Disclaimer: No ownership over any concepts or plots expressed in this work of fiction is stated or implied. The author intends no financial gain from the distribution of this material and makes no claim of copyright or trademark.
S
Misato walked onto the bridge in a daze. It felt as if the floor was moving, undulating beneath her feet. Her fingers slid open and her phone clattered to the floor. Shinji was lying against the forward console on the upper level, the limp body of Kozo Fuyutsuki spread across his lap. Blood coated his stomach and legs and pooled around him where he sat as he feebly tried to hold it into the old man. Shivering sobs wracked his body.
"Somebody get a medic!" Maya screamed.
Misato shook herself out of it and stormed forward, moving around the pile of debris. "Aoba, get a medical team in here, now. Hyuga, I want the pilots brought in immediately, and separately, do you understand?"
"Yes ma'am," Hyuga said, shaking, as he turned to his console.
"I want Kaworu Nagisa detained and confined to his quarters. Recovering Unit Two is priority, I want it in the cage and locked down with a restrictor plug as soon as possible. Where the hell is the Commander?"
"He's not answering our calls," said Aoba. "He doesn't seem to be on base."
Goro Yoshida stormed into the command center, gun in hand. "Who's in command here?"
"I am," said Misato, rounding on him.
"Bullshit," said Yoshida. "I'm taking command."
He motioned a pair of agents to move alongside him, but they froze as Shinji slowly stood up, carrying Fuyutsuki's limp body in his arms.
"Which one of you," said Shinji, "wants to test that theory."
Yoshida held his ground while his subordinates backed away.
"Get out of my way."
Hyuga stood up. "Captain, they're having trouble with Asuka. She's demanding to be taken to the infirmary."
"Do it," said Misato, "Give her a full escort and get her there, now."
Yoshida stepped out of the way as a crew of medics ran into the control room, carrying a stretcher. Shinji lowered Fuyutsuki's body onto it, and tried to life it before one of the technicians stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. Misato realized what they were doing and rushed to his side, trying to push him back, but it was like pressing her hands against a brick wall. He just wouldn't move.
When Shinji heard "Time of death", he sank into her so hard it nearly bowled her off her feet, sobbing like a child.
"Yoshida," Misato said quietly as she stroked Shinji's hair. "This is a crime scene. Clear it off and get the investigative division in here."
"You don't give me orders-"
"The hell I don't," Misato snapped. "The chain of command falls to me. Do your job or I'll find someone who will."
She put her arms under Shinji's shoulders and tugged him back to his feet. He moved with her, shaking, until they were outside. When they stepped out into the hallway, he pulled away from her and slumped against the wall.
"Come on," she whispered, "Get up."
He shook his head and just sat there, and if he didn't want to go she had no chance of moving him. "Shinji, come on. I need you. Asuka needs you. Hikari needs you."
"What good am if I can't save one person?"
Misato sank to her knees and grabbed his cheeks, turning his head to face her. Gingerly, she brushed the tears away with her thumbs. He stared at her, maybe through her, his eyes distant and unfocused, his breathing labored, every exhalation gasping into a small sob.
"Listen to me," she said, very calmly, as if she were speaking to a small child. "You can't do this. Not here, not now. Fuyutsuki wouldn't want you to curl up and just give up. Everyone in that room, maybe everyone in the world, is alive today because of you and the things that you've done. Are you going to give up on that now?"
"It's my fault," he rasped, turning away from her. "If I'd been faster, and smarter, I-"
"Damn it," she shook him, "Listen to yourself. You can't let these people see you like this. You're more than a pair of fists. Look around and look at the way people look at you. You've given these people hope," she started to choke up, blinking away her own tears. "Think about how things were before you got here, how Asuka used to be, how I used to be. You're a hero."
He looked at her.
"You're my hero," she said.
Slowly, but steadily, he stood up. He straightened, pressing his shoulders back, shaking even as he did. He drew in a breath, swallowed, and with his fingers wiped the tears out of his eyes.
"I have to get to the hospital. I need to see that everyone is okay."
"You can't go like this," said Misato. "You're… the blood…"
"I need to get the suit washed. I might need it later. Let's go to the locker room."
She pulled his arm over her shoulders and walked with him, walked away from the carnage and the control room and the shouting technicians carrying out her orders. She walked him into the elevator and he slumped against the wall. Misato pushed the button.
"Let's stop at home, first," said Misato, lowering her voice. "These people need you, not," she pointed at his chest, "him."
Shinji sighed. "And these people need you. You're in charge here, Misato. I'll take care of everything else."
"I feel so useless," Ritsuko murmured.
There she was, medical doctor, engineer, head of Project E, one of her pilots lying half dead in an operating room and she was sitting outside in the hallway with everyone else. Asuka was sitting near her in a mismatched outfit that Kaji had cobbled together from whatever she had lying out at home before he picked her up. The man himself was seated opposite her, leaning on his knees, watching Asuka from the corner of his eye. He'd gotten her a blanket somewhere and she was curled up next to him, staring vacantly into nothing.
"Why's that?" he said.
"I'm a doctor. I should be in there helping them."
"How long has it been since you've been in surgery?"
"Not since I was a resident. I never practiced medicine except as part of the program."
"You'd just get in the way. Trust in the staff here, they're some of the best in the world."
Ritsuko snorted. "Of course they are. I hired them."
Kaji turned to the doors- there was a set of double doors at the end of the hallway, and she saw movement on the other side. Through the round glass windows set high in the doors she could see a small crowd of people. She stood up and ran to the doors and pulled them open. An orderly was shooing away a group of people- the Hikari family, a boy Ritsuko didn't recognize, and Shinji.
Ritsuko pulled out her identification badge. "Let them in."
The orderly stepped out of the way and they rushed past her. The father, a heavyset man in his fifties, had a sort of dull, uncomprehending look on his face. The older sister, Ritsuko couldn't remember her name, scowled at Ritsuko even as she held the younger sister, all of six years old, in her arms. The child pawed at her shoulder and stared around in confusion, obviously mystified all of this. The boy, the boy she remembered from the school, the tall one who always wore a track suit. Toji Suzahara. The psych profile mentioned Hikari's "attachment" to him, as though it were some sort of disease.
"Please," said Ritsuko, "Please, come in; she's in the operating theater now. We're waiting for word."
The doors flapped shut behind them as she entered. There weren't enough seats, even with the younger sister sitting on the elder's lap, so Ritsuko and Shinji ended up standing. Shinji paced back and forth, red with fury, and Ritsuko had to press her nails into her palms to remind herself not to comfort him too strongly, not to make it too obvious. Asuka didn't say anything to anyone, she just shivered in her seat, between Kaji and the older sister. Kodama, that was her name.
With her free hand, Kodama touched Asuka's hair, stroking it as though she were a child. "Shinji told us what happened," she said softly. "We know it's not your fault. You did everything you could."
"But it wasn't enough," Asuka said, hoarsely.
"Nozomi, sit here," the girl said, resting her sister next to Asuka.
Ritsuko smiled a little when the child crawled onto Asuka's lap and hugged her. Asuka, in a very un-Asuka like way, hugged her fiercely, turning her head so that no one could see that she was tearing up. Her smile faded when Kodama, a tall slip of a thing who still had freckles and looked like a taller version of her younger sister, pressed her face into Ritsuko's.
"What the hell is wrong with you people?" she demanded, poking Ritsuko in the chest.
Ritsuko looked away. "I… only children born after Second Impact can pilot Evangelions. It's the way it is."
"There isn't anything you can do? Anything but this? We already lost my mother. My father will die if we lose Hikari. What am I going to tell my little sister?"
"I," Ritsuko choked up, turning away. "I tried to convince her not to sign. I didn't want her to do it. I don't choose the candidates, I-"
"Oh," Kodama said sharply, stepping closer to her. "So it's not your fault, right? She signed the papers, and you were just following orders."
"Your father signed too," Ritsuko said, dumbly, "I-"
"Of course he did!" Kodama shouted. "He works for Nerv! You would have fired him if he didn't!"
"That's not true, I-"
"Kodama," Asuka said softly.
"What?" she snapped, and then "Oh. Asuka, I didn't mean-"
"I tried to make her stop," Asuka said absently, hugging Nozomi to her shoulder. "I insisted she leave, I told her to quit. I ordered her to quit."
"It's not your fault," Kodama said again, "It isn't, it-"
"You know what she told me?" said Asuka. "She said she had to, because she didn't want someone else to take her place."
"Of course she would," said Kodama. "She would do that. She's…" She started to break down, turning and cupping her eyes over her face.
"She's a hero," Asuka said absently.
The operating room doors opened. A doctor walked out in full regalia, and pulled down his face mask. "We have her stabilized," he said to no one in particular. "It's a miracle. If Superman hadn't carried her to the ambulance so quickly, she would have died."
Shinji looked visibly relieved, sliding against the wall, but she could see his eyes trembling. They were all silent, waiting for the bad news.
"I'm sorry, there's no gentle way to put this-"
"Just tell us," Hikari's father said, flatly.
"We had to amputate her right leg below the knee joint. The damage was too severe; the bones in her calf and foot were crushed to powder. I'm afraid there's more. We're working on her arm now. I'm not sure we'll be able to save it; she has a serious spiral fracture. Her left eye has also been damaged. There was some severe internal bleeding, and her retina detached. I can't tell you if we're going to be forced to perform an enucleation, but she'll be blind in that eye regardless."
"What's an enucleation?" said Kodama.
"I'm sorry, it means we'd remove the eye completely. It's going to be a few hours. We'll keep you posted."
The surgeon turned and walked back inside, staring at the floor.
Kodama shook with a bitter sob.
Ritsuko slumped against the wall, sliding down until she sat on the floor, hugging her knees. She hadn't spent a great deal of time with Hikari, but the girl made a ready impression. She was so serious, so mature, and so energetic. So full of life, even when she was riding up the elevator to confront the terror of piloting an Evangelion. Ritsuko stared blankly at the operating room doors and cursed herself bitterly, wishing there was some way she could give the girl a new leg, save her arm somehow, restore her sight. All her medical knowledge was useless, she couldn't restore a limb.
Kaji's phone buzzed. He took it from his pocket, checked it, and palmed it. He looked at Shinji. "it's Katsuragi. She wants us back at headquarters. It's about your father."
Goro Yoshida led the mission personally. To say that he may not have liked Katusragi was an understatement- he found the woman more and more loathsome at every juncture, although he did admit she had gotten herself together in the short time he'd known her, quit acting like such an irresponsible slob. Yet, she had no respect for the institution that she served. Yoshida did, however, and she was indeed the acting commander –he emphasized the acting in his mind—and his superior, and so he was obliged to obey her order to arrest the Nagisa boy. He took two of his best men and headed out to meet him as the recovery crew rode him back into the facility.
The boy stepped out of the heavy recovery van, still dressed in his plugsuit. He drank in his surroundings in those huge red eyes of his, and Yoshida shivered in spite of himself. There was something wrong with the boy, that he didn't dispute. Katusragi may have been right about this one. The Commander had done the right thing, but the viciousness with which he'd attacked a machine piloted by another human being, who was in no way responsible for the attack, was admittedly disturbing. Yoshida sighed, and did his duty.
"Pilot Nagisa," he said, "I am under orders to escort you to your quarters and confine you there."
The boy cocked his head to the side, and smiled a viper smile. "I'm afraid that is unacceptable."
Yoshida sighed. "Cuff him."
The boy looked at the two men on either side of him, and the two men with Yoshida, considered them for a moment, and then unmade them. He did something, some sort of gesture with his hand, and flashes of orange light scythed through their bodies, dividing them in clean slices that tumbled to the floor and, when they hit, simply exploded in great pools of thick, reddish liquid. Yoshida drew his gun, but the boy was so fast, he was just there, all at once, right in his face.
"What did you do?"
"That was the sacred light of my soul, which no one may enter."
He touched Yoshida's forehead with one gloved finger. "Your soul, on the other hand, is an open book."
It all came to him at once. The crushing pain in his chest when he returned home after the first blasts to find that he had no home, the years of fruitless searching, of rumors, of finding the right name attached to the wrong woman, of the day he finally accepted that they were both gone, that he'd gone to work one morning and the world ended, and when it started up again his most precious people were all gone. It rampaged through his mind, not as a memory, but as though he was there. He could smell the sea foam and hear the first gunshot and feel the flash from the blast over Old Tokyo searing his mind, and he was in all of those places, all of those times, at once.
He sank to his knees, blubbering like a child, and his gun clattered out of his hand.
"Unlike these others," said the boy, "You will prove useful. You will do exactly as I say." He leaned down and whispered in Yoshida's ear. "I can give them back to you."
Shinji found Misato, changed into a fresh uniform, standing outside his father's office. He felt apprehension building, weighing on him as a lump formed in his throat. He supposed he'd have to do this eventually, or someone would. He had an inkling of why he was there, even before Kaji asked that very question.
"I want to make sure there are no surprises in there for us," said Misato. "We have to go in."
Shinji nodded. The doors were locked, so he ripped the lock out of the doors and tossed it over his shoulder, where it scrabbled across the floor with a loud scraping sound. He pushed them aside, folding them against the interior door, and walked in, or appeared to. He was in fact hovering a millimeter over the floor, not touching it. He didn't immediately see any invisible trip lines or lasers or anything, so he scanned the room as he moved through it, and found to his surprise that the walls were simply walls. He settled on the floor and did a slow walk around the desk, carefully studying it.
The only thing out of the ordinary was a thick binder lying on the desk. Normally, he kept his desk spotlessly clean and free of any of the normal debris of administration- it would occur to any rational person to ask what he actually did in there all the time. He nodded, and Misato and Kaji walked in, the latter nonchalantly touching the gun he had tucked in his waistband anyway.
Shinji touched the binder. A simple legend had been written, in marker, on the front. It read, "The Truth". Written beneath it was a series of numbers.
Kaji looked at the number. "What is that?"
"My birthday," said Shinji, lifting the cover.
Kaji tensed.
"If it was rigged to explode, I'd smell it," Shinji said absently.
He traced his finger across the page, turning the binder to look at the paper sideways. It was technical schematic, a drawing of some kind of vehicle. Something tingled at the back of his mind, some strange instinct. It looked like a rocket, and the main thing it carried was some kind of computer. There were no fuel tanks; it looked like it, somehow, derived its thrust and power from a central storage compartment, containing a fuel source. From the dimensions, the rock would be a fist-sized, maybe slightly larger. The rocket itself wouldn't be much larger than a person.
He sank down into his father's seat.
"Do you know what this is?"
Kaji shook his head. Misato bit her lip. "It's the rocket," she said, "the rocket that made you."
Kaji touched the page and closed his eyes. "I had no idea. The box, I… I stole it from them and brought it here. I thought it had something to do with a power source for the Evas."
Shinji stared at the plans for the rocket. "You didn't know. It's not your fault."
"What is the rock?" said Misato.
"Some sort of Kryptonian mineral, presumably," said Kaji, "some unknown element that they used for a power source."
"That must be what he meant," said Shinji.
"Who?" said Misato.
Shinji sat up. "When I touched the crystal that gave me a vision of my Kryptonian father, he said that his people were dying a slow death from sterility. That must be why. The radiation from that rock affected them, affected us."
"That makes sense," said Kaji. "Deadly in large doses, but if they were to, say, pollute the atmosphere with it…"
"They're not so different from us after all," said Misato. "So it's a piece of Krypton."
"Kryptonite," said Kaji.
Shinji turned the page. There were more detailed plans of the interior of the rocket, focusing on the propulsion system, and the computer itself. It incorporated "unknown apparently cloned nervous tissue" and a series of clear, quartz-like crystals that appeared to be an optical data storage system, like the optical cubes that were envisioned as a storage system in the late nineteen-nineties. He tapped the page with his finger. Cloned nervous tissue.
Cloned.
There was something else. Buried in the heart of the computer system was a preserved sample of pure Kryptonian tissue- itself a cloned, generalized sample, containing the entire Kryptonian genetic code. How could they have known that?
In a panic, Shinji rapidly flipped through the pages, scanning them faster than Misato and Kaji could keep up, until he slammed the binder shut and slid back from the desk, gripping the sides of his head. They knew that because they extracted it, and experimented on it.
"No," Shinji whispered. "No, no, they can't."
"What?" Misato demanded, "What is it?"
"They spent years pulling it apart, trying to make another me. It didn't work."
"Well," said Kaji, "that's good, isn't it?"
"No," said Shinji. "It's worse. They stopped trying to create a Kryptonian-Human hybrid, and started working on a Kryptonian-Evangelion hybrid instead."
Kaji paled. "The solar collector. At the German branch they had a massive solar collector, designed to focus solar energy into a big room. That must be what it was for."
His phone rang, and he yanked it from his pocket and turned to answer it. He listened briefly, and turned around, even paler than before. "We have a problem."
"What?"
"Yoshida called the United Nations. He told them Fuyutsuki killed Gendo and was killed during a coup attempt, and Katsuragi has taken over and plans to use the Evangelions to overthrow the government. They're on their way to arrest everyone right now."
"Get back to the hospital," said Misato, running for the door. "They'll try to arrest Ritsuko…" she left the words to hang in the air unspoken.
"I'll go with you," said Shinji, rising.
"No," said Kaji. "I have something better you can do."
Asuka looked up to see Kaji push through the doors, shoving a hospital orderly out of the way. He grabbed Akagi somewhat roughly by the arms and pulled her to her feet. She was mumbling to herself, something about nerve connections, and he had to shake her to get her attention. She shook her head, as if clearing the cobwebs from waking up.
"We have to go," he said, "Now. Asuka, you too."
Asuka blinked and stood up, gently lowering Nozomi onto Kodama's lap. "What's going on?"
"I don't have time to explain. We're leaving."
Asuka swallowed, and rushed to his side as he half-dragged Akagi along with him, not the way he came but deeper into the hospital. He stopped at every intersection of hallways to look around, then ushered her on. Asuka followed behind him, increasingly feeling something crawling up her spine.
"I want to get out of here," she said. "I hate hospitals."
It seemed the further they went, the colder it became. Asuka shivered and rubbed at her arms. Gurneys, oxygen tanks, and medical equipment lurked around every corner, covered in tubes and screens. She heard the faint sounds of beeping and nurse's shoes scuffing the floor and the murmuring of doctors and a lump formed in her throat.
"Asuka," said Kaji, "I need you to hold it together. I don't want to get in a firefight here, we need to get out."
"Firefight? But you don't have-"
Kaji casually flipped up the back of his shirt, revealing a heavy automatic pistol tucked there.
"Oh," said Asuka. "What's going on? Why are we hiding?"
He pressed against the wall and looked at her. "Asuka, I… Kozo Fuyutsuki is dead. Gendo is missing. The United Nations think Misato and Fuyutsuki meant to take over Nerv and use the Evas to overthrow the government." He sighed. "Apparently, Kaworu used Unit Two to 'stop us'."
"That little bastard," Asuka snarled, "I'll kill him, I swear."
"Save it for later," said Kaji.
He went on until he found a service elevator, hit the button, and looked around nervously until the doors opened. Asuka practically clung to his back as they moved inside and he hit the button for the ground floor. He leaned Ritsuko against the wall and waved his hand in front of her face, but she just stared, glancing at him feebly.
"Why did it have to be children?"
Kaji looked at Asuka and shook his head.
The elevator stopped on the ground floor, and the doors parted. Three men in full tactical gear, bullet proof vests and blue helmets marked UN in white letters, pointed submachine guns into the elevator.
"You're under arrest," the leader said. He thumbed the button on a microphone at his shoulder. "I have Kaji and Akagi here. The pilot is with them, securing her now."
"Gentlemen," said Kaji, edging forward with his hands up, "This is all a misunderstanding. I'm a Special Inspector for the UN, just let me-"
"Quiet," the leader snapped, "You're working with them. Put your hands behind your back."
Kaji's hands moved slowly downwards.
"Wait," the leader said, motioning to the man by his side. "Pat him down."
Kaji sighed as the soldier moved to his side and started frisking him, and froze as he touched something on Kaji's side.
"What the hell?"
"It's my shaving kit," said Kaji.
Then, he moved. He was so fast, he grabbed the soldier's forearms, twisted somehow in an undulating, snaky way, and slammed him head first into the wall. His helmet took most of the impact, but left him stunned enough for Kaji to jab into his throat with his fingers and toss him into the one the middle who gave the orders, knocking them both of their feet. The third one started to raise his gun, and then froze.
Having yanked it out of his belt, Asuka pointed Kaji's pistol right at the soldier's face. "Drop it."
"I'd do what she says," said Kaji. "She has cramps."
Slowly, the agent lowered his gun to the floor and slid the sling off his shoulder. Kaji scooped it up, checked the chamber and the safety, and motioned for Asuka to follow him, grabbing Ritsuko by the arm with his free hand. Together they kept the three men covered until they were around the corner.
"You should give that back," said Kaji, "You don't know how to use-"
Asuka tipped the slide back to check the chamber, thumbed the hammer back and put on the safety, and pointed the gun at the ground with her finger alongside the trigger guard in the ready position.
"Okay," said Kaji, "You can just keep that for a while."
"Where are we going?"
"The car," said Kaji.
"Your car only has two seats," said Asuka.
"Not that car."
He stopped, checked the halls, and proceeded. Down here, things were more dank, the walls bare concrete rather than white paint and tile floors, the lights harsh yellow sodium bulbs rather than the clean white fluorescents of the upper layers. He motioned her forward, all the while pulling Akagi along with him. Finally, they reached daylight streaming through square windows in a pair of heavy doors. Kaji stopped, peered through the windows, and gently edged the door open before he slung the machinegun and moved out into the light, motioning for her to follow. She took Akagi around the waist.
There was a god damn tank in the parking lot. A heavy assault vehicle on six wheels, marked with the Nerve emblem, hunched an angular, was lying in wait by the back door of the hospital. Asuka smirked.
"Where did you get that?"
"I borrowed it."
He ran to the back, hit a switch, and the entire rear end of the vehicle unfolded in a ramp. Asuka moved inside, supporting Akagi as she did, and Kaji came in behind her, closing the ramp. The inside was surprisingly cramped- there was a place for someone to stand and operate the armored turret on the top, a few small, hard, cramped seats, and a pair of seats for a driver and passenger up front. Asuka helped lower Akagi into one of the seats. She moved passively, not resisting but not helping.
"What's wrong with her?"
Kaji shook his head. "I don't know. Come on."
He slid into the driver's seat and turned a key- it looked like any other car key, which in some tiny way, amused her. She handed his gun back to him and he stuck it under his hip, then worked the big gear lever and started the vehicle rolling forward. It bounced and jounced and shook her from side to side.
Kaji looked at her from the corner of his eye.
"What?"
"You're holding together really well. I'm proud of you."
In spite of everything, just a little, Asuka smiled.
Fortunately, accessing the United Nations was somewhat convenient. The original meeting place of the world's international governing body –at the time a far more toothless entity than what it would later become—was destroyed when New York City was inundated during the immediate aftermath of Second Impact. Given the importance of Japan in the new world order, when a new formal headquarters for the organization as built in 2005, it was located in the new capital at Tokyo-2. Shinji lighted on the front steps of the building, much to the surprise of the guards, his cape flapping in the wind behind him as he marched up to the front doors.
Inside, there was a security check. Everyone in the lobby stopped and stared at him. Dutifully, he walked through the roped line leading up to the metal detectors, and waited for the stunned looking middle aged woman sitting on the other side to motion him through. He stopped on the other side.
"I'd ask you to empty your pockets, but…"
"Sorry," he shrugged. "All I have is this." He held up the thumb drive Kaji had given him.
"You'll, ah, you'll need a visitor badge."
She wrote "Superman" on the sticker in magic marker, then spread it onto his chest with her hands. It started peeling off his suit almost immediately. The plugsuit material did not react well to adhesives.
"Um, I-"
"I think everyone will know who you are," she said, absently. "The General Assembly is currently in session-"
"Could you point me in the right direction?"
"Uh, just go around the corner there and to your left, it's the big door with the guards outside."
He nodded. "Thank you."
He earned more stares as he walked through the building. Beyond the check station, almost no one was Japanese. As they all stopped to watch him walk by, he remembered Misato's words in the hallway and squared himself up. The guards at the door –it was indeed quite large, as the security guard told him—stared at him with open mouths.
"I have business with the assembly," he said.
"Go right in," the guard on the left replied, watching him as he pushed the door open and walked through.
He found himself at the highest level of an large amphitheater. Marble steps ran down to a daise where the Secretary General was speaking. Flags hung down either wall, and in between were rows of hundreds of delegates and their translators. On the far wall, there was a map of the Earth, centered on the Arctic, picked out in white against a blue field. The speaker's podium looked tiny underneath it.
Shinji cleared his throat.
When the Secretary General saw him, she froze, and dropped her pen. Shinji scratched the back of his head.
His voice rang out across the hall. "Excuse me."
The Secretary-General leaned forward. He'd seen her on television before, and he knew that Misato knew her, or at least had met her a few times. He remembered seeing her at the Jet Alone disaster. He was pinning all of his hopes on these people listening to him, and so he felt some apprehension, a tightening in his guts as she leaned forward to the microphone.
"You'll need a sponsor to speak to the assembly."
The hall was dead silent for a moment, until in a rustle of papers and a flapping of pant legs and robes, every single person in the room stood up. Shinji smiled in spite of himself and jogged down the steps, feeling the all the eyes in the room, the eyes of the world, watching him. Television cameras swiveled to watch his approach.
There was a collective gasp as he lifted off the floor, flew over the podium, and lighted beside the secretary general. "May I?"
She stepped to the side and motioned him to the podium. He adjusted the microphone and tapped it with his finger, and winced at the booming bass from the speakers behind him. The delegates took their seats, and he waited patiently, knowing they'd need to translate his words.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "I have an urgent request to make. As I speak, United Nations peacekeepers and Japanese home defense forces are advancing on Nerv headquarters under Tokyo-3. I'm here to ask that they be recalled."
The Secretary-General moved to his side, and leaned to the microphone. "We were just discussing that as you came in."
Shinji nodded, and looked down at his feet to gather his breath. "I understand that you may not believe me. There are a lot of rumors going around about who I am and where I come from. There's too much to explain now, but I'm not a special project, some sort of Nerv experiment, or an angel." He paused, trying to think of how to put it best. "I come from a world called Krypton."
"You're an alien?" the Secretary-General blurted, staring at him with wide eyes.
"Not exactly. My mother was human. I was born with these abilities, these gifts, but they don't belong to me. They belong to everyone else."
He didn't know what to expect from that. He waited, wondering if the silence was from shock or disbelief, until the assembly broke out in thunderous applause. He raised his hands to quiet them.
"I need you to listen to me, before innocent people get hurt. Some of what you've heard is true. Kozo Fuyutsuki, the second in command of Nerv, is dead. He did not die in the midst of a coup attempt. Today, during a scheduled test of the newest Evangelion, an angel attacked and took over the Eva, trapping the pilot. Two of the other pilots attempted to rescue her, acting against Commander Ikari's orders."
"Commander Ikari responded to this by disabling one Eva and shutting the others down. They were forced to watch as Unit Two destroyed the rogue Evangelion, nearly killing the pilot. I managed to save her, but she is in critical condition in Nerv's infirmary as we speak. Her leg has already been amputated and she may lose her arm, and she is blind in one eye."
He waited, drawing his breath. The room was eerily slient.
"Like all of the Evangelion pilots, she is sixteen."
He looked down at the podium for a moment, and breathed.
"Fuyutsuki died bravely, trying to step in and give us a chance to save this innocent girl," he choked up as he said it, "Who did nothing wrong, and chose to pilot an Evangelion to spare someone else the same risk."
He looked at the Secretary-General. "I'm asking you to please listen to reason. The leadership of Nerv is either dead or in hiding and the people in charge there now are no threat to anyone. If we can just talk this out, I'm sure we can solve this without anyone else being hurt today."
He turned to the Secretary-General, but she was already on the phone.
"There's more," he said. "This may be difficult to believe, but I have evidence, gathered by a United Nations special inspector covertly working within Nerv, that there exists a criminal conspiracy-"
He froze. He heard it first, before any of the delegates did, the terrible winding groan as the evacuation sirens started, followed a moment later by their droning wail. He put the thumb drive on the podium, turned, and headed for the door.
Misato stood on the lower section of the bridge, watching in horror as the MAGI plotted the movements of the new blue pattern. It had simply appeared in low orbit and was rapidly approaching from the south. She had to wait to see a visual, in the meantime, she had to get some kind of a defense organized. Worst of all, she was alone. Ritsuko was wherever Kaji and Asuka were, and there was no one backing her up, only the thin veneer of authority she held by assuming command in the chaos. She took a deep breath.
"What's the UN doing?"
"They're on the phone now," said Hyuga. "It's the Secretary-General."
"Patch it through to one of the headsets," said Misato, plucking one from the console.
"This is Captain Katusragi."
"This is Secretary-General Nakashima. Captain, you've been granted a reprieve. Superman made a personal appeal on your behalf, and in light of the impending attack, we thought it best to deal with the issue of chain of command at Nerv at a later time, hopefully without any violence."
"Yes, ma'am," said Misato. "I need your help."
"That's very brazen of you. I'm not surprised. What is it?"
"Two of the shelters were destroyed in the last attack. If your people could help get the civilians out of the fighting, we'd appreciate it."
"That, I think we can do. Good luck, Captain."
The line went dead, and Misato put the headset back on the console. She looked around. Maya was sitting there in shock, staring blankly at her console. Hyuga and Aoba didn't look any better. The whole room was quiet. She cleared her throat.
"Okay," she said, "listen up. I need situational awareness here. Where are the Evas and what is their status?"
"Unit One is offline and current sitting where the Commander deactivated it," said Hyuga. "Unit Zero is lying on its side a kilometer away. The arm was detached in the battle and has been quarantined to deal with a possible infection of angelic matter. Unit Two is being moved into the cage now."
"Where's Nagisa?"
"He was supposed to be confined to his quarters, but we haven't heard back from the security detail yet."
Misato groaned. "Great. I want him found, and I want him in that Eva."
Maya paled when she looked at Misato. "Are you sure? We-"
"I don't have a choice. We need to get an Eva into the fight and find out what we're dealing with here. Where are the others?"
"Rei is being brought back now, Asuka was at the hospital, but Kaji picked her and Doctor Akagi up," said Hyuga. "The security at the hospital said there was some sort of fight, someone tried to arrest them."
"Captain," said Aoba. "The angel is entering visual range."
The view on the main screen switched to a grainy, shaky camera view from one of the surveillance cameras in the hills. It showed what at first appeared to be a massive oncoming stormcloud, coal blank and angry with flickers of lightning. Misato hugged herself, then shook her head, she had to be professional and in command.
"What is that?"
"It's from entering the atmosphere," said Aoba. "It's slowing down."
The cloud roiled forward, thinning and curling on itself, as if rising from a fire. Something moved within it, pushing forward from the cloud bank as it slowed. The vapors parted, flickering with lancing bolts of lightning that arced between the clouds and the ground as it advanced. The camera shook and fuzzed, and for a moment, she feared it would go dead. The creature emerged from the cloud all at once, thin streams of vapor drifting back from its body. It was gigantic.
"Get me an analysis," said Misato.
"R-right," said Maya, typing. She swallowed. "The MAGI estimate its mass at approximately three times that of an Evangelion. The angel has not raised an AT-Field."
"Good," said Misato, absently. "Plot a firing solution."
"For which batteries?" said Hyuga.
"All of them."
She could see it, now. It was as big as the sky. It resembled a limbless torso, huge and muscular, covered in a heavy, gleaming black carapace. The red core, huge and luminous, was visible in its lower body, ringed by bony structures that looked almost like teeth. Wrapped around its lowest extremities were ribbons of fleshy material, looped over themselves and clenched like a huge fist. It had no head, but set between its shoulders was an immense bony mask, frozen in a perpetual scream with drooping eyes and a grimacing mouth. It seemed to see the camera- something flashed within its eye sockets, and the feed went to static.
"I need visuals," said Misato, as calm as she could muster. "Get it back up. Do it now."
Hyuga and Aoba typed frantically. A series of new views appeared, showing it from multiple angles as it approached the city and became visible on a number of cameras. It came within range of the first batteries, unfolding from the armored skyscrapers that ringed the city. The central sections had not yet finished sinking into the ground, and she could see movement.
"Captain," said Hyuga, "Rei is back to Unit Zero. We're initiating the field startup procedures now. I still don't have a location on Nagisa."
"Do we have firing solutions?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Is its field up?"
"No."
"Open fire," said Misato. "Hit it with everything."
Shini had to duck as a missile sailed past his head. He turned in the air and came to a stop, watching the projectiles streak in on plumes of smoke, their contrails linking together as they drew in on the angel, guided in by the computer systems. He expected to see the flowering of hexagonal AT-Fields, but the missiles kept on, fired their afterburners, and slammed into the angel. One by one they exploded on impact, the explosions turning the world from sunset to high noon, until they were was nothing but a cloud of airbursts and flames all around the creature. He held his breath for a moment, until the angel advanced through the explosions, parting them with the same ease with which it parted the air.
It moved with agonizing slowness, until the second wave of missiles hit. It came to a stop, vanishing under the weight of fire for a moment as the secondary defenses opened up on it- artillery and machinegun fire from automated positions all around the city. It ignored it all, gliding forward slowly, and the he felt it, a sort of buss on the back of his hands, a tingling on his scalp that made his hair stand on end. A great soundless beam of pure heat swept out from the angel's sunken eye-sockets and simply unmade the defenses. The missile batteries exploded with great whumps, while the armored panels just melted, instantly slagged, curling over and flowing away like butter flash melted by a fire.
All around him, he heard screaming. The evacuation wasn't going fast enough. Where the angel's beam touched the ground, there was nothing but fire and smoke. He took a deep breath and dove down into it, looking for survivors. There didn't appear to be anyone in the angels' path, but the fires were spreading rapidly, licking flames jumping from the hulk of one ruined build into the windows of another. He had to get the fires out, before they spread.
He spread his arms as wide as he could, closed his eyes, and with all his might, brought his hands together. The shockwave pushed him back, and spread out over the ground, smashing the burned wrecked of the buildings out of its path. The fires winked out, rolling back in a great wave that sent the smoke rolling up into the air, towards the angel. It ignored him, moving inexorably forward, and he could feel it charging itself up for another blast.
He looked over his shoulder. There was a column of UN armored personnel carriers, and cars, and trucks, and people on bicycles fleeing from the approaching creature. He could almost feel hunger radiating from it, a sort of malevolence that he'd never felt from the angels before. He had only a second before it fired. He jumped, and he flew, and he put himself in between the beam and its targets.
He could hear it now- it sounded like a thousand screams, a horrifying shriek of unending fury that shook his bones and made his teeth rattle in his skull. The beam struck him full on, shoved him back through the air, and burned his cape to cinders in a flash. He put his hands out and divided it, screaming soundless into the oncoming fury, until it simply ended and he tumbled backwards in the air, spinning wildly out of control. He clipped the corner of a tall building and landed in the street with a crash, rolling head over heels until he crashed through a brick wall and came to rest in the ruins of a florist's shop.
With a groan, he jumped to his feet, ran back out into the street, and took off. It worked- he'd diverted the beam away from the fleeing people. The angel seemed to need time to charge itself up, so he charged it, flying hard and fast, and grabbed a hold of its face mask, twisting it with his entire body. He pulled the creature off-track and it turned, but it took the absolute limit of his effort, and he could feel its slipping loose from his grasp. He grunted and pulled, rearing back, and felt like he was going to tear his arms out of their sockets.
The angel jerked out of his grasp and continued on, brushing him aside.
"Unit Zero is online," said Hyuga.
Rei's image appeared on the screen. She looked haggard, her eyes rimmed with fatigue, and she was holding her arm against her body as though it was broken, although Misato knew she was only feeling sympathetic pain from the Eva. It hurt to watch anyway, though, as Rei leaned forward, grabbed one of the butterfly controls, and pulled it down over her lap.
"Orders," Rei grunted.
"Get to the launch chute," said Misato. "We're going to have to stage a defense inside the Geofront. Do not engage the angel."
Rei shook her head. "There are still people trapped on the surface."
"We're working on getting them out," said Misato, and Sh- Superman is fighting it, trying to slow it down. It's too big, Rei. We need to come up with some kind of a plan."
Rei nodded, albeit weakly, and the tracking blip for her Eva started to move across the map. Misato sighed, and pinched the bridge of her nose. She looked up at the map, and saw the icons for the defensive positions gradually turning into red flashing marks as the angel took them out, one by one. On the screen, she could barely make out Shinji zipping around it in a figure-eight pattern, it looked like he was trying to distract it. Twice, twin beams of furious red head lanced out from him and struck the creature, but it simply ignored him, as if he was a fly buzzing around it.
"Captain," said Hyuga, "I've got Kaji on the radio."
"Give me your headset," she said quickly, crushing the speaker to her ear. "Kaji? Where are you?"
"We're in an APC. What the hell is going on?"
"Where did you get an APC?"
"Why does everyone keep asking me that? What do we do? What's happening?"
Misato looked up at the screen. "There's an angel, and it's kicking our ass. I have Rei headed down to the Geofront through the launch tube. We can't find Nagisa and Unit Two is still in the cage. Is Asuka with you?"
"Yeah, she's here."
"Get her to Unit One. We'll do a field startup. Go now."
"Roger. Kaji out."
She handed the headset back. "What's happening with the evacuation?"
"The UN troops have most of the exposed populace out of the city," said Hyuga. "The shelters are starting to report in. We're at seventy percent now."
Misato nodded and studied the map. The angel didn't seem to be in any particular hurry, gradually working its way towards the center of the city. It was simply shooting at anything that moved, and now that most of the fleeing citizens were out of its immediate area of attention, it had picked up speed again and was moving towards downtown.
"Maya," said Misato. "Get the MAGI to tell me how long an Eva's AT-Field is going to hold up against that thing's blasts."
"Thirty seconds," said Rei, absently.
Maya blinked and stared at her console. "That's right, how-"
"It's complicated," said Rei.
"Captain," said Hyuga. "Look."
The angel rose up. It lifted, and it turned, facing itself down, towards the center of the city. It continued to rise, gradually positioning itself into a central position, ignoring the torrent of missiles and artillery shells bursting around it, not even bothering with its protective field. A cold ball formed in Misato's stomach, and a wave of understanding washed over her.
"Everybody, hold onto something," she said, surprised at the lack of tension in her own voice. "This is going to be bad."
The APC bucked wildly as it crested the gentle curve that carried it out of the Geofront and onto the surface. Kaji's jaw dropped as he turned in his seat to take in the devastation. Large sections of the city were on fire, and the central cluster of defensive skyscrapers stood bowed and melted, like candles left out next to an open flame. The angel, a great immense thing that seemed too big to hang in the sky, The sky was red, from the sunset and from the flames, as if there were two suns, one in the west and the other pooled in the southern sections of the city, sinking into the Earth.
Asuka sat up. "I don't see him."
Kaji tensed. His knuckles went white. The emergency egress port he'd chosen was outside the city limits, away from the angel, and in the right direction- he could see, in the far distance, Unit One's hulking form, hunched over and darkened in the oncoming twilight, lit from below by lights set up by the recovery crews, now fled. He turned towards it and gunned the APC's massive diesel engine, weaving the lumbering vehicle around an abandoned car on the narrow road.
Kaji glanced at the monitor in the dashboard- it was the only way he could see behind them. The angel was glowing, gathering force around itself, and it made the monitor fuzz. He gripped the wheel so hard it creaked, and shouted, "Belt in. Now."
Asuka tugged her safety harness on and clipped it down between her legs as Kaji did the same. "Hold on."
The monitor fuzzed. The world went white, and the shockwave lifted the rear end of the APC and slammed it back down again. The vehicle bounced twice, swinging wildly from side to side as Kaji wrestled to keep it on the road. The wheels shrieked and the world spun until he finally managed to straighten them out, dropped the shifter into a lower gear, and powered forward, gritting his teeth. Though all of this, Asuka curled up in her seat, covering her eyes, and Ritsuko simply stared dumbly ahead, sitting limp in the seat where Asuka had strapped her.
"Ritsuko!" Kaji shouted. "Wake up, I need you."
She didn't reply. Asuka turned around. "Damn it! Wake up!"
She shook her head, as if from waking. "What's wrong?"
"We're going to need your help," said Kaji. "We need to get Asuka in the entry plug and do a field launch on Unit One. I think we might be on our own."
"Oh," said Ritsuko, absently. She sat back and looked up slightly, in thought. "There's an internal backup LCL reservoir you'll have to use."
"Talk me through it," said Kaji.
"Not you," said Ritsuko. "Asuka. It has to be done from inside the plug."
"I'm listening," said Asuka, turning around the seat. "Tell me what to do."
The ground rolled under Misato's feet. She fell against the console, and Hyuga jumped up to keep her from hitting her head on the side. Maya rolled out of her chair and crashed into Misato, and Aoba held onto his own console for dear life, curling his arms around it. The lights overhead swayed wildly, and the view on the monitors went out. The lights all shut off at once with a heavy thump, leaving the entire room bathed in darkness.
On by one, the lights flickered on, with a heavy buzzing sound. Misato crawled up onto her feet, helping Maya back into her seat at the same time. Hyuga started typing frantically. Misato leaned on his shoulder and brushed the hair out of her face.
"Get me some kind of a visual, something. Where's Rei?"
"I am here," said Rei.
Misato's jaw dropped. She made a small, strangled sound. A gaping hole had been blown in the center of the city, and from it, dangling by hydraulics and the ruins of its raising and lowering system, was one of the central towers. It tore free with a great grinding moan and fell lazily through space, turning slightly as it did. When it hit the floor of the Geofront, it threw up a great cloud of gray soot and dust that rolled over the landscape like fog. The only sound was the hollow moaning of pieces of the city swaying back and forth at the edge of the great gaping rent.
Though the opening, black against the darkening sky but for a grimacing skull, came the angel.
It moved slowly, ponderously, coming to a hover above the floor of the Geofront.
"Rei," said Misato, "Get to the arms tower and get the positron rifle. We have to try to do some kind of damage to it."
"I have a plan," said Rei.
"What the hell is she doing?"
Unit Zero was bounding across the Geofront floor, taking long, loping strides. Tucked under its one good arm was a missile, nearly as long as the Eva was tall. It took Misato a moment to realize what she was carrying- a standard N2 tipped cruise missile, a short range tactical platform carrying a twenty kiloton non-nuclear antimatter explosive. Rei was going to charge the angel set it off.
"Rei!" Misato screamed, leaning over the console as if she could close the gap between them. "Put that down!"
"With respect, Captain. No."
Unit Zero drew closer to the angel, leaping over a heavy section of cable left over from the ongoing repairs to the Geofront infrastructure, bounded over a cluster of trees, and stopped dead in its tracks. The angel's AT-Field unfolded, and a second series of alerts went off. Maya's jaw dropped.
"This is incredible… the field is massive. I've never seen anything like this."
The angel's AT-Field crackled into the visible spectrum immediately, expanding so tall and so wide it divided the entire cavernous space of the Geofront, centered on pushing Rei back. She grunted, leaned into it, and Unit Zero mimicked the motion. She turned the missile aside and shouldered into the AT-Field, pushing desperately against it, and started sliding back.
"She's bringing up her own field," said Maya. "She… she's drawing too much power. She's going to fry the conversion circuits!"
"Rei!" Misato shouted, "Fall back, damn it!"
"I am sorry," said Rei. "I must refuse."
She set off the bomb.
The angel's field rippled, crushing back on itself from the blast. A white sphere formed around Rei, and the shockwave came a moment later, blasting her backwards and shoving the angel back, so that it bobbed in the air. Scorched and limping, Unit Zero stumbled back and fell to one knee, collapsing under its own weight. The rolling shockwave tore the leaves and needles from the trees and sent the smaller outbuildings and support structures tumbling into chunks of debris. The lights swayed, and the camera view fuzzed. A small mushroom cloud rose up from the point of detonation, swirling against the roof of the cavern like a ghost.
"Look!" said Hyuga.
Misato saw him, too. Shinji rocked down through the opening in the top of the cavern, a tiny blue streak, and started circling the outside perimeter of the Geofront. Misato watched in confusion for a moment until she saw that he was beginning to pick up speed with every turn. A white plume of compressed air formed around him and flushed outwards, followed a moment later by the thunderous sound of the sonic boom chasing him around the cavern. The angel turned slightly, as if it were trying to follow him with its gaze. He kept going, faster and faster, building speed, until a pocket of superheated air formed behind him, glowing like a lightning bug in the dusk. Misato could no longer see him, he was going so fast, when he changed direction and headed directly for the angel.
When he hit the AT-Field, there was a sound, a great rumbling thrum like a plucked bowstring, and the field shattered, collapsing in on itself as he passed through it. It folded around him, like a hanging sheet struck by a thrown rock, and then shattered with an agonizing, almost human scream that drove Misato's hands to her ears. He hit the angel so hard in its belly that it sent out a second rippling shockwave, rolling over the treetops and pushing ripples along the surface of the lake, rocking the uprooted trees and chunks of debris that floated there.
The angel rocked back slightly, as if caught in a breeze. Shinji was nowhere to be seen.
Unit Zero was moving, servos grinding, struggling and shaking even to turn over. Rei lifted a feeble arm, swiping pointlessly at the angel as it approached. It stopped, turned, and bobbed in the air as energy gathered around it. It blasted Unit Zero from the earth, opening up a great crater underneath her, rolling the Eva onto its belly. Rei screamed, and the signal from Unit Zero cut off completely. The angel turned. It drew its strength, aimed itself at the headquarters pyramid, and fired.
With a twisting snap of punished metal, an overhead light came loose and crashed down into the upper deck, then rolled over the side into the great yawning void below. The screens all flickered, and the main screen went out, first to snow, and then to black. She heard screaming and shouting, and one of the heavy banks of servers on the MAGI level blew out in a shower of sparks, flames licking up the side wall until a pair of techs got up and turned a fire extinguisher on it.
"Maya, grab your portable unit. We're evacuating. Everybody out."
"But-"
"Don't argue with me. Sound the-"
The main screen, or at least the far wall on which it was projected, cave in a great crash of falling masonry and whipping wires. Something came through the opening as the wall well away, hit the console in front of her, rolled up over it, and hit the wall of the upper deck so hard it bent the metal with a shearing, twisting scream.
"Shinji!" Misato screamed, running to his side. He lay face down, groaning.
He pushed himself up on his hands and knees, and Misato cursed herself for using his real name. He started to stand up, wobbling, until Misato got her arm under him. Hyuga rushed to her side and helped him up under his other arm, until he was on his feet. He shook them off and stood, brushing the dust and soot from his face, and turned, in horror.
The angel's gigantic face pressed through the wall, so huge it could have swallowed them all in one great gulp. Misato screamed involuntarily, and Shinji dumbly, pointlessly pulled her and Hyuga behind him, spreading his arms as if he could shield him from the blast. Something twinkled in the angel's eyes, and Misato closed her own, knowing that it was over.
Unit One came through the wall and punched it in the face.
The Eva pushed into the command center, towering over them all even as it hunched over, the umbilical from the cage dragging behind it. Misato stared in numb shock as Unit One grabbed the angel by its great bony visage and forced it backwards with both hands, Asuka's scream of fury made into a primal roar by the Eva's external speakers. The entire deck groaned as she dragged the creature back, away from the bridge, towards the cages, battering down the walls at it went.
"The launch button!" Asuka's tiny voice came through Maya's portable console, "Somebody press the launch button!"
Maya typed the command, and the floor shook with the power of the hydraulic rams launching Eva and angel back out into the Geofront.
"Come on," Misato shouted, "Everybody outside."
She turned to Shinji, but he was gone.
Asuka felt only hate.
It boiled from her center, pounded like a drum in her heart, and flowed through her veins like fire. When they hit the surface together, she rolled over on the angel, dragging it along with her. She picked it up, dragging its entire huge mass with Unit One's bare hands, and slammed it into the ground, grinding it into the earth and digging a deep trench in the earth. She mounted it and began beating it with her fists, pounding on the core, until bone-like teeth reached up and snapped closed around it. Asuka emptied her lungs in a furious scream.
"No, it won't be that easy, you bastard!"
She wedged her fingers under the bone, yanked her arms back, and snapped them free. The angel shrieked in fury and in pain, and bucked underneath her, but she kept her grip and began pounding on it. Her fury was such that she would have bitten it, had she been able. She reared up and mashed Unit One's horn into the angel's middle, ripping and tearing at its flesh, shouting wordlessly in fury.
It blasted her.
She got her arm up in time, but the force of the blast rolled Unit One up and back, and her stomach pressed into her spine and rolled, trying to force her to vomit as the entire Eva turned, end over end. She came to rest after sliding along the ground, uprooting trees and scouring away the fields of grass. She grunted and rolled back up, holding the arm in front of her face. It was useless now, the joints melted and fused, so that her hand was a shapeless club. Her own arm was burning, streamers of pain running up her wrist and elbow every time she moved, but she ignored it and used the Eva's good hand to push herself back up.
The bottom part of the angel unfolded. Thin streamers of metallic flesh unfurled with a great flapping sound and curled around the angel. A length of it whipped out, viper quick, and before she realized what happened, her useless club-arm was sheared away the shoulder and fell free. When the pain hit, she screamed, grabbing at her shoulder, helplessly trying to remember that her own arm was still there. The rest of the tentacles whipped out and crushed her back into the ground. A pair of them wrapped around Unit One's waist, and a second pair scythed under the armor, prying at it. Pain gurgled out of her throat, and she grabbed at her midsection, aflame with agony, and curled in the seat.
She saw him. Shinji landed right on the angel's core, ripped one of its tooth-armor pieces free, and began jamming the jagged, pointed end into the angel's core. He pounded it again and again, and she managed to draw in a heavy breath of oxygenated liquid as the pressure around her middle released, and the Eva was able to move slightly. Its entire form ground against her, and every willed impulse drew a new map of pain across her limbs. She was bleeding- it was fogging the LCL in front of her face.
One of the angel's arms lashed around Shinji, crushing around him so that he could not move. She willed the Eva to rise, slamming the control yoke forward and back, screaming, as the angel lifted him in front of its face. It almost seemed to see her. There was a twinkling light in its eyes, the beam lanced out, and the end of its own tentacle was blasted away into nothingness.
So was Shinji.
Asuka screamed, she screamed and screamed and yanked on the controls so hard she thought she would tear them off. The LCL bubbled in front of her face, and her eyes burned with tears, her sight so blurred she could no longer see the angel. She could summon no sound but anguished, gurgling cries that were half shriek and half sob, and she bucked wildly against the seat, willing the Eva to move, her own pain forgotten.
Something happened. She felt it again, that strange double beat in her chest, and then again, and again, and again and again and again, and she heard, as it were, a noise of thunder.
Misato ran from the service entrance, stopping for the barest instance to turn and see the ruins of the pyramid, blasted off like a melted bar of soap, cratered and still smoking, and walked backwards for a few steps until she turned around just in time to see something tiny lifted in the arms of the angel, lifted before its face and blasted into oblivion, and she knew exactly what it was.
Misato screamed, and she fell to her knees.
She barely heard Maya. "Something's happening!"
Unit One arose from its position of repose, one armed, quivering. Something moved under the armor plates, somehow, pushing against them, and the shoulder pylons shuddered. There was a terrible, feral red glow in the Eva's eyes, an incandescent fury that bathed the entire cavern in a false sunset. Unit One hurled its head back, and with a great, clattering sound, the mouth guard tore open, revealing the stubby teeth beneath. It leaned back and it roared, an ancient sound from an alien world, full of anguish and hate, and the angel heard it, for it quivered, as in fear.
She, whether it was Asuka or the Eva itself, Misato did not know, swept her one good arm around, wrapped the angel's fleshy appendages around it and around it, and yanked. When the two connected, a might shockwave rang out, like a ringing bell. The angel, wailing in torment, blasted itself free, leaving hanging strands of its own flesh hanging from Unit One's arm.
The Eva looked at it, curled it into its hands, and ate it.
As it swallowed the angelic flesh, tearing at it in great sloshing bites, the angry stump of its lost arm bubbled and burst forth with new grey flesh, ashen and dead looking, erupting around fresh gleaming bones, gangly fibers of nervous tissue weaving themselves through it. Maya turned from her portable console and wretched, a heavy splat of vomit falling on the broken concrete beside her. Hyuga moved to steady her, but his gaze was on the Eva.
Rising, snarling like a beast, the Eva moved on all fours, scrabbling spider-like across the Geofront. The angel reared up and fired a blast, and Misato winced. The energy spilled harmlessly across the Eva's AT-Field, crackling out into space. Misato rushed to Maya's side.
The girl swiped at her mouth and coughed. She stared at her screen and mumbled to herself. "Impossible," she said, "it's impossible!"
"What?" Misato shouted over the raging din of the battle. "What's happening?"
"This isn't a normal berserker state!" Maya shouted back. "The cable has been severed, the Eva is powering itself!"
Misato looked up just in time to see the Eva fold its arms over its chest. It took hold of its shoulder pylons, wrapping the armored fingers of one hand and the long, spindly claws of the other around them, and pulled. The entire machine, the entire beast shuddered, grunting and snuffing like an enraged animal. In a single great motion, the pylons came free, crashing to the ground, and furious energy arced around the Eva's shoulders and head.
"Oh my God," Maya shouted, "She's destroyed the control harness! The Eva is loose!"
"What?" said Misato, "What the hell does that mean?"
"The beast inside the machine is free!"
Unit One bellowed and charged the angel, shrugging off another blast as if it were a stiff wind. It dragged the creature closer by its own arms until it was on top of it, forcing it to the ground, and raked its body with long, thin claws that now sprouted obscenely from both hands, drawing long, bleeding furrows in its enemy's flesh, scything through the armor as if it were paper. Unit One reared back, snarled, and plunged down, shoving both of its hands and its mouth into the angel's core. When it came back up, long tendrils of livid red flesh hung down from its jaws. Like a dog tearing at a hunk of meat, it threw its head from side to side, working the flesh into its jaws as it chewed. It ate and ate, tearing at the angel's body until the core was gone, and then deeper inside for good measure, carving out a great rent in its center. It pulled the mask free, cracked it in half, and licked the inside, swallowing a mouthful of yellow ichor.
It stopped, and it turned, still hunched over its prey. For a terrible moment, Misato thought that it was looking at them, until she turned over her shoulder.
Unit Two had launched.
Asuka floated in a strange place. She smelled the soft smell of blue roses, and felt warm arms around her body. A face at once familiar and distant was pressed close to hers, warm air shared between their breaths. She had beautiful green eyes, and rich chestnut hair, and she looked like Rei… and she looked like Shinji.
"Who are you?" said Asuka.
The woman hugged her closer. "It's alright that you don't remember me," she whispered, "I remember you."
"Who are you?" Asuka repeated.
"You know who I am," the woman whispered in her ear, giving her a soft, motherly kiss on the cheek.
"Yes," said Asuka. "I know you, Aunt Yui."
"You have given me a very special gift," said Yui.
"What is it?" said Asuka.
"To see my son," she said, "though the eyes of the girl who loves him."
Asuka felt warm, and she felt safe, and she snuggled against her. She started to cry.
"He's gone," said Asuka. "I couldn't save him. It killed him."
"No," said Yui, "No, beautiful child. He's not dead. He can't be dead."
"How do you know?"
"Because," Yui whispered. "He's Superman. He can do anything."
Asuka smiled. "I think you're right."
"I have something for you," she said, "Something very special, a gift only I can give you."
"What is it?"
"You'll see," she said, "In time."
Yui tensed abruptly, crushing Asuka to her chest. She felt small and childlike, protected. "No," she shouted, "No, you can't take her, I won't let you."
Asuka turned her head very slowly, already knowing what she would see. Kaworu stood there, grinning, his red eyes luminous with some ancient thought, his teeth blood and sharp. His sight made her shiver, but there was more, and she could not look away. Beside her, a woman knelt, pale of skin but for the red marks around her throat where the extension cord tightened, her cerulean blue eyes, blue as though they were stolen from the sky, pleading.
"Asuka please," Kyoko croaked, "He's hurting me."
Asuka shoved Yui away, charging towards Kaworu, screaming in fury.
"Asuka!" Yui shouted, "No! Don't!"
Kaworu caught her by the chin, and drew her face close to his.
"Oh my," he murmured, "You're mine now, and I have such sights to show you."
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Last Child of Krypton: Redux
Chapter Fifteen: When the Man Comes Around