The Angel swum along, a dark blur under the surface of the water, and then broke it, revealing itself as a towering orange-red figure, with six stumpy legs, four massive claws, the core under its eyes, and thick chitinous armour over everything. Even before the water finished running off its shell, a squad of mixed bombers, fighters, and VTOL craft split up to drop their payloads. Their bombs and bullets splashed harmlessly off walls of prismatic light, and the Angel beat its claws against its body in defiance. A mote of light brightened around its core for a moment, before lancing out and through a gunship, blasting it to the ground. The Angel turned to follow the rest of the squad, and the light charged again.

A red blur charged it from the side and swung a giant halberd around, cutting through its AT Field. The beam of light went wide, and the Angel turned to face the Eva. It raised its foreclaws, each larger than a naval destroyer, and clapped them together, creating a spherical shockwave of AT energy; the Eva raised its Field, and the shockwave rolled past, throwing up sand and debris. The Angel took a swipe with one foreclaw; the Eva rolled under, buried its weapon in the claw up to the shaft, and swung around on top of it. It drew two prog knives and jammed then into the top of the claw, cutting through the Angel's thick armour plating. Then the Angel's upper claw clipped it on the shoulder, knocking it off and to the ground and pulling its power cable loose. It brought its other heavy claw up and down on the Eva like a hammer on an anvil.

At the last moment, a tungsten needle turned the air to plasma and smacked into the claw, knocking it off course. The red Eva turned to follow its slipstream, back to the waving purple Eva. The purple Eva dropped its coilgun, caught a pallet gun dropped by one of the circling supply planes, and charged, firing from the hip. The Angel brought a heavy claw up as a shield and charged its light attack again, then let it loose.

It hit the red and purple Evas' combined AT Fields and bounced away into space. The red rolled back to its feet, stuck its power cable back in, pulled the prog halberd out of the Angel's claw, and brought it down on the armour plate over the elbow joint; chitinous material cracked and fell apart. The Angel brought its other claw up for another hammer blow; the purple Eva grabbed a hold and rode its momentum onto the first claw, seized the red's prog knives, and jumped off, drawing them down the claw and slicing two long gashes into its armour. The red leapt after with a brutal horizontal chop and peeled a long strip of armour off; the purple turned and opened up point-blank with its rifle, blasting the claw to mush.

The Angel roared and beat its three remaining claws together, then brought them down all at once on the Evas. The red Eva dived backward out of range; the purple slipped and blocked with its gun, and the blow bent the gun into a U. The Eva dropped it, pulled its prog knife, and sprinted directly for the Angel's core, dodging around its remaining heavy claw.

One of the smaller claws swung round and caught it about the chest, sending it into the ocean with a colossal splash. The Angel turned to finish it off, but the red Eva ran forward again and fired its spike cannons. They barely made it through the AT Field, never mind its thick armour, but got the Angel's attention. It charged its light attack again; the red raised its own AT Field. The energy discharge was too bright to look at, and overwhelmed the red's defences.

Six kilometres away, a woman with hair so black it looked almost purple barked an order. Guided missiles flew out of MRLs around the beach and converged on the Angel, throwing up enough smoke and dust to block out the sun. Artillery fired not shells but balloons full of sodium azide, potassium nitrate, and silicon dioxide, which blew up into scale replicas of the Evas, all around the Angel; the Angel turned and punctured them with slashes of its claws and blasts from its energy cannon. The red Eva took the opportunity to stagger back and rearm, shaken but not beaten.

The purple Eva was back on its feet, a needle gun in its hands, and moved next to the red. The red caught a repeating rocket launcher from a dropship. The Angel lumbered forward, out of the smokescreen and field of burst balloons; the red took careful aim and fired. The Angel brought up its heavy claw to block; the purple rolled forward and fired four precise tungsten needles under the opening, hitting its four frontal legs at the knees and crippling it.

The Angel reared up, then stretched its claws out further than they'd gone before. The purple rolled out of the way of the heavy claw, but an upper claw caught its power cable and severed it. The Angel raised its limb stump, and a new heavy claw sprouted out with a gush of orange-red fluid. Its mote of light charged again and punched through the red's AT Field, scorching it; the red rolled backward, and the light overshot and melted its cable. The Angel slammed its heavy claws together, making another AT shockwave; this rolled over the Evas, snapping the purple's arm, leaving them both struggling weakly. It roared in triumph.

An orange Eva dropped from the sky and landed in a crouch, then straightened. It pulled from its pylons two longer prog knives, more like short swords, and walked forward.

The Angel charged another light blast; the three Evas raised their hands as one, and a triple AT Field sprung into existence and deflected it. A heavy claw swung up; the red Eva rolled, leapt at it from the side, and chopped through its joint, bypassing the armour and neatly severing the claw. The orange Eva sliced through the Angel's Field with an efficient one-two cut. The upper claws came down at the orange; it rolled out of the way, carving into one with quick slashes. The light cannon charged again.

The purple Eva aimed, one-handed, and landed five needles in its core. The first glanced off, the second and third cracked it, the fourth knocked out a chunk, and the fifth smashed it to pieces. The orange and red Evas dived back to the purple; they raised their AT Fields to full power in unison, a moment before the Angel turned into a gigantic cruciform explosion.

…

Misato met the three pilots in the debriefing room with Rei, Kaji, and a broad grin. "That was brilliant," she said. "That was the cleanest battle we've had yet. Well done, guys."

Asuka basked in the praise. Shinji smiled weakly. His arm was in a sling, and the sympathetic pain was just winning against the adrenaline high. Kaworu smiled too, but it was the same one he wore when his tram was late.

"Kaji's training really worked," Asuka said, beaming at him. "Who would've thought that just playing music together would have made such a difference?"

This was perhaps generous, because they had still had regular synch tests and simulated battles, but it was true that the three of them had been 'encouraged' to keep playing together. Asuka had been much more enthusiastic once Misato mentioned that it was Kaji's idea, and, once she realised it was an opening for her to prove she was better than Smarmy, she had even allowed him to shelve the violin and play four hands pieces with her, although she made him take the bass rather than the melody. Shinji happily stayed in the background with his cello, just so long as his part wasn't completely trivial.

Kaji shrugged. "The dance routine worked pretty well, so this wasn't too hard to think of. You did well, Asuka."

"How come I never see you any more?" Asuka pouted. "Did you even watch the battle?"

"Well, yes, I just …"

"His job's been keeping him away," Misato said with a bland smile. It was sort of true: she kept him away because of his job. "Anyway, I want to treat you all to a nice lunch as a reward."

"Although she won't be around for dinner," Kaji said, pleased.

Misato glared at him for a moment, before her face softened. "Rei, you're invited too, and do you know where Mogami wandered off to?"

"No," said Rei.

"Ah well. I'll make it up to her later. Hit the showers and I'll meet you at the monorail in thirty. Nagisa, could I have a word?"

They waited until the others filed out.

"What is it, Major?" Kaworu asked.

"I've never sat down and had a chat with you," she said affably. "I don't know anything about you. A commander should know something about the people she's working with, shouldn't she?"

"To establish trust," he said, returning the smile. "Certainly."

So that's how you want to play it. Fine. "I know that you met Asuka and Mogami at Berlin. What have you been doing since Little Third Impact? We could have used you here much earlier; at the very beginning, we only had two pilots, and neither was really up to it."

"I assume the Marduk Report didn't mention me because my Eva wasn't completed until recently, the same reason Asuka wasn't here from the beginning. I've been living on one of my father's properties. A villa in Neuburg-Schrobenhausen," he switched to a German accent for the name, throwing Misato off the rhythm of his speech, "a district of Bavaria, Germany. It's fairly close to Munich. I had private tutors there. My father is very wealthy."

"That must have been nice. Do you miss it?"

"It was more picturesque than Tokyo-3, but I prefer seeing so many people to its solitude."

"One shouldn't be lonely for too long," she said, nodding. "What about your friends? Do you keep in contact with them?"

"I never had many friends. My father thought a designated pilot should focus on his studies."

"What about Asuka and Mogami?"

"Yes for Chitose," he said. "We're very close, although we were kept apart because of the risk of another accident that might kill two pilots. But I believed Asuka was killed in Little Third Impact. It was before instant messaging was invented, so I had no way to check. It was a pleasant surprise to find out she was alive."

Misato spotted the lie immediately. Asuka said she had left before the explosion; he knew she had survived. He had deliberately avoided contacting her, and Chitose must have too. Although he was right about the IM; perhaps they had wanted to call her, but Seele hadn't given them her contact info.

"You've definitely been putting a lot of work into your training with Asuka and Shinji."

"They say that it counts as play when you're having fun."

"True. What do you think about Rei? I haven't noticed you spending any time with her."

"I don't get the impression she much likes me. I wouldn't want to intrude."

"That's very accommodating of you. She's been having fun with Mogami." For some value of 'fun'; Chitose kept dragging her along on excursions to random parts of Tokyo-3, with Rei never venturing an opinion about any of it. "Is that why I haven't seen you with Mogami, either?"

"I don't want to annoy Ayanami, not when she's been so kind to Chitose in letting her share their apartment, and Mrs Bauer never much liked her, so it seems disrespectful to invite her around to my place."

"I can see that. I haven't had a chance to talk with her either. Do you know what she's been doing since Berlin?"

"I could tell you, but you ought to ask her. It wouldn't be polite to discuss her behind her back."

Interesting. If they were really both with Seele, he should have recited her cover story. If Chitose had defected as Ritsuko thought, he should have had propaganda to tell against her. "I had the impression she and your father were on bad terms?"

Kaworu smiled, as of one laughing at a private joke, or a massive understatement. "They are. She was furious that he forbade her from coming here. He was furious that she rebelled against his will. He has declared a family feud against her."

"But you still like her?"

"We have a history together. One doesn't throw that away. So I owe it to her to keep her confidences." He interlaced his fingers, in a manner eerily reminiscent of Ikari Gendo, and leant forward. "Major Katsuragi, may I assume that you're curious about Mrs Bauer and those Seele men, and the Himalayas facility?" Her smile slipped, and he leant back. "If you're worrying about Ayanami or the other pilots, you needn't. Her grudge is against Seele, not Nerv. They wouldn't approve of me saying this, so please don't tell them I did, but she won't be any sort of threat to you or anyone else helping defeat the Angels."

…

Asuka led the way to the showers, still glowing with euphoria. She babbled excitedly about the battle, but Shinji just didn't get it; he thought of piloting like it was a chore, not an honour or a badge of superiority. She decided not to let him get to her and just skipped into the change rooms, stripped out of her LCL-sticky plugsuit, and opened the shower curtain. Chitose was inside.

"Asuka-chan!"

"Gaah!" Asuka cried, recoiling and wrapping her arms around herself. "What the hell are you doing here, you perverted bisexual psychopath?!"

"I wanted to congratulate you on the battle!" Chitose beamed. "They said I was too distracting in the bridge and threw me out, so I thought I'd wait here for you."

She was fully clothed; the asymmetry of the situation seriously bothered Asuka. "They were right, and why are you hiding in the shower stall where you'd only see me after I'd undressed, and why are you staring at my boobs?!"

"I'm trying to work out why you're bothered. Why are you? I'm a girl too; I already know pretty well what breasts look like, although I suppose they are a bit bigger than mine, except the areolae, but I got a glimpse before you covered up, and anyway, what does it matter if I saw? I mean, what I see is internal to me, right, it doesn't affect you at all."

"Wouldn't you mind if someone was staring at you naked?!"

"Well … let me think about that. If I didn't know, logically I couldn't mind, but if they were standing right opposite me talking to me … if it was another girl, I don't think I really would. If it was a boy … has he ever seen a naked girl before? Because I'm curious about what they're like in the flesh, so to speak, and so it'd only be fair if they were curious about girls, so I –"

Asuka swore in German, wrapped her plugsuit around herself like a towel, bodily threw Chitose out of the shower stall, and yanked the curtain back in place. "I swear to God, if you're still there when I'm done, I won't be held accountable for my actions." She poked her head out. "And if you flash Shinji I will kill you. He's perverted enough as is. Find someone else. Got it?" Without waiting for a response, she pulled the curtain back and stood under the hot spray, her good mood wasted.

Chitose left to find Misato in her office, filling in the more urgent post-battle paperwork. Misato jumped a little and reached into her jacket as Chitose approached.

"Hello again," Chitose said. "Well done today."

"Ah – thank you," Misato said, relaxing only slightly.

There was an awkward pause.

"Are you upset about being left out of the group training?" she asked. "Trying to coordinate people gets harder as more people join, and we don't have an extra Eva for you to pilot anyway, so …"

"No, no, that's fine," Chitose said, meaning it. "I was never any good at music anyway, nothing like the others. It's logical, and I don't mind Kaworu being Unit-03's pilot, not if he's going to work better with the others. Actually, I wanted to ask you if I could train solo in the Pribnow Box. I wouldn't be as good in the field as Kaworu because I wouldn't be coordinated with the other pilots, like he is, but I still think I ought to practise a bit, you know, just so I can be an effective reserve. I've barely been in an Eva, and I wasn't as nimble as I am in my own body, not like Asuka or the boys. My synch rate was too low. I think I could improve a lot with training."

Misato hadn't been comfortable with the odd girl, not after whatever it was she had done to those Seele agents, and Kaworu had proven a competent pilot. If he was a spy for Seele, at least he hadn't done anything overt yet. On the other hand, he did say she should pilot; if she trusted him, she should logically trust her, too.

"Mogami … why do you pilot Eva?"

Frankly, she was surprised the girl was still in Tokyo-3 at all. Seele could have sent more agents or raised a fuss, but presumably they'd decided she wasn't worth the hassle. That, or they'd worked out some way of manipulating her where she was. That thought was disquieting.

Chitose blinked at the question. "Because it's the only thing that can defeat the Angels and prevent Third Impact and the end of the world, which would kill everyone, including me. Does Eva do anything other than that?"

"No, but … Rei piloted because she likes to do what the Commander tells her. Asuka does because she wants to prove that she's the best."

"Oh. Well, I've never met the Commander and I don't think I'd care what he thought if I did, and I know I'm not the best. Is that a problem?"

Misato frowned. Someone like Chitose shouldn't be better-adjusted than her charges, or herself for that matter, but on the other hand, it meant she was probably more reliable. Shinji would leave if his relationship with his father degraded too much, Asuka had a serious glass jaw, and Kaworu was probably a ticking time bomb, depending on what Seele had planned. In any case, she wouldn't be a threat inside Unit-03; Ritsuko had 'forgotten' to remove the bomb from its plug when she synchronised Kaworu.

"No, not at all. You're right; I meant to ask you to keep training a month ago, but we've been flat-out getting the three lead pilots to work together." And because she had assumed that Seele would take her, so the training would be wasted, but apparently Seele had decided to let her alone for the time being. "We're busy with clean-up right now, but I'll schedule you some time soon. Some with Shinji and Asuka, too, because they need to be able to work with you, and maybe we could see whether you can synch with Units-00 and -01, too, and then give you time with Kaworu."

"Thanks! Although if Asuka doesn't want anyone else in Unit-02, I'd prefer to stick to Unit-03, if you don't mind. The test and prototype models are part Lilith, so they're likelier to go berserk. That's one experience I don't really want to have."

Misato interpreted this as meaning she was worried Kaworu would sabotage her in the field, and she probably had reason to think that. She made a mental note never to field them together. "You know what the Evas are made of?"

Chitose blinked. "Isn't it obvious that they're made from Adam? I mean, Angels and Evas both have AT Fields, but nothing else does; anyone would guess they come from the same source. And I watched the footage of the battle against the third Angel; a purely Adamite Eva would never go berserk to protect a human. You can swap out the first-generation robot parts, so the only reason the prototype and test model would be different from the production models is that they have different biological components; and Lilith is the only real alternative."

"I meant, you know about Adam and Lilith?"

"Seele told me about them years ago. Kaworu, too. Why, don't the other pilots?"

"The Commander likes to keep high operational security. I only found out recently myself."

"Shouldn't pilots of all people know about that?"

"Arguably, but that information is restricted. I guess his thinking is that pilots don't need to know, and they're a potential leak."

"A leak to who?" Chitose asked, then, with what might have been sarcasm, "the Angels?"

Misato sighed. So now she had two insubordinate girls to deal with. "It's not my call. But you did sign a nondisclosure agreement."

Chitose frowned.

"I'll let you know when I've got your time in the Pribnow Box organised. By the way, I offered to take the other pilots out to lunch to celebrate. Do you want to come?" No reason not to be nice. "The other four are all coming."

"Thanks, but there's an art exhibition that's just opened this morning, and I want to get there early."

"You like art?" Misato asked, surprised.

"I don't know; I've never been to a gallery before. But it sounds interesting."

…

Toji and Kensuke had wordlessly decided not to walk Shinji to school ever since Asuka moved in, but they were still friends, and talked during breaks and went around the city together when he wasn't buttonholed by either Nerv duties or Asuka, who had seemingly got the idea into her head that he was her personal minstrel and chef. They found him during recess, two days after the battle.

"What was the Angel like?" Kensuke asked excitedly.

"Big and strong," said Shinji. "Didn't you say you had Section Two agents knocking on your door because you kept prying into classified information like this?"

Kensuke waved this aside. "I heard it barely got onto the beach. You must have really kicked its butt."

"You think?" said Toji, indicating Asuka, who was holding court with a bevy of other girls a few tables over.

"It's like it's no big deal any more, you know?" she was saying. "I mean there I was, first on the scene, did most of the fighting, screened for the finishing blow, barely even got my paintwork scratched, and everyone at Nerv's just like, 'So what?' Even the people who saw what the Angels did to Ikari and Ayanami before I got here are acting like they aren't a real threat any more, and when you get right down to it, they're probably right. Ever since I got here, it was only when I didn't have proper support that they even made it to the city, let alone to Nerv HQ."

A few tables past her was Kaworu. Shinji had invited him to sit with him and his friends a while earlier, but Toji had a problem with what he described as Kaworu's 'queer aura', although he didn't say it in quite so many words. Kaworu picked up on this anyway, but had accepted his lot gracefully, and instead sat with half a dozen blushing girls, while a few jealous boys looked on.

"Pilot Soryu's story is correct," he said. "She led the fight. I only joined in toward the end."

"So they only defeated the Angel after you joined the battle, Kaworu-sama?" one of his girls asked. Tsuruko, who had pride of place beside him, shot the girl a warning glare, but Asuka, who was eavesdropping, interrupted.

She gave the girl her best look of contemptuous pity, like she did Shinji when she told him he was being replaced after the first battle with the seventh. "Yeah. Right. After Ikari and I did all the work, we let him take the credit for a shared kill. He'd look pretty pathetic if he'd just twiddled his thumbs for two entire battles, don't you think? It's not like he dealt the finishing blow or anything."

"I'm sure that doesn't matter," Tsuruko said, smiling blandly. "They say that behind every successful woman is a hard-working man, right, Kawo-rin?"

"Right. Although sometimes it's the other way round," Kaworu said, grinning at Shinji.

Shinji smiled back, and his gaze slid to the next table over, where Rei was sitting alone; she had a bento for once. Her eyes locked with his for a moment, and he quickly looked down, colouring.

"It's been … a lot better than it was when I first got here," he said to Toji and Kensuke, thinking how he ran away early on, and how isolated and worthless he felt. His mind turned away from it and back to the girls in his life, who were infinitely more confusing than Kaworu, Toji or Kensuke. The boys simply wanted friendship; Shinji wasn't sure exactly why anybody would want it from him personally, but he could accept it. The girls … Asuka alternately seemed to hate and depend on him, Rei was a mystery, and even Misato confused him sometimes. "It doesn't feel like I'm going to die every time."

"Was that other girl there too?" Kensuke asked. "I can't believe she was only here for half a day, and I missed her."

"I've barely even seen her since then," Shinji said truthfully; he'd seen her at a distance at a mall once, and she'd waved at him from a tram, but she seemed content to do her own thing. "I think there was some political reason why she isn't supposed to pilot, something to do with the UN? She hasn't been at any synch tests or anything. Although Misato says she's going to from now on."

"I can't believe they have so many pilots they can just ignore one of them," Kensuke groused. "Two, if you count Ayanami."

Shinji glanced at her again, and away: she was still staring at him.

"You should ask one of them out," Toji said unexpectedly. "Shinji could introduce you, right?"

"Er," said Shinji, trying to picture Kensuke and Rei, or Kensuke and Chitose. "I could …"

"Why would I want him to?" Kensuke asked. "I mean, not that I wouldn't tap that" he nodded toward Rei, who had finally returned to her bento "with gusto, but come on."

Toji gave him a look. "You were so desperate for a date not so long ago, and then you had one disappointment and haven't tried again since."

"Yuki never called me back even once," Kensuke said.

"Maybe she had something else come up," Toji said quickly. "Point is, real men don't just give up. And they're both pilots, so they know about Eva, and that's about all you can talk about."

"It's not something they can talk about, though. I'd just ask Shinji if he weren't blocked by about fifty NDAs. Besides, Rei isn't exactly the sort to talk … about anything."

Toji rolled his eyes. "Look, the city is full of gorgeous girls, and you're just letting them slip through your fingers because you're too much of a pussy to ask them."

"I'm not a pussy."

"Please. You're almost as much of a pussy as Shinji is, but he's swimming in gorgeous girls because he's a pilot."

"I'm not a pussy," said Shinji. The other two boys ignored this.

"The main one's a psychopath and probably Satan himself," Toji admitted, "down to Earth in the form of a human female to murder us all in our beds, but she's still gorgeous, from a distance. Come on, at least go back on that website and try again. I guarantee it'll go better this time."

Kensuke gave him a look. "Okay, but I'm only doing this to get you to shut up," he said.

"That's what friends are for," Toji replied.

…

"Blue pattern detected! And it's the azure one again."

"Then it's time we finished this. Prep the Evas."

"Pilots are at the cages."

"Plugs inserted."

"Evas launch! Now, do you all remember the plan?"

"I lead," said Asuka, facing off against the yellow Angel, which was now both striped and speckled brown. She was unarmed. It lunged for her; she rolled to one side, then to her feet, ejected her power cable, and ran, the Angel hot on her heels. "Even at full power, I should have enough time to – unh!" The Angel tackled her from behind; she rolled with it, kicked it in the head, and kept running, this time zig-zagging as she went. "To make it to the crater from that N2 mine you used against the third, even though apparently it doesn't just get more armour each time, it gets faster, too."

Sprinting full-tilt, she managed a flying leap half a second before her plug went dark. The Angel chased after and pounced.

"That's when I jump in," said Kaworu, as he tackled the Angel, knocking it off-course and sending both of them tumbling down into the crater. "I then dispatch the …" He pulled his prog knife and slashed at the Angel; on paper, it should have been easy to bypass the hardened brown bands, but in practice, the blade slid over them, only making superficial cuts into its skin.

Shinji ran over to Asuka, carrying a spare power cable. "If Kaworu can't beat it single-handed, the plan was for me to assist, but powering Asuka back up will take five seconds, and three is better than two."

Asuka's plug lit back up. She got back to her feet and chased after the Angel; she and Shinji caught up to it just as it pinned Kaworu and began tearing at his armour with its steely paddle-claws. "With that taken care of, we're clear to pull the Angel off Smarmy's sorry backside …"

"… leaving me clear for the coup de grâce," Kaworu said, plunging his knife into where a dog might have had a sternum and slitting the Angel open lengthwise.

"And with Ritz having put the chemical equivalent of four tons of plastic wrap around that hole," Misato undertoned, taking the slide show out of fullscreen, "the clean-up crews managed to catch all of its residue and pump it into a bore hole, where Ritz will be able to study it and find out how to stop it from resurrecting again, or at least give us some warning the next time it tries."

Shigeru's voice interrupted her review, strained. "Major, I appreciate that you need to go over that, but can we please focus on the test for now?"

"There's a test?" Ritsuko asked, looking up from her laptop.

The first four Children were in their entry plugs for a routine synch test. So routine, in fact, that nothing much had happened for the past several minutes. Asuka's and Shinji's scores were ticking upwards, by a few hundredths of a percent per day; Kaworu's had risen to 83.3%, although occasionally it dropped back to 80 when he was tired.

"Ah! Sorry," Misato said, blushing and closing her laptop. "Although … wait, I'm not even technical, I'm only here to observe the pilots." She turned a stern look on the technicians.

"Sorry, I was just a bit distracted," said Makoto. "My shirts keep on going missing for some reason. I've lost five of them lately, okay?" he added defensively. Misato looked away.

"I've been trying to read up about psychology," Maya said, holding up a paper. "Sorry. I thought I could multitask better. I'll leave it for my free time."

Makoto snorted, very quietly. Senior Nerv personnel didn't get free time. They had either short backlogs of urgent work or long backlogs of urgent work. Besides, she'd been reading about that for months. He wasn't sure why she was so interested in doppelgängers rather than, say, anything actually relevant to Project E.

"Have you at least found how it's been resurrecting itself?" Misato asked Ritsuko.

"No. All my tests insist it's pure LCL," Ritsuko said. "Until I can find any evidence to the contrary, I won't make any headway, so I'm multitasking again to supervise the subs exploring Antarctica." She tilted her laptop forward to reveal a map of colours and contours. "The subs' AI is glitchy, and Magi isn't allowed to run other learning robots, not after the … incident. They wandered in circles for a week before I started micromanaging them."

Misato sighed and activated the pilots' comms. "Take five, okay, guys?" she said.

"Sure," said Asuka, "we'll stop sitting here, and instead we'll, oh, I don't know, maybe trying sitting here, how does that –"

Misato clicked the link off. "How's that going, anyway, Ritz?" she asked. "It's been six weeks now."

"A continent is a big place, and it was hit worse than anywhere by Second Impact. The maps from before then are all completely outdated. We have to remap everything from scratch, and the Adamite LCL contamination is too inimical for human exploration, so we have to use robots, and they're idiots. If there is an Angel there, we could find it in five minutes or five months."

"Five months?" asked Misato. "They might just about all have attacked by then."

"They might not. Assuming there is an Angel there now, I estimate a fifty percent chance that we find it before it hatches."

Inside his entry plug, a new face appeared in Kaworu's HUD. He clicked off all recording and other transmissions.

"Good afternoon, Schätzchen," he said, giving his sincerest smile.

"Hello, love," Chitose singsonged. "Have you missed me?"

She was apparently sitting on a safety rail in a mall, a new bottle of brown hair dye and another of hair conditioner in her lap. He could see a shop front behind her, and passersby glaring at her for using video chat in public; she seemed quite unaware of them. While they talked, both relaxed in a way they never did around anyone else; among other things, their language drifted between Japanese, German, English, and slang which no-one else alive understood.

"More than anything. Why didn't you call earlier? Say, when I had my phone, rather than a heavily encrypted military channel?"

"I wanted to see whether I could," she smiled back. "I've learnt a lot while you've been napping in there. And you're always busy."

"I'd visit you if you asked."

"Definitely tempting," Chitose said with a wink, "but not with Rei in the apartment. I also didn't call because I was scared of something, but I really have to know. I can't put it off any longer."

"Yes, Schätzchen?"

"What did Seele tell you to do?" she asked.

"Aren't you in a public space now? And you know what they told us."

"Don't worry about that, love. No-one's close enough to me to overhear what you say, the line's secure, and everyone already knows I know about them. And I meant recently, since I got here. And are you going to obey them?"

"Ah," he said. "You've been afraid that they would ask me to kidnap or kill you?"

"I really hope they didn't," she said earnestly. "Either you'd refuse and they'd kill you, or you'd try to do it, and I'd have to kill you. Please tell me it's not like that, I don't want you to die."

"You won't have to kill me, Schatz," Kaworu said soothingly. "They told me to stay out of your way. Something about you being a bad influence. I'll obey, for now. I don't want to die yet either, and it wouldn't be a good idea to make a scene."

"I'm glad to hear that," she said. "Is this out of loyalty, or just because it's convenient?"

"Yes," he said, winking.

"Oh, do come on. You of all beings should be showing them what Free Will can do, Tabris."

"Free will is tricky. It does what other people want, but only half the time. I will promise you, though, that my will is never going to be that you are hurt."

Chitose laughed. "Well. Maybe not never, love."

She took a hold of a lock of hair and examined it. It was waist-length; she'd never liked cutting it, but Seele had made her. She'd stopped after leaving them, and the ends were splitting. The chemist who sold her her dye had told her to take better care of it; to use conditioner and cut the split ends out.

He grinned wryly, knowing she was still paying attention to him. "And how about yourself? What are you planning to do? I'm a little surprised you're still in the city; I would have thought it'd be too dangerous for you."

"I can deal with the danger."

"That's the opposite of reassuring, coming from you."

"This is the City of Science," she said. "I've seen more every day since I got here than I did in all the time since Berlin. And my friends are all here. This is where I belong. And where else could I go that Seele couldn't reach? Besides, I need to stay here as a reserve for Unit-03, in case Seele ever pulls you out at short notice."

"True. So you're happy where you are?"

"I'm almost blissful," she said. "I'm seeing so much and piloting Eva. There's not much else I want, and nothing else I could really have anyway."

"Are you piloting Eva because you have to, or to annoy Seele?" Kaworu asked.

"Yes," she replied, sticking out her tongue. "But seriously, it's because there are all these wonderful things in the world, and there won't be if the Angels destroy it. It's not rocket science. Speaking of which, did you know that rocket science isn't actually all that difficult? I mean it blows up if you do it wrong, but there are equations that make it really easy to know what will happen. It's not like psychology or economics or art. Speaking of which, art is weird. I should look into it more. Some of it's really interesting, but there was this canvas that was just a red square on a white background. How is that art?"

"Heh. Schatz, you –"

"Okay," interrupted Misato's voice and face, "are you ready to get back to it?"

On the first syllable, Kaworu hung up on Chitose. She nodded, put her phone away, and resumed window shopping.

At the other end of the plaza, Kensuke waited. He was ripped by a peculiar emotional cocktail of apprehension, excitement, lust, guilt for some reason, and flutterings of absolute terror. Sakura had been a so-so match on paper, but she had still agreed to meet him, and if her display pic was honest, she was impossibly hot, like a purely Japanese version of Asuka. Her bio didn't sound anything like Asuka, though; she seemed nice but quiet, and like she had a personality with features other than ego and competitiveness.

"Hello? Mister Kensuke?"

He turned and did a double-take. If anything, her photo didn't do her justice.

"S-Sakura," he said, giving a nervous twitch which might charitably have been taken as a bow. "Uh – hi."

"So, uh," she said.

"Yeah," he said.

"Um. Do you want to. Um. Do something?"

"I guess?"

"What do you want to do?"

"I don't know. What do you want to do?"

"I don't mind. You pick."

"I don't really have any preferences," said Kensuke, the list of eight possible fallback activities for in case things got awkward vanishing from his mind without a trace.

"Well … if you really don't mind either way … there's a flower shop two blocks down I wanted to visit," said Sakura.

"Um," said Kensuke, who had no interest whatsoever in flowers. "That sounds fun."

"I was thinking about buying some camellia," she said, suddenly coming out of her shell. "What colour do you like for them? White, red, yellow? My favourite's red."

"Really? Mine too."

"I've probably got enough amaryllis," she said; Kensuke made a mental note to find out what amaryllis and camellia were. "And too many yellow tulips and primroses. They don't really look so good with all the cactus flowers, but I've never been able to grow chrysanthemums, I must have had a hundred of them die. I cry every time. Do you know how to make them survive? I've tried everything, but I just can't make them work. I should show you my garden so you can decide properly."

…

AidaK: i swear, she would not shut up. youd think you couldnt talk for four hours straight about flowers, but youd be wrong.

SuzuharaT: why didnt you just talk about something else

AidaK: i tried! she just clammed up until i let her go back to flowers. i thought she was going to cry.

AidaK: forget it. im giving up on girls. nothing but kaiju manga for me until im thirty.

SuzuharaT: whatever happened to that big inspirational speech you gave the class rep

AidaK: that was before i realised girls are more trouble than theyre worth.

SuzuharaT: you just got some bad ones ask shinji

SuzuharaT: not about devil girl obviously

SuzuharaT: shes a hopeless case

SuzuharaT: but misato or rei or that other pilot chick

SuzuharaT: she wasnt a total babe but worth a look 7 or 8 if reis a 10

SuzuharaT: and she talks and doesnt slap you for no reason so that has to even out anyway

AidaK: okay, fine, will you shut up already?

AidaK: IkariS

IkariS: What?

AidaK: are girls worth it?

IkariS: I found two pairs of Misato's panties in the rice cooker yesterday morning, sweaty, reeking of beer, and one of them was spattered in what I choose to believe was soy sauce.

IkariS: You tell me.

SuzuharaT: you did

SuzuharaT: do you have them now

IkariS: What? No, I put them in the laundry.

IkariS: That's what normal people do with dirty clothes.

SuzuharaT: you shinji are officially hopeless

Shinji rested his head against his hand. It was all very well for Toji to be fixated by girls, but he hadn't had to do their laundry for the past eight months. It tended to erode their mystique.

Asuka turned around. She could hear the tapping of Shinji's fingers on his keyboard. She knew he wasn't taking notes, not if his usual work ethic was any indicator, so that meant he was messaging those other idiots.

SoryuA: HorakiH the stooges are goofing off again.

HorakiH: They're using a private channel. Can't you just ignore them until recess?

SoryuA: no. it's annoying. aren't you annoyed?

HorakiH: Constantly.

Hikari sighed silently, and thought about how to balance her duties to the class, her loyalty to Asuka, and her desire to not get into yet another pointless fight, but life interrupted her: four mobile phones chimed at once.

The teacher cut himself off mid-sentence, and there was a moment's silence but for the sounds of the pilots scraping their chairs back, and the ever-present chirping of cicadas. Asuka left first, looking excited; then Shinji, optimistic; Rei, as inscrutable as ever; and lastly Kaworu, quietly confident. Once they were out the door, Toji made to stand up, but Hikari stopped him.

"Suzuhara! The evacuation sirens haven't gone off yet. Stay in your seat."

"Come on, Class Rep," he said. "What, do you think they're going to a company lunch?"

"The evacuation procedures exist for a reason. We have to be orderly and wait for the signal. There can't be a panic, and the pilots need priority to get to their Evas. Wait!"

The teacher nodded, so they waited in silence, and waited, and waited, but the sirens never rang.

…

Makoto was waiting for the pilots outside the change rooms, and stopped them from entering.

"You won't need your plugsuits," he said.

"If Akagi expects me to go in naked again …" Asuka said, a warning glint in her eyes.

"No! God no."

Asuka narrowed her eyes to slits. "What exactly is that supposed to mean?"

"… Look, please, there's not going to be any fighting. It's nowhere near here yet."

"Then shouldn't we try to intercept it before it can land on the city?" said Shinji. "You know, minimising collateral damage and all?"

"It's … it'll be easier if we only have to go over it once, okay? Major Katsuragi's waiting in the briefing room."

Asuka snorted and tossed her hair, and they followed the tech.

"Where's the Weird Girl, anyway?" she asked.

"I don't know," Makoto frowned. "The message went out."

Four kilometres away, Chitose sat in the city library with a contented smile on her face, reading a book about herpetology. On the wall above her was a sign reading 'Please turn off your mobile phone'.

"She's only a reserve now, though, so it probably doesn't matter too much; we can fill her in later. Here we are."

He led them into a dark room in which a real-time video feed was projected onto one wall, tracking what had to be an Angel across a stretch of farmland, because no human would ever make anything that looked like it. It had a single red jewel at its centre; around this was a purple disc studded with flashing green lights and eyes with yellow irises, and bordered by a wide, bright blue rim. The disc was oriented like a unicycle's wheel, with the core exposed on both sides. It had six orange legs, double-segmented, long and thin like a spider's; three growing from the left side of the disc, their sockets arranged in an equilateral triangle pointing down, and three on the right, arranged in a triangle pointing up. The entire effect was like a cross between a beetle and a Ferris wheel.

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever seen," Asuka declared, saying what they were all thinking, "and I saw the tenth Angel up close."

There was no sound, giving an odd dreamlike quality to the video. Aircraft swirled overhead, strafing it and dropping the odd bomb. It ignored them and rolled along at a good clip on its rim, which could rotate independently of the purple disc, occasionally touching one leg tip to the ground for balance or to change direction and go around a hill.

Misato and Dr Akagi were sitting at the back of the theatre, along with Maya, who was controlling the surveillance satellite. Akagi spoke up. "The target appeared in California's Central Valley sixteen minutes ago. Second Branch picked it up. The US Government demanded military intervention. I suppose they feel like showing us how it's done."

Misato shrugged. "It's their taxes. It's heading west, presumably to the coast, where it will swim across the Pacific to here. We don't have enough time to intercept it over there before it reaches the ocean. If it floats, we could consider attacking it with C-type equipment, but otherwise, or if it's too agile in water, we'll have to fight it on land, here. Right now, we're observing it so we can come up with a plan."

"I have a plan," Asuka undertoned, as the pilots filed forward to sit down, "we don't ask it for fashion advice."

"We'll have to attack from one side or the other to get at the core," Kaworu observed. "Probably only one, so we only have to deal with three legs rather than six. I should think the right side would be weaker; the left has two raised legs, which can probably strike faster and harder."

"Or we could split up and hit both at once, with one of us as a distraction," Asuka argued. "That thing's a bit shorter than an Eva, isn't it? We'll get in each other's way if we all converge on one side, there's not enough room."

"That's what we have support for," Kaworu replied. "Two of us will grab its legs and pull them out of the way, artillery will hit the other side, and the third will destroy the core."

"You're assuming it just lets us, Smarmy. The other three legs will be completely untouched; normal weapons are useless against the Angels. Much better to spread out so we can counter its response."

Rei touched Shinji's knee. They exchanged wordless glances, and she spoke up. "We do not know what it is capable of."

There was silence.

"Oh, shut up," Asuka said, without malice.

A shadow passed over the video frame. Maya frowned, zoomed the camera out, and panned west, over to the inundated ruins of San Francisco. It had been hit hard by the sea level rise of Second Impact; many of its skyscrapers still stood, but they were rusty and slowly falling apart. The shadow belonged to a massive carrier plane; it dropped a huge yellow package.

The room let out a collective gasp as, with a colossal splash, Eva Unit-04 landed on its feet.

"There's a fifth Eva?" Shinji asked. "But who's piloting it?"

Misato made a note to ask the Commander exactly why there was a fully functional combat Eva being used for something other than defending the one city that every Angel attacked. And why she hadn't heard about it, and had no idea who its pilot was.

"Could that be the autopilot system?" she asked Ritsuko.

Ritsuko shook her head. "That never got off the ground," she said. "Synchronisation needs a human neural pattern. The Magi trio together can't emulate one in real time. And there are bandwidth and reliability issues if you try to do it remotely. There's a human in there."

"Any idea who?"

"None."

"It's deployed without a power cable," Misato noted. "Whoever it is, they're confident."

Maya zoomed in on Unit-04. Like -03, it was a repainted clone of Unit-02. It turned east to face the Angel, putting its back to the camera, which was in geosynch orbit south of Tokyo-3. She pulled back out to capture both it and the Angel in one shot. The Angel had been heading slightly south of it, but it lightly dragged one right leg along the ground, turning it onto a collision course with the Eva.

"This idiot better not steal my kill," Asuka said.

Unit-04's shoulder pylon opened, and it pulled a Progressive Knife. The blade glowed white, as the Angel accelerated forward, a gaudy neon blue blur from the front, throwing up sheets of water. At the last moment, the Eva dodged to the side and struck.

The Angel was much more agile than it looked. It stabbed a leg into the ground as an anchor and tacked round like a tetherball, spraying foam. It smacked into the Eva's arm and knocked the knife away; this spun in the air and splashed out of sight. The Angel rolled away to build speed, then made another hairpin turn back toward the Eva.

Unit-04 dived out of its way; the Angel swerved again and hit the Eva in the chest, knocking it end over end and into the Golden Gate Bridge. The bridge, rusty from flooding and decades of disuse, shuddered, and bits fell off.

"Come on," Asuka murmured, leaning forward. "Fight it, you idiot, it's killing you …"

The Eva scrambled to its feet and tore out a long section of the bridge, holding it like a club. As the Angel came forward again, throwing up great froths of water, it swung the bridge. The Golden Gate Bridge, however, was never designed to be used as a mêlée weapon, and snapped from the g-force.

"Stupid rookie," said Asuka. "Don't …"

The Angel swerved to avoid where the attack would have gone, putting it side-on to the Eva. The Eva threw a punch; the Angel brushed it aside with an upper leg, then its bottom leg flicked out and pierced Unit-04's thigh, spattering purple ichor. A moment later, one of its upper legs punched through the Eva's shoulder.

"Don't –!"

It braced its upper-left leg against the Eva's chest, pulled out the upper-right, and then stabbed it through the Eva's breastbone. With a spurt of ruddy fluid and pieces of shattered machinery, the leg came through the rear armour plate over the entry plug.

The Angel pulled its legs free, then turned and rolled off into the Pacific Ocean, down and out of sight. The yellow giant slumped forward, falling to lie face down in the water; Eva hydraulic fluid, LCL, and what was left of the pilot swirled out. VTOLs gathered about it like vultures; emergency response teams scrambled out to see what they could salvage.

Shinji's eyes widened. That was what it would have looked like if he'd lost to the fourth Angel. Or the fifth, or the thirteenth. He didn't notice the look Rei gave him.

"Christ," Asuka said in German, as Maya ran from the room, looking green and holding her hand over her mouth. "So, uh, heh. I guess maybe we should stick to guns?"

"How long do we have before it makes it here?" Misato asked Ritsuko.

Ritsuko took Maya's computer and queried Magi. "Its cruising speed was an average of 629 kilometres per hour on the flat. Magi estimates a water speed of 61, so, assuming it takes a direct path along the ocean floor and doesn't change speed, we have five days, seven hours, and eleven minutes." She hit a key, and timer appeared on the screen and began counting down. "We won't be able to track it by satellite once it gets too deep to see, so plus or minus twelve hours." Upper and lower bound timers appeared around the mean estimate.

"Right. Then we need a plan, and soon." Misato thought for a moment, before springing to her feet. "Pilots, suit up and get to the Pribnow Box. We're going to simulate the battle and get some idea for what works and what doesn't. That includes you, Rei. Makoto, find the Commander and tell him we need reinforcements yesterday. Get me permission to field Rei, and tell him to get me Unit-04. Don't take no for an answer to either. Once that report is coming, call Reichner and get me a full status report on the disposition of all available UN troops. Ritz, have Magi analyse whether P-type armour could stop it. If it can't, find me something that can. Ibuki –" She raised her voice. "Ibuki! Get back here!"

The mousy tech peeked back in the door, still looking ill.

"I need you to enter its data into the sim engine. And find Aoba and some junior techs so we can run everything properly, do that first." She pulled out her phone and called the head of Section Two. "I need the Fifth Child down here now. I'm ordering YOU to do it. Now is not a good time to argue with me. Do it." She hung up and strode from the room, her subordinates swirling about her. "Kaji? Kaji, you sneak, stop pretending you're not eavesdropping! Someone, find Kaji and send him to me. Aoba!" she said, as he appeared. "Call Admiral Kuznetsov. Give him the data on the Angel and have him deploy his forces to track it without engaging. We need to know if it changes velocity. The rest of you, prepare the Pribnow Box. Hustle!"

In less than a quarter of an hour, the pilots were inside the simulation bodies, ready to begin. A countdown was displayed prominently on the main monitor, with the Angel's expected arrival time and upper and lower bounds. Maya was the only tech available to run the sim; everyone else was either too junior or too busy.

"Are you ready yet?" Misato asked her impatiently.

She kept typing. "Uhm … ninety percent. It should be displayable. I'll load it and fix up the rest while you have a look around, hold on …"

She hit a button, and the three pilots were transported into Evas on a flat, featureless plain. Something similar to the Angel stood opposite them, except it was black-and-white except for the core, and boxy, with sharp orthogonal edges rather than the real thing's organic curves; flat surfaces rather than a mixture of biological and fractal textures.

"Magi's transcribing its appearance, range of motion, and behaviour. It'll take about two more minutes. The scale and general shape should be right."

The pilots approached. It was shorter than an Eva, at about forty-five metres, and the blue rim was about as wide as an Eva at the shoulders. The disc was concave, its width at the narrowest point like an Eva at the waist.

"So, I'm thinking we form a reverse crescent," said Asuka, running her hand over its core. "First and Third are recessed, me and Fourth forward to either side, everyone with pallet rifles. Fourth and I take out its AT Field, you two blast it and draw its attention. It goes for you and we take the core out with crossfire. Sound good?"

"Well, we're trying things out, aren't we?" said Shinji. "Let's see how it goes."

"Ibuki?"

"Okay," she said, and entered the scenario. The boxy Angel blinked out of existence, and was replaced by four pallet rifles. The pilots picked them up. "I'll leave the terrain flat for now, and we can try it on the coast or in the city later, see where you have the advantage." The Angel, now properly textured, appeared ten kilometres away, saw them, and began its advance.

Asuka waved the others into formation. She got down onto one knee and trained it on the approaching Angel. "Okay. First, Third. Hit it."

They opened up on it. The pallet rifles' ammunition had a muzzle velocity of almost twice the speed of sound, which was much less impressive when you realised that with their scale they could sprint at just under the sound barrier, and could actually give off local sonic booms because not all parts moved at the same speed. Still, the Angel was approaching head-on, and most of the bullets splashed off its AT Field.

"Fourth!"

Kaworu and Asuka raised their hands to tear its AT Field down. It put on a burst of speed, jackknifed right, and ran Kaworu down, bouncing off and going in reverse. It turned on a yen, braked next to him, and stabbed a leg through his neck.

"Oops," he said, as his plug went dark, rubbing at his neck. The Pribnow Box didn't require a full synchronisation, so they muted the pain feedback to a dull itch, but he still felt something.

"Eva down, pilot intact," narrated a junior tech.

The Angel turned and rammed Rei, knocking her into Shinji and sending both to the ground. Asuka leapt out to the side to fire at its core; it switched to her. Her bullets pinged off its rim. She feinted right just before it made contact, skipped left, and brought her rifle up to shoot it point-blank. It knocked the gun away with one leg; she caught another, holding it flush to her body, and the third skewered her.

"Reset," said Misato, and the Angel and their guns vanished. Asuka rubbed at her stomach, as the wound vanished over and the phantom pain ebbed away. Kaworu got back to his feet. "Right. What went wrong?"

"The AI cheated," Asuka declared. "It heard what my plan was."

"No, it didn't," Maya said. "If the Magi could make good plans on the fly from natural language like that, we wouldn't need half our staff."

"It was too fast," Kaworu volunteered. "I barely saw it coming before it had me."

"Head on, it is immune to bullets, even without its AT Field," Rei said. "Its outer rim overhangs its core."

"Rei and I were bunched up too much," Shinji offered. "And Kaworu's right, it was too fast. I tried to shoot at it when it was going for him, but it was going almost as fast as our bullets. Can it really move like that?"

"Its top sprint speed against Unit-04 was recorded at over eighteen hundred kilometres per hour," Misato said. "Five hundred metres a second, Mach 1.5. Expect it."

They all turned and looked at Asuka.

"Its legs are too powerful," she said grudgingly. "I could only just hold on to one of them with both arms. I think it was bracing itself with the ones on the other side, because all three on my side were off the ground at once."

"That's a good start," Misato said with approval. "So, what do we do to take those advantages away?"

"Slow it down somehow?" Shinji tried. "Maybe with those bolas we tried against the eleventh? But I think this one would just tear them apart, it's so strong."

There was a pause while they tried to think of something that could possibly work.

"Stairs," said Rei.

Everyone turned to stare at her.

"Stairs … oh, you mean the terrain!" said Shinji.

"As a wheel-based object, that makes sense," Misato said thoughtfully. "It's fast on flat ground, but on very uneven ground it would have to walk, putting you on even footing, pun not intended. If we engaged it around a ridge …"

"Specifically, I meant ledges," Rei clarified. "It has no known ranged abilities and is unable to fly; it did not retaliate to the aerial bombardment. If we sniped it from towers, it would be at our mercy."

Asuka gave her a disbelieving look. What had happened to the soulless automaton who obeyed all orders without question and who never volunteered anything?

Misato considered the idea. "We have platforms throughout the city that we could use for that," she mused. "There are more than enough, so you could get whatever angle you needed, and could bail out if it managed to bring one down. Which it probably would; always expect the worst. Maya, make a note to simulate what would happen if the Angel rammed one of those armour plates at full speed, but for now, set the battlefield to Tokyo-3 and let's try again."