that anger came from the boy within, boy who had been used time and again in the schemes of men greater than himself in the social scale, but so much bellow him in the nobility of the soul.

Evangelion Unit-01 had arrived on the battle field pissed beyond belief and it was directing that anger at SEELE…

To be continued…