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
Kodama looked at Ritsuko the way she might look at a poisonous snake, or a particularly loathsome insect. Ritsuko felt an uncharacteristic urge to shy away, but the weight of what she carried folded under her arm impelled her forward. She put her other hand on the folder, folding it across her chest, as it she could draw strength from it, and walked into the room. She didn't speak to Kodama, not yet, but watched Hikari for a while. The girl's head was half covered in bandages, and she seemed so small, curled up under the blankets with only one leg and one arm. Ritsuko touched her hand, and felt Kodama tense.
"What do you want?"
"I have something to show you. A proposal."
"I said, what do you want?"
She handed Kodama the folder.
"What is it?"
"See for yourself."
Kodama opened it and started flipping through the documents. Ritsuko clasped her hands behind her back and waited, watching the girl's eyes widen with each passing page. She reached the end, neatly closed the folder, and stared at it.
"After all she's been through, you want to make her a lab rat."
Ritsuko frowned. "That's not-"
"You want to experiment on her."
"I want to fix her."
Kodama threw the folder on the floor and jumped to her feet, pointing at the bed. "You want to fix her? You want to fix this? She's not a machine, Doctor Akagi. You've fixed enough already."
"Please," said Ritsuko, "Hear me out. I could restore her ability to walk and see. In time, with improvements from field testing, I could-"
"Field testing?"
Ritsuko sucked in a breath. She had to do this. "She'd be a pioneer. Millions of people would follow after her. Land mine victims, people who've lost their sight to age or disease."
Kodama clenched her teeth, and her hands folded into fists. "I am not letting you turn my sister into some kind of machine."
Ritsuko looked at the floor. "You can keep that," she said with a sigh, turning.
Hikari coughed. Everyone froze. Ritsuko slowly turned to see her one good eye open, lidded, watching her. Her free hand, weighed down by bandages and a pulse monitor clip and intravenous lines, lifted weakly from the bed, and her finger wagged in invitation. Ritsuko moved closer to the bed, glancing at a glaring Kodama, who moved beside her. Hikari swallowed, a piteous, rasping sound.
"She's thirsty," said Kodama, lifting a plastic cup full of ice chips.
Hikari to a sliver of ice in her mouth and closed her eye, working it around her lips reverently before swallowing. Ritsuko started to move away, but Hikari weakly grabbed her wrist, just barely touching her.
"Show me," she rasped.
Ritsuko picked up the folder from the floor and brought it to the bedside. She turned to the first of the schematics. "This would be your new arm. I'd have to remove and replace your scapula and part of your collarbone, and you'd have to wear a harness to support it."
Hikari nodded, and she went on.
"This would be your new leg. Again, I'd have to surgically remove part of your skeleton- I can't simply attach it to the old joint. In this case, I'd have to remove part of your pelvis and insert metal struts to support the joint. The leg would also attach to the external harness, which would carry your power supply."
Hikari smiled a thin smile. "I would need…" she closed her eyes and licked her lips, "batteries."
"I'm afraid so, yes. There's also a design here for an eye. I've been in contact with a plastic surgeon from Switzerland. I'm not guaranteeing you'd look exactly the same, but you'll look a lot better than if we simply gave you a glass eye."
"I would be able to see out of it."
"Yes."
"Do it," Hikari rasped.
Kodama tensed. Ritsuko glanced at her, then turned back to Hikari. "These surgeries would take months. The process would be far from painless, and there would be months of therapy."
Hikari closed her eye. "I said do it."
Ritsuko closed the folder and pressed it to her chest, sighing to herself. She hurried to the edge or the room and leaned on the frame of the wide door, staring out into the hallway. She heard Kodama stalk to her side, but didn't look at her.
"Why are you doing this?"
"I'm not going to leave her like that," said Ritsuko. "I'm not going to abandon her to a life of suffering. If I can do one good thing with my life, it'll be this."
She stood up, and without looking, walked away.
Shinji met Rei in the elevator. It was somewhat disconcerting, since Rei was also in the hospital, and on the bridge helping with the repairs. So far, she had agreed never to appear in more than one body in the same place at the same time, but only after Misato begged her; to do otherwise, she argued, was 'inefficient'. Like all of her other bodies, this one was wearing a plugsuit. There were plenty of them, and they were, as she put it, "efficient".
Asuka was with him, holding his hand. Misato and Ritsuko stood behind him. He looked over his shoulder.
"Where's Kaji?"
"Negotiating with the United Nations to keep us all out of prison," said Ritsuko. "I have a feeling he'll show up if he feels like it, anyway."
"We must hurry," said Rei. She had a post-it note stuck to her chest with the word "Five" written on it in neat letters. Shinji wondered why she'd done that, since none of the other ones had.
Asuka shifted nervously. "What's down there?"
"The truth," said Rei.
When the doors closed, Rei's eyelids flickered and the elevator began grinding down slowly on its own. No one spoke during the long ride, although Asuka's grip on his hand grew tighter. He was surprised by the length of the descent. He could feel the weight of the rock over his head as the plunged downward, so far they must have broken through the bedrock. When he looked through the walls of the elevator he saw only the machinery of the shaft and dark, deep, dense rock that seemed to go on forever. Far below he could see some sort of space, but it was difficult to make out. The rock was too dense.
At length, the elevator stopped, and Rei led the way. Asuka looked around wide-eyed as they passed through a large space of bare concrete walls, industrial looking and heavily used, with water dripping down the walls. It reminded Shinji of Rei's apartment. She must have liked spaces like this. Beyond it was another lab.
Beyond the first set of empty labs was a fully functional one, a dark room dominated by a clear glass tube, and at the far end, a massive glass tank, now empty. Rei was everywhere here. It was hard to count the copies of her walking around in plugsuits, as they were all identical except for the numbers on their chests. Asuka shivered.
"I had a nightmare like this once," she whispered.
"Join the club," Ritsuko said absently.
The Rei bodies mostly ignored them, bustling around the room attending the various consoles. Sometimes, they would stop and stare into each other's eyes, locked in some sort of silent conversation, before they went on about their business. The one with the five on her chest led them past the large tube to the tank at the rear of the room.
A Rei floated inside, in the fetal position. Unlike the others, she was nude, and Shinji winced. Her arm and face and legs were covered with severe burns, and two Reis standing in the tank, moving around with exaggerated steps like astronauts on the moon, were moving her around and using scapels to carefully excise strips of burned flesh with scalpels and collect them in small plastic containers. They ignored the small party that had taken up a position watching them.
Ritsuko glanced at the panel. "You changed the nutrient concentration in the LCL bath."
"Yes," said Five.
Ritsuko nodded. "That's the third Rei. You're repairing her. Is she still alive?"
"Life and death are more complex than you are prepared to accept," said Five. "There is yet hope she may survive. We believe her mind has fully integrated with the MAGI and she is now in information space, ready to return to her physical form when we have repaired it."
"Why not just put her in another body?" said Shinji.
"It does not work that way."
"I don't understand this," said Asuka. "How can there be more than one of you? Are you like a hive mind or something?"
"No," said Five. "We are all individuals, but we are all Rei. A perfect copy is the same as the original."
Ritsuko looked around. "When they stare in each other's eyes, what are they doing?"
"We can interface with each other as we interface with the MAGI system. It is usually unnecessary. Our thought patterns are identical, but in a chaotic space there can be some divergence due to miniscule changes in the system. Therefore, we interface to ensure we have attained consensus."
"So you're not a hive mind," said Asuka.
Five stared at her. "No. I am 'the talkative one'. That is why I have been chosen to represent the system."
"Okay," said Asuka, "Let's change the subject."
Shinji put his hand on the glass. "What else are you doing down here?"
"Preparing."
"For what?"
"Seele," said Rei. "Now that Kaworu Nagisa is dead, they will mount an attack and attempt to complete the Red Earth Ceremony."
"The what?" said Ritsuko.
"Instrumentality," said Shinji. "That's what that means, isn't it? It's what they call their plan for Instrumentality."
"I'm a little lost here," said Misato.
Five nodded. "You will understand when we show you Terminal Dogma. There is something else you must see, first. Follow me, please."
She moved around, behind the tank. There was a plain wall behind it, unmarked except for an inexplicably placed numerical keypad embedded in the wall. Ritsuko walked over to it and leaned over it, brushing the dust from the top with her finger.
"That's odd. I never noticed this before."
"It is not connected to the MAGI system," said Rei. "Therefore, we cannot override it."
Shinji scanned the wall. There was definitely something behind it, but the walls of the inner chamber were too dense to see through. "There's something back there, some kind of room."
"A hidden door?" said Misato.
"I have an idea," said Shinji.
He tapped his birth date into the pad. Nothing happened, and he sighed. Then, there was a grinding sound, and a section of the black wall slid inwards, exposing a seam even he hadn't noticed, until it had traveled a few inches. It then slid apart, letting a chill wind flow out. He could feel the size of the space inside. He motioned for the others to stay back and walked inside a few paces, his footsteps echoing in the gloom. He looked around until he saw a switch- an exposed blade switch, no less, like something out of an old science fiction movie. He threw it, and there was a shower of sparks.
"This must be completely disconnected from the main grid," said Ritsuko, "I never knew it was here."
One by one, heavy sodium lamps thumped on, bathing the room in an eerie orange glow. It was as large as Shinji thought. The walls were lined with lab equipment and benches. Ritsuko rushed past him to examine it, heedless of the danger. Shinji could only focus on the object spread out in pieces on a large table in the center of the room. By looking at the smooth, silvery shell, if it were put back together, it would make...
"It's the rocket," Asuka breathed. "The rocket."
"Look at this," said Ritsuko, looking at the lab equipment. "This is our old equipment from upstairs. Gene sequencers, centrifuges, an autoclave, it's all here. He set up some kind of genetics lab."
Shinji moved to the rocket, reaching out for the pieces before Ritsuko grabbed his wrist. "There may be residual Kryptonite in the fuel chamber. Be careful."
"This is incredible," said Misato. "What was he doing here?"
"Let me look over these lab notebooks," said Ritsuko.
"What's this?" said Misato.
On the side wall, there was a whiteboard. Most of it was some sort of scientific shorthand, scrawled so densely and so tightly even Shinji could barely make it out, but in the center, written in large, block letters was a simple legend. "I stole fire from Heaven."
Shinji scrubbed his hands through his hair. "Fire from Heaven," he said.
He turned back to the rocket. He didn't feel even the least bit queasy, which was good. The shell of the rocket was spread out- it looked like an exploded schematic, the parts laid out to display the finished shape of the outer fuselage. Its guts were lying on the table, but appeared intact. Shinji held his hand over the sphere that would have held the fuel, but felt nothing.
"How did he get it open?"
Ritsuko flipped through a lab notebook. "He used a sample of your genetic material. Apparently, it reacts to you."
"What are these?"
Mounted in the center of the apparatus, connected to one another by thin streamers of wire in a roughly triangular pattern, were three spheres, about the size of a grapefruit. He touched one of the shells, and found it cool under his fingertip. He was tempted to pick one up but stopped.
"That's the central processing unit," said Ritsuko, reading from one of the notebooks. "It's three cores that communicate with each other for a decision making process. It's like the MAGI. Exactly like the MAGI. This must be where the cloned nervous tissue we used came from."
"What are these?" said Shinji, reaching for a simple box with a series of crystals mounted in it. When he touched one, it vibrated, and the whole thing hummed.
"Um," said Misato, "What is it-"
Something like a screen, some sort of hologram, flickered into the air above the rocket. It had a simple legend-
ARCHIVES- FUNCTIONAL
CONSTRUCTOR SYSTEM- INSUFFICIENT POWER
"Constructor system?" said Asuka. "What the hell is that?"
"What?" said Misato. "How are you reading that? It's just gibberish."
Ritsuko slapped the notebook closed. "It's not gibberish, it's Kryptonian."
"I don't know how to read Kryptonian," Shinji objected.
"Apparently you do. It must be part of your genetic memory somehow. Asuka, you too."
"I don't think we should mess with it," said Asuka.
"Agreed," said Ritsuko, "Not until we know what we're dealing with."
"Okay then," said Misato. "We'll leave it alone."
"We must go to Terminal Dogma immediately," said Rei Five. "There may not be much time."
Misato nodded. "What's down there?"
"You will see," said Five.
She led them out of the hidden lab. Ritsuko carried one of the notebooks with her, still leafing through it as she walked. Beyond a set of doors in the Rei lab, there was another elevator, unlocked, with a single button. Rei didn't have to press it, the doors simply slid open. Shinji was surprised at the lack of security, but he supposed if someone made it this far, it would no longer matter. The elevator ride was longer than the first, and Shinji felt an increasing sense of nervousness. They had to be very far underground.
When it finally stopped, the doors opened onto a cavernous space illuminated by work lights. The floor was bare black stone, smooth and slightly grayed, almost like ash. A tunnel, roughly carved into the stone, led away in the darkness. As Shinji walked he touched the sides. There were tool marks, the remnants of some kind of tunnel boring machine, probably the type used to carve underwater tunnels. It must have taken years to burrow through the rock, long before Second Impact, even. His footsteps echoed in the darkness.
"This is creepy," said Asuka. "Where the hell are we going?"
"Terminal Dogma," said Rei.
"Yeah, I caught that part," said Asuka, "but what the hell is a 'Terminal Dogma'?"
"The chamber within the Black Moon where Lilith rests."
"That's really helpful."
After a while, the light seemed to come from everywhere at once, without an obvious source. Shinji couldn't see through the walls, and something about that bothered him. He glanced over his shoulder and stopped, the others almost bumping into him. There was something off in the darkness behind them, three shapes.
"What is it?" said Misato.
He moved past them, looking back up the tunnel.
"Nothing," he said, "Must be my imagination."
He picked up his pace to keep up with Rei. She looked nervous about something, and seemed to stumble every few steps, as if someone were pulling her by the shoulder. The tunnel widened, and instead of being neatly carved, the rock was sheared off. He stepped out into the open space, followed shortly by the others, gathering around him. Ritsuko turned away. Misato stood and stared, dumbstruck. Asuka squeezed his hand so hard it almost hurt.
There was a sea, a sea of blood in the Earth, acrid and stinking of iron. In the middle of the sea was a rosy cross of rusted iron, and bound upon it was the form of man, a great white giant of smooth, almost cetacean flesh, hanging limply from massive nails driven into its pudgy digits. Its long legs dangled into the sea beneath it, and from a thousand cuts, thin, watery blood flowed.
"Is that…" said Shinji.
"Yes," said Ritsuko. "We refine it into LCL."
"Eww," Asuka said sharply, as if she were about to retch. "I've been rubbing that in my hair."
Shinji looked at her.
"What?"
"That," said Rei, "is Lilith, the All-Mother, the origin of all native terrestrial life on Earth. Through the forbidden union of Adam and Lilith, all life will return to nothing, reverting to the molecular primordial soup you call LCL. All souls will be reunited in Lilith, and all individuality and discrete existence will end. The Earth will be returned to its zero state, as she found it, billions of years ago."
"Yes," said Shinji. "When we were taken into the other place with the Evas, I was told about this. How do we stop it?"
"We cannot," said Rei, "So long as Adam and Lilith or their children continue to coexist on the same planet, the Forbidden Union is inevitable. For that reason, we have already initiated it."
"When you consumed Kaworu's core," Ritsuko said absently. "It's already started. Why haven't you rejoined her?"
"There will come seven Mass Production Evangelions," said Rei, "and the KHE. If we join while they still exist, the process can be co-opted and control taken away from us."
"Kryptonian-Evangelion Hybrid," said Shinji. "That's why they were hiding it behind acronyms and budget reports, so you wouldn't find out about it."
"Indeed."
"So that's it?" Misato said her voice high and strained. "After all this, we're just going to die? You're going to merge with a fucking marshmallow thing and kill us all?"
Rei tilted her head to the side, and rested her hand on Misato's shoulder.
"We have an alternative in mind. The Red Earth ceremony must not commence. You must stop them."
"When will the attack come?" said Ritsuko.
Rei looked up, and closed her eyes, and her eyelids twitched as her eyes rolled beneath them, as though she were dreaming. She opened them again and said, "We must return to the surface immediately."
Kaji was getting sick of conference rooms and meetings. Working in the field was much more interesting. He managed to actually tuck in his shirt and straighten his tie, as befitting a meeting with the Secretary-General herself, the "Freaking Secretary General of the United Nations" as Misato called her. He was unsure of how this was going to go, but so far, so good. He was sitting at the end of a conference table with the Secetary at the other end and representatives from the rest of the Security Council ringing the table.
Nakahima held the thumb drive in her slender fingers. "You make extraordinary claims."
He leaned forward and folded his hands on the table. "I have extraordinary evidence. If you've gone over the material I've gathered you'll see that the conspiracy reached only so far down as Gendo Ikari and Kozo Fuyutsuki. I don't think anyone else at Nerv knew what they were planning. No one in their right mind would go along with this."
"You believe that Fuyutsuki was colluding with Superman, and this led to his death."
Kaji nodded.
Nakashima frowned. "He should have come to us."
Kaji looked his folded hands on the table, secretly smiling to himself. "With all due respect, Madame Secretary, I think he chose a more powerful ally."
"Indeed," said Nakashima, "which is why you're now asking us to do the same thing. You claim that Superman will testify on behalf of the senior staff of Nerv, and that he has inside information you are not privy to."
"That's right."
"Yet, he doesn't work for them."
He sighed. "I know it sounds mad, but what he told you is true. He is an alien. Is that so hard to believe? We've been at war with alien beings for nearly a year, for fifteen years if you look at the hard facts. We live in a new universe, Madame Secretary, a much bigger universe than any of us ever imagined before."
"And I thought you were a cynic."
"I think even a dedicated cynic has to give in a little when he meets a man who can fly."
Nakashima smiled at him, wryly. "Based on your report, I'm inclined to agree with your conclusions but I'm not prepared to go so far. Assuming Superman does indeed testify and we have full cooperation, your people will have their immunity. Ritsuko Akagi's freedom will carry some conditions, however."
"I'm sure she'll agree to them. What about the children?"
"I'll do what I can to see the terms of their contracts with Nerv are honored, and we will protect their identities."
"Good luck with that," Kaji said to no one in particular.
"Excuse me?"
"Nothing, Madame Secretary. I'm personally familiar with the pilot corps and some of them are, shall we say, prima donnas. Think fighter pilots."
"Ah," said Nakashima. "For the moment, Misato Katsuragi will remain the acting commander, and the rest of the chain of command will remain in place."
"What does the committee have to say?"
She shook her head. "The Committee members that were in country have all left in the last twenty four hours, and no one is returning my calls."
Kaji frowned. "They're leaving the area?"
"Yes."
"I think we should prepare for-"
A heavyset American sitting next to the Secretary stood up. "I have something I must say," he said calmly, adjusting his heavy glasses. "Through the pain of death lies the glory of rebirth."
He reached into his jagged, tugged out a pistol, and aimed at the Secretary.
Kaji's hand flashed out, and he put two quick shots from his pocket backup gun into the man's arm. His aim went wild and the Secretary screamed as the gun went off over her head. The room went insane. The big American tried to crawl over to his dropped gun as Kaji jumped up on the table, ran down its length, and kicked him in the chin. He toppled over backwards and Kaji was on him, knocking the gun away with his foot. He aimed his own pistol at the man's head.
The big fool only grinned, fumbled something around his mouth with his tongue, and bit down. He convulsed, throwing Kaji off of him, and foam flushed from between his lips and through his nose. Kaji moved to his side, and then recoiled.
"Cyanide capsule," he panted, "Suicide pill."
Nakashima stood up slowly, her steel-gray bun all out of place, raggedy strands of gray hair hanging in her face. "Thank you, agent."
She turned to her aide. "Get security in here, now. I want the situation room ready, we-"
Another aide ran in the room. Kaji instinctively readied himself, holding his gun low, and moved to the door. The man, he couldn't have been much more than eighteen or nineteen, ran into the room, panting.
"Madame Secretary!" he shouted, "The Russians just launched a ballistic missile at us!"
Shinji left his civilian clothes behind him as he ran along the floor of the Geofront. He'd managed to repair his suit- he had most of a spare put together already, before Unit Three, and had finished it the night before. It was good that he did, as he realized he was going to need it. He took off and headed for the open crater in the roof of the Geofront, gaping open wide like a great mouth, blue sky beyond it. The sun on his skin was like a baptism as he rocketed up out of the opening, looking away from the devastation all around him. The beautiful summer city of his faded memories was gone now, and only cinders lived in its place.
He couldn't see the missile yet. He hoped it was non-nuclear, hoped that the madmen would not want their new God irradiated. The world fell away beneath his feet as he rose up, spreading out beneath him and curving, the edges falling away into the great blue ring that was the sky. He turned in the air, scanning the horizon, until he saw it. The missile was as big as a small skyscraper, still headed straight up on a plume of dense white smoke, pushing into the air so hard he could see the shockwaves rolling off its nose.
Where the atmosphere was thinner, at the very edge of space, it would be easier to move. He skimmed along, the world spinning slowly under him, pulling a thin contrail of compressed air in his wake. He saw the missile rise up through the clouds, carrying them with it, thin streamers trailing from its long form. The first stage booster fell away and a second engine fired, pushing it up and out of the atmosphere, and he followed after it.
He only had to turn it off course. Once it went into free-fall, it would be unpowered, unable to maneuver. The strength of a ballistic missile was that it fell so quickly once it reached the apex of its flight that it couldn't be shot down, but its great weakness was that inability to maneuver. He followed it to the top of the arc as the second booster fell away, the warhead turned, and it started moving straight down. He moved alongside it, resting his hands on it, and then he felt something moving inside.
With all his might, he pushed. The missile wasn't for Tokyo-3, after all. They knew he would try to catch it. He gave it a great shove and dove down as fast as he could, moving away from the warhead as it tumbled in the air and fell off course. When it went off behind him, there was no sound. The light and heat moved ahead of the noise, pushing a pressure wave through the upper atmosphere, and he pushed as hard as he could, the fire of a tiny sun on his heels. When he looked over his shoulder he saw a new star born in the sky, a second sun that ringed itself in cloud.
A sudden thought dawned in his mind. They would have known he could outrun it. They launched it for a single purpose- to get him out of the Geofront.
"Full alert!" Misato shouted, "everyone to battle stations!"
Aoba, Hyuga, and Maya, sitting in front of their consoles amid the computer's guts, looked at her in a panic as she ran down the stairs to their section of the bridge, but quickly turned and began carrying out her order. Ritsuko passed her in a flurry, spun herself around, and slid down the ladder to the lower section where the MAGI nodes stood. She ran to the console and started typing furiously.
"I'm glad you're here, Captain… err, Commander," said Hyuga, "Everything's going nuts. Someone launched a missile at us, and there was some kind of explosion at the Munich facility. I'm trying to bring up a satellite feed."
The main screen was still out, in fact, there was still a gaping hole in the wall where it once stood, but Misato watched the feed on Hyuga's much small monitor. Black smoke, thick and heavy, hung over the entire city. The satellite was powerful enough to duplicate a flyover from a few hundred feet, but there was nothing but a smoking crater visible just outside the city.
Something immense was moving under the cloud cover, and every once in a while, a swinging pair of what looked like wings appeared and then disappeared again. As if it knew it was being watched, whatever it was stopped, and stood up. Its head came up and she caught a brief glimpse of it through the smoke, a monstrous thing, an ancient leviathan with slavering jaws filled with razor sharp teeth and bulging bloodshot eyes. There was a red flash that turned to white, and the satellite went dead.
"What happened?"
"The satellite's gone," said Hyuga.
She stood up, and looked around. "What's the word on that missile?"
"it detonated in the ionosphere," said Hyuga, "it was an antimatter explosion. Why would they do that?"
She looked around. Shinji. "It was a distraction."
"A distraction," Aoba said, incredulously. "Who the hell uses a nuke as a distraction?"
"Someone trying to distract Superman. Shut all this down, get everyone to the lower level. We have to protect the MAGI and this position isn't defensible. Seal those doors."
"Ma'am," said Maya, "What about the hospital, and the outbuildings?"
"Sound an evacuation alarm. Get the hospital administrator on the phone, I want everyone and everything they can move brought over here through the service tunnel as quickly as possible, I mean double time it. Tell them we're expecting an attack."
"We've got a problem," Ritsuko shouted from the lower level. "The Berlin branch is trying to hack the MAGI."
Misato ran to the railing and looked down at her. "Give me some information!"
Ritsuko shook her head. "I don't understand what I'm looking at. They're locked out. Our MAGI are writing some kind of heuristic firewall, on the fly- it's like it's designing a secondary artificial intelligence without any input from me, but it's drawing processing power away from other functions."
"Oh," said Misato, "That's fantastic. Hyuga, what kind of communications do we have?"
"Almost everything," he said, "Satellite, high gain, land lines. We lost a few lines in the last attack, but-"
"Get on all of them and send out a distress signal. We are under attack."
Hyuga nodded.
"Commander," said Maya, "look at this."
She rushed over to Maya's station. The map showed seven blips moving across the continent at high speed over China, heading in their direction. The pattern matched those of an Evangelion, and they were flying in formation. She swallowed.
"Hyuga," she said, "Add something to that distress call. We have hostile Evangelions inbound."
He stared at her for a moment. "Y-yes, ma'am," he stammered, turning back to his work.
"We've been caught with our pants down. Aoba, what's the status of the Evas?"
"Both are in the cages, but Unit One is being locked down with Bakelite."
"Well unlock it!"
"I don't know if that's a good idea," Ritsuko shouted. "If the super-solenoid were to destabilize, we-"
"We're all dead anyway if we can't mount some kind of defense. I want Section 2 on full alert. Where are my security teams?"
"Moving," said Hyuga, "They're moving to cover the entrances."
"Well, you heard me. Get those consoles shut down, grab the portables, and get downstairs."
"We'll be at a disadvantage down there," said Aoba, pulling out his portable unit. "If anyone comes in here, they'll have the high ground."
"We have to keep the MAGI system up," said Misato. "Without it, we're defenseless. Come on, go."
"The nodes are armored to resist attack," said Ritsuko.
"We're not leaving," Misato insisted. "Damn it, I'm not abandoning this place again."
"There's an alternative," said Ritsuko. "I can set the Bakelite injectors in a time delay. Give us a few minutes to get out, then seal the entire level."
"Then we're trapped without access to the lower levels."
Ritsuko grabbed her head with both hands. "We're sitting ducks down here."
Misato sighed. "Okay, do it. Everybody, grab those portables, we'll head to Ritsuko's lab, that's a fairly defensible position, there's only one way in and out, and it's near the armory. Let's go."
As he ran out of United Nations headquarters, Kaji ducked instinctively. A black chopper, a big Chinook transport, rumbled low overhead, bathing him in the downwash. He looked up and saw more thumping in, a whole swarm of them. They must have never intended for the choppers to reach the ground. He got up and ran for his car, slid over the hood on his ass, and clambered inside, pulling the door shut even as he shoved the clutch in and turned over the engine. He squealed out of the parking lot, following the flow of the choppers. He threw the top back as he slowed for a curve, to get a better look.
He floored it when he hit the highway. There was no traffic going into Tokyo-3, and for good reason. He looked up at the choppers again. They were short range craft, meaning they'd originated in-country, unless they'd flown one way, and that would be stretching it. When he crested the rise leading into the city, he saw them take on a formation, orbiting the city center like swirling vultures. One by one, they tipped up into a hover and lowered themselves into the huge hole blasted ground that led into the Geofront, a dangerous, almost suicidal maneuver. He looked over his shoulder and saw a second wave approaching, and among them were attack helicopters.
Kaji slammed on the brakes and stopped in the middle of the road. He threw his jacket aside, tore off his dress shirt and tie, exposing the black body glove he had on underneath. Hidden under the rear deck of the car was his gear. He slipped out his trousers and pulled his heavy combat boots on over his jumpsuit, shrugging into his gear harness as he did. From the trunk, he pulled a heavy silenced .45 submachine gun and threw it the passenger's seat, jumped back in, and took off towards the city.
He looked up at the waves of invaders soaring over his head and new Nerv was badly outnumbered. Hell, the JSSDF would have a difficult time repelling an attack like this. From a flight of choppers over his head, an angular attack helicopter, lean and shark-like beside the bulk of the transports, peeled off, circling around lazily so that it flew sideways, aiming its weapons at him.
Oh, perfect.
He veered to the side as it opened fire with its main gun, the shells ripping up the pavement to his side as he swerved out of the way. It was no good, he couldn't maneuver fast enough to avoid them for more than a few seconds. Then, there was a wind, or so he thought, but it was not a wind, but a blur of motion, stepping between him and the rain of fire falling on him. Shinji turned lazilin the air beside him, the explosive shells bursting across his back, as harmless as balloons. He nodded to Kaji, turned, and headed for the chopper.
When he met it, he lighted on the side, reached up, and grabbed the central joint where the rotors hung together. There was an awful shearing sound as he hand met the metal, and the rotors slowed. He tore the entire apparatus off and tossed it away into space, and it ran along the ground like a loose bicycle wheel, the blades shattering and bending as they hit. He held the chopper up through his own strength, turning it, and with his free hand yanked the cockpit off. He grabbed one of the pilots, then the other, holding them by the collars of their flight suits with just his fingers, and then with the barest effort turned the entire body of the chopper by swinging his arm and tossed it down by the side of the overpass.
Kaji skidded to a stop as Shinji landed in the road, leaping from the car with his weapon slung over his shoulder. The pilots feebly scrabbled for their sidearms until Shinji yanked them free, held them together in his hand, and crumpled them into a bundle of folded metal and snapped plastic. He tossed it over his shoulder and threw them down on the pavement.
"Who are you people?" he shouted.
Almost in unison, they convulsed, foam spraying from their lips. Shinji started, and Kaji grabbed his shoulder.
"Suicide pills."
"What? Why would they do that?"
"They think they're being reborn in paradise, or something."
"We have to get back to the base," said Shinji, looking at Kaji's car. "That's too slow. Come with me."
"What are you-"
Shinji picked up him, threw him over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, and took off.
Toji ran into the hospital room, covering his ears to drown out the shrieking of the alarm. He'd only stepped out for a little while to get some air, while the Akagi lady talked to Kodama. Akagi scared him; she was like some kind of mad scientist in a movie. He decided to take a walk for a while, even though he was afraid he'd miss it when Hikari finally woke up. He needed to get out of that room, away from Kodama and her bouts of staring sullenly at the floor or weeping softly, away from the thousand yard stare of Hikari's father. He want to see his own dad, but he was working down in the Eva cages and he didn't exactly have time off, with everything that was happening. When he got back, there were doctors and nurses crowded in the room. He teared up, before he even realized it.
"What's happening?" he choked.
Kodama grabbed his shoulders. "It's okay, she's fine. We have to move her."
"Move her? Where?"
"Over to the base. There's some kind of attack or something coming."
"I don't understand," said Toji. "We're underground, we never had to move before!"
One of the doctors looked over his shoulder. "Kid, it's not an angel this time."
Toji felt the blood drain out of his face his hands were cold. "You mean it's people? Why would somebody do that?"
"I don't know," said Kodama.
"Why would they hurt Hikari?"
"She's a pilot," Kodama hissed angrily, ducking to the door.
She yelped and ran back into the room, followed shortly by the sound of gunfire. Chunks of wood and masonry flew out of the wall. The doctors moved to cover Hikari with their bodies, and the nurses pressed against the back wall. Toji saw shadows on the wall, distorted, like strange creatures, but they were only men in helmets and gas masks. They rounded the corner, turned through the door, and he practically felt the machine guns level at him.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Something happened, and when they fired, there was no sound. They fell backwards, and he saw the bullets bouncing off of something, some kind of plane of orange light that unfolded in front of him in an eleven-sided shape with weird angles that made his head feel funny when he looked at them. He moved to Hikari's side, adding his body to the human shield, until a moment later a wave of amber light shoved the attackers back, crushing their bodies together and sweeping them aside like so much dirt.
Rei stood in the door. "We must leave."
"We're not done prepping her," said the doctor.
"There is no time. I cannot remain here indefinitely to protect her."
"She'll die!"
Rei had a curious look of calm on her face, even for her. "Today is not the day she dies. Bring her."
Hurried, they tossed the IV bags onto the bed and unhooked the rest of the monitors. Toji and Hikari cleared out of the way to let the bed fit through the door. He threw himself behind it and helped push, running down the hall. Hikari's head lolled and she groaned, but she seemed okay. Kodama ran alongside her, leaning into it, pulling the bed with her hands. She threw her legs out and pushed her shoulder into the bed to help it make a turn.
Rei walked along calmly behind them. Toji glanced over his shoulder and saw another team of armed men approaching her. Rei looked at them for a moment, as if in thought, and gestured with her hand. They weren't simply shoved away, a spiraling form of orange light, like some sort of luminous buzz saw, formed in the middle of the hallway and expanded outwards in every direction, crashing into the walls and the ceiling and floor, and the whole hall collapsed in on itself behind her, crashing into a heap as the floors above slammed down as the load bearing walls fell. She turned and continued walking. There was something glowing in her chest, and it was burning her hospital gown, barely hanging on her shoulders by threads. She continued following, padding down the hall in her bare feet.
The doors to the access tunnel that led to the main base were locked. Rei blew them apart with a gesture, just unmade them into chunks that spread along the sides of the concrete tunnel. Toji joined the doctors in pushing and as the sodium lights flickered over Hikari's head, she moaned. A tiny trickle of blood leaked from her lip.
"Do something!" Kodama screamed.
The bed slowed and the doctors move to her side in a panic, until Rei pushed them aside with her slender arm. She looked at Hikari, moved, and before anyone could stop her, sunk her hand in Hikari's chest to the wrist. Hikari gasped and there was a loud popping sound. She half-sat up, her back arching, and then fell back into the bed, out cold but breathing normally. The doctors stared in stunned shock before she nodded forward, and they started moving again.
"Where do we go?" said Kodama.
"The Section 2 barracks will be the safest place," said Rei. "Follow me."
Kaji rolled off of Shinji's shoulder, almost dropping his gun, and shouted "Never do that again!"
"Sorry," Shinji shot back, "I didn't want to carry you newlywed style, that would be weird."
Kaji looked at him. "Take care of the surface, I'm going down into the base."
Shinji nodded, watching him run towards the ruins of the pyramid. He turned back and watched the helicopters spin in slow circles as they filtered down into the Geofront. The backwash made his cape flap out behind him as he walked towards the landing zone where the heavier transports were coming down in near rows and disembarking their cargo and passengers from ramps at their backs. He lifted off the ground and floated over their heads, and drew in enough air to make his voice ring like thunderclaps through the cavern.
"Excuse me," he said. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave."
He saw muzzle flashes. The bullets streamed lazily through the air towards him, slapping off his skin like raindrops as he descended. He was surrounded by flashes and gunfire. He plucked a grenade out of the air, closed his fists around it, and after it went off with a low thump, he let the shrapnel slide from his palms and dusted them off with a clap. He walked over to the nearest helicopter, put his hand under the long tank that ran beside the fuselage, and casually flipped it over. It moaned as it rolled up on one side of the landing gear and toppled over, snapping the blades. A Humvee loaded with men ran past him, kicking up mud and dust. He focused on one of the tires, and it went up with a loud bang, shreds of melted rubber flying off into space.
Someone charged him, shouting "Through the pain of death lies-"
Shinji all but ignored him, knocking him unconscious with a casual backhand across the top of his helmet. He walked among them, yanking the rifles out of their hands and folding them up into squares, pushing the choppers onto their sides, ripping the wheels off of the Humvees. Even as he moved, there were too many, more and more helicopters flooding through the roof of the Geofront every moment. He had no idea where they'd all come from. He picked out the engines in the helicopters and started focusing on them until their wiring melted and they spun around lazily, held aloft only by autorotation, ignoring the hail of gunfire as he walked across the cavern floor.
A group of Humvees made a breakout and charged away from him at high speed, bouncing and leaping across the patchy, muddy remnants of agricultural fields and forest. Shinji followed them, soaring over their heads, and landed in front of the lead vehicle. He put one hand on the bumper, planted his feet in the mud, and forced it to a stop. The hood came off with a yank, and he pulled out the distributor and tossed it away in a tangle of wires before turning to the others. He ripped a tire off here, blew one out with his gaze there, and pulled out the rear axle of one of the vehicles as it crested a small rise, leaving it sputtering, the engine screaming madly as the driver, seemingly ignorant of the vehicle's distress, kept gunning the engine.
Shinji walked over to it, pulled him out, and for good measure, ripped out the steering column.
"Hey," he shouted. "Who are you people?"
The driver just stared at him dumbly. Shinji looked at him, looked into his body. There was something wired into his skull, with wires running from a pair of what looked like nerve clips to an apparatus embedded in his helmet. As Shinji looked around, he saw that they were all like that, with wires running right into their skulls. He pushed the man back against the car, focused on the spot where the electronic bundle was mounted in his helmet, and melted it.
He looked at Shinji in shock. "Gdje sam?"
Misato carried the last portable unit into Ritsuko's lab, unbalanced by the rifle slung over her shoulder. She carried to the back where Maya and Hyuga were setting up while she, Ritsuko, and Aoba hovered near the door, checking their rifles. Ritsuko had a cigarette dangling out of her mouth as she checked the magazine, slapped it in place, and yanked the charging handle.
"Very butch," said Misato.
"Oh, shut up."
Misato risked leaning out the door, pushing her helmet into place. It wouldn't sit right on her damn hair, so she undid her ponytail and crushed it down, doing up the strap under her chin. She raised her rifle and then abruptly pulled back, holding her fingers away from the trigger as Kaji jogged down the corridor, a machinegun slung over his shoulder. He arrived at the door, panting.
"Let me in, damn it. Where the hell is everybody?"
"I have Section 2 covering the entrances, and everyone else is holing up in the barracks," said Misato. "What the hell are you wearing?"
"My work clothes."
Misato shook her head. "What's the situation outside?"
"There's an army up there, that's the situation outside. Shinji's outside holding them off."
Aoba looked at him and blinked. "What? I didn't know he could shoot."
Hyuga sighed behind him. "You really don't know?"
"Know what?"
"Get inside," Kaji said sharply, pushing them back in. "Does this door lock?"
Ritsuko hit the panel and the door slid shut, and she typed in her access code to seal it from the inside. "There's not much cover in here."
"It's the best I could do on short notice. The walls are reinforced," said Misato, "and the door is, too. This whole place is a fortress."
"A poorly designed fortress," said Kaji. "There's plenty of ways in."
"I don't know about that," said Hyuga. "The blast doors are lowering. We might be okay."
"What about the Eva launch tubes?" said Kaji.
"Tubes 8, 29, and 37 are seized up," said Hyuga, "the mechanisms were fried in the last attack. That's suicide, though. No one could get in through there."
"Suicide, eh," said Kaji. "Get on your radios and let everyone know we may have company."
"Wait," said Misato. "If they come in through the tubes, wouldn't they come out in the cages?"
"Yeah," said Hyuga, "I guess, why… oh."
Misato jumped up, dragging Kaji by the arm. "Rits, you have the deck."
"Right," Ritsuko sighed, standing by the door.
She hit the panel and the door slid open. Misato looked out, and then waved Kaji on. The door closed behind them and they moved down the hall, stopping at the first corner to check, advancing in unison with each other. She'd never done anything like this with him before, but felt natural, almost easy. They made it to the elevators and Kaji kept moving, heading for the stairwells instead. It would take longer, and they'd have to thread through the twisting labyrinth of the base, but it was better than being caught in an ambush when the elevator doors opened.
Kaji went in first, leaning over the railing, and motioned her forward, but she was already moving. They headed down that way, towards the cage level, moving one by one and covering the corners, and each other. At last, at the cages, they stopped, and Kaji edged the door open with the barrel of his weapon, peering through. When he saw it clear, he motioned her forward, and they moved together, jogging down the hall.
"Where are the pilots?"
"Asuka and Rei were on their way here."
"You really think Rei piloting is a good idea? Unit Zero is-"
"Down, I know, but we don't have a pilot for Unit Two."
She stopped near the locker rooms, peering around the corner. She heard footsteps behind her, whirled, and saw Asuka and Rei stepping out of the elevator.
"Hey," said Asuka, "what the hell is going on?"
"Get over here," Misato hissed, motioning them over.
Asuka jogged to her side.
"We're under attack," said Misato, peering around the corner. "They might be in the cage."
"Under attack? By who?"
"Everybody," said Kaji.
"Let's get to our lockers and suit up," said Asuka, motioning Rei forward.
It was the one with the "Five" on her chest, Misato noted. Kaji darted to the other side, and together they covered the walkway across the first cage while the girls headed into the locker room. It was an agonizing wait, but Rei was already suited up and it only took Asuka a minute to get into her own suit, and together they moved up to the next cage, where Unit Two stood.
"Wait," said Asuka, "Who's going to pilot which one?"
"I will pilot Unit Two," said Rei. "You are the most adept pilot, and Unit One is the most difficult Eva to control."
Asuka looked tense for a moment, but nodded, and Rei went up the walk to the plug. Asuka looked back tensely as they headed to Unit One's cage. The Eva still bore the scars of the last battle- its mouth hung open, displaying the great blunt teeth within, and its regrown arm was uncovered, gray and fleshy. The shoulder pylons were missing, too.
"You're sure this is safe," said Misato.
"Completely," said Asuka, turning to run up the plug.
She stopped. She turned back, ran to Misato, and hugged her, almost lifting her off the floor. By the time Misato knew what was happening, she'd already let go and embraced Kaji.
"Don't do that," he said, "This isn't goodbye, everybody's coming back."
"Asuka," said Misato. "There's going to be seven Evas coming in, and some kind of thing. Be careful up there."
"I'm always careful," she said, rolling her eyes, and ran up the steps.
"There's nothing else we can do here," said Kaji.
Misato nodded, and they turned, and headed back.
Shinji stood on top of a rolled chopper, gazing up into the sky. He saw them- seven enormous flying wings, flying in a stacked formation, from the west, from the sun. The enormous black craft moved with ominous slowness, great white masses hanging from their underbellies. All around him, the invading soldiers suddenly stopped firing at him, their weapons hanging slack, their mouths falling open. Shinji turned around, just as they turned their weapons on each other and opened fire.
"No!" he screamed, leaping among them.
He moved at the speed of thought, moved so fast it bowled men off their feet, so fast it made the air sizzle. He pulled rifles out of hands and folded them together, tossing them aside and moving to the next one, but even then, he was too slow, and he watched bodies fall, ecstatic grins on their faces. His stomach roiled, and he felt an urge to vomit. The survivors stood dazed, staring into space, their eyes blank, empty. He walked among them, waving his hands before their eyes, only to be ignored.
"What the hell?"
He looked back up, and saw the flying wings begin to dip. They angled lower, spreading out, and the fleshy white forms hanging from their underbellies roiled and moved, pulling free of the craft. Their heads emerged first. Long, cetacean things, more snout than face eyeless, and with livid red lips over rows of razor teeth, like shark's teeth. Their arms pulled free next, and each of them clutched a bladed weapon, a kind of long gray sword with a pair of handles fixed in the spine, to be held two handed. They fell backwards and tumbled into the air.
From packs on their backs, great white wings unfolded, not the wings of a bat nor those of a bird but somehow in between, suggestive of feathers. They fell into a lazy circle, seven of them, holding their long blades in both hands under their bodies, waiting for something, anticipating something. The armed men around him, the survivors, began chanting something. Latin, he thought.
He lifted up from the ground. As he did, Unit Two bobbed out of the ground, one-handed, carrying a palette rifle. It moved forward, umbilical trailing, and as it did, Unit One joined it, not attached to the rails by the pylons but simply holding them in its clawed hands. It stepped free of the launch tubes and walked out into the Geofront, gazing up at the opening above and beyond that, the sky where the seven beasts swirled like vultures. They descended.
He saw now that they were marked, numbered from one to seven, and they folded their wings and dove through the crater into the Geofront proper, sweeping out and into a lazy circle around the perimeter of the cavern, moving, it seemed, under their own power. They circled until the last had joined them, and slowly, in perfect unison, tipped their feet downwards and came to skidding landings, their wings folding and nearly vanishing into their backs. Brandishing their weapons, they moved forward, taking short, guarded strides, moving as one, copying each other's movements perfectly. One of them passed him, its eyeless gaze disregarding him.
That was a mistake on its part.
He moved with all his speed, his power, his fury, and he passed straight through the thing's head, emerging from the other side in a fountain of armor plating and dense, almost metallic bones and red gore that spread out in a fan behind him. The creature reeled, swinging its weapon wildly, and it gave forth a strange bellow, a twisting, ululating cry of agony that he could feel in his bones, and it turned on him.
Battle was joined.
Rei moved in Unit Two with warlike precision, every moment clipped, economical, constantly turning her back away from her enemies to avoid exposing her umbilical cable. Shinji had never seen her move so elegantly before. She fired short bursts, blasting open cratered, weeping pock marks in the Eva Series' sides and legs, aiming to cripple their movement. They curled over and circled the two Evas, brandishing their blades. The one marked out as One, the leader, moved in to attack, raising its weapon up and charging across the Geofront floor, its feet sliding in the mud.
Shinji passed between its legs, rose in front of it, and put his hands into his chest. He hooked his feet in the air and pushed, and it did not stop but continued forward, out of control, its feet sliding out from under it. It fell hard, the impact shaking the floor of the Geofront and throwing up a great mass of mud and debris. The blade flew out of its hands.
With almost practiced ease, Asuka caught it, spun it around, and tested its weight in Unit One's hands. She seemed to like it, as she lifted it, spun it, and took its owner's arm off at the shoulder. The limb sheared free in a spray of gore and tumbled across the cavern, standing for a moment on the palm before it toppled with a great thump like a felled tree. One-armed, the thing got up, swinging a closed fist at her, and she impaled it, lifting it bodily from the ground.
Another one came up behind her. Shinji shoulder-checked it away, looked it in the face, and unleashed the fire of a red sun. Its white skin puckered and blackened, and it stumbled backwards, shrieking in agony. Rei turned, put a quick salvo through its head, and shoved it aside with the cauterized stump of her off hand. It rolled across the ground, flailing, kicking wildly with its legs, trying to bury its burning head in the mud, all the while shrieking.
The others, the other five, fell back, hopping on bent legs like birds, strange warbling sounds echoing through the cavern. They held their weapons out and Asuka and Rei moved back to back, the battered purple Eva almost touching the crimson one, and all at once they advanced. Shinji chose one, ducked down, and hugged himself to its ankle, and pulled. It pitched forward, and he could almost feel the stress in the bones of its other leg as it came down hard. Asuka moved, deft and quick, turning the blade in her hands, and neatly cleaned its head from its body. It rolled away, still grinning madly, a thick, too-human tongue lolling over its sharp teeth, bleeding.
The other four continued to move in, feinting with their blades. Rei emptied her gun into the body of one but it ignored her, screeching as it charged. She flipped the palette rifle in the air, caught it by the barrel, and took a swing with it. The stock, a massive construction of steel, split and groaned the long gray blade bit into it. Rei turned the stroke, spun her Eva around, and with her other arm, cracked the creature in the face with a vicious elbow strike. It rolled to the side, but as it did, it wrapped its fingers through her umbilical jack and dragged her down with it.
Shinji flew to her side, landed on the offending arm, and as the creature wailed, buried his hands in its flesh. It was cold and slippery, and he felt its blood pulsing over his arms. He found bones, and, bellowing in fury, pulled. There was a great crack as its hand tore free, hanging at first by slivers of flesh and then by nothing as Rei rolled away.
Another of the Eva series stood some distance away, holding its blade. Shinji would swear it was grinning at him as it swept its blade down and buried the point in the earth, neatly severing Rei's umbilical. As Unit Two grappled with the one on the ground, he charged the other, rocketing across the Geofront to hold it back while Asuka held the other two, parrying and beating back the swings of their blades with her own, the blows ringing out like crashing thunder. He dodged the thing's swing, turning around the blade as it passed, hearing its sharpness making the air sing. He aimed for its chest and then cut up suddenly. The impact crushed its jaws shut, impaling its own lolling tongue on its sharp teeth. It stumbled backwards, losing its grip on the blade, and he turned to pound it with both fists, stripping it from the creature's grasp.
Asuka turned two swings from her opponents, battering them both back at once, and with a scream echoed by Unit One itself that rolled out over the cavern, she spun fully around, holding the blade in one hand, and bisected one of them, neatly slicing through its middle. It stared down at itself in confusion before she recovered, brought the blade back, and impaled the top half on the point, lifting it away from the legs in a stream of gore and guts and wires hanging from its midsection. Its legs stood for a moment, then fell onto their knees and toppled to the side. Asuka turned, Unit One swinging around with the momentum, and hurled the top half of the one Mass Production Eva at the other one, bowling it back.
Rei's opponent had Unit Two pinned, pushed down into the ground. It lifted her by the shoulders and slammed her down over and over, until Shinji turned to it, pressed across the space so fast it made the air behind him blur and glow, and crashed into it at full speed, bowling it over. Rei moved quickly, rolling onto all fours and running for an umbilical station as she blew out the useless jack on her back. She grabbed a fresh one, rammed it into place, and ducked a sweeping punch from the Eva that Shinji disarmed moments before. She struggled with it, and the other moved to join it.
Shinji rocketed past Asuka and pounded the jaw of her opponent with his fists, and she immediately turned and rushed to Rei's side. She took her blade, took a bounding step, and swept it upwards. The sword slashed up through the Mass Production Unit's thigh and bit deep into its chest. Gore gurgled over its teeth and Asuka used the blade embedded in its side to lever it backwards. Rei kicked the other one back, and together they fell on their adversaries. Rei ducked under Asuka's sword swings, slashing with her progressive knife.
Shinji grabbed the third Mass Production Unit by its lips, forced its jaws shut, and turned, burying his fingers in its flesh. He used his whole body, turning it in the air to torque it around and around, spinning it until its feet dragged in the mud. He could feel the bones in its neck grinding. It closed its hands around its own snout, peeling him off, and he pulled back and punched so hard into its hand that he felt the bones within shatter. It screamed and reeled backwards, and he pressed the attack.
As he shoved it into the wall of the Geofront,it threw its head back and wailed. He went for its throat, tearing it into it with his bare hands, screaming as he peeled the slippery white skin away and burned anything he could see until thick black smoke roiled around him. He pushed into it until he met bone and pounded it to powder with his fists, hitting it so hard it simply shattered and the thing's head lolled up it he put his arms up, shoved, and lifted it free of the smoking stump. The creature slid along the wall and landed in a heap as he dropped its head.
The wounded Eva fell back and Asuka chased it, running after it, Unit One bellowing in triumph as she charged. She ran the blade up through its belly, lifted it from the ground, and hurled it into the far wall. The other flailed wildly as Rei held it from behind, her right arm, ending in a stump, wrapped around its neck while she sawed at it with the progressive knife. She ducked back and dipped down as Asuka took a wild, wide swing, and beheaded the thing in a single stroke. The last one of them fell all at once, slamming to the ground with a great crash.
A shadow passed overhead. The sun, streaming through the opening in the roof of the cavern, was blotted out. Shinji looked up and recoiled as he saw the enormous thing falling out of the sky. It was half again as big as any Eva, maybe twice as big, and landed in the city with such a crash that it made the entire roof of the cavern buckle inwards, groaning monstrously. Asuka and Rei moved back, Rei stopping to scoop up one of the gray swords. They backed towards the pyramid as a pair of enormous clawed hands, covered in tumourous, jutting spikes of gray bone, thrust down through the crater, grabbed the edges, and pulled.
The thing's massive barrel chest flexed as it tore the middle of Tokyo-3's blasted remains up by their roots, two long lab slabs of black stone lifting up and falling away by its side with a thunderous crash. It stood in the widened opening, a giant, a leviathan made in mockery of its brothers. Its jaws were massive, the lower jaw jutting out too far beneath the upper, filled with irregular teeth jutting out at all angles, and the rims of its mouth were lined with spikes, giving it the aspect of a lamprey or sea monster, all teeth. Its tongue, huge and blue, lolled out to one side, swinging in the air as it moved. Its body was misshapen, hunchbacked, its chest huge and twisted inwards, like that of a powerful dog, and its legs were short and stunted in comparison to its long arms, heavy and corded with muscle and ridged with sharp spines. It could not fold its wings; they were vestigial, broken looking, and swung uselessly from its back like crests of twisted flesh covered in sharp bone ridges.
It stood on the precipice, threw its enormous head back, and bellowed. Unlike the others, it had eyes, huge bulging eyes, and they were full of rage and hate, and it saw him.
"YOU."
He couldn't let it get into the Geofront. He screamed at the top of his lungs, screamed with all his might, so the sound came from everywhere at once.
"Run!"
He headed for the thing, meaning to catch it in a flying uppercut. He struck true, but it hurt, it was like pounding his fists into a brick wall. It rolled backwards, a rumbling sound rolling from deep in its chest, and Shinji came around and hit it again, knocking it back from the hole. It swung at him and he dodged, but it followed through and buried its fist in the ground. The cavern moaned again, and a whole section of the city lifted, strangely, and then folded inwards, falling down inside. It slid down into empty space, falling with agonizing slowness, and a plume of dust rose up out of the opening. He heard that terrible rumbling sound again, and he realized what it was.
It was laughing at him.
He felt the wave of pressure coming as it reached out and simply plucked him from the air. Its great digits folded around him, squeezing the air from his lungs, and he could feel his bones grinding together. It stood and brought him around slowly, holding him before its hateful eyes, too human eyes, and its jaws worked slowly, seemingly unrelated to the words that thundered from its mouth.
"NOW YOU SEE."
Shinji tried to say something, tried to push himself free, but it was like nothing he'd ever felt before, pressing him down so hard he couldn't move. He wriggled pointlessly.
"GET UP."
It wasn't talking to him. He looked and to his horror he saw one of the Mass Production units stand up, the one Asuka had beheaded first. It picked its head up off the floor of the Geofront and shoved it back in place, twisting it until with a great popping, sloshing sound it took root and the wound sealed itself, the flesh puckering and folding closed. The others were getting up, the one's head still on fire, the other unable to attach the stump to the cauterized wound, simply left its own head lying and advanced, holding its hands out to its side. Rei and Asuka moved together, back to back, covering the connection point for Rei's umbilical.
Shinji struggled with all his might, pushed as hard as he could. It didn't work.
A rippling boom rolled overhead, and a spreading crack flowed across the roof of Ritsuko's lab. Misato ducked out of the way of a falling streamer of dust and powdered masonry and ducked over to where Ritsuko and Kaji crouched by the door.
"We can't stay here."
"I agree," said Ritsuko. "We have to get to the barracks and move everyone deeper into the installation."
"Do we have any idea what's going on up top?" said Kaji.
Maya shook her head. "Everything is down. The surface power grid is out. We're completely blind."
Kaji tensed. "If we're going to go, let's go before it gets worse."
Ritsuko nodded, and opened the door. Misato went out first, crouching, looking up and down the hall before she motioned the others to follow. Kaji moved beside her, stopping at the junctions of the corridors to look one way while she looked another, while Ritsuko and the technicians brought up the rear. They crept along until they found the stairwell and filtered inside, watching up and down for intruders. Misato relaxed a little, standing up, and jogged down the stairs.
There was another boom, and the world rolled under her feet. Kaji grabbed her and pulled her to the wall to keep her from tumbling down the stairs. They wound down forever into darkness, it seemed. The lights flickered, and she looked up. Far overhead, the top of the stairs, choked with hardened Bakelite, were beginning to crack apart. They had to hurry.
"Come on," she said, "We need to get those people out of the barracks."
Misato pushed through the doors, checked left and right, and ran. The doors to the barracks stood open, guarded by a pair of Section 2 agents. They saw Misato and visibly relaxed, but she kept on running, into the mess hall, and skidded to a stop. There were hundreds of people there- technicians, cage crews, doctors, patients in hospital beds; she saw Hikari in the far corner with her people clustered around her.
Rei walked up to her. Misato blinked.
"We must go. Now," said Rei.
"Where?" said Misato. "The elevators are probably frozen up with bakelite."
"There is an Evangelion shaft that leads into Terminal Dogma. Follow me."
Misato ran a few steps and jumped up on a table. "Everybody listen up!" she shouted, waiting for the crowd's murmurs to die down. "We can't stay here, it's not safe. We're going to move everyone deeper into the complex. Saddle up, and follow me."
Misato moved through the room as everyone broke into action, heading for the hospital beds. As the doctors started pushing them, she made her way to Hikari. The girl was breathing shallowly but she was alive. The Suzahara boy started pushing her bed, and her sister and father joined in, while the kid sister rode at the foot of the bed, looking over the footboard. Misato jogged back to the head of the line, to Rei.
"Let's go."
"It is this way."
Rei led the way through the twisting corridors, never stopping to get her bearings, as if she just knew exactly where to go. The long train of people wove along behind her, and Misato kept looking over her shoulder. She didn't think anyone made it into the base, but she was still tense, looking at ever junction in the corridors for someone to pop out and start shooting.
Rei led them through the empty Evangelion cages, the parade of footsteps yawning in the vast, empty spaces. The metal walkway swayed a little and creaked under the weight of all the people travelling it, and Misato gripped the handrail instinctively. Rei just ignored it, walking at a steady pace, through to the staging area for the launch tubes. Misato seldom came here. Unlike the cages, there wasn't even the false comfort of a sea of LCL to fall into, it was a straight drop from an Evangelion's chest level to the concrete floor, perilously far below. The walkway began to ramp down, and Misato glanced over her shoulder, worried the hospital beds would roll out of control.
There were forty tubes in all, and crossing them would take some time. Rei veered away from them when the long procession hit ground level and started walking to a distant part of the staging area. There was a simple platform at one end, sized for an Eva to stand on it, marked out by hazard stripes. In the few times Misato had been here, she never paid any attention to it.
"Gather everyone on this platform," said Rei. "We will go to Terminal Dogma."
"NO HELP. SEE."
All seven of them moved now, and for a moment he thought there might be some advantage, but they stopped limping, the one with the severed arm twisted it back onto the stump, and together they moved, only the headless one seeming to have any difficulty at all. Asuka dispatched that one quickly with an upward slice of her sword, and unlike before, she moved and stabbed at its middle with the blade, as if searching for something. Shinji grinned when she saw her spear the Eva's red core with her blade, shattering it, and the thing finally stopped witching.
"WON'T HELP," the hybrid rumbled.
They moved together now with some grim purpose, some intelligence, and Shinji realized that either the presence of the hybrid was making them more intelligent, more capable, or they had simply been stalling for time before. Asuka and Rei could barely hold them back, much less press an advantage, even though there were only six of them now. It was Unit Two that took the first blow. A swing of a sword severed her umbilcal, and while she was distracted with the parry, the Eva without a sword ripped the power station right out of the ground, lifted it overhead, and smashed it. Rei impaled it, slid her blade down, and then up until he hit the core, but it was too late, she was on borrowed time.
And yet, there were only five, now. There was still a chance. Rei made the most of her remaining time. She parried a sword stroke and on the return, sheared off the beast's leg. Knowing it wouldn't keep it down, she raised her sword, turned it, and powered it down into the thing's core. It twitched and flailed and went dead. The remaining four shuddered and fell back, and as they leapt, they took to their wings, or tried to. Asuka sheared one of the wings off and the thing fell, shrieking almost pitiably. She swung her sword in wide arcs, taking it apart, severing its arms and legs before she took the sword in a two handed grip, raised it, and cut the entire body of the thing in half. The blade glanced over the core, so she reached down, plucked it out, and crushed it in her hand.
The hybrid's rumbling laughter was all Shinji could hear.
One of the Eva Series rammed her, rolling over and had her pinned down, but it didn't attack. It just held her while the other two fell on Rei, yanking the sword out of her hand before they spun and severed both of her arms. Shinji slammed against the hybrid's grasp but it wouldn't budge, and he screamed as the two Evangelions picked her up, slammed Unit Two back down, and climbed on top of it, running their lolling tongues over the armor. Tears burned on Shinji's cheeks when he realized what was happening.
Asuka. They were making her watch. He could hear her screaming.
Together, they lifted Unit Two by the shoulders and legs, turned, and grinning at each other, pulled. The Eva bucked and its four eyes flashed, and then all it once it came apart, stretching open in a yawning spray of gore. The Mass Production Evas pulled the two halves apart, tore the entry plug free, and one of them swallowed it, biting in it two chunks before it gulped them down its gullet.
Unit One roared and threw off the Evas pinning it down. Asuka moved with a grim purpose, taking up a sword in either hand, swing them wildly. One of the Evas took a swing at her but she planted the point of one of her blades in the ground and pole vaulted over it, landed behind it, and brought both of her blades together in a scissoring motion, hacking it into pieces. She flailed at it with the blades, cutting it to ribbons as gore and viscera flew around her, and when the core rolled away, Unit One turned its head to face the others and stomped down on it before she charged them.
They were three, but no advantage mattered to them. There was no finesse, or subtlety, or strategy. She dropped her blades as Unit One bellowed in fury and rolled over the middle Eva, pinning into the ground, and with her clawed fingers tore out its innards, hurling them at the other ones until she took the core in her mouth and crushed it in her jaws and leapt at the other ones. They struggled and pulled at her, but she bent their arms at odd angles and twisted them around, smashing them into one another, so consumed with fury that Unit One looked half an animal itself. She ignored the blows from the one while she dismembered the other, ripping its arms off first, then its head, before she plunged her fingers into its neck and split it in half to get at the core.
When she turned to the last one it actually fell back, its mouth pressed closed. It seemed torn between attacking and fleeing as she fell on it, and it screamed as she tore it apart, slowly. She let it thrash in her grip, screamed in rage as she shoved her clawed hand down through its neck, pulled the core loose, and raised it up so the hybrid could see it before she crushed it in her hands.
The hybrid let Shinji go.
It drifted down into the cavern, not falling, but moving under its own power. Shinji pushed against its chest but he could no more hold it back than he could fold back time. It grew annoyed with him and slapped him away, casually striking him harder than anything had ever hit him before, harder than the angel that destroyed headquarters, harder than the angel that fell from the sky. He hit the ground so hard he blacked out for a second, throwing up a plume of mud turned black from the gore that had rained on it in the battle.
The hybrid caught Unit One by the throat and lifted her from her feet.
"No," Shinji pleaded, "No, no please-"
"NOW," the hybrid thundered, "DIE."
Shinji felt it, felt the twist as the hybrid bent Unit One's neck to the side. He flew for her, flew to pull Asuka out, to get Unit One of its grasp, to do something, but it flicked him away with a casual swipe of its fingers. He recovered in the air, turned, and began pounding on the side of its head until his fists bled, but it ignored him.
It grabbed Unit One by the neck and the legs, picked her up, and brought her down over its knee. There was a titanic cracking sound, and the Eva went limp. The hybrid twisted her back and forth in its hands, turning the body, shearing off armor and snapping bones, its rumbling laugh like thunder. It pulled her overhead, put its hands over the armor plating protecting the entry plug, and crushed down with its fingers as it lifted the Eva up and hurled her into the wall.
Shinji followed, rocketing after it. He tried to slow it down, but it was too big, turned to quickly, and together they hit the wall. Unit One's limp form rolled down the slope of the wall and came to rest, back up. He crawled over the back, ran to the twisted section of armor plating, and started stripping them free. He yanked on the emergency release but it was dead, frozen, so he had to pull them all off individual, tossing them over his shoulder. He pulled them all loose and then the armature that actuated the plug and then the plug itself. It stuck halfway, bent in the middle and bleeding LCL like blood. He put his fingers in the rent in the outer shell and tore it open.
Asuka was lying motionless in the chair, her head hanging, her eyes half open. He scooped her up and carried her out into the sun. She was like him, now, all she needed was sun and she would be arlight, he knew it, he knew it, and he ran out into the light and sank to his knees, her motionless form cradled across his lap. He held her head in his hands and rocked her, moaning.
"Wake up," he pleaded, "Please, please wake up, Asuka please…"
Always there was light, so much light in living things, but there was none here. All the light in Asuka had gone out. The world blurred with the tears in his eyes as he cradled her unmoving form to his body, rocking, shaking, pleading in a harsh whisper for a relief that would never come.
"You can't be dead," he whispered, "You can't be dead."
Nothing. Her eyes were unmoving, empty, fixed on some point he couldn't see, her chest frozen, her skin already turned pale, the life draining from it. He sobbed and curled against the ground with her, even as the hybrid roared and began digging, pounding its hands into the ground and pulling out great rolling mountains of mud. It reared up, grabbed the pyramid, and tore it out by the roots. The structure lifted, folded, and collapsed in on itself with a thundering crash of breaking beams and shattering glass, and spread out through the mud as the hybrid shoved it away.
"Come back," he moaned, "I'll do anything. Please come back."
"Anything?"
Shinji looked up. Gendo walked around the edge of the crater where he'd fallen, the box with the Kryptonite held in one hand. He looked over at the hybrid and walked down into the mud pit where Shinji held Asuka's body, and in instinct he crushed his body to himself, cradling her head, and try as he might, he couldn't stop sobbing.
"At last," said Gendo, "we understand each other."
"What do you know," Shinji sobbed, "You never cared for anyone but yourself."
"Every day since your mother left has been this moment, stretched from minutes into hours into days into years. Not a day goes by that I don't look to the heavens and say 'I'll do anything', and no one listens."
Shinji didn't say anything. He wept.
"I don't have much time." said Gendo.
"I can't stop it."
"No," said Gendo, "I suppose not, but this can."
In his hand, he held the fist-sized box. Shinji didn't need to look to see that it was lined with lead.
Kryptonite.
"Give it to me," said Shinji. "I'll do it."
"Not this time. I must have words with the Chairman."
Gendo was staring at the sky. A syringe slipped out of his hand.
"Is this how you see it?"
Shinji looked at him, and looked up at the sky. It was all there, and even if humanity died that day, would still be there. He saw the glitter of a perpetual aurora off the ionosphere, saw a thousand colors for which man had no name. He saw the infinite pallete of the universe spread out over his head, but without he knew that without one particular shade of red it would be forever empty, without one voice calling him an idiot it would be forever silent, without one soft, warm touch he would be forever cold.
Gendo smiled a wan smile, and looked at the box in his hand. "Goodbye, Shinji. I am sorry."
Gendo took three steps, and he flew. Shinji watched him. He flew, and the hybrid paid him no mind, busy about its task, digging through the wreckage. He blinked away the tears as Gendo finally neared it. The thing lifted up, watching him approach, and that terrible rumbling laugher rolled across the Geofront, washing over him, renewing his sobs. Gendo didn't attack it, didn't punch or strike it, didn't even stop. Instead, he picked up speed, and as he passed into the mouth of the beast, Shinji saw a tiny flash of green.
The hybrid reared up, and screamed. It stood to its full height, clawing at its throat, digging gouges in its own flesh that ran with blood not red, but sickly, snotty green. It stumbled to the side, falling on its arm, and did not wail, but gurgle. It pounded the cavern floor with its fists, twisted, raged at the heavens, and snarled, bellowed, snorted like a dying animal. Shinji rocked Asuka's limp form as he watched.
"NOT NOW", it coughed, "CLOSE! CLOSE! MINE!"
The hybrid thrashed wildly, rising, as veins of green painted themselves across its body, boiling under its slick white skin. It made horrid sounds, sloshing and slurping and tearing, and began pulling at its own mouth, ripping away its teeth as it tried to shove its own hand down its throat. It reared back, pulling its arm out in a spray of foaming gore, coughing so hard it wracked its massive body and made it double over, clawing at its belly. It turned and moved back towards the pyramid and its legs folded under it, and it fell.
It coughed, and it sputtered, and it fell to one side, listing, its eyes staring. It started clawing its way across the mud towards Shinji, but as it raised its arm one last time, it fell limp, splashing in the mud. There was a great settling sound, a noise like a thick liquid sliding into an empty vessel, and the creature coughed out a great gout of sickly green blood that spread around its head in a fan. There was a light in its eyes, for a time, and then it went out.
Holding Asuka tight, Shinji leaned back against Unit One's broken body, closed his eyes, and wept bitter tears.
The shaft dove all the way down to the secret core of the installation, far, far above the surface, in a cave within a cave. It was slow going, as there was a locking system, a series of massive blast doors, that held back their progress. Rei occasionally looked up, just as a thunderous vibration rolled down the shaft, and there was a massive crashing sound. Something hit one of the upper blast doors, and from the hollow booming sound that followed, collapsed it.
Misato looked up, too, and looked around. The elevator platform was cramped. There was barely enough room for everyone, and other than herself, everyone shied away from Rei, watching her as if she were some secret, suspicious thing. She paid no attention, simply gazing upwards, occasionally peering at Misato from the corner of her eye.
"How much longer?" said Misato.
"Not long. We should be out of danger now. I must get to Terminal Dogma."
"I know," said Misato.
The elevator stopped. There was no door at the bottom, simply an Eva-sized opening, and everyone huddled back from the edge of the platform as the far wall opened and the platform made its final hissing, bouncing descent. An Eva would have had to hunch to make it through the tunnel that led away into the darkness, but it was tall enough. Rei made her way through the crowd and started walking, and Misato followed her, motioning for the others to stay behind. She leaned her rifle on the wall. Kaji followed.
Rei walked in silence through the tunnel, until it began to widen. "You do not need to see this."
"Yes, I do," said Misato.
They were there, the rest of her, standing on the black stone shore in a loose semicircle, watching the distant white giant as if they expected it to move. They turned to Misato, briefly acknowledged her presence, and turned back as the Rei she was following moved between them and stood on the shore, so that the sea of blood lapped up on her bare toes. She turned back to Misato.
"It is time. I must go."
"What's going to happen? Instrumentality? What?"
"Be not afraid," said Rei.
"I am afraid."
"The dissolution of discrete forms is inevitable," said Rei.
Misato slumped against Kaji. "I can't stop this, can I?"
Rei smiled a soft smile. "Inevitable does not mean immediate."
"I don't understand."
"You will, one day. Not yet."
Kaji took her hand, but said nothing.
Rei rose up, holding her arms out at her sides, and the others joined her, their feet dangling beneath them as they lifted off from the ground and moved forward through the air, their pale skin and white suits reflecting like ghosts in the red sea. A wake moved beneath them as they crossed, and the giant on the cross shuddered leaning forward to take them. They struck its flesh like rain, and it rippled like water, flowing and moving. It shifted, and the bolts that held it to the cross slid through its hands.
It fell forward, onto its hands and knees, and with one pudgy hand pulled away the mask over its face. There was light, so much light, and that pale flesh was alive, writhing and rippling, reshaping itself. When it looked up, Misato saw the eyes of Rei Ayanami staring back at her, magnified ten thousand fold. The blazing titan stood, wreathed in light and color, and Misato saw something in it, something familiar.
He sat up and opened his eyes. He felt something, a tug. Something was happening. He saw light, so much light, moving towards him. He had to close his eyes, to squint to see it, until it lessened of its own accord. Rei walked across the mud towards him but her feet did not touch the ground. Her hair was silver, and her irises a deep crimson, so dark it was almost black. The light was inside her and around her, the light of life.
"Please," he whispered, "Help her."
Rei moved to his side and knelt, touching Asuka's forehead with her fingers.
"The light is almost out," she whispered, "but not yet."
She moved her hand to Asuka's chest, and rested it on the surface of her plugsuit. Rei looked at Shinji, smiling beautifully, and with her other hand, touched his cheek.
"Be not afraid," she said.
"Rei?" said Shinji. "Are you going to help her?"
"I am not Rei."
Shinji straightened. "Are you Lilith?"
"I was," she said, "but now I am more. I am all that was Rei, and all that was Lilith, and together we are more than the sum of our parts. I am in all times, and in all places. I am there when you are born to breathe the first breath into your lungs, and I am there when you pass on, to take your light and keep it. I have been waiting for all of time for this moment when I can be born safely, to begin my work."
"I don't understand," said Shinji.
"Shh," she said, "Watch."
Her hand sank into Asuka's chest to the wrist. Shinji stiffened, his breath caught, and Asuka bucked in his grasp, her body writing, her eyes flying open wide, staring. Rei drew her hand back and light, the pure light of life, of being, erupted from Asuka's chest and spread through her body, flowing through her veins, pulsing through her skin and wreathing her. She sat up, took a deep, drawing breath, and fell against his chest, at that moment collapsing into a deep sleep.
Rei stroked her hair, smiling warmly. "She lives."
Shinji held her, resting his chin on her head, and whispered thanks again and again.
He looked at the hybrid, looked at the desolation around him. Everything was ruined, destroyed. The city above him was groaning, pounded into destruction, but still, he felt the warmth of Asuka's breath on his shoulder, and he could help but smile.
"What about the others?"
"You'll see," said Rei, as she stood. "I must go."
"Why?"
"I have so much work to do, and so do you. The old men of the world brought this upon themselves through their arrogance and despair, but they are the men of yesterday, and you are the man of tomorrow."
And just like that, she was gone.
"Shinji?" Asuka whispered.
"I'm here," he said, pulling his cape around her, for all the good it did, caked in mud.
"I saw them," she breathed, "I saw them all." Tears streamed from her eyes. "I saw Mama, and I saw your mother, and Fuyutsuki¸ and… and your father. They were all there, Shinji. Everybody was there. What happened?"
"It's complicated," said Shinji, letting his head fall against the armor plate at his back.
She sat up. "Wait," she said, "I was supposed to tell you something, I remember I…"
"It's okay," he said, "We'll see them again."
Asuka fell against his side, and closed her eyes, and quickly fell asleep. All things considered, he decided it was a good idea, and joined her.
Rei opened her eyes. She lay curled in the fetal position on a bed, covered in a thin blanket. She unconsciously clutched it to her chest as she sat up, looking around the room. The space was familiar to her, but she did not know why, not until her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she saw the markings on the walls. Some had left a school uniform folded on a nearby table. She looked around, slid off the bed, and shivered. It was cold, and the floor was freezing, trying to suck out all the heat in her body through her toes. She hurried to dress, pulling on the shirt and lifting the jumper over her head, and was glad to slip her feet into a pair of shoes.
She walked into the lab, and was unnerved by the silence. The clone tank was empty, and dark, and the liquid inside still, the churning air filtration system shut down. All of the consoles were off, and the only source of light was a blinking light on one of the computers, bathing the room every other moment in an eerie red. She passed through it, hugging herself.
"Is anyone here?"
There was no answer. She hurried through the lab. The elevator to Terminal Dogma was standing open, so she walked inside, pushed the button, and crowded herself into the corner, waiting as it descended in the darkness. When it opened, she walked into the tunnel, peeking over her shoulder as she walked, still clutching herself against the cold. She heard muffled talking in the distance and headed towards it, towards the shore of the great primordial sea.
Misato and Mister Kaji was sitting on the shore together, staring up at the empty red cross. Rei stole up behind them quietly, unsure of what to do, what to say. Misato lifted her head and turned slightly, and blinked in surprise.
"Who… Rei? Is that you?"
"Yes?" Rei said quietly. "I feel strange. What has happened to me?"
They got up and walked towards her. She reached out and brushed Rei's hair with her fingers, holding it before her eyes. It was a rich shade of chestnut brown, soft and shining. Rei stepped back, confused, shivering. She looked in a panic. She felt so small, so singular.
"It's okay," Misato said softly, taking her by the shoulders. "It's okay."
She pulled Rei into an embrace, and Rei hugged her back sharply. She was warm and soft and Rei needed it, needed to be touched in a way she never had before. She felt so alone.
"Come on," said Kaji, "We have to figure out a way to get back to the surface."
Misato draped her jacket around Rei's shoulders and they walked together, away from the bloody sea to the Evangelion access shaft that led upwards. People stared at her as Misato led her along, towards the elevator platform. Ritsuko was working at the far end, fiddling with a control panel she'd pulled apart, striking the wires against one another, while Maya sat beside her with a portable console.
"I've almost got it," said Ritsuko, "I… what the hell?"
Misato burst out laughing. "Does anybody have a mirror?"
Rei recognized Hikari Horaki's older sister, Kodama, fishing in her purse. Had they met? She couldn't remember speaking with her, but knew her anyway. She handed Misato a makeup compact and Misato unfolded it before Rei's eyes.
She touched her cheek. There was so much color in it. Her eyes were different, too, her irises a deep green, like moss. Her hair was disheveled, all out of place, and a rich, thick chestnut color. She ran her fingers through it, watching it fall and shift in front of her face, and looked around, confused.
"I look different," she observed.
"Yes," said Misato, "You look different. Rits, what's the word on getting us the hell out of here?"
"Working on it," Ritsuko grunted, running a wire from the console to Maya's portable. "There, I think I got it."
When Shinji woke up, Asuka was on her feet. She was running her hands along the battered and bent armor on Unit One's back, and her eyes were wet with tears. Shinji moved up beside her, looking at the wreckage of the machine. All the life had gone out of it, lying on its side in the mud, and it looked like so much old weaponry. The armor was so torn up that the servos and struts and support systems for the Eva's muscles were visible underneath it, and wires were strewn everywhere, sparking.
"No more Evas," said Asuka.
"No more Evas," said Shinji. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," she said, "I think I'll be okay."
He turned, and saw a helicopter fly down into the cavern, and then another, and another. Asuka moved to his side and took his hand, and they walked up out of the crater Unit One had made when she fell, and trudged along through the mud, leaving footprints behind them that made tiny pools. The helicopters were landing a tight circle, and men in camouflage uniforms were leaping out. Shinji tensed, but Asuka pulled him forward by the hand.
A clean-shaven man doffed his helmet and jogged towards them, a rifle slung over his shoulder. He saluted crisply. Shinji awkwardly returned it, and then look at his hand for a moment before moving it back to his side. He suddenly wished he had pockets.
"Superman?"
"Yes," Shinji sighed.
"What happened down here?"
"We saved the world," said Asuka. "Who are you, again?"
"Oh. Lieutenant James Anderson, United States Marine Corps, attached the United Nations Sixth Fleet. We received a distress call about two hours ago."
Shinji looked up at the sky. "Who are they?"
"Russians," said Anderson, looking back over his shoulder. "You should hear them, they made up a song about the day you saved the Kirov from sinking. I have no idea what the hell they're saying."
"Well, Lieutenant," said Shinji. "We could use your help."
"Anything you need, sir," he stammered, "It's an honor, sir."
"Do us a favor, and wait here," said Asuka, turning. She pulled Shinji along behind her, leaving the Marine to give them an odd look.
When he thought Shinji was out of earshot he said, "He's just a kid."
They walked along together. The Geofront was in ruins, utterly destroyed. Headquarters was a smoking hulk, a collection of beams and shattered glass spread out across the vast plain of mud that now made up the floor of the cavern.
"It's all gone," said Asuka.
"No," said Shinji, "Not all of it."
Misato and Kaji emerged from a hatch not far from the entrance to the hospital. Shinji and Asuka ran to meet them, skidding to a stop where the mud ended and the broken asphalt began. Asuka scraped the soles of her plugsuit's feet on the broken surface to clean the sludge away.
"Did we make it?" said Misato.
"Yes," said Shinji, "we made it."
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Last Child of Krypton: Redux
Chapter Eighteen: A New Heaven, and a New Earth