Being British is about driving in a German car to an Irish pub for a Belgian beer, then travelling home, grabbing an Indian curry or a Turkish kebab on the way, to sit on Swedish furniture and watch American shows on a Japanese TV. And the most British thing of all? Suspicion of anything foreign.

-Anon

Chapter 4 - The Deep Breath

The American base's Colonel had finally deigned to meet with the Nerv task group and British delegation, grumbling under his breath about damned Japs and Redcoats taking over his base.

He was well within his rights to be annoyed. Gendo's negotiations and outright bribery of the President had given Nerv free reign over his facility, and he was largely out of control whilst his troops, and a good number of marines effectively went under foreign control. This kind of deal might seem far fetched, but Gendo was applying his full resources to his private war with Selee.

And Gendo was the man who went from a meaningless post-graduate position in a long forgotten university to Commander of the most deadly weapons devised by man. He was just that good.

But, the Colonel did not know that, nor did he care, as he watched with practiced eyes the female Nerv officer make a total shambles of a battle plan to attack a jet alone construction factory.

"After Asuka moves to the west side of the factory, we can start moving in the troops for the full invasion."

Lietennant Atkinson, Misato and the two eva pilots leaned over a map on one side of the briefing room table, with the Colonel and a few other american officers fuming on the other side.

The colonel could no longer contain himself, "Young lady, if that's your plan then you can use someone else's soldiers."

Misato frowned,"Your superiors-"

"Superiors be damned! I didn't liberate Canda from the Siberian Sepratists by blindly following orders, and I certainly didn't do it by throwing troops at a target and hoping things worked out!"

Lietennant Atkinson held out his hand to placate the colonel, "He's right Major. I don't have much experience with these kind of large scale engagements, but with our anti-piracy actions on the North African coast line we often had to target small scale factories producing war machines, much like this facility."

The colonel nodded, "And I heard the British had a knack for leaving the factories relatively untouched."

Atkinson smiled, "No point in taking something if you can't use it later. Simply hammering the facilities got results, but usually at a high cost. If we can draw out the defending troops from the factory it'll be easier to get good firing lines on them."

The colonel smiled back, "Yeah, don't want them holed up in that place anyway," he said, pointing to what looked like an empty field on the map, "Damn things nearly entirely underground, and we'll just lose men going in through well defended entry ways."

Misato looked back and forth between the two men. The truth was she had never had to deal with human opponents before, and was a little out of her depth. If the enemy was the size of a building or hurtling down from orbit she would know what to do, but here she was unsure of her own combat experience.

"How do we bring them out then?"

The colonel grinned at Atkinson, "Tunisian Tactic seems like a good plan here. It's a factory, not a base, so they're going to be more cash conscience."

"Tunisian Tactic?" Asuka asked.

"It's something the French military came up with during the Piracy wars in North Africa. You show the enemy a slowly approching, but completely overwhelming force, and leave an obvious outlet for escape. Since the targets were pirates they nearly always decided to cut their losses and run," Arthur told her. The entire room turned to stare at him. He blushed, "They made me study some basic tactics before I came out here," he said aplogetically.

The colonel raised an eyebrow, "Well study harder kid, that's only half right. You need to demonstrate overwhelming firepower as well. We'll set up a marching line along this valley," he said, running a finger across the map, "And pop open the factory roof with an airstrike. That'll shake them up a bit, and if we do it right we can limit the damage to the factory."

Atkinson nodded, "Have some scouts recon the valley first. It's conceivable they placed defences and traps there."

The colonel grinned, "That'll take too much time, and we don't need to son. We got the best mine sweeper in the world to take point."

"What's that?" asked Asuka.

"Well one of your robots. All you have to do is put on your shield and walk forward. We have the troops follow in behind with some tanks and we can make military history by having the first advance with no casulaties."

Misato nodded, following the logic of it all, "That sounds good."

Atkinson nodded, "As unlikely as zero casualties sounds, it does have merit. What about the snap ambush for the escape channel?"

Arthur looked at him, "Snap ambush?"

Atkinson smiled at him, "You really should study harder Art. The ambush of the escape channel is what makes this an effective anti-piracy tactic. No sense in letting criminals go free to carry on somewhere else."

Misato smiled, "We can use the other eva for that. If we hide it behind this hill, we can surprise the retreating forces and not risk any more troops than we have to."

"I'll do that," Asuka volunteered.

"You sure?"

"Why not? Sounds more fun than walking slowly towards the enemy."

Atkinson shook his head, "That won't work."

Asuka glared at him, "You don't think I can do it?"

"Well I'm sure you can, once you get there. But there's two problems with that plan. First of all, there isn't enough cover to let the eva get to that position undetected. And second of all, Art here can't take point on the advance."

Arthur nodded, "I can't use the AT field yet."

Asuka was shocked, "Well why not?"

"Well you explain to me how it works!" Arthur shot back.

"Quiet Art. Asuka will have to move up with the main force. Art can take the ambush on his own, and meet up with the support crew there."

Misato frowned, "How can he get there undetected when Asuka can't?"

Atkinson smiled, "Oh he can't. We'll do something a little more dynamic..."

Deep in the heart of the Japanese countryside, a teacher grumbled his way through marking homework. He lived in a fairly picturesque and traditional, if a little small, Japanese house, surrounded on all sides by a roughly kept garden, small beds of flowers sprouting apparently at random.

The house stood on the side of a mountain, looking down into the valley of farmers and villagers who sent their sons and daughters to his school. Transport in the countryside was good enough now that students would travel from many valleys in each direction to come to the high school here, and the sparsity of the rural population made that a neccesity. Because of that, people tended to refer to this place as High School Valley, and the name had stuck with the locals, who laughingly referred to themselves as 'High Schoolers'.

Time and time again he had told them the correct way to answer these relatively simple questions, and every year he thought he had finally cracked the quickest way to teach.

But every year the same mistakes popped up.

He sighed, putting the students mark on top of the paper, "You have disappointed me today Goro," he said to the empty room, "Prepare yourself for extra class work!"

He was an elderly man, perhaps only a few more years off retirement. But his eyes and his movements showed a surprising ammount of youth, the product of spending your entire life doing work that you love.

An old woman poked her head into the room, the same aura of youth surrounding her as it did him, "Are they troubling you again this year, dear?"

"The same as every year. It's as if they simply don't want to study classical music!"

"They can't all be like Shinji, dear!" she said, going back to whatever household chore was demanding her attention.

"No, I guess they can't," he muttered under his breath, taking another piece of homework fom the pile in front of him, "Oh no! Another old Korean pop song!"

The phone rang, and he thankfully took the oppurtunity to put off reading about another band whose claim to fame was pretty girls. He picked up the phone, "Yamamoto residence... hello? Hello?"

The phone was silent for sometime before a weak voice came through, "... Teacher?"

Recognition clicked at once, "Shinji?! Shinji! Yumi, come quick, and pick up the phone it's Shinji!"

He heard his wife drop something heavy and scamper to the house's second phone,"How are you, my boy? We've been watching all about you on the TV! Well done in fighting off those aliens!"

"... Um... thanks."

His wife cut in, "But you're so cruel Shinji. You lived with us for so long and this is the first time you've called since you left!"

"Er, sorry."

"Oh, leave him alone Yumi, he's been busy! And I don't doubt the girls have been causing him trouble as well, Mr. Saviour-Pilot!"

"You could say that, Teacher."

Yumi spoke again, "Oh that would be terrible, the girls in the village would be crushed!"

Something approaching nervous laughter came down the phone, "Aunt Yumi! Don't make up stuff like that."

"Who's making things up?" Yumi giggled in that peculiarly girlish way older women can.

"Well, you're done fighting now aren't you? Why don't you come for a visit?" the old music teacher asked, "My summer beds are just about to bloom, and the seeds you planted a year ago have grown up so strong!"

"Yes, and all your friends would be happy to see you as well. They say you haven't contacted them since you left as well! That really is too cruel Shinji," Yumi said.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry, just come and visit! Your room is exactly as you left it, minus a few embarrasing articles I found whilst cleaning," Yumi said.

There was a strangled sound of embarrasment from the other end of the line.

"Yes I'm afraid I stole your treasures for my own curiosity Shinji. I never knew you were into that kind of thing!" grinned the teacher.

"Um... well... you see..."

"I always thought you were too gentle for punk rock! But you have so many cassettes..."

"Ah! Those are Kazu's!"

"Ah, I see... well when will you be coming to visit?"

"Soon... I think."

"Good, good."

"I.. I might be staying a while..."

His teacher caught the tone of his voice, and turned a little more serious, "Well you're welcome to stay as long as you like. You're family after all."

"... Thank you, Teacher. Bye."

"Good bye Shinji!" cut in Yumi, still very bright.

"Yes, good bye Shinji."

The boy hung up, and Yumi ran to talk to her husband, "He didn't sound very happy, dear."

"No," the teacher said, shaking his head, "Not happy at all. I wonder what's been going on in that city."

The eva's arrived at the base, and through some miracle of logistics, roughly within an hour of each other. It was an impressive feat, almost entirely carried out by the German branch of Nerv still loyal to Gendo. Asuka's scarlet giant arrived bourne on the back of a collosal truck from the coastline, whereas the British Eva was airlifted in, it's dull camoflage green a stark contrast to the brilliance of the Nerv grown titan.

"It looks really boring," Asuka commented, peering at the almost logic defying unloading of the giant from the still moving air craft through a set of borrowed binoculars.

Helicopters surrounded it, attaching cables to joints, swarming it as the huge transport plane circled folornly around the base, a small fuel jet continually flying up and down to keep the beast in the sky. A swarm of tiny bees in a cloud under a giant eagle holding a doll.

"You think so? I like it!" said Arthur, staring at the equally prepostorous, and inelegant unloading of Asuka's eva through his own binoculars. "Have to admit though, yours looks really good with that paint job."

Cranes surrounded the mammoth lorry, and workmen scurried up and down the eva like ants attacking a giant. Great loops and cables hung loosely around the eva as they prepared to drag it upright into the waiting restraints, to be taken down into the bases underground hangar. The hangar itself was originally made when the Americans had planned to buy a fleet of Jet Alones, and had been hastily converted to accomadate the evas.

"Why is it that colour anyway? Do they really think it's going to be able to hide in tall grass or something?"

They were standing on the roof of the main building on the base. Planning had gotten to the stage where they officially, 'No longer needed to know,' and had effectively been kicked out of the briefing room. According to the colonel, children should not be present at such meetings.

Arthur laughed, "Nah, I don't think they expect me to do that. It's basically the cost of the paint," he said, letting the bonouculars drop to hang on the strap around his neck.

"Huh?" Asuka asked, still holding up her binoculars, but mommentarily glancing away from the bizzare scene in front of them to give him a questioning look.

"Well think about it. How much does it cost to paint something that huge? The only paints made in large enough quantities to be cheap enough are camo green and battleship grey. And since we were trying to keep it a secret, it would be suspicious for the army to put in an order for that much ship paint. So there you go."

Asuka cocked her head to the side, "How come you know so much about it?"

Arthur leaned on the railing around the roof, "It's basically been my life for the past year. Everyday, after school I'd get picked up by an unmarked car a mile out of town, and they'd take me to the research lab for tests and generally just moving the eva around."

"Hmm... never really thought about just moving it. At Nerv we have a lot of cranes and stuff to move them around inside the base."

"Yeah, our lab was basically an underground hangar with a bank of computers at one end."

"Hmm," murmured Asuka, and went back to looking at the eva.

"I even had to work on weekends."

Asuka made no response. She was starting to think that, well minus repeated Angel attacks and mind violations, the Tokyo-3 pilots had it relatively good.

"It's got a weird set of eyes."

Art glanced over at Asuka, "Says the girl who's eva has four eyes."

"Yeah but at least they're symmetrical. It looks like yours has a third eye on it's left jaw or something."

"Well, it actually has five eyes. Four little ones, and one big one in the middle. But the big one, and one of the little ones are completely blind, so they're covered up with armour. The eye on the right actually only has partial sight too. Genetic defects apparently."

"So... it has two and a half eyes?"

"Pretty much."

"Your eva is weird."

"Thanks."

The sun started to set, and floodlights were brought in to light the final unloading procedures. Her own eva was gently rising up into place, and the British eva was slowly being lowered. Again, by the miracle of German led logistics, the evas would both be ready at roughly the same time. The giant plane had already flown off to another air base with a runway big enough for it to land.

"Hey, Soryu... can I ask you something?"

"Go ahead 'Arrrsa'," Asuka mimicked Misato's mispronunciation of his name.

"Okay, two things now. One can you please not call me that. And two, how do you make the AT field work?"

Asuka dropped the binoculars and spun arond to sit on the railing. "Well, the answer to your first question, I'll call you Arthur if you stop calling me Soryu. Kind of had enough of that surname stuff in Japan."

"'kay, so Asuka, how do you make the AT field work?"

"Well, Arthur, I can't really tell you!" Asuka replied flipantly, swinging her legs whilst she sat on the railing.

Arthur hung his head in an overly dramatic expression of exasperation, "Thanks, you're a big help."

"Anytime. But seriously, I don't know. It's just something you kind of do. Even Shinji and Wonder Girl can do it, so it can't be that hard."

"It's hard for me to even think about it though."

"I don't know, maybe you're just dumb."

Art glared at her in mock anger, "You're a great person to talk to, you know?"

"And you're as charming as I expected an English person to be," Asuka shot back sarcastically.

Art only responded with a snort, and watched as the last cables were detached from his and her eva. The sun was hanging low casting a fiery orange glow across the plains, the two eva's like identical shilouetes against it.

"Hey Arthur... can you really do that thing tomorrow?"

"Well, I've done a bunch of simulations. Never tried it in real life though."

"Heh, look forward to it, it's a whole heap of fun."

"Hmm?" said Arthur, increasingly aware that his hand was trying to shake.

"Just remember to bend your knees."

"Nerv are preparing to attack my factory," stated Selee Two, matter of factly.

The obelisks, if they had eyes, would be looking apprehensively at each other.

"How did they find it?" one of them asked.

"I'm not sure. But I believe Ikari has more than one intelligence organisation working on us. We should look to our own contacts and make sure they're still secure," suggested Selee Seven, who had ben suggesting a great many things lately.

"Yes, but this doesn't help my factory," Selee Two said impatiently.

There was a few momments silence whilst each council member tried to think why they should care.

"A large ammount of funds has gone into the construction of the facility," Selee Two reminded them.

There was a chorus of affirmations and grunts of solidarity. From behind his audio only monolith, Kheel shook his partly robotic head. Despite Selee Two's all consuming passion for money, he rather liked him. Perhaps it was even because of his singular obsession. Men who devote theselves to a cause or ideal ofen admire others who are similarly devoted, no matter what the cause or ideal.

"We knew Ikari would be striking soon. I expected something more subtle, but perhaps he wants to demonstrate his growing power to us. What plans do you have for defence?" he asked, and and all the council members knew to who the question was directed.

"Well, I know the American colonel very well. He's a man who admires small scale tactics, and loves to apply them to larger engagements. He rarely takes losses through bad planning. And he's an arrogant egotist. He will dominate the planning sessions," replied Selee 10.

"You know him well," comented Selee Seven.

"Our world is far smaller these days, and we both work in the same field," the old veteran explained.

"What will his plan of attack be?" asked Selee Two.

"Since the British are there, he'll use the Tunisian Tactic. The French dreamt it up, but the British used it near exclusively in North Africa. He won't pass up the oppurtunity to show off his skill by doing their tactic better than they could. He'll plan to scare you out of the factory with a massive show of force."

A map of the factory appeared in the centre of the room, and a bright red line appeared in the valley in front of the factory.

"They'll approach the factory through this valley, and use the eva to brush aside the defences allready in place. At the back," he said, a green dot materialising behind the factory on the map, "They will use the Brtish Eva to act as an ambush for retreating forces here. I'm not certain how they'll deploy it yet, but since it has no useable AT field, they'll place it in the easier offensive role."

"So what can I counter with? The first batch of Jet Alones are not yet finished, and my security detail is hardly up to the task of defending against an army," Selee Two said, with an amazing calmness given his imminent destruction.

If obelisks could smile, Selee Ten's would be giving the council the most devious and satisfied grin ever seen on a black box.

"We'll ambush them back. Ikari isn't the only one with connections."

Rei Ayanami slept.

Exhaustion from the test had made it so easy for her to sleep it was ridiculous. She barely had time to even remove her clothes before she collapsed onto her bed. Outside the hammers of the factory, once again alive with workers, clanged their industrial lullaby.

And for the second time in her life, she dreamt.

The sky was black, and she stood next to an orange ocean, the lands around her strangley red, and barren. She coud feel the lack of life around her. There weren't even any plants.

The sheer scilence of the world now was immense.

No sounds. Just a slight breeze, and the dull lapping of the white crested mandarin waves against the pale sand of the beach. It could almost be mistaken for peaceful, if not for the total absence of life.

She smelled something familiar, bourne upon the coastal breeze, sightly saltier than a sea breeze, yet hauntingly sweet.

And then she saw herself, standing knee deep in th surf.

Hand outstretched.

Welcoming her back.

She took a step towards herself, and fell through the pure white sand, the images and the beach rushing past her.

And then she saw the man again.

Brilliantly blue against the black background of her nightmare, he was facing her now. The hole in his chest was smaller, and she was much closer to him now.

The beam of light slowly dragged her towards him.

She knew how to end this dream.

She took one step off the beam, and plunged into the unknown.

She suddendly felt a great wave of sadness flow out from the man, tinged with shock and betrayal.

As she was opening her eyes she saw it bend down to catch her.

It was the dead of night, and everything was dark. Even the hammers had gone quiet. Rei shivered on her bed.

The loneliness of the beach equally matched the sadness rolling out from the man.

Alone, in her room, she shivered.

Two days later, and the operation was progressing steadily.

Misato stood with the American colonel in the forward Command post. Atkinson had given his apologies, but was called away to some urgent business back in Britain, leaving Arthur in her care, with all the necessary paper work.

His and the boy's parting had been a stiffly formal affair, each giving each other a salute, some minor pleasantries, and a comment about the weather. Then they had saluted again, spun on the heels and walked in opposite directions, Arthur going to his eva for the mission, and Atkinson to a waiting helicopter for his.

Misato hoped she was never that cold with Shinji or Asuka.

Preparations had gone off without a hitch, and Asuka was now walking slowly in front of a vast coloumn of tanks and foot troops, working their way up the valley. They had met no resistance so far, aside from a few mines caught by Asuka's AT field, extended a little way in front of her, digging up trees and brushing aside boulders. The eva had it's arms extended in front of it, as though Asuka was concentrating on maintaining it, the eva's rifle slung behind it's back.

Asuka had also insisted on carrying the large battleaxe, for reasons only known to her self, but it was not interfereing with the mission in anyway, so Misato had largely forgotten about it.

Arthur was on route, and the British Eva would be in position just as the airstrike landed.

Misato was uneasy though. Nothng ever went this well for Nerv.

Arthur awoke in his entry plug. His eyes snapped open, and he took a deep breath in, but gagged on the LCL that had caught in his throat. Coughing up the foul liquid he promised himself he would never fall asleep in the plug again. It felt like someone had poured coppery bile into the back of his throat and solidified it with used chewing gum. Sufficed to say, it was not a pleasant feeling.

He had only taken a short nap whilst the rest of the operation went on without his inclusion. He was regretting that now.

He looked around for what had woken him, scanning the interior of his entry plug. He could find nothing out of the ordinary, but his eyes came to rest on a small disc of brass. It was connected to the pilots couch by a chain, which was in turn hooked up to a handy non-essential loop. He leaned down to grab the brass disk, a small grin on his face. It was his cap badge, removed from his formal beret. He gripped it in his hand, just remembering all those stupid stories his instructors had told him to make him remember his drills. He kept the badge with him now as a reminder as to what he had to do.

And that would be to pull the trigger.

Well, now it was crunch time, and he would find out if he could do it. He was not sure he could. After all, they had not done anything to him, except sign on that dotted line at the bottom of the recruitment form. And just because they had filled in the wrong side's form was no reason to ki- shoot at them, shoot at them, not necessarily kill right?

He remembered watching them fill the magazine for the standard eva assault rifle. The rounds were about the same size as cars. Like hell they would only injure someone. Anyone on the receiving end of that bullet would only have one probable, no, definite fate. And that would be to become a red smear on the landscape.

Most of them would just be workers too, just regular people who needed a job. The security detail would only be a small, but vocal fraction of the people he would ki- shoot at.

Well, it was too late to back out now. He just had to remember that when he pulled that trigger that he was pulling it not for himself, or for some anonymous shadow government agency, but for those poor bastards on the end of whatever else these people might do to them. All for them. Yeah...

He looked at the cap badge in his hands. Even to him those words sounded hollow and meaningless.

" 'Standing on the shoulder's of giants' ...," he read out loud. He shook his head. He wondered how his instructors had done it when they were called to ki- shoot at some one. At least they knew it would be fair, but the people he would be forced to ki- shoot at would have no chance against the eva. Yes, he had no AT field to protect himself, and a concerted artillery strike would quickly put him out of action... but the people he would be fighting were simply running away from a factory, and he was in a huge robot.

And he would kill them.

There, he had said it.

He looked up from his thoughts to see a little flashing red light on his radio panel. That indicated he was five minutes from the target. He made a few final checks of his entry plug, and slipped the badge's chain around the handy loop on the edge of the pilots couch.

He was the snap ambush. He would do deep intot he enemy territory behind the base. He would have five minutes in which to secure the area before his battery power ran out, and if the power did run out and the area was still hostile, the trucks dragging the power cable would not enter the area. He would be left alone and downed, behind enemy lines. There was no doubt that if that happened he would be captured and killed, so that Nerv would have one less evangelion for a while.

Arthur was very, well, scared of this. Standard equipment for his entry plug included a small firearm, a diddy pistol to most people, but he doubted he could do much with it. It would probably only end up pissing them off when they found him, and he would most likely manage to shoot himself in the foot. But it was a little bit of protection, just a small hope in case the worst did happen.

And he hoped the worst would not happen.

His hand was shaking again.

Asuka's hand flinched as her AT field detonated yet another mine in the assaulting armies path.

The first few times all the soldeirs around her had cheered with each explosion, but as they drew closer to the base, they had gone more silent. These men were proffessionals, veterans from a dozen wars in as many years.

The Americans had been hit harder by the aftermath of Second Impact, rather than the cataclysm itself. Desperate countries had looked jealously at it's immense natural resources, and had mounted attacks to take pices of it for themselves. The Americans had defended valiantly, beating off each and every attack with greater and greater efficiency.

The result was an army almost unsurpassed in real combat experience. They had a deserved reputation for combat excellence, and were about to demonstrate that discipline and expertise today. Some of their squads had Nerv officers attached, who would be directing things once they got into the factory, but they would undoubtedly be ignored.

Asuka concentrated on keeping her field spread.

"Damn it," she grumbled under her breath, "I can't believe I'm actually sweeping the valley floor."

The batle axe felt heavy on her back, and was only just counter balanced by the now slung rifle. She wanted it mainly for the shock factor. Hopefully soldiers seeing a great red demon swinging an axe around would simply flee in the face of such a nightmare. And that would solve some rather annoying questions that were bouncing around her head.

She was almost glad that her concentration on the AT field forced her to put away her rifle. If she could shoot and maintain at the same time she would have little reason not to use the eva's heavy artillery to clear away entire platoons with a single burst. She was certain she could do it, but she really didn't want to kill that many people, who had absolutely no chance of fighting back.

She sighed, noticing her field control dropping a bit as the guilt train chugged across her conscience again. She pushed it from her mind, and went back to focusing on that elusive thought that kept her AT field going. She could feel it, but not understand it, and if she focused on it too hard it would slip away, like a marble covered in soap through her fingers.

She sighed again. Despite the impending action, and moral dilemmas to come, right now seemed to be stretching into infinite monotomy. She was bored.

"Okay Asuka, you should be seeing the air strike come in now," came Misato's voice over the radio.

Asuka looked into the distance and saw a forest of white streaks descend onto a part of the valley, which looked like a giant strangely square field.

A huge black plane suddendly shot overhead, and as it receded into the distance over the valley, Asuka could see little green legs sticking out behind it.

Arthur was on his way then.

The little flashing red light on his heads up display, stopped flashing. That meant he was twenty seconds from the target. He thumbed on all the eva controls, and the entry plug came to life around him. It flashed through a series of psychedelic patterns, making Arthur wonder what exactly they had put in his LCL mix, before the external view came up. Nothing much, just the dark grey of the carrier craft he was in.

He glanced down at the little cap badge, which hung from that handy loop.

His hands were now freely shaking, through both fear and adrenaline. He tried to relax, but was completely unable to. He really did not want to be here, and his back brain was constantly asking why he was doing this. He had no answer. But right now was not the place to turn back. People were counting on him, and he had to perform his duty.

And yet his hands wouldn't stop shaking.

The red light on his console went green.

He pulled a small lever at the base of his chair, and he felt the eva shudder from its moorings on the carrier craft. The green eva slid out the back of the craft, hanging in mid-air, trailing after the carrier craft.

As gravity took a hold, his stomach lurched as the green eva accelerated to the ground.

He grinned, a humourless expression of determination.

"Here goes..."

To be continued...

A/N: Chapter out. I kind of suck at building tension, but I wanted to try and show good reasons for what was about to happen, rather than just go 'Stompy mecha fight! Yaay!!'.

Selee are probably getting a bit too comical, but when I remember what they looked like in the series before they started using the voice only obelisks, they looked more silly to me than threatening. And all that chanting stuff in EoE really makes them seem like a big boys club rather than a clandestine council of powerful serious men. I'll do my best to redeem them though... they still deserve respect for what they accomplished.

I'm also aware that the story is rapidly diverging into a number of different threads, but I'll try to tie them all together again at the end. The end of the series did a good job of seperating the cast, and even EoE didn't group them all together again. Well, untill that orange goo business mashed their brains together like a giant mental omlette, but that's cheating.

Ok, I'm not really doing this for the reviews, but I am very petty, and would like a little acknowledgement. Really, one review will keep me happy all week. Two might keep me going the entire month!