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
There was nothing Asuka could do but run. When she saw them move towards each other, Shinji and Kaworu, saw them advance on one another, pure survival instinct took hold of her legs and turned her away from it. She spared a glance over her shoulder in time to see the first impact, before the shock of it rolled her off her feet. She could feel it in the ground as she rolled across her hands and knees, onto her back, and up onto her feet again before breaking into a wild-armed sprint.
She skidded to a stop, her plugsuit booties sliding in the mud, as Kaworu appeared before her, just materialized out of the air and wagged his finger in mocking disapproval. She flailed backwards and landed in the wet earth with a splash as he reached for her. Shinji checked him hard from the side, grabbed his arm, and spun him around, pounding his pale face with a savage right cross.
"Asuka, run!"
He didn't have to tell her twice. She scrambled back to her feet, digging tracks in the mud with her fingers, and bolted, stepping lightly, her lungs burning from the effort. She'd never run so fast in her life, so fast it felt like she wasn't touching the ground. She saw a rock, vaulted over it, and kept running. She was just in time. Shinji and Kaworu, grappling with each other, came down behind her like an artillery shell. The blast threw up a ring of mud and rocks and splintered wood, and almost knocked her off her feet.
She whipped her head around, looking for some kind of refuge. From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Shinji ripping the trunk of a scorched tree out by the roots. He turned it around in his hands and swung it like a club, only for it to splinter into a thousand pieces as Kaworu battered it away and charged him, striking him so hard in the belly that she could feel it as a jolt that ran up her knees. Shinji caught his hand with both of his own and spun Kaworu around, lifting him bodily through the air and slammed him into the ground.
She could see headquarters in the distance. She just had to keep moving. She pushed herself harder and harder with every step, jumping over rocks and downed logs. The doors to the infirmary stood open, a square of harsh white light in the gloom, and she headed for them. Her feet slipped when she hit asphalt but she kept her balance, cartwheeling her arms, until she ran through the doors. The two security guards stared at her in confusion until she skidded to a stop, leaving twin streaks of mud in her wake, and bounced off the wall, grunting.
"Run! Run!"
They didn't listen. Kaworu appeared from above, his arms stretched wide, pale orange light flickering and crackling around his body, making his hair stand on end. He lighted on the road in front of them and raised his hands, the power field that wreathed him turning scarlet. As he unleashed a blast of energy, Shinji dropped on him from above, twisting his arms so the beam went wide and carved a rent in the ceiling, bring down a pile of flaming tiles and shattered fluorescent lights.
They wrestled, and Kaworu picked Shinji up and slammed him through the wall. Shinji held on and pulled him along, and they both rolled into a clattering collection of tall metal gas cannisters, bound to the wall with heavy straps.
Asuka grabbed the guards by the collars and yanked on them. "Move!"
She ran further inside, until she hit the first nurse's station. "Get on the PA system, we need to evacuate the upper levels, they-"
She felt it, before she heard it. She ducked down as flames streaked through the hallway, licking along the ceiling, and squinted to see the forms of the two combatants silhouetted within. Shinji and Kaworu were grappling, holding each other by the shoulders, twisting around and around. Asuka grabbed at a fire extinguisher on the wall, but one of the nurses hit the alarm.
"Let the sprinklers handle it!" she shouted, tugging on Asuka's arm.
She looked back. She couldn't see them anymore.
Misato leaned on the doorframe and stood there for a while, watching. Rei was in the dark, in an intensive care room all by herself, in a deep darkness lit only by the machines strapped to her body. There was a monitor for her heart rate and for her temperature and for her blood pressure and the oxygen in her blood, but the most curious one was the monitor for her brain activity. It was going mad. In the cool darkness, a crimson eye opened, and Misato suddenly felt very small.
"Rei?" she said, weakly.
"I need you," Rei rasped.
Misato edged into the room, stepping over a thick bundle of cables. She looked around, and realized there was no intravenous line. She hugged herself.
"Does it hurt?" she asked, dumbly.
"I sense injuries," Rei rasped, "the data could be called pain."
"What do you need? I'll get it for you. Are you thirsty, or-"
Rei's head tilted slightly, and with her one unbandaged eye, she held Misato with a sort of affectionate contempt. "I cannot move under my own power. Get a wheelchair."
"Rei," said Misato, "I can't do that, you've been very badly hurt, and-"
"I am going to die," said Rei. "I am not going to die in a bed while Shinji needs me. Get a wheelchair."
"Shinji?" said Misato, "but-"
Maya ran into the door, skidding on the heels of her shoes. "Captain!"
Misato and Rei both focused on her. Maya paled when she saw Rei's gaze settle on her. It took Misato poking her shoulder to get her to start talking. She shook her head, blinking tears out of her eyes.
"The theoretical space collapsed!"
"What?" said Misato. "It's gone? Where are the pilots? Did they make it out?"
Maya nodded, "We saw Superman catch Asuka on the monitors, but she ran away, they- they're fighting!"
"Who?" said Misato.
"Superman and Kaworu! They're tearing the-"
There was a rippling boom. Misato fell against the wall, and had to catch Maya to keep her from going down. The whole structure groaned, and a piece of tile fell loose and slammed into the floor near Rei's bed, shattering as it hit. The monitors all blinked and alarms started flashing.
Maya shuddered, "They're tearing the Geofront apart. We have to do something, or they're going to collapse the whole city on our heads!"
Misato started to move.
"Captain," Rei rasped, "Please."
Misato hesitated at the door. "Get a wheelchair."
"But Captain, she-"
"Don't argue with me."
Maya hurried down the corridor and ran back, pushing a collapsible wheelchair before her. She pushed it into the room, ramping it over the bundle of cables, and Misato hurried to Rei's side. She started undoing the cables running to her chest and arm, ignoring the squeal of the monitors. Maya took her legs as they lifted her out and propped her in the seat of the chair, against a pillow. She leaned, so Misato grabbed another pillow to hold her up, and then threw a blanket over her.
"This is crazy," said Maya.
"It might be our only chance. She knows what she's doing."
"I must go to them," Rei croaked, "Hurry."
"Them?" said Maya. "Who's them?"
"The others," said Rei, "in the tank."
"I don't understand," Maya whimpered.
"I've got this," said Misato, "I'll handle it. Get Kaji and start coordinating some kind of a defense, we have to-"
Another boom sent streamers of dust pouring down from the ceiling, and Misato felt it rise up through her feet. She pushed out into the hall. Kaji was already there, looking aghast at Rei. He stopped Misato with a hand on her shoulder.
"What are you doing?"
"She says she has to go to the others," said Misato. "In the tank."
Kaji looked at her grimly. "I'll do it, you stay here. We may need to evacuate."
Misato nodded, and let him take the wheelchair away, half-sprinting down the hallway, leaning so that his chest propped up Rei's head, lolling to the side. She didn't think it was possible, but the girl was more pale than ever. The light was going out of her.
"What do we do?" said Maya.
"There must be some way we can help," said Misato. "I have to think. Do you have your portable unit?"
"Of course, it's-"
"Get it, and meet me on the surface. Bring your phone."
May nodded and scurried off to grab her portable terminal. Misato unlimbered her gun, for all that would do, and headed for the elevator. A nurse stopped her; there was a fire on the upper floor, and she couldn't go that way, so she sprinted for the service elevator and rode up to the loading dock. The elevator lights flickered and the whole car seemed to sway under her feet as she rode it up, almost pushing the doors open when it arrived.
She headed outside, and was almost bowled over onto her feet. Kaworu and Shinji, moving so fast she couldn't tell which was which, were locked in some sort of aerial duel, darting around each other in figure eight patterns, occasionally trading blows that sent the other off course and rocked the Geofront like rolling thunder. Maya joined her a moment later, staring slack-jawed at the spectacle. As she did, one of them, she thought it was Shinji, hit the underside of the city, skimmed along the roof of the cavern in a great plume of dust, and hit one of the sunken skyscrapers.
Misato grabbed Maya and dragged her to the ground. The entire structure, a hanging high-rise full of offices and apartment blocks, rumbled from side to side, like a bad tooth in an immense jaw. It yawed lazily to one side, and there was a great chorus of grinding and snapping sounds as it pitched, hard, hanging by threads of cable and strained concrete, and in slow, graceless motion, began to fall. When it hit the ground the world rolled as it collapsed in a fountain of dust and powdered masonry, rolling out over the floor of the cavern like fog.
"He's going to die if we don't do something!" Misato shouted over the roar.
"What can we do?" Maya shouted back, clutching herself. "I wish Ritsuko was here, she'd know what to do!"
Misato shook her head. Of course she'd know what to do. She knew what Shinji needed when he was hurt before, when she moved him off of the couch in the living room, what was it she said? He didn't need food or sleep, he needed sunlight . Misato stared up at the mirror array, still clinging to the underside of the city, glittering as it tilted to create a false sunrise. Shinji and Asuka must have been trapped in the singularity all night.
"Maya!" said Misato, "Can you control the mirrors from here?"
Shinji tumbled through the air, out of control. He hit the ground shoulder-first, bounced, tumbled head over heels, and slid to a stop in the mud, groaning. He felt every blow Kaworu had laid on him, and it took him a moment to struggle to his feet. The boy landed lightly, just out of his reach, arms at his sides as though completing a gymnastic dismount. He walked across the Geofront with purpose, tapping his chest with his fingers. In the center of his body was a smoldering sphere of red light, glowing through his pale skin and even the material of his plugsuit.
"Of course," he said, "You have an upper limit, but I don't. Anything you can do, I can do better."
Shinji crouched, wiped blood and spittle from his lip, and charged. He threw a wild punch and Kaworu countered, diverting his blow and laying a punishing strike of his own, a knifing blow of the side of his hand to Shinji's flank. Shinji grunted in pain and stumbled past him, and crashed into the mud again.
"It's curious," said Kaworu. "You rely on your strength, but you make no effort to understand it. With only a little training, you'd be unstoppable. My butler fights better than you."
Bellowing incoherently, Shinji got up and charged, trying to tackle him. Kaworu dodged easily, kicking him hard in the chin as he passed. Shinji flipped over onto his back and skidded along in the mud, and started to move until Kaworu put his foot on his chest. Shinji struggled against it, but though he pushed as hard as he could, he simply wouldn't rise. Kaworu leaned over him, smiling to himself. He bent down, and tore the last remnants of the emblem from Shinji's chest, letting the wind carry them away.
"You put up a good fight, but it's pointless. I am the beginning, and I am the end. I was ancient when the world was new. I-"
Kaworu froze. He looked over his shoulder, and his eyes went wide. The mirror array, the great glittering sea of glass suspended high above the cavern floor, groaned and muttered in defiance, some of the glass panes remaining fixed in place. Enough of them, though, enough of them turned, gradually at first, an then faster, until a focused beam of light and heat swept across the cavern floor. A pool of brilliant yellow sunlight crowned Kaworu's head, turning his hair to a golden glow.
"Talk too much," Shinji grunted.
Shinji's arms shot up and he clamped down on Kaworu's knees with all his might. He rolled, slammed him into the ground, rolled again, standing as he did, and holding him by the legs, flipped him over and over his head, crashing him into the mud. Kaworu wriggled free of his grip, but not fast enough. Shinji turned and hit him hard in the small of the back, sending him spinning over the ground, though a tree, and into a boulder that crashed to powder from the impact.
Kaworu stood up, brushing himself off. He looked none the worse for wear. He sighed softly, and greeted Shinji with a cat-like smile.
"You think you can physically harm me. How quaint."
He brought his hands together, and pale orange energy wreathed around them, flickering with tiny orange octagons. A concussive beam of pure force shot out, pressing the air out of its way, and caught Shinji in the chest. He folded his arms in front of himself, as if leaning into a stiff wind, and pressed forward. Kaworu's expression shifted slightly, from amusement to concentration, and the beam intensified. Many sided shapes of light, built from strange angles, folded in and out of being around him. Shinji closed his eyes and leaned into it, spreading his fingers until he touched Kaworu's neck and clamped down.
"Hey," Shinji rapsed. "Can you breathe in space?"
"What?" Kaworu croaked.
Shinji flew. He pulled Kaworu along with him, dragging him skyward by the neck. As he rose he turned to face the blazing pool of sun pouring down on him until he was cast into darkness by the edges of the crater in the cavern roof there the last angel had blasted away the armor plating. He rose up through it, ignoring Kaworu's flailing, until he found the surface and the pure, warm air that waited outside. He opened his eyes and soaked in the rising sun, and all about him was devastation. The angel had leveled much of the city, flattening it in a wide circle around the impact point.
The air closed in around him, rushing in his ears, and yet he pressed, higher and higher, faster and faster, until he soared through the clouds and took a streamer of vapor with him. Kaworu grabbed pointlessly at his arms. One by one, the stars were coming out, and a sonic boom tried to tear Kaworu out of his grasp. He sucked in a breath as the air thinned more and more, the pressure from the encroaching vacuum building up on his eyeballs. He felt the sun blazing on his back as the atmosphere fell behind him, and he drew Kaworu up through the edge of the air itself.
Kaji held Rei's head in his hands, cradling it to support her neck. She was cold, and she was barely breathing. He couldn't find a pulse as he probed at her neck. His hand began to drift to the control panel, to stop the elevator and take her back to the infirmary. Her good hand batted feebly against his arm, and he froze.
"No," she croaked, "Keep going."
Sighing, he did as she asked, waiting for the elevator doors to open. He had an inkling of what she meant to do, and was half tempted to take her back on general principles. She was tough, she might make it, even with the burns. Finally, the doors opened, and he carefully wheeled her out, wincing as she made small sounds of discomfort from the chair bouncing over the gap between the floor and the elevator. She closed her eyes, or her eye, anyway,
He wheeled her through the labs until he had to enter Ritsuko's code to open up the clone facility. He wheeled her through, and he could have sworn the bodies floating in the tank twitched. She motioned for him to move her closer to the central chamber, and when she was near it, pushed the blankets off her body and started to stand up.
"Rei," he said, very softly. "You can't do this."
"I have no choice. You will assist me or get out of my way."
Gingerly, wincing at the red spots forming on her bandages, he helped her stand and half-held her up as she limped to the tube. She hit the controls herself, and the tube slid open. She couldn't make it up the steps, so he scooped her up and carried her up himself, setting her feet down in the tube. Her legs twitched and trembled from the exertion of standing up, and she slumped against the glass. She started picking at her gown, her fingers fumbling over the ties.
"I must remove it for proper transmission."
Kaji tensed, then relented, working the ties himself. He had to partly peel the gown away. She was bleeding from under her bandages, and it stuck to her body at her shoulder and the wounds on her legs. She was standing there, cold and shaking and naked, and he stepped down.
"What now?"
"Press the button on that panel," she pointed. "The system will do the rest."
He moved to the panel, and his finger hovered over the button. He sighed, closed his eyes, and pushed it down. With a hiss, the glass tubes slid together, and there was a hollow rumbling sound as it flooded with LCL. Rei became buoyant, her hair floating in thick strands around her closed eye, and he felt a bit of relief. At least as she floated, it would relieve some of the pain of standing herself up. He took a step back, and watched.
The computer systems lit up, and progress bars appeared, and he knew at once he was out of his depth, watching the process unfold. Rei's back arched and her mouth fell open in a sort of ecstatic relief, and then her body went visibly limp in the fluid. It drained out all at once, and she slumped against the inside of the tube. He ran up to it as the glass slid apart, and caught her limp form tumbling out, cradling her against his chest. Her face was fixed in a mask, and no breath escape her lips, only a dribble of orange fluid, tinged with blood. He sat down on the steps and rocked her, pointlessly.
They did this to children.
His head lifted as he heard the tube moving. The glass slid together, and with the same hollow sound, filled with a rush of the orange suspension. The tank vibrated, thrumming with power, and through some hidden means, one of the clone bodies slid upwards, vanishing into the machinery overhead. He felt a deep sickness forming in his stomach like a slippery ball that wanted to crawl up through his throat. He held Rei's dead form and remembered Ritusko's words.
It was just a copy. Rei was gone.
He stood up, holding the girl's dead body, watching the same person settle into a gentle float in the tube in front of him. He carried her back to the wheelchair and curled her in the seat, pulling the blanket over her in a futile gesture, out of some kind of decency. He picked up the hospital gown, it was the only thing he'd have to cover the new one with. He cursed himself for even thinking that, clenching his fists as he realized he was already thinking of her as some kind of machine.
The tube slid apart, and the new Rei stood in the old one's place, goose pimples forming on her skin from the cold. He rushed up to cover her, sweeping the gown around her body even as she looked away. She sensed his intent and did the laces herself, until it clung to her, as she was still slick with LCL. She stepped down onto the floor, and looked at her old self, touching the other body's hair with a sort of detached fascination.
"She lied," said Rei, "about how much it hurt. I must free the others," she said, moving to the control panel.
"Rei?" said Kaji. "What others?"
She looked over her shoulder at him. A shiver ran down his back as he realized that the bodies in the tank had stopped drifting, and they were all standing motionless, hanging in the slippery fluid like swimmers at rest in a shallow pool, watching him with active, intelligent eyes.
"The other Rei."
"I don't understand. How can there be more than one of you?"
"There is only one. We are Rei."
She started typing, and another clone body moved through the tank, shifted through the apparatus in the ceiling, and dropped into the holding tank. The new one moved more quickly than the second, and they stared at each other, one in the hospital gown and one stark naked, having some sort of silent conference with each other as the third moved down from the open tube.
When the fourth emerged, she walked to the limp form on the chair, and began stripping off her bandages.
"What are you doing?" said Kaji, constantly reminding himself not to stare. Rei had no modesty. None of them did.
"Preparing her," said Rei.
"For what?"
"She is a machine, like us," said Rei. "Like any machine, she can be broken. But machines can also be fixed."
The Rei in the hospital gown approached him. "We have the situation under control. You will come with me. We must save Shinji."
Kaji swallowed. "You know what's happening?"
"We know what she knows," she looked at the crippled Rei in the chair, "and so much more."
Shinji dove. He yanked Kaworu close to him, so he couldn't escape, twisted, and powered down into the atmosphere. The air folded around them, pressed in close, and then boomed away as he broke the sound barrier, easy in the thin upper atmosphere. He pushed harder, until it was screaming in his ears, and in his wake it began to glow, like a firebug's tail, spreading around him. Kaworu was screaming wordlessly in fury or pain or both, feebly trying to struggle free. Shinji hit the cloud cover and it parted before him, the world pitching and yawing wildly underneath.
He aimed away from the city, for the hills, to keep Kaworu away from the Geofront. He saw the school for a brief second, and the trail where the soil had collapsed in the wake of the tunneling angel that had destroyed the building. He closed his eyes as the hillside rushed up to meet him. The impact jarred through his body, rattling his teeth, as he started to turn from the force, his body crashing through the hill itself, dragging Kaworu with him. The entire hillside lifted up in a dome shape and slid downwards, covering the road in a thick layer of flowing mud.
Kaworu rolled away, lying on his back, panting. Shinji got up, holding his fists at his side, moving towards him slowly, deliberately. Kaworu sat up, then stood, stumbling from side to side, the core in his chest burning with its own fire. He rubbed at his forehead and sneezed, and mucous and blood and mud fanned out over his arms. When he turned back to Shinji, his eyes smoldered with an inner red glow.
"That," he rasped, "Hurt."
Scarlet energy scythed around his body, and tracers of red, glowing in his veins, burned under his skin as he moved. He no longer grinned or joked, but moved with grim purpose, and Shinji did the same. They struggled, each trying to force the other down. Shinji managed to turn him and press him into the ground, but he wriggled free, kicked back into Shinji's face, and took off for the Geofront, lifting himself under his own power. Shinji followed after him, barely catching up, and as a pair they rocketed down into the cavern once again. Kaworu landed with a crash, throwing up a cloud of debris as he crouched. Shinji lighted beside him, and charged.
Kaworu backhanded him, and knocked him back. His eyes glittered as brightly as the sphere in his chest, and the skin around his eyes was beginning to char and split. His plugsuit was deforming as his back hunched, and with each step he seemed to grow heavier. His voice was deeper, more resonant.
"Here," he growled, "Here's another one of your little tricks."
Something blasted from his eyes and caught Shinji full on, instantly setting the ground around him to blaze, flash boiling the water out of the ground itself, charring the remaining grass to ash. Shinji shielded himself but it forced him off his feet and he slid across the ground, now hard packed and cracked, like high desert in the sun. Kaworu stalked forward, grabbed Shinji by the throat, and hauled him up.
"No matter how hard you fight, it's pointless. Go to your grave knowing that you've failed, and the redhead dies first."
The skin around his eyes puckered further as they bulged from his head, the glow becoming a blinding light. Shinji closed his eyes and brought his hands up, slapping them over Kaworu's face. The energy blast boiled against his hands, spread out from the gaps between his fingers like rays of sunlight, and there was a deep thrumming sound before the explosion that threw them both apart, rolling Shinji across the Geofront floor.
Slowly, he rose to his feet, panting, holding his side. Kaworu arose slowly on his own. His head was a charred ruin, all the silvery hair burned off, one of his eyes swollen shut, the other bloodshot and watery. He reached towards Shinji feebly, his pale fingers sliding over Shinji's collarbone and cording, loosely, around his neck. He could barely stand up.
Shinji returned the gesture all the same. He felt Kaworu's blood beating beneath his fingertips, felt his rasping breaths suck in and out, felt the life he held in his hands. He trembled.
Kaworu smiled. Half his teeth were missing.
"You," he choked, "can't," he coughed, "do it."
Shinji trembled.
"I'll regenerate," he croaked. "When I do you won't stop me. Or you won't the next time, or the time after that. I can do this forever."
Shinji willed himself to close his fingers, to crush the life out of the hateful thing, but his hands only shook.
Kaworu pushed him back. He wiped his chin with his hand, and the cut on his lip was gone. He closed his mouth, did something with his tongue, rolling it around the inside of his mouth, and when he opened it, all his teeth were back. He pressed his eyes shut and opened the both, just as easily. But for his hair, he was normal again within moments.
"Weak," he snickered.
"Excuse me," Rei said from behind him, "I must borrow this."
"What?" Kaworu snapped, spinning.
Rei moved with lightning speed, and her arm sank in Kaworu's chest to her elbow. She stared him in the eye as he jerked and spasmed, flailing against her. Shinji grabbed his wrists, and stared in disbelief as Rei yanked her arm free, drawing the red shining core, a perfect sphere of polished red, free of his chest. She held it in her hands, and then with a soft, almost imperceptible smile, pressed it into her own chest. It burned a hole in the hospital gown she wore and sank into her body, her pale flesh spreading to envelope it before it vanished, leaving her unmarked but for the hole in her garment.
Kaworu turned around, lurching oddly. His lip drooped, and he made a pained sound. He took a swing at Shinji, but missed, and sank to his knees. He made a sort of agonized gurgle, and managed a single word.
"Father," he said.
He fell, and when he fell, his body simple ceased to be, melting into a splash of orange liquid that seeped out of his plugsuit and into the ground. The suit held a shape for a moment, moving somehow of its own accord, before it went limp and lay flat against the earth, gradually losing its shape, almost like a balloon leaking air.
Shinji rounded on Rei.
"You're alive!"
She stopped him with a hand on his chest. "You are injured. You will report to the infirmary."
"Rei, I-"
Rei tilted her head to the side, and a strange expression flickered over her face, somehow disappointment and sadness and confusion all at once. "I am sorry," she whispered. "I am not that one."
"I don't understand," said Shinji, his voice tight.
"I am the next clone. I am sorry."
She looked down. Shinji limped forward, put one hand on her shoulder, and turned her face up by the chin to meet his gaze. Tears fuzzed his vision.
"You're still my sister."
She moved to his side and slid herself under his arm to support him as he walked. He limped along beside her, and felt the sun, stronger now than before, on his face and on his skin. He was finally able to stand on his own, and walk. It was just in time, as Asuka came tearing along and crashed into him, almost bowling him off his feet in her embrace. Misato and Kaji struggled to catch up.
"Ow," he grunted, sliding Asuka back down onto her feet. "When did you get so strong?"
Ritsuko blinked her eyes open, and immediately regretted it. She was in darkness, but her eyes stung anyway, and she felt the groggy haze of drugs tugging at her eyelids. She knew right away she'd slept for many hours, but wasn't any less fatigued. She was half sitting up, lying in a hospital bed, the painful tug of an intravenous line in her arm. When she tried to move, her wrists were held down by thick nylon straps secured to the sides of the bed. She sat up a little, then fell back into her pillow, monstrously tired but too long under sedation to actually fall asleep.
A shadow fell on her, and she opened her eyes again. Maya looked like five miles of bad road, with dark circles under her eyes, her hair plaited to her head from sweat and a day or two without washing. Her labcoat was rumpled and her uniform hung open, unbuttoned, and wrinkled.
"You look great," Ritsuko rasped.
Maya brushed Ritsuko's hair out of her eyes. "So do you."
Ritsuko turned away, but Maya simply walked around to the other side of the bed.
"No fair," she croaked.
"Thirsty?"
Ritsuko nodded. Maya stuck a straw in a plastic cup of ice water. It was a blessed relief, and she drank until she had to let the straw go in order to breathe. She gasped and just let herself feel cool for a moment, before she down the rest of it, making little slurping sounds at the straw.
She touched her lips with her tongue. They felt like cracked stone. That is, until Maya leaned over and kissed her, gently brushing her lips against Ritsuko's own. They felt better then, even as Maya pulled back, slipping her fingers into Ritsuko's hand.
"Untie me," Ritsuko mumbled.
"I'm not allowed," Maya said sadly, looking at the floor. "They're afraid you'll hurt yourself."
"I should," she said defiantly, staring at the ceiling. "I kill children."
"But they're alive," said Maya. "Asuka is alive, and Hikari is alive, and Shinji is with them now."
"And Rei?"
"Rei, is, um, complicated."
Ritsuko blinked. "What?"
"I'll let you see for yourself, when they check you out. I need you to come out of this. I can't do this on my own."
"Tell me what happened."
Ritsuko groaned as she listened to Maya go over the morning's events, the sudden reemergence of the Evas from the sphere of nothingness, and the battle with Kaworu. Ritsuko wanted desperately to just pinch the bridge of her nose, but she didn't want to struggle and disturb Maya. When it was over, she drew in a deep breath.
"So," said Ritsuko. "Unit One and Unit Two are still sitting out there. Unit One now has a functional super solenoid. Rei, somehow, ate part of Kaworu and is walking around with it lodged in her chest."
"Not walking around," said Maya. "We put her in a hospital room. She didn't argue."
"She wouldn't."
"Did you say Asuka appeared outside the Eva? Did she eject the plug?"
Maya shook her head. "No, it's still in place, why-"
Ritsuko groaned. "Did you ever get any readings out of it?"
"Some," said Maya, "but it was garbled. I have my portable, if you want to see it."
Ritsuko nodded, and Maya moved the bed, so that she was sitting up more, and set the computer up on her lap. She could just barely reach the keyboard, and started sifting through the data recovered from Unit One.
"Has it done anything strange?"
"No," said Maya. "We're moving it into the cage now."
"Order it sealed in Bakelite," she said, absently. "Just to be sure."
Maya nodded, tapping her phone.
Ritsuko froze. There must have been an error. The synchronization rate, for a few minutes before the signal was lost entirely, read at four hundred percent. She leaned forward to peer at the screen, wishing for her glasses. Maya pulled them from her pocket without being asked, unfolded them, and slipped them on her face, her fingers lingering just slightly, to touch her cheeks.
"Thank you," she murmured. "Did you say that Asuka appeared outside the Eva, but the plug was in place?"
Maya nodded.
"Go get an oral swab, I need to test her DNA, make sure there's no contamination. She discorporated."
"What?"
Ritsuko nodded at the screen. "She discorporated. The Eva absorbed her, and then her ego barrier was restored and she re-materialized."
"What?" Maya said again.
Ritsuko sighed, then pitched forward, hard. Her glasses tumbled into her lap, and she snatched them up with her hand. Quickly, she used the earpiece to undo the strap, then when he hand was free, undid the other, slid the computer off her lap, and gingerly stood up, a wave of fatigue washing over her.
Maya stared at her, blankly.
"I may as well come with you."
She tugged at the IV lines, then disconnected them from her arm, and slid the needles out.
"Um," said Maya, "Your, ah, your gown."
Ritsuko realized she felt a rush of cool air up her back. "Is there a robe or something?"
Maya found a closet, pulled out a thin, threadbare looking robe, and pulled it up over Ritsuko's arms. She belted it around herself and shrugged, clutching it to her body. She was cold. May was blushing furiously, and trying to focus on the ceiling.
"Yes?'
"Um," said Maya, "do you squat, or do pilates or something?"
"Yoga." said Ritsuko.
Maya's blush deepened. "Really?"
Ritsuko rolled her eyes. "Lieutenant Ibuki, are you flirting with me?"
"Yes?" Maya said, weakly.
Ritsuko stepped into the scuff slippers by the bed, scooped up the portable unit, and slid her arm around Maya's waist, kissing her on the cheek. "How long was I out, anyway?'
"About twelve hours."
"How long have you been here?"
"About twelve hours," said Maya, smiling weakly.
Ritsuko smiled, too. "We have work to do, let's go."
Asuka sat on the exam table, swinging her legs back and forth, staring into the floor. She was, she had to admit, having a difficult time processing all of this. She continually wondered if any of it was real, but when she touched the stiff paper on the table and felt the soft cushion under her and breathed in the sterile infirmary air, cold and stinking of soap, it felt real enough. Shinji stood beside her.
The swelling in his eye had gone down, and he was now barely marked, the bruise being the only sign he'd been fighting at all. He leaned on the table and put his hand on hers and leaned over, and he kissed the curve of her jaw, and stopped to rest his head against hers. He stood up, tipping back a little to look down the back of her hospital gown.
"Hey," she muttered.
"Nothing I haven't seen before," he smirked.
She laughed softly to herself. "Of course. You have x-ray vision."
He looked wounded, sighing deeply.
"I'm kidding," she rolled her eyes. "Wait, did you ever… you know… look at me like that?"
He shook his head. "Of course not."
She tilted her head to the side, and looked at him. She believed him completely. If there was anyone in the world that could see through solid objects and wouldn't use it to creep on a girl, it was him.
"I'm using it now, though."
She punched him in the arm.
"Ow," he said in mock indignation, rubbing the spot where she'd hit him.
She tugged at the collar of his white shirt. Other than having it untucked, he was in uniform, as he almost always was. She touched one of the spots on his jaw where he had a fading bruise. He looked down at the floor. She knew that look.
"What is it?"
"I couldn't kill him," he murmured, shrugging. "All the things he did, and said, and I couldn't do it. I had my hands around his throat, and I just couldn't do it."
She took his hand and twined their fingers together, and leaned on his shoulder. "Of course not, stupid. Superman doesn't kill. Well, people anyway."
"No," he said, "but Rei killed him all the same. It might as well have been me."
"You had no choice."
"Are you mad?" he said, "That I feel bad about it?"
"No," she sighed. It's just you, being you."
He seemed to brighten up at that, and hopped up on the table beside her, slipping his arm around her waist. She leaned on him and just breathed, and she might have fallen asleep. When the door closed, she sat up abruptly. Ritsuko walked into the room with a stack of papers and a confused, haggard look on her face. Her glasses dangled from her mouth by the earpiece until she pulled them away and tossed them on the counter.
"When, I should say if, we get the Evas ready, we'll need to do a synchronization test."
"Great," Asuka groaned.
"You may not be able to pilot anymore."
She froze. "Why?"
Ritsuko took a deep breath. "I don't know how to explain this."
Asuka froze. "Is it… am I contaminated?"
Shinji squeezed her hand.
"No," said Ritsuko, "not exactly. Here."
She put the folder down on the table, and drew out a piece of paper. She stuck one to the overhead cabinet with a magnetic clasp. "This is your chromosome profile."
Asuka blinked. "Okay?'
"It's normal. You have 46 perfectly formed chromosomes. Or, you did. This is your new profile, from the sample we took today."
She put the paper up next to the original. There were… more. Half again as many, in fact. Asuka blinked.
"I don't understand."
"I'd show you your genome, but I can't exactly print that out. You have a triple helix, an entire secondary set of genetic material grafted onto yours. When Unit One went berserk, your body dissolved. When it reassembled itself as your ego barrier was restored, you were put back together, with a little something extra."
Asuka paled. "W-where did it come from?"
"A planet called Krypton," Ritsuko said wryly.
She recoiled in horror. "What?" She looked at Shinji. "Does that mean I'm his sister now?"
Ritsuko burst out laughing. "No, not even close. From what I can tell, you have as much relationship with him as I do with, let's say, Misato. You're the same species. The first two members of a new species, in fact."
Asuka looked at her hands. "So, does that mean that I… I can fly?"
"Not yet," said Ritsuko.
"It took years for that," said Shinji. "The first thing was the speed, and the strength, but I didn't know I was different until I could fly. One day I woke up and I couldn't see my own hands. I would have thought I was going crazy if…"
He looked at her.
Ritsuko coughed. "Be fruitful, and multiply."
Asuka's eyes narrowed.
"Watch it," said Ritsuko, "don't accidentally burn me with your heat vision."
"You're in a good mood," said Asuka.
"It's not often I give people good news. This is good news, isn't it?"
Asuka looked at the floor. "I guess?"
"Come with me," said Shinji, dropping from the table. He held out his hand, and she took it.
"Will you excuse us?" said Asuka.
Ritsuko took a moment to get the hint. "Oh, you mean me."
"Nothing I haven't seen before," said Shinji.
"Fruitful and multiply," Ritsuko muttered to herself as she left the room, pulling the door shut behind her.
She shimmied out of her gown, and Shinji turned around, although she caught him sneaking glances at her as she poured her dress over her head and slipped back into her shoes. She held his hand as they walked out of the infirmary, and then outside.
"Wait," he said, "I want to see Hikari first."
Asuka felt a pit in her stomach, but nodded, and went along with him. The smells and sounds of the intensive care ward seemed especially vivid, and she wasn't completely sure it was her imagination. She felt awful walking into the room, like some kind of intruder. She was stable now, and her people had taken to visiting her in shifts. Kodama was there, and Toji, staring at the floor. He had something in his bag.
Asuka walked to the bed, while Shinji sat down next to Toji.
But for the bandage over her eye, Hikari might have been in a peaceful sleep, piled up with pillows and blankets, her dark hair fanned out over the white linens. She was breathing normally, and was a good color, lively looking. She looked like she might wake up at any moment. Asuka leaned over her.
"Hey," she said, "Get better soon. I…" her voice wavered a little. "I miss you."
She touched Hikari's forehead and turned. Kodama gave her a solemn look, and settled back, her eyes lidded from fatigue. Toji followed them out into the hallway. Asuka thought he meant to say something to her, but he stopped Shinji instead. He unshouldered his bag, and pulled out one of the fan club t-shirts, still in its plastic bag.
"You might need this," he said quietly, "Your other one got messed up."
Shinji looked confused. "It's at the apartment."
"Not that one," Toji said softly. "The other one."
Shinji nodded and took it. Toji nodded back.
Boys.
Folding the shirt under his arm, he took her hand. Ritsuko passed them, carrying a file under her arm. Asuka stopped and watched her. She stood at the threshold to Hikari's room as though it were a physical barrier, gathered herself, and went inside. She gave Shinji a little tug and they walked out together. The sun on her face, even reflected in the broken mirrors, looked different.
When they were out of sight, she put her arms around his neck. "It's faster," she said.
He lifted up, and she felt her stomach try to remain at ground level for a bit, exhilarated by the feeling. She had a sudden, heady realization that she too might do this one day. The idea seemed so alien that it couldn't be real, somehow part of the dream. Shinji took them both up through the gaping hole in the Geofront roof, and when she saw what had happened, her breath caught.
"Pen Pen!" said Asuka.
He didn't bother with subtlety. He landed on the balcony, and they rushed inside.
Pen-Pen wandered into the living room and warked piteously. Asuka hurried into the kitchen, murmuring softly to him as she opened a can of sardines and poured them out into his dish. She watched him eat, against her better judgment, and walked out into the hall. She looked around, thankful that their place was intact. It made something in the world feel grounded, normal. It began to settle on her that all of this was real.
Shinji emerged from his bedroom, holding a silvery cylinder. He unscrewed the cap, and took her hand, curling his palm around hers. He took a deep breath and said, "Close your eyes."
When she opened them, she was underground. Shinji was standing beside her, holding her hands. She had a profound sense of the weight of the rock above her, held back by a curved ceiling that was marred by an angry crack. She was standing in some sort of lab. She saw burners and flasks made of a funny material that looked like glass but wasn't, unnervingly off in their design. In the center of the room was a long, polished rocket, like a bullet with fins. Beside it stood a tall man in a black body suit and a red tunic draped over his chest and back. On the robe was the same symbol that Shinji wore on his chest.
"What the-"
"Hello," said the man. "My name is Kal-El. I am speaking to you from a planet called Krypton…"
Rei was busy. All of her. The sensation was heady. She had a memory of a memory, an inkling of what had come before, but none of her predecessors had shared experience anything like this. She was lying asleep on a hospital bed in the infirmary, two doors down from Hikari Horaki. She remembered Hikari, or at least her predecessor did, fondly, for her behavior in school and her relationships with the others. Rei was also busy at work in the laboratory where she was made, all eleven of her, including the one walking nude through the main tank, holding the body of the last Rei.
She wondered how her predecessor had gotten anything done with only two pairs of hands. She had so much to do, so much to prepare. The previous Rei was still in a deep coma, able to be called alive only because she was not properly human. An ordinary human being would have mistaken her for dead, but she had simply complete what she, at the time, presumed to be a final upload, a sort of sacrifice to grant her gifts to the ones who came after her. She was not the sentimental type, at least where herself was concerned.
It was not for her sake that Rei would save her.
Part of her –it was difficult to keep track, sometimes, but she sent three bodies—took the elevator to the deepest depths, where no one could enter. Since access was controlled by the MAGI system, access was, naturally, hers. She had only bid the gates to open, and then three of her walked into the vast space, the "LCL Production Plant".
Her true self wore a mask of polished bone, once perfect, now cratered by debris, inscribed with the symbol of an ancient order of mystics, seven eyes over a triangle. She could feel the pull of it, the drag of the creature trying to draw her back into itself, but it was not yet time. She had problems to solve, things to do, and enemies to see defeated. She was the white giant on the rosy cross, and the white giant on the rosy cross was her.
She would not abandon her children any longer.
Keel was losing his grip.
He no longer breathed on his own. There was a machine to do that, a great pumping thing he could watch through a window in its side, where a plastic bellows rose up and down in perfect rhythm. There was another machine to pump his blood, similarly suspended, a plastic artificial mockery of a heart that leaked a little with each pump. Like an old engine, he had to be topped off constantly. The nurses that puttered around him preserving the rudimentary functions of his physical form mostly escaped his notice.
Keel did not suffer to spend his last hours, in this form at least, in a stark white mockery of a room filled with antiseptic odors and the faint stink of feces, even if he'd long lost the ability to smell. Though he was little more than a quivering collection of atrophied limbs and failed organs, he stilled had his dignity, and his hearing. Beethoven lulled him, for he could not sleep, only dream. He had shared so many hours with the boy, dreaming their dreams together and hearing the music.
His optic unit auto-focused on the valet who approached him. In his artificial sight, the attendant was little more than a blur in front of the blur that was his vast library of books, now merely an artifice, as he could no longer read now that his eyes had fully degenerated. The attendant shifted nervously. Keel's throat clicked, and the machines made the sounds into a mechanized voice rumbling, "Speak."
"Sir," the attendant said, staring into a leather portfolio, as if the pretense of officiality would soften the blow. "Kaworu Nagisa is dead."
"My Son," the mechanical voice boomed.
"Sir, I-"
"Get. Out. Send for the engineers."
The attendant left, and Keel motioned with his right index finger, the only part of his body that was still his, for the nurses to leave. They lowered the lights as they departed, and left him in poetic silence, full of music that made colors in the ruins of his mind. He had shared it so many times with the boy, always enjoying his wry smile, the curve of his chin, the shape of his eyes. He saw himself in that face, alien as it was, and now no one would see it again. He waited, half sleeping, until the engineers arrived.
His support apparatus was all of a piece. He had long surrendered his desk, so it was simply a matter of rolling him out, like so much cargo. He focused intently on the ceiling rolling over his head, counting the chandeliers. As a boy, before the wars, he had counted those chandeliers a thousand times, running from room to room, obsessed with quantifying their number. He would never run again, not in the great house nor in the fields outside, never run between the flowers in the springtime and slice them from their stems with an old sword.
How could anyone oppose such a noble goal? How could anyone refuse the glory of rebirth? To be free of suffering of pain, of death, of ending? He ruminated on this as they loaded him into the back of the ambulance, and forced himself to remember. Soon, he would be forever, and he dared not forget who he was. Cool evening air breezed across his face before the bright lights of the ambulance interior nearly blinded him.
He was almost asleep again, at least for part of his journey. He could only glimpse the world through the two portholes at the rear of the vehicle, and it was there he focused his attention, rather than the sterile stainless steel cabinets and the swaying glass intravenous bottle and the harsh lighting. He saw trees as he rode. He remembered trees.
When he arrived, he was taken down, into a dark place, first by elevator, and then by a ramp through a concrete tunnel, dripping with moisture. The doctors and nurses and the engineers moved with him, carefully monitoring his vital signs. He was so close. The pain was about to begin. They took him to the operating room, first.
He saw the apparatus by which he would be inserted into the entry plug, a curved couch set in the body of a great machine festooned with the apparatus needed to keep him alive. He would not be able to breathe the LCL, he would need an oxygen supply, as it was not rich enough, and too thick for his tortured body to expel properly from his lungs. He felt nothing as the technicians switched over the machines, breathing first, then his heart, leaving the rest, since soon he would no longer need kidney dialysis, for example. When the basic functions were attended to, they began attaching the sensory devices.
The first thing to go was his eyesight, what was left of it. He waited while the new system was attached to the implants at the base of his skull. He could hear one of his manservants standing beside him. His hearing was always keen.
"Sir, the rest of the committee is demanding to know when the Complementation will begin."
"Soon," Keel's machines said. "Mass Production Series launch tonight."
"Yes sir," said the valet, and departed.
He felt it, felt them removing the pins from the implant and sliding the new ones in. Eyes first, then smell and taste, all transmitted to him from the machine. When it came time, at last, they picked him up, cradling his once massive body in a sheet, and slid him into the machine. Carefully, his limbs were positioned and clamped down, fixed in position, his head last of all. He would never move again, at least not in his present body. Soon, it would no longer matter.
They rolled the machine, and he felt the mass of it around him, though he could not see it, not yet. He heard the grinding of the crane as they moved him into a much larger space –the acoustics revealed that—and felt the shift in gravity as it picked him up and lowered his sarcophagus into the entry plug. When it sealed around him, there was a second sense of motion as the entire plug was raised into position. He could still move his jaw, and clenched his teeth when it slid home.
He could feel it around him already. The ice-cold LCL poured in around him, though he barely felt it. It rejuvenated him, soaked into his skin, restoring its elasticity, eased the pain in his joints, made his old bones feel less weary. He should have been soaking in it long ago. It began to heat.
"Sir," said the head engineer, "We are beginning the synchronization process."
Keel smiled in his steel coffin. The sensation was most odd, and most pleasant. It slithered up his spine, the first time he'd felt such a sensation in ages, and took root at the base of his skull. He could feel the creature pressing into him, joining with him, seeking him. He felt its alien desires, its need, its power.
"Passing absolute borderline. Third stage connection imminent."
Colors flashed, an ancient pattern wrought with significance. He wondered if the mewling children who piloted the lesser machines understood what they were seeing, that the Tree of Life was unfolding before their very eyes. His smile faded, as he no longer knew which set of lips was his. Then, it was on him. Sight, blessed sight, and a titan's sight at that. The light of the solar collector stung his new eyes even as it enervated him, passed into his being and made him whole. He felt the air current on his new skin, smelled the crisp outside air being pumped in by the ventilation system, heard the heartbeats of the pathetic things in the control room ahead of him, now so small.
"Third stage connection established. How do you feel, Chairman?"
He raised the hand of his new flesh before his eyes. It was white, as the others were, smooth and shining like the skin of a leviathan, but his arm was crooked and corded with massive, flexing muscles. Long spikes of gray bone protruded from his flesh along the back of his arm, at his new knuckles, and formed claws around the tips of his fingers. He marveled at them.
"Chairman?"
"Good," he rumbled, and he saw the men in the booth take a step backwards.
"E-excellent sir. The first operational test of the Kryptonian Hybrid Evangelion is a success."
"No test," Keel rumbled.
He pitched forward, tearing the restraints from the wall, felt them slide down his back and crash to the floor. He took an initial shaky step, and then another, prouder one. He held his arms out to steady himself, and heard the crashing of glass as the spikes along his hands tore rents in the sides of the solar collector.
"Sir," the lead technician babbled, "We need to run hours of tests and diagnostics before-"
Such a tiny thing, so soft. He reached out, bored his new digits into the concrete, and closed his fist around the control room. The mewling creatures inside were so small, so soft so insignificant, he barely felt them crush together against his palm. He dropped the detritus to his feet and began tearing at the wall, ripping great chunks free. He could feel her, his bride in the East, ancient Lilith who in union with him would raise Lorenz Keel to the Godhead.
In truth, he felt like a god already.
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Last Child of Krypton: Redux
Chapter Seventeen: A light shines in the darkness, and the darkness comprehends it not.