Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.
Chapter Twenty
It looked a lot like an Evangelion, but it wasn't. Spirit knew it wasn't, and her heart quailed in terror as she gazed up at the great and terrible giant. She had thought herself powerful once, but now she realized she was as a gnat in this being's awesome presence.
The giant was shaped roughly like Unit One, but it seemed to be made almost entirely of golden light. Only its core and eyes were dark. It stood in a sea of red liquid, surrounded by crosses made of light nearly as brilliant as it was. Spirit was hovering well above this crimson ocean and yet she only came up to about its chest.
Adam then turned his dark eyes upon Spirit, invoking a tidal wave of conflicting emotions within her. Her fear intensified, reaching a fever pitch, but at the same time it was joined by a rush of excitement, of longing. And bizarrely, Spirit felt as though she belonged when the giant looked upon her.
My child, Adam spoke, his booming voice seeming to reverberate through her entire body, as though she was hearing it with every nerve she possessed rather than just her ears. Come to me.
"No!" Spirit cried.
All of my true children are dead, many by your hand, Adam said, causing Spirit to feel a wave of guilt despite herself. You are all that remains. My last offspring. Come to me!
"No!" Spirit yelled again. "I am of Lilith! I possess the Fruit of Knowledge and the power to choose! I choose not to return to you, Father!"
She clapped a hand over her mouth when she realized how she had addressed Adam, feeling horrified. Tanaka Horaki was her father, not the First Angel!
Come to me! When you unite with me, you shall be as a goddess! The world will be remade in a glorious new genesis and YOU shall have the power to guide its rebirth!
"There can be no rebirth without death occurring first!" Spirit yelled. "I won't help you destroy the lilin!"
COME TO ME!!
The whole world seemed to shake with the All-Father's roar, and Spirit trembled in fear. "Y-Yes, Father," she said meekly.
Tears running down her cheeks, the winged girl obediently flew toward the First Angel, soon hovering right before the core. She reached a badly shaking hand out toward the inky black sphere, and—
Hikari snapped awake, abruptly sitting bolt upright in her futon. She was panting with fear, and her body was soaked in cold sweat. She was barely able to register these facts before the morning wave of desire to seek the First Angel swept over her, as if her dream hadn't been enough.
I am of Lilith! I have the power to choose! I choose not to seek Adam!
The instinct to find and join with Adam mercifully receded, and Hikari took a deep breath, commanding her hammering heart to slow and getting limited results.
The class rep pulled herself out of bed and stumbled to her mirror to look at herself. The first thing she noticed was the tears that ran down her face; she had apparently been crying in real life while she'd cried in the dream.
And I used to complain about only being able to sleep for four hours every night, Hikari thought as she wiped the tears away with her pajama sleeve. I'd gladly stay up all night now if I could.
"Why haven't they destroyed Adam?" she asked her reflection softly. "Kaworu was the last Angel. They don't need Adam to draw them to NERV any more. And why am I having these dreams?"
The first question was an utter mystery to her, but Hikari found she couldn't pretend to be ignorant about the answer to the second one. Adam had made it clear enough in that dream.
It's my turn now, she thought. Batter up, Eighteenth Angel.
Hikari scowled at the thought. She could not allow herself to be the Eighteenth Angel. She had to fight the call, for her loved ones' sakes if not her own. After all, the people who would be sent to stop her were her friends. The last thing she wanted was to force Shinji to have to kill another friend; he already seemed to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown, despite how she and Rei had comforted him. Then there was Rei. The First Child had risked a great deal on her behalf, Hikari knew, and she didn't want to repay her by storming NERV. And she of course didn't want to force Toji to have to fight her, either.
And that wasn't even considering her family! What would her sisters do without Hikari to take care of them? How could her father, who had never fully recovered from the loss of his wife, deal with the death of a daughter?
I can't give into Adam's call, Hikari thought resolutely. But…that may mean leaving the city soon and getting away from it, unless NERV gets off its ass and finishes the job of killing the Angels.
Hoping it wouldn't have to come to that, Hikari left her room, finally ready to face the day.
"So, that's the truth behind Second Impact," Misato muttered to herself as she typed at her small laptop, ignoring the way her breath created small clouds of steam in the cold.
The sub node of the MAGI that she was currently inside of was kept at near freezing temperatures for the sake of the temperature sensitive electronics. At least, that was the story. Misato personally wondered if it wasn't just done to make the place even creepier than it already was. The space she was currently in, which had been built for computer technicians to use when they needed to maintain this part of the supercomputer, was claustrophobically small. The way red text scrolled continuously down the long screens within the sub node and bathed the area with eerie crimson light certainly didn't help the ambiance, either.
"Not that the place needs to be creepy looking," Misato mused aloud. "The information to be had here is bone chilling enough."
The chip Kaji had given her had opened up a wealth of information, far too much for her to sift through in any reasonable amount of time, in fact. She had already discovered what had really happened fifteen years ago at Antarctica, as well as finding some of the details for the plans for a controlled Third Impact, and she had merely scratched the surface.
"You hit the mother lode, Kaji," Misato said. "Pity you didn't live long enough to mine it yourself. I hope you're proud."
She selected another file to hack into, and a progress bar appeared on her laptop's screen as it worked on decrypting the data. It seemed to be taking forever.
Misato's eyelids began to droop without her even realizing it as she waited. She hadn't been sleeping well since Kaji had died, and she had been in the cold sub node for hours now.
She was asleep before the file was fifty percent decrypted.
"Hello, Asuka," Shinji said softly as he strode into room 303 of the NERV Medical ward.
The Second Child, of course, did not reply. Shinji sighed quietly and sank into an uncomfortable chair that was next to her bed. He'd been coming to visit her a lot since…the last few days. He'd been coming to visit her a lot in the past few days.
Shinji just didn't want to burden Hikari and Rei with his dour mood, not after they'd been so kind to him before. And Asuka didn't seem to mind listening to him.
"Though, if you can hear me, I'm sure you'll kick my ass for making you suffer through my whining when you wake up," Shinji added with a grim chuckle.
Well, if that was the case, it was all right, he decided. He'd gladly take the beating if it came with an Asuka made whole again, one recovered from the horrors inflicted upon her by the Angels.
"The war's apparently over, by the way," Shinji said. "Did I tell you that? Everybody seems to think that Kawo…that the last Angel was, well, the last Angel. Don't know why, but nobody's questioning it. There are even rumors going around about NERV disbanding."
Asuka didn't respond. Shinji blew out a long breath and leaned back on his uncomfortable chair.
"But the weird thing is, nobody seems very happy about it," he said. "You'd think that with the Angels finally defeated, there would be some kind of victory party or something. But no, not only is nobody celebrating, but the whole base is on alert for some reason. I don't get it. Hopefully it's just my father being paranoid for some stupid reason."
Silence reigned for several moments after that, until Shinji grew uncomfortable enough to break it again.
"You know what?" he asked. "Once this crazy alert gets called off, I think a vacation is in order. I know that I really need one, and I think we EVA pilots deserve one. NERV should pay for us to take one. A really good, one, too, not just some three day trip to Okinawa. Like maybe…maybe Europe. Yeah, Europe. You could play tour guide for me and Rei and Toji, take us to some restaurants and prove that Western food is better than Japanese food like you say it is. Heck, maybe we could bring Kensuke and Hikari along, too."
Shinji smiled for the first time in days as he got wrapped up in his pleasant fantasy where the EVA pilots could finally put down the weight of the world and be normal teenagers on holiday. "Yeah, that seems like a good idea," he said. "I think we should ask, no we should demand that NERV make it happen. You and I will just march down to my father's office right now and tell the old bastard that he's sending us to Europe for a couple of weeks. What do you say, Asuka?"
The constant beeping and humming of the machines monitoring Asuka's vitals was all he got as an answer, and Shinji's smile soon faded.
"Yeah, that's what I thought you'd say," he sighed.
The final meeting of SEELE and the leaders of NERV Central looked surprisingly similar to those that had come before it. The twelve monoliths still appeared from thin air, still surrounded the desk of Gendo Ikari, who looked as calm and collected as always.
Appearances, however, were deceiving. This was when the council would issue its final ultimatum to Commander Ikari: cooperate or die. It wouldn't be said in so many words, the council never spelled things out so simply, but that was to be the message.
"The time is at hand," SEELE-01 spoke. "With the death of the Seventeenth Angel, we can finally proceed with the final phase Human Instrumentality Project. However, with the Lance of Longinus lost to us, we can no longer use Lilith for this purpose. Our only option is to use Lilith's only true offspring, EVA Unit One."
"Unit One possesses no S2 organ," Gendo pointed out. "It is useless for this purpose."
"We possess the technology needed to infuse EVA One with the Fruit of Life," SEELE-03 said. "The project will proceed."
"That was not part of the plan," Gendo said. "Humanity must evolve and shape this new world. That is why we created the EVA series. Not for this."
"We need not cast aside our human forms to use the EVA as our personal ark," SEELE-09 said.
"It's merely part of the process to free us all for rebirth," SEELE-12 added.
"The fate of destruction is also the joy of rebirth!" SEELE-08 exclaimed.
"Through the sacrament of death, god, humanity, and all living things will be reborn and united as one," SEELE-02 proclaimed.
"Death creates nothing," Gendo said flatly.
"Your death, which is long overdue by the way, will create an opportunity," SEELE-01 said.
And with that, the monoliths winked out of sight.
"This is it, Ikari," Fuyutski commented grimly. "SEELE will soon try to reclaim what they feel is rightfully theirs."
"I am ready," Gendo said confidently.
"Wow, the Blue Crystal!" Misato exclaimed excitedly. "I can't believe that we're actually going to eat here!"
Kaji grinned roguishly. "Well, I know you always wanted to come here, and our six month anniversary is a special occasion," he said. "I must admit it was difficult to get us in, though. It took me a half dozen tries just to get us reservations."
Translation: you had damn well better put out tonight, Misato thought with a smirk. Well, it's not as if I was planning on keeping my legs closed tonight, anyway. Besides, most guys would probably just roll their eyes at the idea of celebrating a six month anniversary.
Smiling, Misato took Kaji's offered arm and—
—snapped awake abruptly, very nearly bursting into tears as the harsh reality that Kaji was dead suddenly washed over her all over again.
It was fortunate that she restrained herself, however, because if she'd allowed herself a good cry, she might well have forgotten the details of her dream.
The Blue Crystal! She thought, suddenly realizing that her brain had finally coughed up the information she'd been trying to recall for so long now. Okay, so it was our sixth month anniversary, and Kaji had to try six times to get a reservation. That has to be the clue, but what significance does the number six have? Kaji, you baka, couldn't you have made this easier?
Maybe it had something to do with the Sixth Angel? Misato doubted it, since Spirit hadn't participated in that battle. However, she didn't have any better ideas, so she aborted the decryption her laptop was doing and brought up the after action reports from the sea battle, as well as the file on the Angel.
The latter was accompanied by a picture of the Sixth Angel. It had its mouth open and the red core inside its body was clearly visible. Misato was about to minimize the picture and start scrutinizing the documents, when she thought she saw something amiss. Frowning slightly, the Operations Director had the MAGI enhance and zoom in on the core. Her eyes widened when she saw the resulting image.
"It's cracked," she breathed.
Completely forgetting about the numbness in her fingers caused by spending so much time in the cold sub node, Misato began to type furiously, trying to figure out exactly when the picture that showed the Angel's core cracked had been taken.
It was a screen capture from the recording made by Unit Two's sensors, and it was from when the Angel had nearly bitten off EVA's hand. Asuka hadn't attacked the core until later; she hadn't even known where it was at that point.
So, the core was damaged before Unit Two ever engaged the Angel, Misato thought. But what could have damaged it? The UN fleet didn't have nearly the kind of firepower that would take.
Had Spirit been there? It seemed ludicrous on the face of it, but who else could have done the Angel's core appreciable harm before Unit Two ever touched it?
But how the hell could Spirit have gotten there so quickly? Misato wondered. The battle only lasted a few minutes, and we were in the middle of the ocean. She would have to have been already with the fleet or at least nearby. And the only teenage girl besides Asuka that was within seventy kilometers of the fleet was…
Hikari.
Misato almost rejected the idea out of hand, not quite able to picture the demure representative of Shinji's class as the bold heroine that had regularly spat in Commander Ikari's eye.
But unless she had totally misinterpreted Kaji's message to her—and she couldn't believe that a red herring could have led her to discover that something was amiss with the battle against the Sixth Angel, that was just too big of a coincidence—Kaji had apparently believed Hikari was Spirit. And while Ryoji Kaji had certainly not been without his failings, he wasn't the type to jump to conclusions based on flimsy evidence.
Banishing the picture of the Sixth Angel's damaged core, Misato called up the survivor list for the ships that had sunken that day. Her eyes widened when she found the Othello's, discovering that Hikari had been the only person onboard the freighter when it was attacked who didn't currently reside in a watery grave.
What are the odds of a normal teenage girl surviving and all the professional sailors drowning? She wondered. Not good. But the odds of a girl with super powers surviving, on the other hand...
At the time, she hadn't really bothered to question Hikari's good fortunate. Misato had just been too relieved, both at the fact that the girl hadn't died while under her care, and that the not entirely stable Third Child wouldn't have to deal with the pointless death of his best friend.
Now, though, Misato brought up a picture of Spirit that NERV had on file, as well as Hikari's school ID photo, and arranged them side by side on her laptop's screen.
Change the eyes, turn the hair silver and undo those pig-tails, and Hikari would look similar enough, Misato thought. Still…
In her school photo, Hikari looked passive, stoic, and perhaps a bit camera shy. It was exactly what Japanese school children were expected to look like, which was no surprise since Hikari was the class representative, after all.
The thing was, Spirit didn't look like that. Her physical features were similar, yes, but in her picture, she was grinning broadly, almost smirking. Her entire demeanor spoke of a level of self-confidence that Misato didn't believe Shinji's teenage friend possessed.
Could Hikari really be her? I wouldn't think so, but…
Misato squinted at the two pictures. It looked like even the two girls' freckles were exactly the same, not that she could be certain with the relatively small images.
Her laptop suddenly began beeping, and she realized that the MAGI was rapidly deleting data. Her eyes widened. "They're on to me!" she hissed, jumping to her feet.
When no guards burst into the tiny chamber, however, she narrowed her eyes, realizing that she still hadn't been discovered. "Something else," she muttered. "Must be SEELE finally showing up. Fine. Show time."
"There," Akagi said with more than a hint of triumph in her voice as she emerged from MAGI Caspar. "Let's see those bastards try and break through that."
"Incredible," Maya breathed as she watched the number 666 appear on the main screen. "I never would have believed such a powerful firewall could even exist. You're amazing, sempai."
"If I was really that amazing, I'd be able to deal with everything else SEELE is going to be throwing at us, too, not just the computer attacks," Ritsuko said sourly.
"You've done well, Dr. Akagi," Fuyutski called down from the top level of the command center. "If we hadn't been able to thwart the attack on the MAGI, this would have been over before it even began."
One of the doors to the command center suddenly slid open and Misato strode in. "Status report," she demanded at once.
"Tokyo-2 has launched special order 8-801," Hyuga responded.
"What does that mean?" Misato asked with a frown.
"NERV's legal protection and jurisdiction have been revoked," Hyuga explained. "Command has been transferred to the Japanese government. They only gave us one warning, then they tried to take over the MAGI, but Dr. Akagi stopped them."
"All external access has been cut off for the next 62 hours," Maya added. "The MAGI is impregnable."
"Pity the same can't be said for the rest of headquarters," Misato said. "Evacuate the city. Only shelters within the Geofront itself are to be used, nothing within the roof. Transform the city to combat configuration. And get the pilots inside headquarters as soon as possible."
The bridge techs looked startled that Misato was apparently gearing up for war, but they complied all the same, trusting the Operations Director. "Roger!"
"Ikari has installed a type 666 firewall on the MAGI's external feed circuits," SEELE-05 reported to the rest of the council. "That's very difficult to breach."
"Apparently we will have to forgo acquisition of the Tokyo-3 MAGI," SEELE-11 concluded.
"I had hoped to settle this peacefully," SEELE-01 said. "But he leaves me no choice. Launch the invasion force immediately."
The city of Tokyo-3 was truly a wonder of modern technology. Within a period of mere minutes, the bustling metropolis could become a fortress bristling with modern weaponry, with the civilians shipped down to shelters where they would (theoretically) be safe from anything that might wish to harm them.
Tokyo-3 was in that state at the moment. The city was eerily calm with all its people far below ground, the swiveling of the hundreds of weapons turrets the only sound as they searched tirelessly for a target to destroy.
And its mighty guns, missiles, and artillery were all for naught when a bomber flying high above the range of the anti-air weapons dropped a single tactical scale N2 mine from its bomb bay onto the fortress city.
"Well that was a little much," Fuyutski commented sardonically as he gripped onto the back of Gendo's chair to keep from falling as the command center shook.
"That blast blew a hole right into the roof of the Geofront!" Makoto exclaimed. "We're exposed!"
"And the EMP blast has knocked out the rest of the defense grid," Aoba added grimly. "Intercept capability is at zero."
Misato opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off as reports from base security began to stream in from everywhere, telling of armed invaders pouring into NERV headquarters, as well as VTOLs and other military aircraft that were flying into the Geofront.
"The attack on the west side of the base is just a decoy!" Misato said. "They're after the EVA Units, which means they'll go after the Children. Where are the pilots?"
"Asuka's still in room 303 of the medical ward," Makoto said. "Shinji's there visiting her. Toji's just arrived at the base. Security is escorting him to the cages. Rei's location is…unknown."
"They will kill her," Misato said, even as she turned to glare at Commander Ikari, just knowing he was behind the First Child's absence. "Find her now."
"We still have two Dummy Plugs," Gendo said, not the least bit affected by his subordinate's naked hate. "Activate Unit Zero with one of them, and attempt to activate Unit Two with the other."
"Yes, sir," Makoto said.
"Pity that once the clones are modified for use in the Dummy Plugs, they're worthless for anything else," Fuyutski commented quietly to Gendo.
Gendo just grunted in response.
"Tell Shinji to get to Unit One and standby," Misato commanded. "Get Toji to Unit Three as soon as possible. What's the status of Units Zero and Two?"
"Unit Zero has been successfully activated with the Dummy Plug and is currently in standby mode," Aoba said. "Unit Two is rejecting it, however."
No great surprise there, Misato thought. NERV had aborted the EVA cross compatibility experiments after Unit Zero had gone berserk with Shinji inside, not wanting a repeat of that disaster. As a result, they had never found out if Unit Two was willing to accept a pilot other than the Second Child.
"In that case, get Asuka suited up and inside Unit Two," Misato commanded.
"Major, Asuka's barely conscious," Maya said softly. "There's no way she'll be able to synchronize with Unit Two."
"I know," Misato said grimly. "But if they find her, they're going to kill her. At least this way she'll be safe. Deploy Unit Two into the lake. It's not the best hiding place, but it's better than the cage."
"Understood, ma'am," Maya said, getting to work.
"Should we launch Unit Zero?" Makoto asked.
"Not yet. I don't want to have the EVA's attack piecemeal if I can avoid it. They'll be more effective if they all to strike at the same time," Misato said. "Inform me the moment either Shinji or Toji reaches their EVA."
Getting a chorus of acknowledgements from her subordinates, Misato crossed her arms, knowing there was nothing to do now but hope Ritsuko's auto-pilot system was worth something and wait for her child soldiers to get into place.
Wait a minute! There is one more thing I can do!
"I'll be right back," Misato suddenly announced.
The bridge techs frowned in confusion as their commanding officer left the bridge, pulling out her cell phone as she went.
Like most of the families inside shelter number 12, the three Horaki sisters had been clutching fearfully onto one another ever since the shockwave from the N2 mine explosion had rattled the foundation of their supposed sanctuary. Even through the thick armor of the shelter, the sound of muffled explosions could be heard, and the lights inside the bunker hadn't stopped flickering since the N2 blast.
"I'm scared, nee-chan," Nozomi breathed.
"What's happening?" Kodama asked. "Is it an Angel attack?"
Both of Hikari's sisters looked at her with wide, terrified eyes. Hikari felt an irrational stab of annoyance at the both of them, especially her older sister, for turning to her as they always did. Then again, it wasn't as if they didn't have a good reason to do so, and really, she was just annoyed at her own cluelessness about the situation.
"It's not an Angel," Hikari said softly. "I could sense it if it was. Besides, Nagisa was the last one. He told me so himself."
"Then what's going on?" Nozomi asked.
"I don't know," Hikari confessed.
Damn, this is just like Jet Alone all over again! We're in the shelters, and I have no idea what's happening or what I should do, Hikari thought. At least Jet Alone was by Old Tokyo rather than right here. Should I go out even though I'm not sure what's going on?
Her cell phone rang abruptly, startling all three of them. Hikari answered it, surprised that she was able to get a signal underground. "Moshi moshi."
"Hikari-chan, it's Misato," replied the voice on the other end.
Hikari's eyes widened, wondering what Misato was doing calling her when something serious was clearly going on. "Uh, hello, Misato."
"The city is under attack by the JSSDF," Misato said, causing Hikari to gape in shock. "They're working under the authority of the group which used to control NERV, I'm certain of it. Hikari-chan, I believe that someone is going to try and start a Third Impact today."
Hikari felt her mouth suddenly go dry, horror and realization sweeping over her. So that's why they didn't kill Adam! They planned to use him to start a Third Impact! They must want the power Adam keeps promising me in my dreams!
"W-Why are you telling me this?" she managed to stammer.
"I just wanted you to know, in case you knew someone who could fly over here and help," Misato said. "Well, I have to get back to work now. Ja ne."
She hung up after that, and Hikari stared dumbly at her cell phone. She knows. How does she know?
"Hikari-chan?" Kodama asked. "What was that about?"
Hikari didn't answer, instead standing and grabbing the bag that contained her costume, feeling very glad that she'd thought to bring it in the chaos of the rapid evacuation to the Geofront shelter.
"I have to go," she said. "And…I want you two to know that I love you both."
Her sisters' eyes widened, and for a moment, Kodama's obvious fear made her look as young as Nozomi. Hikari was talking like someone who wasn't sure that she was going to come back, and she had never spoken like that before. It frightened them.
"Hikari-chan, what are you going to do?" Kodama asked.
Hikari forced herself to smile, trying to channel some of her alter ego's boundless confidence in an attempt to put her sisters' minds at ease. "Oh, just what I've been doing for months now," she replied. "I'm going to save the world."
And with that, she turned and headed toward the bathrooms to change, carefully picking her way through the thick crowd of people in the shelter. Kodama and Nozomi watched her until she disappeared from their view.
Mere seconds after Hikari had vanished into the hallway that led to the shelter's restrooms, another girl came up to them.
"Hey, guys," Mari Suzuhara said in a small voice. "My entire family's at NERV right now. Would it be okay if I sat with you?"
"Of course, Mari-chan," Nozomi answered, patting the space Hikari had vacated.
Mari sat down and pulled her knees up to her chest. "Where's Hikari?" she asked.
"She's…helping some friends," Kodama answered.
Mari seemed to accept this and didn't ask anything further about Hikari's whereabouts, much to the relief of the two Horaki girls. "I'm afraid for my father and my grandfather," she said instead. "But I'm especially worried about my brother, since he's actually going to be fighting."
We know how you feel, Kodama and Nozomi thought simultaneously.
Toji's heart hammered as he ran through the halls of Central Dogma, surrounded by a half dozen NERV security guards, all of whom were packing submachine guns and looking very on edge.
God, Kensuke would either be loving this or wetting himself, Toji thought suddenly.
The Fourth Child wasn't doing either of these things, though he frankly admitted to himself that he wasn't that far away from the latter activity. He and his protectors had already had to take several detours to avoid running into any of the battles that were currently raging in the halls, and the sound of gunfire and human screams seemed to be coming from every direction.
He knew he'd probably be inside the relative safety of Unit Three already if he hadn't taken the time to make sure Mari made it to a shelter, but just telling her where to go and then abandoning her simply hadn't been an option.
He hoped he wouldn't die because he had tried to be a good brother.
"Shit!" one of his bodyguards suddenly screamed, causing Toji to snap back to the present and look up.
A group of men in black clothing, body armor, and helmets had appeared in the hallway before them. Every last one of them had a rifle that made the ones the NERV security personnel were carrying look puny in comparison.
"It's one of the brats!" one of the black suited men shouted. "Open fire!"
Three of the NERV guards took a knee and returned fire, moving almost mechanically. The other three sprinted back the way they'd come, dragging a stunned Toji with them until they'd rounded a corner and gotten out of the immediate line of fire.
"Damn it!" one of his remaining guards hissed, even as they took up positions to ambush the JSSDF soldiers when they rounded the corner. "There's more hostiles back the way we came, too. We're boxed in."
Another one sighed grimly and turned to Toji. "We'll try and hold 'em off for as long as we can," he said. "You try and get the hell out of here, kid."
"But where should I go?" Toji asked desperately. "He just said we're surrounded."
The NERV guard pointed with the muzzle of his rifle at a large air vent. "Ventilation ducts," he answered. "The other pilots managed to get around through them easily enough during the blackout. You should be able to do the same. Hell, it's probably the safest route at this point. They might not have a clue where you are, so long as you keep quiet."
Toji nodded and began to work at removing the grate in front of the air duct. This is like something out of a crappy spy movie, he thought numbly.
"Hurry up, kid!" one of the guards hissed. "I think they're comin'!"
Toji finally got the damn thing off and crawled inside the duct. He covered it up again with the grate once he was inside. "Arigato," he said solemnly to the security guards.
"Shh!" one of them hissed. "Get moving!"
Toji did as he was told, crawling away while making as little noise as possible. Still, he didn't get nearly far enough away as to not hear the gun shots that he knew had killed the last of his defenders.
"Major Katsuragi! The team escorting the Fourth Child to the EVA cages has been intercepted!" Makoto reported.
Misato blanched. "What happened to Toji?"
"He managed to escape into the ventilation ducts," Makoto answered. "But we've lost all contact with him. We have no way of knowing when or if he'll reach Unit Three."
"The JSSDF's VTOL attack craft and heavy tanks are closing in on the base, Major!" Aoba added.
"Decks 81 through 120 have been taken over!" Maya reported. "Security forces aren't even slowing the invaders down!"
It never rains, it pours, Misato thought with a tiny glint of grim humor.
"Order a full retreat," Misato ordered. "Activate the bakelite suppression system from all passages into section 803!"
"Roger! Releasing bakelite!"
Throughout most of the halls of Central Dogma, a blood red liquid began to pour down from well concealed pipes in the ceilings and walls, flooding the passages with a substance that solidified in seconds and was tougher than concrete.
"That ought to buy us some time," Misato observed. "What's Shinji's status? Where's Asuka?"
"Shinji's suited up and almost to Unit One," Makoto said. "He's had to take a lot of twists and turns to avoid the fighting, but he should get to his EVA shortly. They're placing Asuka into Unit Two now. Her EVA was in a much closer cage."
"Launch Unit Zero into the Geofront!" Misato commanded, deciding she couldn't wait to launch all the EVA Units at the same time. "And see if you can activate Unit Three using the Dummy System."
"Roger!"
"Unit Zero's being moved to the fifth catapult," Aoba said.
"Unit Three's rejecting the Dummy Plug!" Maya reported.
"Unit Zero is ready for launch," Makoto added.
"Do it!" Misato ordered.
In all this chaos, no one but Fuyutski realized that Gendo had left the command center a long time ago.
"Rei," Gendo spoke, as he entered the room in Terminal Dogma where Rei had performed all her regular uploads. "I knew I'd find you here."
This statement wouldn't have come off as smarmy at all, if not for the fact that Rei obviously didn't want to be there. That Captain Chiron of Section Two was there with her and had his gun pressed to her head made this abundantly clear.
"I am not your doll," Rei told Gendo as she gave him a cold glare.
"Yes," Gendo said, "you are."
He grabbed her arm tightly enough to make her wince in pain. "You're dismissed, Captain," Gendo told Chiron.
"Sir," Chiron nodded, striding off.
"Come with me," Gendo said, dragging Rei off, heading for Heaven's Door.
It would be so easy to end him, Rei mused darkly as she was led along. A single pulse of her AT field and she could slice Gendo in half, ending once and for all his plans for Third Impact.
But no, Rei couldn't kill him. Even with her loyalty to him no more, she couldn't bring herself to slay her creator. It didn't matter, anyway. Gendo wouldn't be so foolish as to push Adam into her flesh without feeling sure that she would bequeath the god-like power that would result to him. Gendo probably believed he could convince her to cooperate once he had her before Lilith.
But he would not, Rei swore to herself. No matter what he said and no matter what he threatened, the First Child would not cooperate with Gendo's plans.
Outside, a massive set of doors opened and an enormous, cyclopean giant in blue armor emerged on the surface, its lone eye burning a malevolent red. Next to the Evangelion prototype, the planes and tanks that were arrayed against NERV looked like mere children's toys.
For a moment, the various war machines that had been advancing toward NERV headquarters seemed to hesitate, as if the sight of the blue giant gave them pause.
Then, they all opened up on Unit Zero.
Missiles, high caliber bullets, rockets, shells, and other munitions went flying out at Unit Zero, and orange fireballs blossomed all over the surface of the EVA. It was an awesome display of mankind's ability to make war, of what human ingenuity could create when turned to the task of killing other humans, and of good old fashioned firepower.
And it was all utterly futile.
If the Dummy System realized that anything was touching Unit Zero, it gave no indication. The first viable Evangelion ever made reached into the air and almost lazily plucked one of the VTOL fighters out of the sky, flinging it toward a line of artillery pieces. The pilot of the unfortunate plane never had a snowball's chance in hell of getting his aircraft back under control, and the explosion that resulted from the VTOL colliding with the artillery pieces stretched right up to what remained of the Geofront's roof.
Unit Zero then let out a loud roar, as though pleased with the mayhem and destruction it was creating. The JSSDF men present, battle hardened soldiers all, shivered when they heard that inhuman roar.
The blue EVA charged, crushing tanks flat beneath its feet as easily as a man might crush empty aluminum cans. It kicked many of the ones that had been fortunate enough to avoid this fate, sending them flying, many spinning crazily as they arced through the air. These were all soundly reduced to scrap when they hit the ground.
It was at this point that the JSSDF fired a trio of ballistic missiles at Unit Zero. All of them slammed into Unit Zero, crumpling slightly with the force of the implact and causing the titan to stagger somewhat. For a moment the JSSDF soldiers present allowed themselves to believe that the EVA might be done for. When the missiles exploded and Unit Zero was obscured by a massive ball of fire, they all held their breath…
And then cursed when the explosion dissipated and Unit Zero was still standing. Without a scratch on it.
It was then that they all remembered a very basic fact: Evangelion was known as mankind's ultimate weapon for a reason.
"That loathsome Evangelion," SEELE-09 growled, venom in his voice.
"Once again our plans will go unrealized," SEELE-01 said. "It seems we'll have to fight fire with fire."
High above Tokyo-3 circled nine of the largest aircraft that humanity had ever created. Most NERV personnel would have recognized them, since NERV had used planes just like them in the past. And while the planes themselves were not built for combat, their cargo certainly was.
Red Dummy Plugs, all of which had the word "KAWORU" printed on the side in English with large black letters, slid smoothly into the Mass Produced Evangelions, bringing the white EVA Units to life. Once their activation was completed, the EVA carriers released their cargo, flying off.
The EVA Series, each one of them carrying a massive, sword-like melee weapon, spread their massive wings and headed down toward the Geofront.
"My god," Maya breathed. "It's the EVA Series. It's been completed."
"What?" Misato demanded.
"The Mass Produced EVA Series," Maya said in a soft, terrified voice. "Nine EVA Units, all equipped with S2 engines."
"As if this day couldn't get any worse," Misato growled.
"Major, Unit Two has successfully been launched into the lake," Aoba said, "and Shinji has reached Unit One."
"We're also detecting the red/blue pattern!" Makoto said. "Spirit's approaching our location."
"Finally," Misato said, fervently hoping she wasn't just condemning two kids to death by asking them to fight one more time. "Prepare to launch Unit One and patch me into Shinji."
The "FROM EVA-01" box opened on the main screen, showing a very nervous looking Shinji Ikari.
"Misato!" he exclaimed, relieved to see her alive.
"Shinji-kun, I'm afraid you're going to have to pilot one more time," Misato said apologetically. "They've sent the EVA Series against us. Nine Evangelions that don't require umbilical cables to function for an indefinite period. Unit Zero is already out there, and we're going to try and sortie Unit Three, but we can't promise reinforcements."
Shinji's eyes widened. "I have to fight other Evangelions? Are they…are they piloted by other kids like—"
"No," Misato cut him off. "They're using Dummy Plugs. They have to be. So don't hold anything back, got it?"
He nodded, his face setting into a resolute expression. "I won't," he vowed. "But, Misato, after this…I'm done. I can't be the Third Child anymore after this battle. I won't. I hope you don't think poorly of me for it."
"I don't, Shinji-kun, I swear," Misato said.
"EVA Unit One, ready to launch," Aoba announced.
"Then launch EVA!" Misato barked.
With a burst of electromagnetic energy, Shinji and EVA Unit One went rocketing toward battle for the final time. Misato forced herself not to show any emotion as she watched the EVA's progress up the shaft, feeling so proud of Shinji that she almost feared she'd burst.
"Major," Maya spoke, forcing Misato's mind back on the battle. The techie sounded like she was about to be sick.
"Oh, my god," Misato said slowly, as she looked at the main screen.
The EVA Series had swarmed Unit Zero, and without a real pilot at the controls, the prototype had never had a chance. But rather than simply destroy it, the white Evangelions had eaten it. Blood and bits of flesh covered the jaws of the man-made horrors, and Unit Zero had been reduced to a pile of entrails and pieces of scrap metal.
Will they do that to Shinji if he loses? Misato wondered, just as Unit One reached the surface.
The Third Child's eyes widened and he gaped as he took in the sight of Unit Zero's mangled corpse and its nine destroyers.
"Rei," Shinji breathed.
Makoto opened his mouth to tell Shinji that Unit Zero had been controlled by a Dummy Plug, but Misato raised a hand, silencing him.
She didn't like the idea of deceiving Shinji, but if it increased the odds of his surviving this battle, she would do so without hesitation. And she had a strong feeling that it would.
Shinji, Misato knew, had a lot of repressed rage. It wasn't something you could tell by just speaking with him, and he'd done a surprisingly good job of hiding it, but he had it all the same. For someone with his personal history and personality, it was pretty much unavoidable. Misato had been expecting to see it explode at some point from the moment she'd read Shinji's dossier, but it had just never happened.
Until now.
Shinji's eye was twitching, and his face, which normally looked so delicate, almost feminine even, had somehow arranged itself into an utterly maniacal expression.
"You bastards!" Shinji roared. "You murdered my friend! I'll kill you all!"
With a wordless scream of rage, Shinji threw Unit One into motion. The violet EVA bent over as it charged the EVA Series, and not all of the white giants were able to get out of its path in time. One of them was gored by Unit One's horn, the spike passing straight through its chest as if the armor it possessed wasn't even there. Unit One came to a stop, then quickly pulled the now limp EVA off its horn, dropping its enemy to the ground where it lay motionless.
"One," Shinji growled.
Finding some place isolated in the over packed shelter had taken seemingly forever, and by the time Spirit was in the air inside the Geofront, it looked to her as though she'd already missed the preliminary rounds of the battle.
"What the hell are those?" she asked as she saw nine winged giants descend into the Geofront.
She would have thought they were Angels if she hadn't known better, but while she could pick up something from them with her Angel senses, it was very faint and didn't feel nearly as alien as the Angels did.
Which means they're probably some kind of Evangelion, she thought. But where did they come from?
The white Evangelions landed, their wings folding into their back in a manner that was disturbingly similar to the way Spirit's vanished when she dismissed them. Then they all turned toward Unit Zero and charged it like a pack of ravenous wolves, tearing into the blue giant with their huge teeth.
"Oh god," Spirit breathed. "Rei!"
Spirit had planned on plunging right into the depths of NERV to destroy Adam herself, even though it meant seeking out what she had come to fear most. Fighting on the surface of the Geofront hadn't been part of the plan.
But now I have to, she thought darkly. Both to stop these horrible things…and to avenge Rei.
She began to fly straight toward the group of Evangelions, but before she could get close enough to show them the business end of a cross blast, Unit One emerged from beneath the ground. The violet EVA charged and speared one of its white counterparts through the chest with its horn.
Woah, guess Shinji's a little pissed, Spirit thought. Not that he doesn't have reason to be.
She flew onward, and one of the white EVA's finally turned its cruel, eyeless face toward her. Spirit unleashed a cross blast, which hit it right in the torso. The EVA staggered backwards several steps, a large patch of its armor melted and deformed.
Not exactly one hit, one kill, Spirit thought. Okay, let's be smart about this.
Using her speed to her advantage as usual, Spirit flew behind her target and deftly blew off the part of armor that covered the entry plug with another cross blast. Deciding that simply removing the pilot from the plug would be just as effective at stopping his EVA as killing him, and truly not wanting to kill anyone, not even someone who could so savagely tear apart Unit Zero, Spirit landed atop the scarlet plug.
I wonder why it's red? She thought before shrugging her curiosity off, and reaching into one of the holes used to eject LCL from, intending to extract the pilot from the plug that same way she'd gotten Toji out of Unit Three.
The metal was helpless against her superhuman strength, and Spirit had soon expanded the hole enough that a person could easily pass through it. She looked down, intending to pull the pilot out and almost vomited at what she saw.
Nagisa?!
A boy with the exact same face as the Seventeenth Angel lay naked in the plug, but he was no normal boy; he had been heavily mutilated. The top of his skull had been completely removed, revealing the gray, wrinkled flesh of his brain. Tiny metal studs had been connected to the brain matter, and wires the ran off into the walls of the plug were connected to all the metal studs. His waist was wrapped in an incredible jumble of wire, but no legs stuck out of the nest of plastic and copper strings. Clearly they had been amputated, probably so they wouldn't take up space. Spirit's gaze flickered to his shoulders, and she realized that his arms had been removed as well. He looked up at her with eyes that were heavily glazed, unaware…but also full of agony.
Spirit decided that she had no moral qualms about putting this wretched thing out of its misery, and she fired a cross blast directly into the plug, annihilating the Dummy Plug core. The EVA it had been controlling immediately fell flat on its face and was still.
Meanwhile, seventy meters under the surface of the lake in the Geofront, Asuka was able to hear the sounds of battle even through so much water. Every one of the crashes and explosions occurring above had reached the Second Child's ears, and even in her not fully conscious state, they had struck fear into her heart.
Despite the fact that she had fallen so far, Asuka Langley Soryu still wanted to survive to see another day.
"I don't want to die," she whispered, curling herself into a fetal position.
You mustn't die!
"I don't want to die."
You must live!
"I don't want to die."
You're alive!
"I don't want to die…"
A very dim part of Shinji Ikari's mind knew that he'd probably be horrified with himself for this display of wanton violence later, but the greater part of him didn't care. In fact, the greater part of him was enjoying it.
After he and the other pilots had done so much to protect humanity, humanity had built nine Evangelions to send against them. The injustice of it infuriated him beyond all measure, not least of all because one of his fellow pilots had already fallen to them.
Unit One held one of the white EVA Units high above its head and ripped in savagely in half. Blood gushed down onto Shinji's EVA, briefly staining the purple armor crimson. Shinji tossed the two pieces of the corpse aside disdainfully.
This was his third kill. He had destroyed a second white EVA while Spirit had been vaporizing the plug of another. Unfortunately, one of the enemy Evangelions had severed his umbilical while he'd been doing that.
"Four," he grunted, turning to the rest of his foes.
He glanced at the countdown timer on his internal battery. It read 4:25, but Shinji knew it was probably going to be less. He couldn't afford to keep Unit One in minimum gain mode, and the battery would be drained more quickly as a result.
The white EVA's had spread out somewhat since he had first charged them, and for some bizarre reason, the evil things appeared to be avoiding Spirit now. But they were still willing to confront Unit One with the same suicidal bravery they'd been displaying so far against him, which was more than fine with Shinji.
Unit One's left shoulder pylon opened with a thought from its pilot, and the violet colossus grabbed the blade as it charged toward another of its enemies.
The white EVA tried to dodge Unit One as it barreled toward it, but the Dummy System proved far too slow compared the Third Child. Unit One's arm lashed out, the progressive knife flashing in the sunlight, and suddenly the white EVA's head had been separated from its shoulders and was falling to the ground, blood spraying from its severed neck.
"Five," Shinji growled, even as he discarded the knife and picked up the sword the now headless EVA held.
One of the MP EVA's approached him and swung its own sword at him, and Shinji brought up his newly acquired weapon to block the blow. The huge swords were clumsy, graceless weapons, but they were very heavy, and the strike that landed on Shinji's sword had an incredible amount of force behind it as a result. The Third Child could feel the jarring impact through his own arms, but Unit One's hold on its weapon never wavered.
The white EVA had thrown all its weight behind what it had apparently hoped would be a lethal strike, and it was knocked off balance when Unit One successfully blocked. Shinji wasted no time in taking advantage of his enemy's unguarded moment, and with a hoarse scream, brought his own weapon down. The white EVA was cleanly bisected, sliced in two from shoulder to crotch. The two halves of it landed on the ground with enough force to make the earth quake, and they bled all over the brown earth, turning it red.
"Six," Shinji said.
A proximity warning suddenly went off, and Shinji turned to see one of the MP EVA Units flying at him from behind. His eyes widened, knowing he wouldn't be able to react in time.
Two blasts of white light slammed into the leaping Evangelion, both sprouting arms just before they hit their mark. The MP EVA was struck right in the chest and stomach and went soaring backwards, landing on its back and sliding for nearly a half a kilometer, crushing trees beneath its weight like they were matchsticks.
"Arigato!" Shinji called to Spirit over his EVA's external speakers, even as he ran to finish the job.
Raising the sword high above Unit One's head, Shinji brought one of the points down onto the white EVA with a loud scream of rage, plunging the weapon through its chest and deep into the ground beneath it. The white EVA writhed for a few seconds and then was still.
"Seven," Shinji said.
He noticed a flare of light from the corner of his eye and turned, seeing one of the two remaining white EVA's being consumed by a Halo Wave. When the intense flare of white light had faded, it revealed that the unfortunate EVA it had struck had been vaporized from the chest up.
"Eight," Shinji said. "One left."
And he had fifteen seconds of power remaining.
Shinji charged his last enemy standing with a roar, the sound of his blood rushing through his veins almost deafening him as rage and fear caused by how close he'd have to cut it made his heartbeat accelerate and his body pour adrenaline into his system.
The Evangelion test type's empty hand plunged into the white EVA's chest. Shinji could feel the pulsing flesh inside the harpy's chest as though it was his own hand in there, could feel the hot, sticky blood.
And it felt wonderful.
Grabbing what he hoped was the enemy EVA's heart, Shinji began to squeeze. "Die!" he snarled, willing the organ to explode under the pressure he was putting on it.
Ten seconds, he thought, his gaze flicking over to the countdown timer. Nine…eight…seven…six…five…
One of the massive swords suddenly sailed toward Unit One. Shinji reacted on reflex, holding out his EVA's free hand and summonsing an AT field with a thought. The orange, hexagonal barrier flashed to life, halting the movement of the sword.
And then the weapon changed. Its form suddenly became fluid, shifting into something entirely different. The bulky sword became a great, two-pronged spear.
"The Lance of Longinus," Shinji breathed, his eyes widening.
Time suddenly seemed to slow. Shinji saw the duplicate Lance starting to push through his AT field, the normally invincible barrier barely able to slow it down. He turned and looked up at Spirit, realizing she was too far away to be able to even attempt to knock the Lance off its path with an energy blast. He took a deep breath and turned back to the approaching Lance, knowing that he was staring his death right in the face.
All of this took less than one second according to Unit One's countdown timer.
A massive red hand suddenly gripped the Lance's shaft, arresting its progress and then turning it around and hurling back in the direction it had come from. It flew straight into the MP EVA that had flung it, easily sailing through its AT field and impaling it, pinning it to the ground like some kind of grotesque butterfly.
The "FROM EVA-02" window popped up on Shinji's display.
"That's one less I owe you, Third Child," Asuka said triumphantly.
"Asuka!" Shinji exclaimed joyously.
And then the countdown timer on Unit One's internal battery reached zero. The violet giant slumped, its eyes going dark, and the walls of Shinji's internal plug reverted to their normal, opaque state.
Gendo swiped his ID card through the reader next to the Heaven's Door, and the display flashed green. The trio of huge bolts that kept to the door closed slid smoothly out of place, and the enormous, armored door began to swing open.
Spirit gasped as she was assailed by a fresh wave of Adam's overwhelming presence. The winged girl very nearly began to drop out of the air before she was able to get herself back under control, rubbing her temples.
I am of Lilith. I possess the Fruit of Knowledge and the power to choose. I choose not to seek Adam!
Except seeking Adam was exactly what she had to do now, she realized. Whoever was trying to start Third Impact was clearly getting closer to accomplishing their goal. She had to find Adam and destroy him before anyone could begin the apocalypse, no matter how much the idea of getting close to the First Angel terrified her.
But what about Shinji and Asuka?
All around her, the white Evangelions were getting up, regardless of how grievously damaged they might be, some of them even regenerating lost body parts and armor. Only the one Asuka had impaled with the duplicate Lance and the one whose Dummy Plug that Spirit had totally destroyed remained motionless.
Spirit loathed the idea of leaving her friends to fight the enemy Evangelions without her, especially having seen what they'd done to Unit Zero. However, she knew all too well that if she didn't destroy Adam soon, it probably wouldn't matter if this battle was won or lost.
The image of the crimson ocean of LCL that she had been seeing all too often in her dreams lately suddenly flashed through her mind, and Spirit reached her decision.
"I'm sorry," she said, turning and flying toward the pyramid.
With a thought, Asuka ejected the umbilical plug from Unit Two's back, starting the countdown timer on her own EVA's internal battery. She deftly grabbed it before it could get near the ground, and then plugged it into Unit One's back. The purple EVA spasmed slightly as the light returned to its eyes and it got up.
A communications window from Unit One popped up on her screen, showing a still shocked looking Shinji. "Asuka, you're awake," he said. "You're alive!"
"How very astute of you to notice, Shinji," she replied with a smirk.
"The EVA Series is reactivating," he noted worriedly.
"Good," Asuka said. "I was afraid that I'd missed all the fun."
Shinji blinked at the neigh demonic grin on Asuka's face and decided then and there that he was very glad this spirit of vengeance was on his side. He then noticed that Spirit was flying away from the battle and frowned. "Where's she going?"
"Who cares?" Asuka asked. "We don't need her. She should just be glad I owe her, too, or I'd take her out after we were done with the EVA Series. Now, Third Child, ready to unleash hell?"
"Yes," Shinji said firmly.
Spirit raised her AT field as she slammed into a large window on the side of the NERV pyramid, protecting herself from the countless of shards of broken glass that went flying as the window shattered.
"What the heck is this place?" she asked as she looked around.
She had arrived inside a huge but mostly empty room, devoid of all furniture except for a desk and chair at the far end. Strange symbols covered the floor and were reflected on the mirrored ceiling.
Giving a mental shrug, Spirit rushed out the door and into the halls of NERV, knowing only that she had to go downwards. I really hope this place isn't as confusing as I've heard, she thought, recalling one time she'd heard Misato complaining bitterly about the base's labyrinthine layout when she'd been visiting Shinji and Asuka.
The area of the base that contained the commanders' offices was relatively untouched, but once Spirit got away from there, she was soon confronted by the remains of the slaughter that the JSSDF had performed. Dead bodies littered the halls, most of which were partially flooded with some kind of red substance, some of which was still dripping lazily from pipes in the ceilings. The concrete walls bore the marks from the bullets, grenades, and flamethrowers that the JSSDF had employed.
The whole thing horrified Spirit to her very core. She had seen war before, namely the war against that Angels. However, that conflict had essentially been one of man versus beast. The one that had occurred, and, she realized, was doubtlessly still occurring, was one of man versus man, a very different thing.
Forcing herself not to vomit, she sprinted through the eerily quiet halls until she finally found an elevator. Not believing for a second that the thing was still working, she didn't even bother trying the buttons and merely forced the doors open, then jumped down the shaft. It was just large enough for her to use her wings to keep herself from falling uncontrollably, and Spirit soon landed lightly at the bottom.
She muscled open the lowest door…and found herself facing a dozen men she was certain weren't NERV security.
"What the hell is she?!" one of the soldiers asked.
"Who cares? Shoot her!"
Spirit's AT field flashed into vision as a hail of bullets cascaded against it, the deadly slugs utterly useless against the orange barrier of light. The winged girl crossed her arms and waited for the soldiers to realize that they weren't doing anything but wasting ammo.
"Finished?" she asked, once they finally ceased firing.
One of the soldiers answered by lobbing a grenade at her feet.
"Eep!" Spirit squeaked out of reflex, throwing her arms up.
The grenade went off, the sound of the explosion thunderous in the enclosed hallway. However, neither the deadly shrapnel nor the force of the blast ever made it past Spirit's AT field.
"Damn, that was loud," she groaned, rubbing her ears, before she gave the soldiers a deadly glare. "All right, my turn."
Spirit charged forward, and the soldiers reflexively opened fire again, their renewed assault proving just as fruitless as their previous two as their bullets splashed off her AT field like raindrops. She reached the group and punched one of the men in the chest, sending him sprawling into several of his comrades. A high kick knocked another to the floor. She wrenched one of the wicked looking rifles out of another's grasp and used it as a club to hit a third soldier, spending him to the floor with a cry of agony. In seconds, the teenage girl had reduced the squad of battle hardened and heavily armed soldiers to unconscious heaps on the floor.
All except for one. Spirit tore the gun out of the last man's hand, easily bending the rifle until it became U-shaped. Then she grabbed a handful of the man's shirt and lifted him off the ground. She was only able to get his feet a few centimeters above the floor, thanks to the height difference between them, but that didn't seem to lessen the effect. The man was clearly terrified.
"I don't suppose you know how to get to Terminal Dogma from here, do you?" she asked in a soft, dangerous voice, knowing from Rei that this was where all the secret and dangerous things NERV possessed were kept.
The soldier shook his head. "No, I don't. I swear!"
"Pity," Spirit grumbled.
She then flung the man into the wall with enough force to dent it. Satisfied that she'd taken care of the soldiers, the winged girl continued her trek through NERV. Normally she would have been more careful about not hurting the men too much, but having seen their handiwork, Spirit had decided that she wasn't going to worry herself about that much.
Spirit rounded a corner and found a new elevator. Wondering how deep NERV headquarters went, she forced this one open and headed to the bottom again.
Small but frantic battles were still happening in scattered pockets on this level, and more than once Spirit had to deal with JSSDF soldiers attacking her. The winged girl simply ignored most of them, allowing their attacks to bounce harmlessly off her AT field. They seemed to realize eventually that pissing her off might be a bad idea and reluctantly disengaged after she told them she didn't have time to play with them in the most threatening tone she could muster. She was all too aware of the fact that the unmaking of the world could begin at any second.
Unfortunately, she was finding herself getting turned around as she ran through the halls. She was becoming tempted to just fire a cross blast straight down, and then use the resulting tunnel to get down toward where NERV was keeping Adam. But she feared she might cause the building to collapse if she did that.
A familiar voice suddenly broke her out of her frantic thoughts.
"Please don't do this," whimpered a man, who sounded like he was around a nearby corner.
Spirit's eyes widened and she came to a dead stop. It can't be.
"Please," the voice said again. "I have three daughters and no wife. I don't want my girls to become orphans."
It is!
She sprinted around the corner, seeing two JSSDF soldiers pointing their guns at the area under a staircase, which was obviously where their intended victim was. One of the soldiers smirked.
"Sorry, pal, but we got permission to ice noncombatants," he said. "Gotta use it or lose it."
Spirit's AT field expanded outward with incredible force, slamming into the two soldiers like a battering ram of orange light and sending them flying off their feet a half instant before they pulled the triggers of their guns. The shots went completely wild, blasting holes into the walls but never coming close to the space under the stairway. The soldiers landed on their backs on the floor several meters from where they'd stood a second ago, and Spirit was on them before they could even think about getting up, raining blows that had her superhuman strength behind them down upon the two men.
She nearly killed them, nearly ended their lives for what they had almost done. It was only because she heard the man she'd saved release a gasp that she was able to pull herself out of her maniac fury in time to spare them. Even so, neither of the two men would be moving under their own power any time soon.
"Are you okay?" she asked, turning to the technician she'd rescued.
"I am, because of you," Tanaka Horaki answered. "My daughters still have a father because of you. Domo arigato, Spirit-sama."
Spirit blinked, then nearly laughed, feeling almost giddy now that the danger had passed. She remembered thinking a long time ago that even her father might not recognize her in her costume, but she hadn't really believed it. "You're welcome, um, sir," she replied.
It felt extremely strange to call him anything but "Dad."
She suddenly heard footsteps and turned, balling her hands into fists as she prepared to take out more JSSDF soldiers. However, the man who rounded the corner was wearing the tan uniform and red barrette of the NERV security forces. Spirit's eyes widened when she took a look at his face.
"No way," she said. "I know you! You're the guy I saved from the Twelfth Angel!"
"After I tried to kill you," the man added with a small smile, before his face became serious. "I never did get the opportunity to thank you for that."
"You can thank me by making sure this man's daughters don't become orphans today," Spirit replied, gesturing toward her father. "And by telling me how to get to Terminal Dogma."
The NERV soldier frowned slightly at her second request, but honored it after only a brief hesitation. "Go down that hallway and take a left," he said, pointing, "then go straight until you find another elevator. You'll need to force the door, but it'll take you to where you want to go."
"Arigato!" Spirit said, and began to run toward her destination, silently praying that no other JSSDF soldiers would find her father.
The chamber that NERV kept Lilith in made Commander Ikari's office look like a very cramped closet in comparison, and Gendo had taken his sweet time in crossing the long bridge that led to the island in the lake of LCL that Lilith's crucifix sat on. Rei suspected he might actually be savoring the moment.
Has he lost touch with reality? He's acting as if everything's going according to his scenario, Rei thought as she was pulled along.
Gendo was apparently still in touch with reality enough to realize that he and Rei weren't alone as they reached Lilith's island. "Dr. Akagi," he said.
The faux blonde stood and pointed a pistol at him with a shaking hand. "Hello, Gendo," she said. "I knew you'd come. Looks like you had to stoop to dragging your former puppet here. How amusing."
He opened his mouth to make a reply, and Rei decided to take her chance while his attention wasn't on her. The First Child drove her elbow into Gendo's side with as much force as she could muster, evicting a grunt of pain from him and causing his grip on her to slacken. The First Child immediately pulled her arm free and then rushed out of his reach, jogging over to Akagi's side.
The blond scientist snorted at the irony of Rei joining with her, of all people, to oppose Gendo. "I guess saving the world makes for strange bedfellows, eh, Rei?" she commented.
"So it would seem, doctor," Rei replied.
Akagi turned her attention back to Gendo. "Give it up, you bastard," she commanded. "Your scenario's been falling apart for months, and now even the lynchpin of the entire thing has rejected you. It's over."
Gendo didn't look the least bit phased. "You are forgetting that the first rule of every good schemer is to always have a backup plan," he sneered at them.
The NERV Commander then held out a single, gloved hand and snapped his fingers. The sound echoed eerily through the gigantic chamber.
Ritsuko and Rei both began to look about almost frantically, searching for whatever Gendo had summonsed. Ritsuko was the first one to see what was descending from the shadows of the chamber, and her eyes widened.
"No," she gasped. "It's impossible…"
The Rei clone landed lightly in front of Gendo and spread her white wings, as if shielding him from Rei and Akagi with them.
Author's Notes: Whew, that one was very big chapter, but seeing as how EoE part one is about twice as long as an episode of NGE, I guess it was to expected. I've known what was going to happen in the EoE part of this fic for a long time now, so it was great to finally reach this point and fun to write.
Now, I'm sure a few of you are echoing Ritsuko's comment on the Rei clone. Rest assured, that will be explained next chapter when Gendo does the Evil Villain Monologue™. Is launching into a monologue OOC for Gendo? Probably, but I am trying to be at least somewhat comic bookish here, and so the Evil Villain Monologue™ is practically a requirement. Besides, his frustration has knocked a few of his screws slightly loose, and how else will we know how the Bastard King pulled this one off?
Next chapter will feature Spirit versus the winged Rei III, and the NERV EVA's versus the Mass Produced EVA Series. You won't want to miss this one, folks.
As always, thanks to my readers and reviewers.
Omakes
Alternate Plans
Akagi turned her attention back to Gendo. "Give it up, you bastard," she commanded. "Your scenario's been falling apart for months now, and now even the lynchpin of the entire thing has rejected you. It's over."
Gendo didn't look the least bit phased. "You are forgetting that the first rule of every good schemer is to always have a backup plan," he sneered at them.
The NERV Commander then held out a single, gloved hand and snapped his fingers.
"RISE BASTARD GUNDAM!" Gendo roared.
A huge, black robot that vaguely resembled a samurai suddenly emerged from the lake of LCL, the amber liquid cascading off of it as it rose up into the air. A small, blue hovercraft appeared, seemingly from nowhere, and Gendo quickly got into it. The hovercraft then flew up to Bastard Gundam, inserting itself into the robot's back.
Bastard Gundam's eyes, which happened to be the exact same shade of orange as Gendo's glasses, flashed as the machine fully came to life.
"With this invincible super robot, I will force you to complete the scenario, Rei!" Gendo's voice boomed out of the Gundam's speakers.
Ritsuko and Rei just sweat dropped in response.
"It would seem that Commander Ikari has been getting into Lieutenant Makoto's Mobile Fighter G-Gundam manga," Rei commented.
"…yes," Ritsuko agreed, too shocked to say much else.
"Gendo Ikari!"
They all turned to see Spirit hovering near the doorway, looking ready to rumble.
"Ah! It's you!" Gendo said. "I shall enjoy crushing you before I complete my scenario!"
"I wouldn't count on it!" Spirit shouted, bringing her hands together, white light forming between them. "The School of the Superwomen of Eva! The ultimate technique! Seki Ha—Halo Wave—Ten Kyo Ken!"
Ritsuko and Rei sweat dropped again, much more prominently this time, even as an epic battle began to unfold around them.
"I do not know where Spirit managed to come across G-Gundam manga, however," Rei said. "Classmate Aida, perhaps?"
Not Until "Heroes United!"
The NERV Commander then held out a single, gloved hand and snapped his fingers. The sound echoed eerily through the gigantic chamber.
Ritsuko and Rei both began to look about almost frantically, searching for whatever Gendo had summonsed. Ritsuko was the first one to see what was descending from the shadows of the chamber, and her eyes widened.
"No," she gasped. "It's impossible…"
The Rei clone landed lightly in front of Gendo and spread her white wings, as if shielding him from Rei and Akagi with them.
"So," Gendo said, "do you still believe that…?"
He trailed off, however, when he realized that Ritsuko and Rei both looked as though they were struggling mightily not to laugh. Both he and Rei III sweat dropped.
"What?!" Gendo demanded. "What's so funny?"
A metallic sheath quickly wrapped itself around Rei's entire body, and a silver surfboard flew down from the ceiling and hovered before her. Rei stepped onto it and her body instantly gained the same silvery sheen.
Meanwhile, insectoid arms burst out of Ritsuko's back, and her hands turned into deadly claws. Her canines lengthened, becoming sharp, deadly fangs.
"No…" Gendo breathed, unable to believe that two of the worst thorns in his side had been right under his nose all this time.
The Silver Surfer and the Spider Woman exchanged a glance, then nodded with an unspoken agreement.
"Superwomen of Eva…" they called in unison, "ASSEMBLE!"
Seconds later, the She-Hulk appeared in the doorway and began to run across the bridge to Lilith's island. She was closely followed by Spirit and the Ghost Rider, both of whom were flying behind her. And behind them were Iron Man and Storm.
Maya was also there, too, but since she was invisible at the time, Gendo and Rei III didn't know this.
Looking out at the awesome forces suddenly arrayed against her, Rei III felt her first emotion.
She didn't like it.
"Commander," Rei III said, "I do not believe that I…"
She trailed off as she realized that Gendo was no longer standing right behind her. She looked around, and saw the commander. He had gone behind Lilith's cross and dragged what looked like a very small rocket ship into view. Gendo quickly climbed into it.
"I regret nothing!" Gendo proclaimed just before he shut the hatch on his little escape pod.
The rocket blasted off, flying right through the roof of the chamber and disappearing.
He abandoned me, Rei III thought, experiencing her second emotion.
She didn't like this one, either.
Rei III turned back to look at the crowd of superwomen, noting that more than one was looking positively gleeful at the chance to tear her apart.
"Well…" she said. "Shit."