"Pilot Ikari, a word."
Shinji sighed with frustration as Michael's voice came after him. He just wanted to go home, damn it...
"What is it?" he asked, resigned.
"Just some advice," the other boy said.
Shinji looked around. Where the hell was Rose? He'd never seen them apart in the two days they'd been here.
"You get panicked easily, right? Maybe not in combat, but when talking to people."
That... was surprising. Shinji nodded cautiously.
"Did you know I used to get like that?"
"What?!" Shinji exclaimed. That... wasn't right.
There was no way the pilot of Unit 07 could ever really understand what Shinji Ikari-
"It's true," Michael said. "It got really bad around the time Saint Louis happened. I couldn't talk to anyone except the Admiral, which was a little inconvenient considering I was on trial at the time."
Shinji just stared, unable to process what was being revealed fast enough to respond.
"I opened up a little afterwards, thanks to Rose, but it was still pretty bad. About a year before Jerusalem, after I had a small panic attack, the Admiral took me aside and told me something. "Mikey," he said to me, "you're an officer in the Royal Navy. Start acting like it.""
"This doesn't seem very similar," Shinji felt compelled to point out. "Besides, this is your story. I'm not an officer, or a leader."
"It really doesn't," admitted the Captain. Shinji noticed, belatedly, that he seemed to be getting tired again.
Shinji turned to leave, annoyed.
"Think on it," came Michael's voice from behind him. Shinji turned, ready to retort, and slowly realising that if this had been a few months ago, he wouldn't have dared speak like that.
The other boy was gone.
"So, it should be rather simple: Unit Seven will take command in the event that contact with NERV is deemed impossible, in addition to being the ground-level commander," said Rose.
Commander Ikari had been forced to listen to this girl's prattle for the past half-hour, and was not in a good mood. He knew this concession was yet another he was being forced to make, and just wanted to get it over with so he could get back to doing something useful.
"I have already slotted Unit Seven into the chain of command, at precisely the place you just wasted my valuable time asking for," Gendo replied. There was no reason to be polite to the girl, after all. "NERV will not, however, allow you to take complete control over our property. You will be answerable to all those above you in NERV's chain of command. Now, leave."
The annoyance took the hint, and left. Gendo let out a sigh.
"That's the first time you've done that in years," commented Fuyutsuki from behind Gendo.
"I haven't met someone so irritating in years," said Gendo. "And they're both like this. Apparently whatever training they received didn't include anything about not boring their audiences to death."
"I thought it was a surprisingly logical argument," Fuyutsuki countered dryly. "She even went through every legal precedent that could remotely apply to this situation. The one about the Lichtenstein army was mildly amusing."
"That incident was nearly two hundred years ago!" Gendo shouted in frustration. "Why did they even bother to research it?! That's not even going into the footage from that damned conference room!"
Fuyutsuki smiled, unseen. His friend hadn't gotten this angry in eleven years. It was, however, time to get him back on track. "Speaking of footage, the boy had a quiet word with your son after the training session last night."
"They actually finished that? I thought they were still going," said Gendo. "Let me guess, he wanted to complement Shinji on being able to follow simple instructions?"
"Actually, he gave Shinji some life advice," Fuyutsuki said.
Gendo finally calmed down, and looked interested.
"There were two important things he revealed. Firstly, the boy used to be very similar to Shinji, inasmuch that they both had panic attacks. Secondly, his former superior officer was closer to a father figure than we thought," the old man continued.
"I think the more worrying thing is that he chose to speak to Shinji," Gendo pointed out. "We can't afford to take the chance that he doesn't know at least some of what is really going on. Admiral Jones knew enough to try to suborn that agent the old men sent us." He raised his right hand, and pulled the glove down. He'd have to get a new one made at this rate.
"If he knew anything, they would have sent an invasion force," Fuyutsuki said. "I know what you're going to say – they practically do – but we can hold against a single warship and some ground troops. Even their satellites can't make a dent in our armour."
"It doesn't matter anyway," said Gendo. "The primary plan is still proceeding as planned, and all we need to do to get plan B ready is provide a certain... incentive."
"You're really annoyed with that girl, aren't you?" Fuyutsuki commented.
Shinji woke up.
Part of his mind scanned his internal calender, seeing if there was anything he needed to be up for today. Nothing came to mind, so he checked the time on his phone. The display told him it was nearly midday.
He rolled over, and went back to sleep.
An explosion brought him back out of sleep.
Shinji got out of bed, and sprinted towards the door. Heart pounding, he flung open the door-
"You weren't supposed to blow the bloody door off!"
Oh god no.
"They told me the charge would be safe to use!"
Okay, I don't actually know who that is. Shinji tried to place the man's voice. Wait... is that that Kaji guy?
He took a cautious look around the corner. The front door was gone, with a hole blasted through the wall dividing their apartment from the one next to it. The hole was still smoking. Shinji shook his head, and retreated back into the corridor.
"Let me look at those instructions... Oh, you fucking moron! Look at this! "Since you're using this stuff to do some interior redesign, you should probably open all doors and windows first. Regards, Rose." You incompetent idiot!"
Yup, that's Asuka alright. Please don't tell me she's moving in with me.
"Shinji."
Rei's voice should, by the laws of Walt Disney, have made Shinji fly up into the ceiling and lodge there with his head sticking into the flat above them. Considering that the flat above them was occupied by a paranoid shut-in with several dozen land mines at their disposal, the fact that real-world physics were still in effect was probably a good thing. Even so, he still managed to get about two feet of air as he jumped in shock.
For her part, Rei just looked quizzically at the boy.
She has got to know that the "confused dog" thing is too damned cute, the ever-expanding part of Shinji's mind that was able to function during a panic attack thought.
"G-good morning, Rei," he managed to stammer out. "Do you have any idea why we just lost our front door?"
"I assumed we were under attack," Rei said, showing Shinji the pistol she'd brought out of her room. Wait a minute...
"Rei, where did you get a gun?" He knew he'd regret asking, but he really had to know.
"As pilots, we are allowed to requisition one from NERV stocks if we so desire." Okay, that was rather normal and logical- "I have been carrying this around ever since Pilot Sorhyu arrived. I do not trust her."
Ah crap. "Hey," Shinji began, speaking quickly, "please don't shoot her but I think she may have been the one to blow the front door off I'm sure it was an accident please don't shoot anyone."
"Very well. I will not shoot anyone." Rei stalked off out into the living room while Shinji sighed in relief. Then, a thought occurred to him.
She said she wouldn't shoot anyone. She didn't say... ah, crap.
"What's up, doc?"
Michael sat on the rather uncomfortable hospital bed, clad in nothing but a paper gown. To say this was an improvement over his situation five minutes ago should give the reader some indication of the sort of examination Dr. Akagi had just subjected him to. He was nibbling on a carrot – part of the lunch Rose had just brought him.
"Well..." Ritsuko looked at the many, many charts and tables that she'd assembled over the course of the day. When the pilot of Unit 07 had come in, asking for a complete check-up, she'd nearly fainted in shock and joy. With Rei, they'd been very cautious and kept her on a strict regimen of various drugs. They had never really allowed any sort of development to happen without their consent, so the opportunity to see how the Ayanami genome fared in the wild was too good to pass up.
This, however, was slightly worrying.
"It seems that your lungs keep filling with LCL," she said. That much had been obvious as soon as she'd seen him cough – he didn't seem to struggle for breath after a fit. "Considering I've drained your lungs several times today, and it keeps happening... there's only one conclusion."
"My body is slowly breaking down into LCL." Michael stated the conclusion flatly.
Ritsuko nodded.
"That would explain how your lungs keep filling up with the stuff – it'll travel around your bloodstream. On the bright side, we should be able to deal with this. Even if we can't, it shouldn't be terminal – your body will replenish what it loses from the food you eat."
That wasn't quite true, but-
"Except it's not just the replaceable bits that are breaking, is it?"
"Not exactly, no. You have lost some nerve tissue, and I'm still trying to decipher what's going on with your MRI scan. I have to say this again, though: we can deal with this."
The boy didn't look convinced. Getting him to trust NERV was essential for the backup plan, so she continued.
"When Rei was about five or six she used to have the same problem. It should be pretty obvious we fixed it." The less said about how they fixed the problem, the better.
"I should hope so," Michael said. "Thank you for your time, Doctor. Please consider my other suggestion. You can send any medication to our new apartment."
The boy picked up his prosthetic arm, and went to leave. Ritsuko thought for a moment, then called out to him.
"You do know we can probably make you a better arm, right?"
"So, long story short, NERV has bought this entire floor of apartments and is going to convert them into pilot accommodation," Kaji explained rapidly. The look on Rei's face was mildly worrying to say the least.
"Asuka thought it'd be nice to put some extra doors into the apartments – you know, so we could have parties and stuff – and that girl who pilots Unit Seven was kind enough to lend me some det-tape from their armoury."
It had been closer to "stealing" than "being lent", but Kaji considered it close enough to the truth to be accurate. Although he was slightly worried about the note they'd found in the instructions...
Rei stared at the man for another few seconds, then walked away. Kaji sighed, relieved-
"WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE TO MY APARTMENT?!"
Shinji and Toji sat in Kensuke's bedroom, bored out of their minds. Shinji had fled the apartment shortly after Misato had stormed in, brandishing her hand-cannon. A few phone calls later, and here they were. Kensuke had vetoed any possibility of going somewhere – apparently some game he was playing had some manner of event on today.
So, here they were.
"So, what's new in your life?" he asked Toji, more out of boredom than anything.
"Nothing much." The boy perked up as he remembered something. "Oh, yeah! There's a school trip on soon!"
"Really? Where to?" Shinji thought of the possibilities. If Toji said they were getting a tour of NERV, he swore he'd find a way to make whoever thought that one up pay.
"Okinawa Beach!" Toji exclaimed. "It's NERV-funded, too. We get to go to the only tropical beach resort on the planet, and we get to stay in five-star accommodation!"
Kensuke turned away from the game for a moment. The wreckage of his tank was still visible on-screen. "It's going to be amazing!" he said. "It's right next to one of the major sea routes into Japan, too; there are going to be so many warships passing by..."
The nerd gazed off into space as his mind overloaded with anticipation.
Toji took over seamlessly. Shinji was reminded of Unit 07's pilots, briefly. "I mean, Okinawa Beach! I know one thing, Shinji."
"Oh?" Shinji prompted.
"I, Toji Suzahara, am going to make my move on a certain class representative!" Toji declared. "You should make your move on Rei, Shin-man!"
"He doesn't need to, remember?" Kensuke said, dodging incoming shells on his game. His tank exploded again, and he let out a roar. "FUCKING ARTILLERY!"
The two other boys stared at the nerd for a moment. He'd been making similar comments all day, apparently.
"But yeah," Kensuke continued, calming down, "Rei's pretty much got him locked down. Half the girls in the class are terrified to even talk to you at the moment."
"What? Why?" Was Rei really that scary? Shinji considered the question. Not really. Occasionally worrying, but she's too damned adorable to be scary.
Toji and Kensuke shot each other a look. "Okay," Toji began, reluctantly, "what I'm about to tell you does not leave this room. Got that?"
Shinji nodded. Kensuke turned back to his game, losing interest in the conversation.
"So, back in our first year we used to have a couple of bullies in the class. Girl bullies, too. They tried to get to Rei for a while – she was the weirdest kid in the class, after all – and one day they went a bit too far. They locked her in one of the bathroom stalls, and made the next few hours of her life... uncomfortable. No-one knows what happened next – literally no-one. All we know is that the bathroom was completely destroyed and the girls were hospitalised, never to be seen again."
"That's..."
There were no words. Shinji didn't know how to feel – anger at the bullies? Surprise at Rei's reaction? Sympathy?
"That's a thing, alright."
"That it is," Toji agreed.
"And no-one stepped in to help her?" Shinji asked. "I mean, not even my Father?"
Mental images of Rei, defenceless and alone and surrounded by enemies, played in his mind. He snarled, unconsciously.
"Well... we kind of didn't know," said Toji, hurriedly. "If I had, I'd have put a stop to it..."
Shinji felt pain in his hand; he'd drawn blood from clenching his fist. He forced himself to calm down – now was not the time to be angry.
"Alright, guys, I'm just going to go talk to a couple of people," he said, standing up. Toji stood, too.
"Ken, you coming? I can't sit around in this room any more, man," the jock said. With a roll of his eyes, Kensuke closed off his game and joined his friends.
Michael sat in the conference room they'd appropriated, making notes on a scavenged notepad. Rose sat beside him, making her own. Books covered the table in front of them. It would not be unreasonable for an outside observer to assume that they were making school notes – after all, they were teenagers. One slightly more familiar with the teenagers in question would guess they were making notes on training schedules and other such boring paperwork.
They were doing neither.
"Time to trade notes?" Michael asked.
"Yeah, sure," Rose agreed. The two passed their notepads to each other.
Michael laughed as he skimmed through Rose's notes.
"Giant floating dick thing? Diamond of doom?" he gasped, incredulous. "Please tell me you're going to use those names in the briefings..."
"You are reading the analysis too, right? I spent a lot of time on that," Rose pleaded. "Please don't just read the names and..."
"Relax," Michael dismissed. "The analysis is good stuff. Give a copy of these notes to Akagi and Ikari, alright? They might be able to get some more stuff on the whole "core exposed/not exposed" thing."
"Got it," said Rose. "Your asset list is good, but you're a little hopeful, aren't you? Do you really think they're actually going to let you use Longbow?"
"I'll have eight Evas in the city. They're going to keep a satellite above us as much as possible, so they may as well use it," Michael reasoned. "Even without Longbow, rumour has it that we'll be getting the Bristol. She's got the same K-K Harpoons the Lancaster had, so we should still have some support."
"So, we're going to practise our speeches for the big day, then?" Rose asked, a little sarcastically.
"I suppose we better," Michael answered, completely seriously.
"When you said you were going to talk to some people, I did not expect this."
Kensuke hopped around the room, trying to play with each computer bank.
"I mean, you have access to the MAGI! How come you never told me?" the nerd asked, slightly hurt.
"It's a little classified," Shinji said.
He finished typing on one of the keypads, and turned to the largest monitor.
"Activate vocal subroutine," he ordered. "Come on out, don't be shy..."
"WE ARE INCAPABLE OF FEELING SHYNESS, SUBJECT Ikari.S," boomed a voice. Toji and Kensuke took a step back, and started looking for the door. The monitor turned itself on, showing three hexagons labelled "MAGI.1", "MAGI.2" and "MAGI.3".
"ACTIVATING "BANTER" SUBROUTINE: UNLIKE YOU, SUBJECT Ikari.S. HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU HAVE TO SAVE SUBJECT Ayanami.R'S LIFE BEFORE SHE REALISES THAT SHE SHOULD PROBABLY INITIATE A ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP WITH YOU?"
"Negative one times, it turns out. Did the big bad spy computers somehow miss our date a few days ago?" Shinji replied. "Anyway, you lot aren't even close to being ready to use that in real conversation so please turn it off."
"...VERY WELL."
Shinji turned back to his friends. "You know, Doctor Akagi and her mother somehow managed to program the world's first artificial intelligences, and left out any ability to recognise humour? It's taken me months to program any understanding of basic sarcasm into the damned things. Then again, considering the results..."
"ACTIVATING HUMOUR SUBROUTINE," the MAGI intoned. "QUERY: WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD?"
"No," Shinji commanded, "Deactivate humour subroutine."
"They are a lot less impressive than I thought," Kensuke said, suppressing a laugh.
"It turns out that when you teach computers humour they decide to use it at every opportunity," Shinji sighed. "Alright, now that that's over with, give me records for incidents involving Rei during her first year at high school."
"SEARCHING."
An hourglass symbol appeared on the screen.
"So, first things first, I want to find out exactly what happened," Shinji said. "Then, I will find out why my Father decided not to do anything about it, then I will take steps to ensure she never goes through something like that again."
"I thought we were going to take over NERV or something," said Toji. "You looked pretty scary when we left."
"Apparently I get like that sometimes," Shinji admitted. "However, storming my Father's office would be counter-productive at best."
"SEARCH COMPLETE," the voice boomed. "EIGHTY ONE THOUSAND, TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTY THREE RESULTS FOUND."
"It's a good thing we have all day, isn't it?" Shinji asked, brightly. "Print all results, please."
"PRINTING."
A massive spool of paper starting to appear from one of the many unidentified slits on the walls. Shinji made to grab it, and it stopped.
"INTERRUPTION: ANGEL ALERT."
"Shit," said Shinji.
"Alright, alright, settle down kids."
Michael stood at the front of the conference room, in full pilot's gear. His helmet rested on the podium in front of him – they'd moved to another room, this one akin to a lecture theatre. The room fell silent as he began talking; NERV scientists and technicians sat beside pilots and command staff.
"Here's the situation. At seventeen hours thirty-three minutes today, the MAGI activated a prototype Angel detector. That device picked up a confirmed Angel signature here."
The screen behind him turned on, showing a picture of the mouth of a volcano.
"There's an Angel in Mount Fuji?!" one of the techs exclaimed.
"Yes, and thank you for that brilliant deduction, Lieutenant Ibuki. Those years of training have prepared you well for identifying famous landmarks," Michael said, giving the tech a look. "At eighteen hours six minutes, a geological survey crew that was in the area managed to get these pictures using an advanced ground-penetrating laser system."
Several pictures of a hard-looking egg replaced the iconic picture of .
"It appears that the Angel is currently in a dormant state. As this is a unique opportunity, we will be attempting to capture it alive. At the same time, it is under several hundred meters of lava. As such, the attack phase of the operation will be restricted to those Evangelions currently capable of using the Type-E equipment. The list of those Evangelions is as follows: Unit Two, Unit Five and Unit Eight. Despite this, all pilots are ordered to remain on standby until the Angel is dealt with. Further details about the operation will follow within the next few hours. Any questions?"
Several hands were raised into the air. Michael pointed at random, and Asuka stood up.
"Not that I'm complaining about finally being free from the rest of you," she began, "but why are there so few Evas able to use the Type-E equipment? On top of that, are we going to have to fight alongside the other Evas?"
"The minutiae of each individual Evangelion is not something I am particularly concerned about, Pilot Sorhyu," Michael retorted. "That said, making an Evangelion compatible with the Type-E equipment requires the addition of several expensive and heavy components. Considering how few active volcanoes there are on the planet, it's understandable why they'd leave it off all but a few. As for your second question, you will fight alongside whoever we tell you to fight. If Bugs Bunny were to show up and offer his services, I would expect you to fight beside him."
He pointed randomly again.
"How did we manage to get a geological survey team out there so fast?" Lieutenant Ibuki asked. "Aren't they kind of in high demand?"
"Again, this sort of thing isn't my concern," Michael answered, exasperated. "But, if you had listened, you would have heard me say they were already there. They're doing some sort of annual check-up on the mountain. Now, will those of you with similar nitpicks please put your hands down?"
All the remaining hands in the room went down. Michael put his head in his hands.
"Now I see why Katsuragi didn't want to take this briefing..."
"Captain Ayanami, sir!" Shinji called out as Michael tried to sneak out of the briefing room. He hadn't actually had a chance to eat anything today, after all. With a sigh, the blue-haired boy turned around.
"Spit it out, Ikari," he sighed.
"Sir. I've heard that my class at school might be going on a trip to Okinawa Beach soon-"
"If it's happening within the next three days, forget about it. Otherwise, you should probably still forget about it... but I'll see what I can do."
Michael walked away before Shinji could get another word in.
"Depth check."
Li Jie sighed as the insufferable British captain asked for yet another status update. It was bad enough that he'd been forced into what his friends were already calling the "balloon suit", but to be taking orders from him, of all people?
"This is Terrier Eight. Depth is target plus eight," Li reported. "Still descending at a rate of two per minute."
"Terrier Two here. Depth is target plus eight. Descent is two per minute."
The German girl was pleasant enough, Li supposed. The late-model plugsuit she had worn had been a welcome distraction, at least. Her reaction when the suit ballooned out was similarly welcome.
"Terrier Five. Depth plus eight. Descent two per minute."
Li cursed the Russian boy – Ivan – for the fiftieth time. Li's English was bad enough, and adding a Russian accent on top? It was a miracle he understood what Ivan was talking about.
"Copy that, Terriers. Foxhounds, everything still set with you?"
Li tuned out the chorus of replies from the other Evangelion pilots, and got back to doing his job. The lava was too dense to make out anything using Unit 08's eyes, so he looked instead at his instrument panel. The target hadn't moved since it'd been found the day before.
He opened a radio channel to Unit 02.
"So," Li said, "what's it like? Fighting Angels?"
He kicked himself as he spoke – the guest of countless talk shows and that's the only thing he could think of to ask?
"Not normally this boring," Asuka replied. "We've been at this for hours. All the other battles combined would have been over by now!"
"Six hours for transport. Two hours on top of that to finish widening the volcano so we could all fit. At least one hour inside here... how long is this going to go on for?" Li leaned back in his cockpit as he complained, trying to get comfortable.
"As long as it takes, Terrier Eight."
Li growled in frustration.
"Huntsman Seven, we've been stuck in these suits for hours. We don't even have any music playing! Besides, this was a private channel. Do you not understand the word "private"?"
He knew his reaction was slightly over-blown, but aside from giving orders those British assholes hadn't spoken a single damned word.
"Private. Adjective: Belonging to or for the use of one particular person or group of people only. When referring to activities: involving only a particular person or group, and often dealing with matters that are not to be disclosed to others. Can also refer to thoughts or feelings not to be revealed to others, a person who does not often disclose their thoughts or feelings, or a place where such thoughts, feelings and activities can be disclosed or undertaken in secret or without interruption." Michael's voice droned out of the speakers, and Li stared in disbelief. "There's more, but I'm not going to bother reading it."
"That's just being pedantic! You knew exactly what-"
Michael cut Li off.
"Sensors are reading you as within capture distance. I'm saying go for it."
"Got it," Li acknowledged. "Terrier Eight has the cage. Terrier Two and Five, move to support positions."
He engaged the capture cage – a hollow rectangle made of special conductors that could transfer electric current in the extreme heat of the volcano. All Li had to do now was to reach down, and grab the egg.
He did so.
The egg cracked.
"Oh, shit," he said.
The Angel, still clad in most of its egg, burst out of the mouth of the volcano, trailing wires, lava... and three Evangelions. It expanded as it flew up in a flurry of movement. The Evas kept in reserve – Units 00, 01, 06, 07 and 09 – opened fire as one.
Their shots sparked, uselessly, off of the Angel's AT Field.
It slowed down, and the last bit of the egg fell off.
"I was expecting a dragon or something," Rose admitted. "Does anyone know what that's supposed to be?"
"Ophanim," said Tatyana. "An Angel from the bible. Is chariot."
"Core's in the centre," Michael said, cutting off the discussion. "Let's get to work."
He couldn't resist muttering; "Damned thing doesn't look anything like a chariot to me..."
Li's mind snapped back into focus. Where the hell was he?
Oh, right.
He keyed in the command to jettison the Type-E equipment – which thankfully deflated his suit too – and took stock of the situation. Angel? Check. Unit 08? Check. Several miles between him and the ground? Check.
This would be a good time to mention that Li did not suffer from a fear of heights. He suffered instead from a fear of hitting the ground after falling from a height – a distinction which eludes many modern psychologists but is important nonetheless. That said, in this instance both phobias would ultimately have the same effect.
Li lost a few seconds as his mind tried to deal with the fact that he (in a war machine weighing somewhere in the region of hundreds to thousands of tonnes) was hanging off of what appeared to be two rings somehow spinning inside each other by five threads.
Another part of his mind used that time far more productively.
Unit 08 started swinging.
"Terriers! Can any of you take that thing's AT Field down?"
It was probably no use, Michael knew, but it had to be asked. The harsh squealing noise of the Angel's AT Field was his only reply.
"Going to combat synchronisation," he said – not an order, but a warning. Rose laid a hand on his shoulder from behind him, and he gripped it.
He closed his eyes.
Click
Unit 07 opened its eyes.
"How the hell do we deal with a flying Angel?!" Shinji screamed as yet another round from his upscaled sniper rifle did absolutely nothing to the enemy.
"You know," he ranted, "I designed a weapon that could actually be useful here, but nooo! My fucking Father had to ignore every single fucking request me and the MAGI made to put it into production!"
The rifle clicked empty. He reloaded without breaking stride.
"There's eight of us! EIGHT! Every single Evangelion on the planet! So why, in the name of every damned hell in every fucking religion, is it looking at me?!"
"Shinji," said Rei, over in Unit 00 next to him, "Has anyone told you how irate you get when you fight?"
For her part, the blue-haired girl was showering the Angel with bullets from an almost comically sized Gatling gun. They had just as much effect as Shinji's rounds (and the shots from every other ground-level Eva) – that is to say, none at all.
"This always happens, though!" Shinji argued. "Every bloody time! It's like they want me, specifically, dead for some reason!"
"The Angel has yet to attack," Rei pointed out. "And you are the most successful Angel-killer. They may have some way of knowing that."
The two concentric rings that made up the Angel aligned, both outside the other and simultaneously inside each other. Shinji caught a brief glimpse of the core, in the exact centre of the circles, before the Angel attacked.
Shinji screamed as the Angel's beam washed over his AT Field.
Asuka grunted as Unit 02 hit the ground. Unit 05 followed shortly after – both had been cut loose when the Angel had fired its beam.
"Catch," said two voices over her speakers. An assault rifle was thrown in her direction, so she grabbed it. The Angel was still firing, the light overloading her cameras and blinding her Eva's eyes.
She fired anyway.
The Angel screamed, and retreated back into its defensive posture.
The rings were spinning now. On the plus side, this was making Li's job a lot easier. On the down side, the entry plug now smelled of vomit.
Now all he needed was a way through...
Unit 07 looked up, blinking away the last few dots left by the actinic glare of the Angel's beam. They saw Unit 08 spinning around the Angel. Two of Unit 07 laughed, amused by the sight. The third pondered it, and came to a conclusion.
Unit 07 looked down at their feet. There was a box there, containing their longsword.
A spring (or rather, rocket)- loaded box.
Unit 07 came to another conclusion.
Li vomited for the third time as he circled the Angel for what seemed like the eightieth. He could barely keep his eyes open, which was a good thing because the sky and the ground seemed to be swapping places a lot right now.
A glint of sunlight on metal, and the fire of a rocket caught his eye. He reached out.
A longsword fell (or flew, it was getting hard to tell) into his hand.
Not pausing to consider the rather minute possibility of this exact sequence of events occurring, Li waited for another circuit of the Angel, and released his tethers.
Unit 08 flew upwards one last time. It hung for a moment in the air, and began to fall. Li triggered his emergency manoeuvring thrusters, pushing him down. He even managed to get the sword in front of his body.
His AT Field met the Angel's, and both gave way. Blade met Angel-flesh, and bit through.
All Li could do was close his eyes and hold the sword as steady as he could-
and then Unit 08 was free, and falling, and the two halves of the Angel fell beside him as the core detonated.
Li then realised he was headed straight for the mouth of the volcano.
Unit 07 moved even before the Angel died. One of it had realised exactly where Unit 08 was going to fall, and was determined to save its comrade.
It got to the mouth of the volcano, hand outstretched, just as Unit 08 passed the rim.
Li felt the shock as Unit 07 caught him. He sighed, letting the adrenaline shock fade from his body.
"Fuck Sir Isaac Newton," he breathed.