Soul Circuit
Deuteronomy
(For the Lord thy God is a merciful God;) he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them.
For ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from the one side of heaven unto the other, whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it?
With her recent promotion that was more of a formality than anything, Misato was left in temporary authority over NERV as Commander Ikari was off to do something that was above her pay grade to know about.
She was a substitute, to manage things during the calm. No one felt anything but calm, but still her emotions were kept in check as she oversaw the satellite imagery of the most recent angel.
Coming into orbit around Earth, was a massive eye with a weighted body of bright orange flesh. Pieces of it were falling off like dew drops in coordinated bombardments along the surface of their injured planet.
Each crater it left behind, was pointing towards its goal, Tokyo 3.
"We still can't get a hold of the Commander?" Misato asked one last time, getting a firm no in response at the command deck.
"No Ma'am." First lieutenant Shigeru Aoba responded. "We'll keep trying."
Not that she expected a response but there was still hoping for one. Then again, she probably wouldn't like what answer he would give, the one that was becoming very obvious. "What's the MAGI's recommended course of action?"
"The MAGI is recommending evacuation ma'am." Maya reported, hesitant as she approached the second part of her answer. "It's also suggesting to send out Unit X to the center of the predicted impact zone as a secondary priority."
"What?" Ritsuko came over to read the woman's monitor, her eyes tracing the computerized language. "Out of all the times it wants to actively learn about it."
"Why is that?" Misato questioned, wanting as much information as she could before coming to a final decision.
"Unit x showed traits of self preservation." Ritsuko began pushing herself over Maya, hands running several queries to the MAGI to get a better understanding of its conclusion. "On top of that, if it determines that the angels are a source of danger it could assist in future operations. That is if it doesn't decide fleeing is the best option, which is calculated to be at ninety seven percent possibility. The MAGI still recommends evacuation even if Unit X is deployed."
So that was their only choice in the matter? Whether or not to learn more about the mystery machine while they hope to escape the blast zone? That's even if they can recover what's left or find it when it runs off.
Despite her new rank, Misato felt even more powerless.
"You want us to catch it?!" Asuka shouted towards the woman, who had just given one of the worst plans they ever heard of. The three children were being given the briefing, a plan to use their AT fields at maximum capacity in order to halt the angel Sahaquiel's drop. The MAGI barely predicted a two percent success, but it was the only plan where Tokyo 3 alongside NERV wasn't wiped off the map and potentially the third impact.
"That's right." Misato with an eerie calm demeanor reiterated. "All three of you will start at equal distances from each other along the perimeter of the predicted landing area. Once it comes within one mile of the surface the MAGI will have determined the exact point of impact, all three of you will-"
"We know the plan!" Asuka rudely uninterrupted, but it was understandable given what they were asked. It was so much, putting their slim chances of survival of three kids. "I'm saying there's got to be another option."
"There is no other option." Misato responded calmly. "Besides you three, we have nothing else that has any chance that can stop it. Though with the odds of success being so low, no one would blame any of you for evacuating."
Commander Ikari would never say anything like that, and she was well aware of it.
"Who said anything about leaving?" Asuka huffed confidently. "You think I would just quit just because things might look hard?"
"Y-yeah!" Shinji backed her up. "It's been hard before, but we always came through!"
Rei had no thoughts to share, only going along with the plan with a simple nod in acceptance. But there was one thing she had to confirm or not. "Is Covenant being evacuated as well?"
Misato glanced towards the others for the answer, more specifically what she was referring to.
"It's what she calls Unit X." Ritsuko answered, Misato giving a silent 'ah' in response.
"We…have yet to determine the appropriate action for Unit X." Her shaky answer didn't satisfy Rei, not that Misato could tell. Despite the dire circumstances, the young girl was doing a better job at hiding her emotions (If she actually had any). "If there are no more questions, please report to the lockers and start getting ready."
Covenant watched them, so many of them rushing around and most of them leaving him to his lonesome. Something was happening, but he didn't know what. Every single person observed under his gaze was sweating and shaking.
Something was wrong, he didn't like it when they were like this.
His body wanted to respond to this new feeling, the giant shifting from one foot to another as he fought the urge to pace. He couldn't leave his small window to the small people in fear they wouldn't be there upon his return.
What about blue? Where was she? Were any of the faces he knew ok?
One by one the people in the same outfit fled from the room, his eyes following each one as he hoped they would stop. None of them did, not even bothering to look back, even as the last one turned off the lights.
Left alone with nowhere to go in the dark, Covenant felt the water around him grow colder, empty with nothing to turn to. He didn't understand, and without blue he couldn't ask his questions or get any answers.
At this point he would even accept the red one's company.
His solitude continued to stretch on, longer and longer there was no one to watch over. No one to listen to and try to understand. The people, they were interesting and had so much to offer. There was so much he would do to keep them here with him.
Almost jumping to attention as the door opened up, Covenant saw one woman enter with her black uniform and dark violet hair. The woman that normally was very loud and bright, was acting more like blue with how restrained her movements were. She gazed around, making sure she was alone before closing the door behind her.
Then she fell on her knees, clenching her chest as she started to breathe rapidly.
He didn't like seeing her act like this, the smile had fallen and she looked in pain with cries echoing out of her chest.
When Misato entered, all she was looking for was an empty room to escape too. This one was dark and abandoned, perfect to have a short mental breakdown as the weight of it all began to crush her soul. It never sat right with her knowing they were sending children to the front lines, but they had to.
It never felt good seeing Shinji left with no options but to fight, but they had to make him.
It never felt good, knowing that no matter what support she tried to provide was never enough for him, for Asuka, and Rei turning down anything resembling a normal life. She was never enough for them, and it burned her chest that she kept asking so much from them.
Despite that, she knew no one else cared for them more than herself, and if she was gone those kids would be left with government drones that ignored their fragile souls. They needed love, and unfortunately this world was running dry of it.
That's what hurt the most, knowing that in the end she would make sure that those kids were safe inside their Eva's but would live in such a cruel bitch of an Earth and forced to give their lives with nothing in return.
A soft pillar of light descended onto her, Misato barely registering the firefly green light through her tears. Glancing above, she saw the mystery machine staring at her with a finger placed on the glass. If she didn't know any better, it almost looked concerned.
Wiping her eyes and pulling herself back together, Misato tried to play it off with a little bit of humor. "Sorry for barging in like that, I still get lost in this maze."
It didn't reply, it never did. It couldn't understand her, or what was about to happen.
Still, she found herself talking to it like it could. "Everyone's scared you know, a great big angel is about to body slam us and there's hardly anything we can do but pray. Ironic, I talk about praying but we're fighting against creatures we named angels. Maybe that's what's happening, we're being smited for spitting in the big man's face. Then we have the audacity to use kids as shields."
There wasn't a reply, not that she expected one but grabbing a nearby chair she slid it towards herself to sit on. "You're kind of like a kid too in a way. You don't seem to understand anything, you're curious, and you pick up on things fast despite still knowing nothing. Maybe that's why you give special attention to Rei whenever she's in here, or Shinji. You even liked Asuka enough to bother copying her."
The memory made her chuckle, Misato starting to feel calmed in its warming gaze. He was the only light in this darkened room, abandoned yet still looking over whoever came back to its presence.
If it looked after the kids, maybe it would do it one last time.
"Ballasts secure!"
"Helios three is now over the exit zone!"
"Begin unlocking sequence!"
Ritsuko observed as Covenant remained perfectly still for them as the drones equipped the chemical airbags in crude straps around its frame. Here they were, prepping for impending doom by sending up an unpredictable machine to the surface. Even if the survivors manage to get some interesting data, this whole endeavor seemed pointless. Though the MAGI still recommended it, and Misato was scrounging for anything that could tip the scales in their favor.
Even if all they had was feathers to place on it.
"Are we good to go?" Misato's voice came over the speakers in the box.
"Affirmative!" Another lieutenant and one of the few computer specialists to actually wear glasses, Makoto Hyûga.
"Launch!"
Her command carried its weight through all areas of NERV. Not just in the box, but also to each launch bay carrying battle ready Eva units. Large concrete paths rocketed the humanoid fighting machines through several pathways, all rising them to the surface of an empty city emptied of their inhabitants.
The bags along Covenant's body exploded in the water, inflating instantly and pulling at the straps around him. The machine held its arms to the side, steadying itself as its feet were pulled off the ground it had always known.
As he rose he passed the massive steel plates that once kept it contained, continuing on and on through the tube until he looked up, seeing the light piercing through the dark water. The surface erupted when Covenant breached into the air, the machine scrambling to make sense of it all.
There was so much outside, with no end in sight. Multiple structures standing out all around the pool of water he floated in, and beyond that he didn't know.
*Clink*
He had no time to take in his surroundings, someone was on his back latching a cable to one of the thick bars of metal they had placed on his body earlier. Once the worker gave the thumbs up to the helicopter above, it began to drag him to shore. Covenant let his body be pulled across the lake, the water rippling from his body as they slowly made their way to the edge of the reservoir.
Once they were close enough to the edge, Covenant felt his heels being dragged along the slanted floor. He stumbled as he caught himself, the helicopter still pulling him in the same direction from before. Hastily he pushed his legs to fight the resistance, rising out of the depths to take his first step onto dry ground.
The helicopter gave another tug, Covenant following the pull as to not trip over itself. Striding through the vacant roads, each step sending a rumble under his feet, the machine made its way towards the distant green hill.
Up above, the sky began to burn as the angel began its final descent.
"Unit zero, standing by." Rei's screen displayed before the command deck, Misato standing at attention with all the information before her.
"Unit one, standing by." Shinji's face was projected, the boy gripping his controls.
"Unit two, standing by." Then Asuka, leaning forward and eager to get started.
"This is Helios three." The camera of one more person came forth within the cabin of a NERV helicopter, the wind whipping around the uniformed man as the image panned lower to show Covenant being brought forth on the leash. "Standing by with Unit X."
"WHAT THE HELL?!" Asuka's voice blared over the command deck's speakers. "Why is that empty bucket head outside?!"
"We think he can help." Misato shared. "Now get ready, the operation begins in one minu-"
"What makes you think that thing can help?! All it's going to do is get in our way and-"
The girl was muted, left to yell into her cockpit alone towards a deaf audience.
"Are we sure about this though?" Shinji questioned politely. "What if it really does get in our way."
"He won't." Rei answered with a hardening resolve. "He's smart enough to figure out how to help."
Rei's connection to Unit X hadn't gone unnoticed, Misato being handed reports on the girl choosing to spend her nights at the box instead of her apartment. Though from what Major Misato Katsuragi had been informed of through Shinji her living situation was bleaker than a NERV custodial closet.
The first child had always been, off, but quick to pick up on things that others hadn't noticed.
"Rei." Misato spoke directly to the girl. "While the priority is the mission, if there's a way you can think of to get Unit X to assist in the operation please do not hold back."
"Copy."
The timer began to run down, the sky a bright red as a smoking trail was following the angel. Despite her hasty instruction Misato didn't see any time left for Rei to get Unit X to assist. "Commence the operation!"
"On my count!" Shinji ordered the other two, Asuka being taken off mute as her rant finally finished and the girl adopting a focused position. "One, two, three!"
Covenant was released from the cable, the mechanical titan turning around to watch as the small person held on tightly to the metal wire as the flying contraption carried him away rapidly. Should he follow? He could…but looking up towards the massive approaching being made him ponder over the purpose of him being brought here in the first place.
"Falling, falling so fast."
An ancient voice, a language that was ingrained into Covenant's mind spoke out from above. He stared up at it, finding it was coming from the very thing falling down towards where he was placed.
"Must fall faster, to break the prison."
It was doing this on purpose?
"She must be released."
Pulling at the knowledge within, one that was there before his first thoughts, Covenant grasped at the words in his mind and spoke out the same way he could hear the massive winged eye. "Who are you?"
"I am BURNING! The air is burning me but I burn for her release!"
Distant thudding alerted Covenant to another being, one sprinting towards his direction with power circulating through its body to where it made his metal skin tingle. A purple humanoid, a head shorter than himself with neon green highlights, large shoulder plates that stuck into the air, and a single horn jutting out from its forehead.
"MOVE!" Shinji's voice echoed out of the metal beast, Covenant stepping aside as the Eva came screeching to a halt, grinding out paths of dirt from under itself. Unit One braced itself, throwing its hands to the heavens and projecting a transparent orange hexagonal platform large enough to catch the angel.
That voice, did the boy turn into the purple giant? There was another voice, harder for Covenant to make out but it was there. Unfortunately it was drowned out by the angel above screaming as it was about to crash into them.
More thudding, two more giants running towards their position. One red and orange with four notable lenses on its face that reminded Covenant of the red girl, just like how the blue giant with a single green lens on its face reminded him of the blue girl.
"Get out of the way!" Asuka pushed past him in Unit two, throwing its arms up to assist Shinji in strengthening the AT field in front of them.
"Covenant."
His name, spoken audibly, pulled his attention to the unit zero, which too was steadying the field to stop the angel. "Please, help us."
Help, they needed help. Looking back above himself to the angry creature, the vengeful being hurtling down towards them reminded the giant of something he saw.
He once spotted something small, much smaller than the people behind the glass and crawling along the floor. It was so tiny compared to the people, so much so they didn't notice when they stepped on it. It stopped moving, it stopped being what it was. The creature became an object, empty and unmoving.
"Stop." Covenant commanded the angel above in a stern projection of his will. He would not allow that to happen to any of the people here.
"I cannot." The angel was barely a hundred feet away from the AT field, pushing forward with its own strength to accelerate its fall. Even if it wanted to stop its body was too large and the distance was too short.
Clenching his fists, and lowering himself into a crouch, Covenant glared at the threat above. "Then I will stop you."
*BOOM*
"HOLY SHIT!" Misato yelled out, everyone gaping as Unit X launched himself upwards. The AT field didn't even shatter as he went through it, it didn't even falter. He just glided right through it as it was mist and continued ascending.
"Did it just jump?!" First lieutenant Aoba shouted as the MAGI collected new unseen data.
"Its armor matched the resonance of the AT field!" Maya's eyes were doing their best to keep up with the numbers on the screen. "It doesn't have an AT field, its armor is a physical material of AT properties!"
"Absolute Terror Material." Ritsuko named it as all of the equipment placed on Covenant was blown off, the machine throwing its hands in front of itself. "We couldn't identify what it was made of because it's not on the periodic table and isn't an energized wavelength."
"Unit X is about to make contact with the angel!"
The white and gold machine brightened as it soared towards its foe, slipping right through its AT field and slammed his palms against the center of its eye. The force let out an incredible blast of air, the momentum that was being built up from the planet's gravity knocked out of Sahaquiel's body.
After hanging in the air for a second of silent eternity the angel's weight began to fall back down with Covenant right under him. But the angel had lost all of its speed, and was left to gradually succumb to gravity again at a significantly slower speed. They hit the AT field generated by the Eva pilots, Covenant falling right through it and landing on a knee to see the children catch the weight of the heavens.
They found it remarkably easier than the alternative, Shinji and Rei able to carry it on their shoulders as Asuka quickly unsheathed a brilliantly hot combat knife from her shoulder and cut through the angel's shield and plunged the weapon deep into its core.
"Mother….I'm sorry."
Covenant heard its voice breath out one last time, as its body went limp upon the Eva's.
Unit one and zero used their AT field to keep them from being trapped under the flesh, allowing all four to walk out from under the fallen angel.
"That, wasn't so bad." Shinji spoke to the other pilots through their cameras.
"We do not appear to have sustained any damage." Rei noted, going over the quick system diagnostics.
Asuka was oddly silent, observing Unit X as he stepped towards the unmoving form of Sahaquiel. Placing not a hand of force, but a gentle one on the creature he observed the life that had departed it. It wasn't here to listen anymore, but Covenant still felt the need to say "goodbye."
This is the longest chapter I've ever done for this story, and now Covenant is now out of the box and exposed to the world! Will he be willing to go back? Will NERV be more lenient with his curiosity or keep him out of public view?
Did anyone else picture Covenant being towed around like those child leash backpacks? I know I did.
Covenant can speak Angel, but their language isn't audible to humans.
Hope you enjoy it so far, please let me know your thoughts and what you would like to see.
God of crossovers: The only issue with those ideas is that Covenant doesn't have a mouth, and I don't want him to become super OP. Also I didn't want to spoil anything, but in this chapter it's revealed that he does have properties in his armor similar to the Longinus. Cool ideas though! I'm interested to see what else you might come up with.
Guest: Hmmm, maybe I should go over the extra content to see how close it might be to what I have planned already. That way I can prepare early on before I run into any close snags.
