Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or anything associated with it, and I am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.


Chapter Eight: Doubts in the Darkness

The first thing that struck the Green Lantern as she plunged into the Twelfth Angel was not the darkness, as she'd suspected, but the cold. It sliced through her protective field in a way that the subzero temperatures of outer space hadn't been able to, causing her to gasp in surprise and displeasure.

She hadn't felt a chill so profound since she had been at the bottom of the world, and the memories that brought up made her soul feel cold in a way that freezing temperatures never could. The Green Lantern shook her head, clearing her thoughts; she had no time for this sort of thing.

"Ring!" she exclaimed, feeling like she might turn into an icicle at any moment.

The Green Lantern half-expected it to ask her exactly what she wanted. One thing she'd learned in her time wielding it was that the power ring could sometimes be as obtuse as any computer; in addition to having no will of its own, the ring often seemed to have no real intelligence of its own, either.

However, this time, what she needed must have been obvious enough for it to figure it out without asking her to explain.

"Increasing power to protective field," the ring announced, and suddenly the aura of emerald luminance around her glowed far more brightly than it usually did.

Even so, she seemed like a tiny and pitiful bit of glowing flotsam in a vast sea of endless darkness. But at least she no longer felt like she might freeze to death in minutes.

"Warning," her ring spoke up before she could even consider her next move, "use of intensified protective field will drain the charge of this ring at an accelerated rate."

Green Lantern grimaced. "How long?" she demanded. "How long until I run out of power?"

"At current rate of expenditure, two Earth hours," it answered.

The Green Lantern grimaced. Two hours, that was all she had before she died inside the belly of one of her sworn enemies.

And that's assuming I don't freeze my tight little ass off before that, she mused darkly.

Because she only had two hours if she didn't use the ring for anything except keeping herself alive. She'd take time off the clock if she used it for anything else, which she would doubtlessly have to if she wanted to rescue Shinji.

The emerald superwoman's mouth pressed itself into a thin line at the thought of her charge, and she felt anger at both him… and herself. Anger at him for acting like a macho fool, and anger at herself for stroking his ego like she had recently. If not for her puffing him up like that, Shinji might not have behaved that way.

The Green Lantern shook her head, annoyed at herself. There was no time for this sort of thing.

"Ring, point me in the direction of Evangelion Unit One," she ordered.

Thin streams of emerald light shot out from her ring and flew off in every possible direction, much to her disgust. Either this Angel was messing with her ring somehow, or space was seriously loopy inside the damn thing.

Regardless of what the answer was, it was bad news for her.

"I guess one direction's just as good as the other," she grumbled, randomly picking a route and then taking off at top speed.


Once Kaji had given his assent for Ritsuko's plan to unleash nearly one thousand N2 mines upon the Twelfth Angel, he had found himself in the curious and irritating position of having next to nothing to do.

NERV itself didn't have its own arsenal of N2 weaponry. The UN and the Japanese government both felt the paramilitary organization had quite enough weapons of mass destruction under their control already, so when NERV wanted to use an N2 bomb, they needed to get the regular military to launch them. As a result, coordinating this bombing of unprecedented destructive power simply wasn't his problem. And when the military did feel the need to consult with them, it was Ritsuko who answered the call. The Project-E chairperson had very much taken charge on this operation.

Kaji was partly relieved and partly annoyed by this development. He was relieved because working on such an endeavor, one that would almost certainly kill the Third Child, would make him feel nothing short of sick at heart. He was annoyed because…

Old Rits is going about this with so much damn…gusto, he thought, taking one last, long drag off of his current cigarette before dropping it to the ground and stamping it out with the heel of his shoe.

He briefly considered lighting up another one, and then decided against it.

Without much other work to do, he had to seen the task of trying to calm down Asuka. The Second Child had been a complete mess; it was obvious to him that she was feeling guilty as hell, but she had been equally bent on not showing it. So the redhead had been loudly telling anyone who would listen that Shinji's predicament was entirely his own stupid fault.

Rei had not exactly taken kindly to Asuka's proclamations, and Kaji had arrived on the scene just in time to (mostly) defuse the situation.

After that, he'd tried to find Misato, but his tactical consultant had vanished, probably at least as distraught about the situation as anyone else.

So now he was stuck in the makeshift base NERV had set up outside the perimeter of the Angel. There wasn't anything useful for him to do, but as the Operations Director, leaving was unthinkable for him.

A break in this dreary boredom presented itself in the form of Lieutenant Makoto Hyuga, who approached the new Operations Director with a different expression on his face.

"Something I can do for you, Makoto?" Kaji asked, forcing himself to sound more amicable than he felt.

"Um, well, sir, I was just wondering, uh, that is… I…" the bespectacled technician stammered, suddenly looking very much like he wished he'd never opened his mouth to begin with.

"Spit it out, Makoto," Kaji said. "I'm not going to bite your head off."

"Sir, the Green Lantern just went into the Angel," he finally blurted out, then shut his mouth with an audible snap, clearly half-expecting Kaji to blow up at him for so much as mentioning the jade superwoman.

The spy-turned-officer didn't have to wonder at why. Gendo despised the city's superwomen, and NERV's official stance on them had always been less than friendly.

However, Kaji was not one to mindlessly trumpet the party line.

"I know," he said mildly. "Kind of hard to miss her, with the way she actually glows. Just about everyone here saw her."

Reassured by Kaji's calm response, Makoto forged on. "She must've gone in there to rescue the Third Child," he said. "There's no other possible reason for her to go plunging into the Angel like that."

"I can't say I can come up with a different explanation," Kaji said.

"So… shouldn't we hold off on the bomb drop, to give the Green Lantern enough time to get him out of there?" Makoto asked.

Kaji blew a breath out between his lips in something that wasn't quite a sigh and allowed himself a moment to contemplate just how much he hated the Operations Director job.

He hated that it kept him from performing his duties as a spy. He hated that it had provided Misato with a wedge to keep them apart. And most of all, he hated that he kept finding himself in situations where he had to choose between the logical choice and the choice that felt right.

Misato, he knew, probably would've rolled the dice. She would've given the Green Lantern her shot at rescuing Shinji, and damn the reactions of the Commanders.

Kaji didn't much care if he got Gendo and Fuyutski angry at him, so long as they didn't become murderously angry. Indeed, he would've been overjoyed if he pissed them off enough to earn a demotion.

However, he just couldn't do it. He couldn't justify taking such a massive risk, not to the Commanders, not a UN tribunal, and, most importantly, not to himself. He wished that he could, but he just couldn't believe that even the Green Lantern had a prayer of plucking the Third Child from the Angel's black maw.

And Ritsuko's crazy mass N2 drop might not give Shinji a good chance of survival, but it did give him some chance.

"We stick to the plan, Lieutenant," Kaji said.

"…yes, sir," Makoto said, then walked off.

Once he was gone, Kaji sighed and took out another cigarette, waiting for the clock to strike midnight on the life of the teenage boy who'd been dragged into this whole mess against his will.


The Green Lantern was deciding that she really hated this Angel.

More than the other ones, that is.

She had already used up thirty precious minutes inside this dark and horrible place, at least according to her ring. To her it felt closer to thirty hours, but her ring's charge would usually run out even under the best possible circumstances in that amount of time.

"Damn, is this thing going to just kill me with nothingness?" she wondered aloud. "That would be the worst. The Green Lantern defeated by the Angel of Boredom."

In a bizarre sort of way, flying through the inside of the Angel was like driving down a long stretch of particularly uninteresting highway, only worse. Everything looked exactly the same, and without anything in the blackness to act as a frame of reference, she had no damn idea how much distance she was covering. Indeed, for all she knew, she wasn't really getting anywhere at all.

And like a person who'd been driving along a very dull stretch of road, the sheer dullness of her travel eventually began to wear at her. She started to suffer what was almost a form of hypnosis, and despite her best efforts, her eyelids began to droop.

Like a driver who knows she's dozing off while still behind the wheel but is unwilling to pull over for a nap, the Green Lantern snapped back to full wakefulness with a start, but she couldn't seem to stay that way.

Every time she blinked, her eyes stayed shut for just a little bit longer than the time before. It occurred to her that there was little difference in what she saw, regardless of whether her eyes were open or closed. Either way, infinite blackness stretched out before her.

Then she realized that she honestly wasn't sure whether her eyes were open or closed. This discovery caused a raw panic—too powerful and too primitive a thing to be referred to as mere fear—to descend upon her, and she began to flail wildly in the endless void.
It only took a second for her to become disgusted at her own terror.

Oh, for God's sake, you are a Green Lantern! You were picked to have that ring because you can deal with fear! She scolded herself. So stop freaking the hell out! Shinji will die if you go to pieces here!

Thoughts of the Third Child strengthened her resolve, as always, and they were what finally allowed her to regain a measure of control over herself.

"Okay," she said into the darkness, "I'll open my eyes on three. One…two…"


"…three!"

The Green Lantern recoiled in surprise upon what she saw when her eyes finally popped open. Instead of the ubiquitous darkness she'd been expecting, she found herself inside a very small room. It contained the absolute bare minimum of furniture; there was nothing more than a bunk built into the wall really, and that was just as well, since there was no room for anything else. The walls themselves were all grey, unadorned metal.

"Oh, my God," she whispered.

The gentle rocking motion of the floor beneath her feet made it obvious that she was on a ship, but the Green Lantern knew that already. She was very familiar with this cabin.

She should be. After all, she spent most of the long, long voyage to Antarctica cooped up inside this very room.

Memories washed over her as the tiny details of the place—the things most easily forgotten—struck her senses. The room's smell, which had the mustiness of air which wasn't circulated enough, along with just a touch of salt, hit her nose and triggered a flood of recollections. She hadn't thought of the smell of this place in years and years, and if someone had asked her, she wouldn't have been able to describe the cabin's aroma to them. But once it filled her nostrils, she knew without a doubt that it was the very same one she'd lived with for what had seemed like such a long time to her back then.

She noticed other long forgotten details of the room, and all at once, they were as familiar to her as they'd been all those years ago. The scratches on the bunk, the cracks in the faux leather of the cushions, the coarseness of the blankets. She forgotten all of it, and now these things came back and hit her with the force of a punch to the gut.

Oh god, it's exactly the same, she thought, staggering back a step.

There was also something else she was familiar with, and had not forgotten as totally as she forgotten the smell of the room, even though it had not been a constant throughout the whole voyage.

It was the coldness. The ship's temperature control systems had never been able to beat it back entirely. It was unlike the direct, cutting chill she had found inside the Angel. This wasn't so bad—the heaters did that much, at least. But it was obvious that if the ship was to lose power somehow, the cold would become unbearable very quickly; it was like a hungry beast stalking just outside the gates, waiting for its time to strike. She knew that the deck would quickly drain the heat out of the feet of any person stupid enough to go barefoot, and that if she were to go to sleep, she would awaken to find her nose was so cold it was almost numb. Unless, of course, she kept her head under the covers, but the air would soon become stifling and uncomfortable.

However, none of that really mattered. The only reason the coldness was significant was because it meant they were getting close to the South Pole.

And her father's doom.

But where am I? She wondered, looking around the cabin.

The Green Lantern remembered all too well how she, resentful at having been dragged along on this stupid trip by her father, and feeling betrayed by her mother for letting the man take her, had stayed in her tiny living space aboard the ship for as long as she could, rarely venturing outside. It had been as close as she could come to barricading herself inside her room.

And overall, it hadn't been hard. There had been little to tempt her to make more trips outside than getting the necessities required. Besides herself, the ship was full of salty old sailors and nerdy scientists like her father; not exactly the sort of company a teenage girl felt compelled to seek out. And as the weather outside had grown ever more frosty, her desire to go out had waned even further.

"So where the hell am—"

The cabin's heavy metal door opened then, allowing a gust of frigid air to enter, along with a swirl of snowflakes. The creak the hinges made as the door swung was another detail that returned to her the moment she observed it.

And Misato Katsuragi—circa 2000 A.D.—walked into the cabin, shivering. Grumbling something inaudible beneath her breath, she shut the door as quickly as possible and then stamped her feet to rid them of the wet snow that clung to her boots. She did not acknowledge the presence of her older, currently luminescent self within the cramped quarters.

The Green Lantern, on the other hand, was almost bowled over by the sight of her past self.

Holy…

It wasn't the surreal situation by itself which threw her for a loop; it was how damn young the other version of her looked. She had been thirteen at the time, nearly fourteen. However, she could pass for sixteen if she wore high heels and something that showed off her burgeoning breasts, which were already the envy of all the other girls in her year, as well as most of the girls in the year ahead of hers. And since she had very much enjoyed the attention of older boys, as well as being treated like she was older than she was, she had done just that, as often as possible.

Or at least she had, before that terrible day.

But in the heavy parka that thoroughly concealed her younger self's developing curves, and the flat footwear that added very little to her height, she didn't look sixteen. She didn't look thirteen, either. Eleven, maybe. Twelve, tops.

Too young to endure what fate had in store for her, and in only days; if she remembered right, the blizzard that had covered the deck in white had occurred less than a week before the expedition reached its destination.

Before the Green Lantern had gotten over the shock of seeing herself just prior to the Second Impact, the heavy door to the cabin swung open again, and the sight of the man who walked in really sent her reeling.

It was her father. Dr. Akira Katsuragi entered the already cramped little cabin, brushing snow out of his dark hair. His glasses were flecked with bits of white as well, but he didn't even bother to wipe them off, merely allowing the ice crystals to melt in the relative heat of the room.

Oh my god, the Green Lantern thought, more amazed by how young her father looked than by how much like a child her past self appeared.

Like most people, she'd always thought of her parents as, well, old. However, the man before her was only in his late thirties; he had less than a decade on her current self.

"Misato-chan—" he began.

"What do you want?" the teenage girl interrupted him testily, causing the Green Lantern to wince.

Dr. Katsuragi barely missed a beat, however. "I wanted to spend some time with you," he said. "After all, I didn't bring you along on this trip so you could spend it all in here, sulking."

"It's not like there's much else to do onboard this old tub," Misato replied mulishly.

Dr. Katsuragi sighed and leaned against one of the walls. "Once we arrive, I can expect to be busy all the time—"

"So, business as usual, then," Misato sniped.

"Are you going to just keep shutting me out this entire trip?" her father asked, exasperation starting to show as his calm facade began to crack.

"Yes!" Misato exclaimed loudly. "I thought I made that perfectly clear when you first talked about dragging me along on this stupid trip!"

"Damn it, Misato," Dr. Katsuragi cursed, then seemed to check himself. He continued in a much softer tone. "I've already lost your mother, and there's nothing I can do about that. I don't want to lose you, too. I brought you with me on this trip to try and…reconnect with you."

"And what happens if we do reconnect?" Misato asked, glaring at him.

"Huh?" her father asked, looking confused.

"I'll tell you what happens," Misato said, and her voice came out in what was almost a snarl. The Green Lantern was taken aback by the sheer level of ferocity and rage that was plainly displayed on her younger self's face. "You'll feel that you've saved part of your happy little family, and then things will go right back to the way they've always been."

"Misato-chan, that's not—"

"Oh, of course it is!" Misato shrilled. "The only reason you're pulling out all the stops now is because me and Mom left you! As soon as you think you've fixed things, you'll go right back to burying yourself in your damn job! And I'll be left at home, waiting for a father who never comes, and wondering why the hell I was stupid enough to 'reconnect' with you!"

"It won't be like that," Dr. Katsuragi protested, but he sounded more like he was making a plea than an assertion.

"Oh, yeah, right," Misato scowled, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms over chest. "Dad, you're in full-on panic mode, and you still couldn't put your work aside in favor of your family. Instead, you decided to try and patch things up with me by dragging me along on what to you is basically a business trip to the freaking South Pole!"

Misato delivered this tirade with all the attitude and melodrama that one might expect from a very pissed off thirteen-year-old girl, but there was still justice to her accusations.

Dr. Katsuragi seemed to realize it, too. He recoiled as if struck, and his mouth opened and closed soundlessly several times, as though he wanted to argue the point but couldn't figure out how. The teenaged girl had hit the bull's eye.

Misato's shoulders slumped. "Dad, just do us both a favor and go, okay?" she asked tiredly. "Just let this desperate attempt of yours fail so that when we get back home, we can both just move on."

Dr. Katsuragi hesitated. It was obvious that he didn't want to just give up, but he had no idea how to proceed in the face of his daughter's objections; he had no leg to stand on in the argument they'd gotten into. After a moment, he gave in and wordlessly left, with another gust of subzero air heralding his departure.

Misato went and sat down on her bunk, looking drained, but the Green Lantern barely noticed. She was staring at the heavy metal door to the deck, feeling sorry for her father.

Not that she'd forgiven the man. Or at least, she didn't think she had; her feelings regarding him were as much of a confused tangle as ever. However, she felt a degree of sympathy for him that she knew her younger self didn't, because thirteen-year-old Misato had never been responsible for a minor like the Green Lantern had.

She knew there were times when she hadn't been the ideal guardian, to put it mildly. And accepting responsibility for two of the EVA pilots hadn't magically given her the ability to let go of all of her vices, nor had it caused her to spontaneously gain the wisdom necessary to know how to best help and comfort the two teens who had endured so much in their short lives.

And that, combined with the realization that her father hadn't been that much older than she was now, made her a lot more willing to cut him some slack now than she had been back then.

Of course, if she had given him another chance back then, it wouldn't have made that much of a difference in the grand scheme of things; her conscience might have rested a little easier, but he still would have died when the expedition poked the First Angel with a stick.

And even if he miraculously had survived, her father still might've done exactly what young Misato said he'd do, and buried himself in his work again the moment he felt that he'd regained his daughter. Hell, knowing him, he probably would have done that. But still…

I wish I'd given him just one more chance, the Green Lantern thought sadly.

"Understanding always comes too late, doesn't it?"

The Green Lantern started and whirled to face her younger self, who, after having given absolutely no sign she realized the emerald superwoman was there, was now looking straight at her and smirking.

"What?" Green Lantern asked.

"You lilim have such a difficult time comprehending one another's hearts and souls," the younger Misato said. "And when you finally do, it's too late to make any difference. And as a result…"

She trailed off, but the Green Lantern didn't have to wonder why she'd gone silent. A wet, red stain was forming on the front of her younger self's parka and was rapidly growing in size.

Yet despite the way the familiar, grievous wound was spontaneously manifesting, the younger Misato didn't seem the least bit troubled by it. Indeed, her smirk only widened, and when she spoke again, it was in a soft, malevolent whisper:

"It all…returns…to nothing."

And suddenly, the cabin just exploded, the metal walls, the bunk, and everything in it besides the two of them was torn to pieces and swept up into the sky, where they almost immediately vanished into the distance. The two versions of Misato Katsuragi, elder and younger, were not left standing on the deck of the ship, however. Instead, they were standing on the frozen ground of Antarctica, an impossibly powerful tempest swirling around them as the world seemed to implode before them.

Oh God, no, not again, the Green Lantern thought, knowing all too well what this was.

Second Impact all over again.

It was almost exactly as she remembered it, complete with the screams of the wounded and dying, the blood turning the snow on the ground to a pale pink in many places, and the feeling that this couldn't possibly be happening assailing her.

The only thing off about the scene was the conspicuous absence of Adam himself, for which the Green Lantern was extremely grateful. She wasn't at all sure that she'd be able to hold it together if she saw that horrible, golden giant again.

Her younger self finally seemed to feel the horrible wound she had sustained and crumpled to the ground.

Over the roar of the wind and the thunderous noise of the world apparently tearing itself apart, she heard her father.

"Misato-chan!" he screamed, and came running toward his daughter.

He was already wounded, as the young Misato was; blood steamed down the side of his face from a cut there. However, the injury was nowhere near fatal. He could still survive the ordeal.

But the Green Lantern knew what would happen next. There would be another great eruption, which would send a wave of scorching heat sailing across the icy wasteland, along with chunks of rock that would be like shrapnel. Dr. Akira Katsuragi would forsake any attempt to find cover in order to throw himself on top of his daughter, shielding her from it at the cost of his own life. Then, his scorched skin literally sloughing off of him and his lifeblood spilling out upon the snow, he would spend the last of his strength getting her to an escape pod.

The luminescent superwoman's jaw then set. She had been powerless to do anything then. She wasn't powerless now. She could protect all of them now. Her tendons tightened across her fist. She poured willpower into her ring.

And nothing happened.

"No!" she shrieked, looking down at it. Though her own protective field remained in place, the metal of her ring was dull and without luster. It refused to follow her commands, no matter how hard she tried to make it work. "Come on, ring! Light up!"

The explosion that she knew would seal her father's fate burst into life in the distance. There were only seconds now. The Green Lantern's vision blurred as tears formed in her eyes.

"Save him," she begged her ring of power.

It still refused to function. In the very last moment, the Green Lantern tried to shove her father to the ground, intending to shield both him and her younger self with her own body. However, her hands went through him as though she was no more substantial than a ghost. He threw himself over her younger self.

And the wave of death swept over them.

The Green Lantern couldn't bear to watch this play out again. She squeezed her eyes shut.


And she might have kept her eyes closed for several minutes, if not for her ring choosing that moment to speak up.

"Warning. Power levels 50 percent. At increased rate of energy drain, ring will be without power in one Earth hour."

The words jolted her out of her current stupor, and reminded her that she was fighting an Angel. That she was inside an Angel.

How did I forget that? She wondered, bewildered.

Then she opened her eyes, and suddenly the Angel was pushed to the back of her mind all over again.

She wasn't at the South Pole any longer. Instead, she found herself in another place she knew far better than she would have liked to: a hospital room.

Specifically, the hospital room where she had spent most of her time in the years following Second Impact. Another version of herself, this one looking more like she was fourteen or fifteen, sat on the bed, staring sightlessly at the world.

The white hospital gown she was wearing was too big for her, the Green Lantern noted with some surprise. The younger Misato looked practically lost in it.

Actually, her younger self just looked lost, period, which was why it was so shocking when she turned to look up at the Green Lantern and spoke.

"The ability to overcome great fear," she said, her previously blank features twisting into a smirk.

"W-What?" the Green Lantern asked.

"That's what that ring said you had when you first put it on, isn't it?" Misato asked in a faux innocent tone. "That the reason Abin Sur said it picked you to be his successor, right?"

"Yeah," the Green Lantern said slowly, warily.

"And yet, on that day, you were blinded by fear. Paralyzed by it," Misato said, her smirking taking on a more malicious edge. "How much time did you spend, just sitting here? Deaf and dumb to all the world?"

"Years," the Green Lantern said.

"Years," Misato agreed. "And you probably never would have come out of this state if not for all the help you received during those years, would you?"

"Probably," the Green Lantern agreed reluctantly.

"Think about that for a moment," Misato said. "Your father saved you at the cost of his very life, and you would have done absolutely nothing with the fruits of that sacrifice, besides exist, if you'd been left to your own devices."

Despite herself, the Green Lantern found herself looking down at her boots. She had never quite thought of her years of living in a catatonic state like that before.

"And you think that you have the ability to overcome great fear," her younger self mocked her. "I think that ring and Abin Sur made a terrible mistake in picking you to be the next Green Lantern."

"That's not true!" the Green Lantern protested her head snapping up, allowing her piercing jade eyes to meet with the brown ones of her younger self. "Yes, Second Impact messed me up! It would have messed anybody up! But it's a big part of what made me who I am! And it's what gave me the ability to overcome great fear! I haven't been afraid like that since I finally woke up, because once you've lived through the worst thing in the world, there's nothing left to be scared of!"

The younger Misato's smirk only widened. "Is that so?" she asked, tilting her head to the side slightly.

And before the Green Lantern could answer, the world shattered again.


When reality at last reformed once more, the Green Lantern wasn't in that awful hospital room any longer, nor was she anywhere near the South Pole.

Instead, she found herself inside of a dark bus stop. Rain hammered against the glass walls of the shelter, and the only illumination came from far off street lamps, as well as the occasional flicker of lightning.

And, of course, her own emerald aura.

Another younger version of herself sat on the shelter's hard metal bench. This Misato Katsuragi of Christmas Past was in her senior year of college, and she currently looked very much like a drowned rat. It was obvious she had been caught in the rainstorm outside; she was soaked to the skin, and her dark hair was plastered to her skull with moisture. A battered old suitcase sat next to her.

The Green Lantern remembered this night, too. Only too often she wondered what her life might have been like if she'd done something different that evening.

This was the night she'd left Kaji. She had meant to do it properly, face-to-face, and let him down as easy as possible.

Instead, her nerve failing her, and fearing he might be able to convince her to change her mind, she had hastily written him a letter and then fled the apartment they'd been sharing. She had meant to hop a bus to the dorms where Ritsuko lived and beg her friend for a place to spend the night. However, she had missed the last bus, and she had ended up spending a miserable night inside the shelter like some vagrant.

Her younger self looked up and grinned wickedly at her. "You ran away," she said, a rumble of thunder punctuating her curt statement.

This time, the Green Lantern wasn't surprised to be addressed by herself. However, what did throw her for a bit off a loop was that her college-aged self was an almost perfect mirror of her. It shouldn't be that much of a surprise; thanks to her ring, she wasn't physically that much older than she had been in college anymore, but somehow, it was still jarring.

"I left Kaji," the Green Lantern replied evenly.

"You ran away from him," Misato said firmly. "And you ran away from what you felt for him. So, in a way, you ran away from yourself. Didn't you tell someone that he should never do that?" she added, her tone more mocking than ever.

"Damn it, leaving Kaji doesn't make me a coward," the Green Lantern snapped. "He's got all sort of bad qualities. He's arrogant, he can't stop himself from flirting with every pretty woman he comes across, and he can get so obsessed with something that he'll chase it and forget about everything else, just like Dad would."

"Maybe so, but you still loved him," Misato said.

The Green Lantern was so struck by this blunt proclamation that she couldn't come up with any reply.

"You loved him," Misato repeated. "But you ran away from him. You saw something you didn't like in him, and you finally realized what should have been obvious all along: someone you love can hurt you. You were afraid he might someday turn into your father, focusing on his own obsessions and ignoring the feelings of those he cared for, the feelings of those who cared for him. You let your fear of pain dictate your actions, and you fled."

A flash of lightning briefly turned night into day, and a rumble of thunder, louder than the last one, followed almost immediately.

"That's not…" the Green Lantern protested weakly.

"It is," Misato pressed, rising from the bench so she could face the luminous superwoman properly. Green Lantern reflexively backed up a step as her younger self got in her face, and hated herself (both of herselves) for it. "You finally found something potentially good and meaningful, and you threw it away. You went right back to indulging in sex and alcohol, alcohol and sex. A pointless cycle of hollow joy that you could repeat a million times and never be fulfilled. And why?"

"Stop it!" the Green Lantern yelled.

"Because you were afraid," Misato whispered.

The version of herself in the bloody parka appeared in the shelter then. "You were afraid that your father would hurt you again, and so you refused to try and fix things with him," she said. "And then he died saving your life."

The slightly older version of herself, clad in only that oversized hospital gown, materialized next. "The First Angel horrified you so much that you became too afraid to live, even though your father died so you could do just that."

"And when happiness, true happiness, seemed to be within your grasp, you ran away from that, too." College Misato said. "All because loving someone also means giving him the ability to hurt you."

"Face it," the Misato in the bloody parka spoke.

"You do not have the ability to overcome great fear," the Misato who should've been catatonic finished.

Lightning and thunder struck as one this time. The short burst of harsh, white illumination cast strange shadows over the faces of the two pretty girls and the one striking young woman the Green Lantern faced, making them look skull-like.

"That ring must have made some sort of mistake when it picked you," College Misato said firmly. "If Abin Sur had known you, had known about all the times fear has dominated you, he never would have offered it to you."

The Green Lantern opened her mouth to protest, to argue, but the words just wouldn't come. A poisonous little worm of doubt had crawled into her heart; with all the times in her life that she had let her fears control her laid out like this, it was hard to find some justification for dismissing what her younger selves said.

What if they're right? What if I was never meant to be the Green Lantern? She wondered despondently.

"Even a weapon like your power ring isn't going to be enough to save the world from the Angels," the youngest Misato, the bloodstained one, said.

"Not when it's on the finger of someone who never should have had it to begin with," the Misato in the hospital gown said. "The power ring is only as great as its wielder."

"And you never should have had the ring to begin with," College Misato said. "So you should just take the damn thing off and give up."

"Quit," the bloody Misato said.

"Surrender the ring," the hospital gown-clad Misato added. "Maybe someone who's actually worthy of it will get it next."

The Green Lantern looked down at her ring of power. She didn't want to give it up. Not at all. And yet…

If she really was the wrong person for the job, then maybe the only way she could actually save humanity from the Angels was to resign her post as the Green Lantern of Sector 2814.

The past versions of Misato stood around the Green Lantern, encircling her. They waited with baited breath for her to give up her ring.

They were more than a little surprised when the jade superwoman smiled, realizing how easy the choice really was. Realizing, in fact, that it was no choice at all. Not for her.

"I won't give up," she said.

"Why not?" College Misato demanded.

"Because I don't know how," The Green Lantern said, and now it was her turn to smirk.

It was so simple a truth, but it had nearly escaped her in the storm of recriminations and mockery her other selves had leveled against her. When confronted with a foe, she simply didn't know how to make herself give up. Back during her earlier days of service in the military, retreat had never been an option in her mind, let alone surrender; she had seen every mission through to the end regardless of anything (sometimes to the frustration of her superior officers). She would have fought the Tenth Angel until it had crashed into the ground and annihilated her, if she hadn't been able to defeat it. And if she hadn't had the ring, she still wouldn't have ceded the city to the Angel, like Kaji had done, no matter what the MAGI had said about their chances of beating it with the Evangelions. That was just what she was like when she faced any Angel, any enemy, any challenge. She couldn't make herself quit, not even when it was probably the smart thing to do.

"But—" the Misato from Second Impact began.

"No 'buts'," the Green Lantern snapped. "I haven't overcome fear every time I faced it, but that doesn't mean that I can't. If anything, it just gives me more reason to try and succeed in the future, because I know what happens when I fail."

"Yes, but—" the Misato in the hospital gown tried to get a point in, her voice tinged with obvious desperation.

"No 'buts'!" the Green Lantern barked. "I have people that I care about that I need to protect. Shinji, Ritsuko, Asuka. I won't give up the ring and just hope that whoever gets it next will do anything to help them."

"You can't—!" College Misato yelled.

"I can," the Green Lantern said, emerald light flaring around her. "And the first thing I'm going to do is get rid of you three bitches!"

"You can't do that!" Second Impact Misato shouted. "We're you!"

"Bullshit!" the Green Lantern snapped. "I've beaten myself up plenty of times in the past, but not like this. I tell myself I'm a drunk whore. I tell myself I was a bad daughter. But I don't constantly question my own courage. You aren't me. None of you are!"

The three doppelgangers just looked at her with wide eyes, silent.

"And I've finally figured out what you are. You're the Angel!" the Green Lantern hissed. "And I decided a long time ago that the Angels get no mercy from me!"

Three lances of emerald light erupted from her power ring and shot out toward the fake versions of herself. Each of them tried to dodge, but the Green Lantern could strike with the speed of thought. Each faux-Misato was impaled through the chest and collapsed to the ground.

And then the storm outside released one more truly enormous clap of thunder. The noise was so great that it seemed like it actually did tear the world apart; the bus stop, the dark streets, and even the storm itself broke, vanished, and the Green Lantern was once more left in the pristine darkness she had found when she had first entered the Angel.

Except this time, she could see a ruby sphere the size of a truck floating placidly in the sea of nothingness.

"Warning," her ring spoke up. "Power levels approaching 5.0 percent. At increased rate of energy drain, ring will be without power in under ten minutes."

"Plenty of time," the Green Lantern said, a bloodthirsty light appearing in her piercing eyes.

She concentrated, intent on putting her ring's remaining power to good use. A beam of light shot forward from it, soon forming a large construct. It was the massive fist of an Evangelion, Unit One to be precise, and it held within its grip a progressive knife made from emerald radiance.

With a thought from the Green Lantern, the luminous blade came down and stabbed the center of the Angel's core, immediately penetrating the tough material.

A horrible, shrill shrieking noise filled the nether realm that was the inside of the Twelfth Angel, but the Green Lantern didn't mind it at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. The death knell of the beast was music to her ears.

Then the core exploded violently, spraying broken chunks of red material flying out in all directions. The Green Lantern formed a protective bubble around herself, but there was no need for it.

As the bits of broken core flew, they seemed to lose their individual shapes and expand before her very eyes. Soon they had all merged into one red mass. Soon after that, the Green Lantern found herself completely surrounded by all of it. She had gone from being immersed in complete blackness to swimming in total redness.

Before she could even wonder what to do now, the world around the Green Lantern shook. She heard a loud crack, which seemed to come from all around her.

Then the redness started to rapidly fall downward, and the emerald superwoman realized belatedly that it was blood. She was caught within a veritable sea of Angel blood.

But not for long. Gravity took hold of it, but not of her, and it went splashing downwards. When finally it had all gone past her, the Green Lantern at last saw what had happened.

She was back outside, in the air high above the city. Apparently, she had somehow ended up in that great, zebra-striped sphere above the Angel's all consuming maw.

She felt more than a little grateful for the way the red liquid just slid off her protective field, not leaving her painted crimson. However, she didn't spare much time thinking about that; EVA Unit One had emerged as well. The multi-ton engine of death collapsed limply to the ground, crushing a few weapons blocks beneath its immense weight.

"Shinji-kun," breathed the Green Lantern, and quickly soared down to the normally purple destroyer, which, unlike her, had been painted red.

It would've looked more bestial than ever if not for the awkward, clumsy position in which it had landed.

Reaching it before anyone from NERV could, the Green Lantern willed a massive jade crowbar into existence and pried off the armor over Unit One's entry plug. Then she quickly formed a great circular saw and cut a hole into the plug itself. She dove into the LCL, desperate to lay eyes upon the Third Child.

Her heart almost stopped when she saw him.

Shinji Ikari was dead. He had drowned in the LCL some time ago by the looks of it; his face already appeared bloated from having been immersed in liquid after death, and his skin had taken on a horrible gray pall.

He must have spent his EVA's battery power flailing around uselessly in the dark, she realized. Once his five minutes had been up, the life support system would have cut off entirely. He would've died as soon as he'd used up the oxygen content of the LCL. He'd probably been dead before she'd even entered the Angel.

All of her efforts had been for nothing. Her quest to save him was doomed from the start.

She suddenly felt dizzy and lightheaded. That feeling of unreality she'd experienced during Second Impact was back, and she felt a horrible ache inside her chest. Tears stung her eyes.

NERV personnel were approaching Unit One. Given the Commander's nearly fanatical loathing of the superwomen, it was a safe bet that they wouldn't be too friendly, at least not once he was able to learn about the situation and give them their orders. And her ring was running on fumes; she should really get the hell away.

But she found she couldn't quite care enough to flee. She found that she didn't care much about anything anymore.

"Warning," her ring spoke up, startling her. "Power levels approaching 1.0 percent. At increased rate of energy drain, ring will be without power in under two minutes."

She nearly ignored the announcement from her power ring entirely. After all, what did it matter if she ran out of power now? She had failed totally anyway.

Then it clicked. The ring was still talking about accelerated power loss, but that shouldn't be happening anymore now that she was outside of the Angel.

So that meant…

"I'm still inside the damn thing!" she exclaimed. "All this is just one more damn illusion!"

Thunder rumbled from the clear blue sky. Apparently, the Angel wasn't happy that she'd seen through its little trick.

"Ring, wipe away these damn mirages!" she commanded, heedless of how little power it had left. "Now!"

If she was going down, then she was going down swinging.

Spears of light flew off in all directions, momentarily blinding her. When she regained the ability to see, blinking away spots, she could see that she was once more in the completely black universe that existed inside the Angel's belly.

And once more, she could see the core floating inside the nothingness nearby.

Hopefully, it was the real one this time. The Green Lantern was certainly going to give it the benefit of the doubt.

With a loud cry, she unleashed a massive blast of green light at it, pouring all the pain and anguish she had just felt because of the Angel's little trick into the beam. The core never stood a chance, and it instantly shattered into a thousand pieces.

Then things played out just as they had before. The sea of blackness changed to an ocean of blood, which went splashing to the city streets, painting a large portion of Tokyo-3 crimson. Unit One again went sprawling to the ground, crushing a few buildings and landing in an undignified heap.

The exact same undignified heap from before. Ice gripped the Green Lantern's heart, as she began to suspect that this was just another repetition of the very same illusion.

If so, she had probably lost. She didn't have enough power in her ring to do it again, let alone figure out a way to break the cycle.

Then the armor over Unit One's back opened, and the entry plug emerged. The hatch opened, and Shinji came out, coughing up LCL and blinking in the light of the sun. Relief swept over her.

Green Lantern's heart leapt, but she didn't dare start celebrating just yet. This could just be the Angel's means of keeping her placated until her ring was completely out of juice.

Fortunately, her ring chose that moment to speak up again. "Warning," it said. "Power levels approaching 0.0 percent."

No mention of the charge draining at an accelerated rate. The Green Lantern finally allowed herself to relax completely, confident that she had escaped the Twelfth Angel at last. A sigh of profound relief escaped her.

Putting the last ergs of her ring's power to good use, she flew off, in search of a good place to change.


"You're damn lucky to be alive, you know, after the stupid stunt you pulled."

These were Asuka's first words to Shinji when she saw him, after he had crawled down a very long rope ladder to get from Unit One's plug to the city streets. It was not the warmest of greetings, to be sure, but he thought he detected relief in the Second Child's expression and in her stance.

Of course, it could just be wishful thinking and his imagination at work. It was quite possible that Asuka—and the rest of NERV, for that matter—wasn't that happy to see him alive.

Which, he mused, would be about what he deserved, considering how he'd behaved like a chauvinist idiot and gotten himself trapped inside the Angel.

"Well," Kaji said as he walked over to them, "you gave us all quite a scare there, Shinji. I'll probably have to punish you later for ignoring orders like that, but for now, let me just say that it's good to see you safe."

"What happened, anyway?" he asked. "How did I get out?"

"The Green Lantern flew into the Angel, and apparently she killed it from the inside," Kaji said, then shrugged to convey his lack of information beyond that.

"The Green Lantern?" asked Shinji, not noticing Asuka's dark scowl at the mention of the emerald superwoman.

"Yes," Kaji answered. "Say, come to think of it, she rescued you while you were caught in that robbery a few months back, right? It's starting to look like you've got your own guardian angel, if you'll excuse the phrase. A green one."

Shinji blinked, not at all sure what to say in response to that.

Fortunately, the loud, joyful cry saved him from having to make any kind of response.

"Shinji-kun!" yelled Misato before grabbing him in a bone crushing hug.

"Where did you come from?" Asuka asked crabbily.

The redhead's question was cheerfully ignored. "I was so worried!" Misato gushed as she continued to squeeze the life out of the Third Child.

"Ah, Misato, I've still got LCL on my plug suit," Shinji somehow managed to gasp out. "You're getting it all over your clothes!"

"I don't care!" she replied, not relenting one bit.

Asuka sighed dramatically and then glanced over at Kaji. The long haired man just shrugged in response.

Shinji would have sighed as well, but he had no breath left to sigh with. So he silently resigned himself to getting squeezed by Misato until she was good and ready to let him go. Which might or might not be before he'd suffocated.

Yet despite his discomfort, Shinji couldn't help feel happy at Misato's exuberance. It was good to see that she was glad to have him back.

And since his face was quite hidden thanks to the purple-haired woman's frantic embrace, and because nobody would ever see…

He smiled.


Author's Notes: And here we have a dive into the delightful world of mind screw. In my time as an Eva fan fic author, I think I've written a few good ones and a few not so good ones, and I'd say that the difference between the two, when I'm writing, is what I have in mind when I approach them. If I have some message I want to get across, some plan in mind, it usually comes out pretty well. If my goal is "insert head trip here" then it's usually pretty meh, at best.

I started this one with no more in mind than putting Misato through something thoroughly traumatizing, which definitely put this one in the latter category. Then I started poking through my Sinestro Corps War books, and I reread the bit where Hal, Guy, and John try to charge up off the Central Power Battery, only to discover it's booby trapped. And though we only get to see what happens to Hal, each one has to endure being shown the moment they suffered the most fear. I decided to take that moment and put it on steroids for Misato, culminating with the "Shinji's dead" fake out, and I think it worked pretty well. Astute readers and GL fans will note the various shout outs to the comics.

This was actually supposed to end on a dark note, but that didn't feel right to me, hence the ending we got. Of course, that doesn't change the fact that the Thirteenth Angel is just around the corner…

Anyway, thanks as always to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader as well. Now for some fun.


Alternate Delaying Tactics

"And you never should have had the ring to begin with," College Misato said. "So you should just take the damn thing off and give up."

"Quit," the bloody Misato said.

"Surrender the ring," the hospital gown-clad Misato added. "Maybe someone who's actually worthy of it will get it next."

The Green Lantern looked down at her ring of power. She didn't want to give it up. Not at all. And yet…

If she really was the wrong person for the job, then maybe the only way she could actually save humanity from the Angels was to resign her post as the Green Lantern of Sector 2814.

The past versions of Misato stood around the Green Lantern, encircling her. They waited with baited breath for her to give up her ring.

They were more than a little surprised when the jade superwoman smiled, realizing how easy the choice really was. Realizing, in fact, that it was no choice at all. Not for her.

"I won't give up," she said.

Her three doppelgangers traded looks.

"This is not working," the youngest Misato said.

"She is resisting our attempts to destroy her willpower," the middle one said.

"Clearly, we must try…other tactics," College Misato concluded.

Green Lantern decided she didn't like the sound of that.

The bus stop and the rainy night seemed to shatter into a thousand pieces. The shards quickly pulled themselves back together again, and—


—Green Lantern found herself in another place she knew well. It was a very large basement room, and very messy, adorned with the cheapest of rental furniture to boot. People in their late teens and early twenties were hanging around, some laughing, some talking, some passed out on the floor.

She smiled. This was the house of one of the biggest frats in her college. She had spent many a night partying her, drinking, and flirting with guys.

"Misato!" one of her friends for college exclaimed, rushing up to her. She didn't seem to notice that her favorite drinking body was in a strange outfit, or that she was glowing green.

"Azumi-chan!" Green Lantern exclaimed, cheerfully.

"I'm so glad you're here!" Azumi said. "You won't believe it! Yoko just broke your record for most beers chugged in sixty seconds!"

"What?" Green Lantern squawked. "That bitch! I'll show her! Get me some brewskis, Azumi! I'm going to win back my title and restore honor!"

"Yatta!" Azumi exclaimed, and ran off to do what her friend had asked.

Her ring actually managed to sweat drop. "Um, don't you have more important things to do?"

"Shut up, ring," she snapped.

It sighed. "Silent mode engaged."

In a dark corner of the large room, her three doppelgangers traded high fives.