Disclaimer:Studio Gainax and Hideaki Anno own Neon Genesis Evangelion and all related characters. I own all original characters and plot elements. Please don't sue me, 'cause I'm barely able to pay back student loans as it is. Anyway, one with the show! I present to you "Round 1, Part 2: Playtime of the Gods".
Captain Misato Katsuragi, Operations Director for Nerv-01 in Japan could have never in a million years have ever anticipated what was now going on on the surface relayed to the command centre's huge holographic main screen via observation camera's placed discreetly throughout Tokyo-3. She had witnessed Shinji's horrid transformation into a monstrous version of himself that reminded her of an Evangelion without the armour, with the long boney limbs and almost skeletal physique, the brownish-purple skin, those horrible eyes of his practically bulging out of his now-inhuman skull, and even a blood curdling roar issuing from his vaguely saurian mouth which was filled with razor sharp teeth. The Angel engaging Unit-01 had actually spoken aloud after killing a small handful of civilians which sent Shinji into a murderous rage, which his foreign mentor Dr. Emil Gannon had explained caused his transformations.
Misato had read up on the so-called 'Incident', but many details had remained heavily classified. Dr. Gannon, while forbidden by executive order from the United Nations security council, as well as the Instrumentality Committee, could give her a bare bones explanation as to why Shinji and he suffered those terrifying transformative episodes.
"Oh, God...all of that happened in Las Vegas? No wonder you guys get so angry! If all of that happened to me, I don't think I would be able to be anything but angry! Also no wonder why you guys tried to avoid talking about it!" Misato turned to the Scotsman with a saddened look in her chocolate brown eyes, but he waved off her concern, a sad smile pulling at his lips.
"Aw, don't be worryin', Lass. Me and the boy made it out, as did Chairman Keel and My lunatic Yankee buddy, Dr. Carmine. I'll tell ya one thing though; if I ever lays me hands on the bastards that caused all that misery, somebody is gonna get Me boot right their friggin' arse!"
"Chairman Lorenz Keel was with you guys?" a surprised Misato asked, somewhat incredulous.
"Aye, indeed he was. Right now, though, I think we should be focusin' on this fight!"
Indeed they should, Misato thought as Unit-01 shot toward the Angel with such force, that its support frame was destroyed by the resultant shock-wave, and with such speed, the high-speed cameras actually missed it. Shinji's hideously transformed face was a richtous of savage rage, while the Angel's mask-like face seemed to ripple and morph, changing ever-so slightly. Misato wondered if the thing had some new trick up its slimy sleeve. She had read reports of the alien actually catching a ballistic missile with its bare appendage, pumping up like The Incredible Hulk, and then bisecting the missile with a violet energy beam it fired from an organic lens centred in its palm.
The weird light seeping out from between the seems of Unit-01's chest armour had a bizarre energy signature that not only was so completely alien that it could not be identified, but also was so intense as to defy categorization, but yet the intensity was enough to fry every single high-tech scanning device Nerv possessed but said system destruction wasn't occurring; in fact, electrical devices of every sort and shape were actually performing far above the norm due to the strange energy.
Misato guessed that this incredible energy was a key secret to Dr. Gannon's MAGI-2 on-board computer system. Something about that system wasn't just changing Unit-01, but the enemy as well, and the enemy very well knew it! From the dismayed look on the Scotsman's face, he knew it too, and didn't like it one bit, and from the equally dismayed groaning he was doing, he had never wanted this particular effect to occur in the first place.
"Why in the bloody Hell did I ever use the Transcendence Material as the base for the nervous tissue in the bio-neural circuitry? I should have just used it to help grow the nerve tissue, not grow nerve tissue from it!" Gannon snarled underneath his breath as he watched the fight between the empowered Evangelion and the hideous Angel escalate.
The two monstrous titans slammed into each other with enough force to generate a concrete-pulverizing spherical shock-wave. It spread out in an instant, shattering glass, ripping apart asphalt and masonry equally leaving dark powdery soot, crushing even sturdy metal bracing like it was thin tin. The heavily armoured buildings that hadn't been lowered into protective bunkers had actually fared quite well, coming out of the shock-wave with a few minor dents and scrapes.
Both of the Angels clenched grasping appendages, more three-digit claws than hands, slammed into Unit-01's armoured stomach while Unit-01 introduced its right fist to the still intact primary face of the Angel. Unit-01's stomach armoured was cracked and dented extensively by the powerful blow, but the Angel's primary face fared no better, as it exploded like an over-ripe fruit being smashed with a sledge hammer. The two combatants were each blown away by the impact of the blows. The Angel slammed against the rooftop of a large warehouse that didn't submerge into a protective bunker due to it being ready to condemn, rolled off, and unceremonious flopped onto the street behind the building. Unit-01, however, landed on its feet and skidded backward down a long street for several blocks until it smashed against a rather high office building that was in the process of getting its bunker hydraulics fixed, ergo why it had not been lowered into said bunker. It actually knocked over the building and landed on top of it, fully collapsing the front of the skyscraper like a gigantic sofa cushion, minus the cushioning effect.
Within the entry plug, Shinji felt his ribs crack when the Angel had initially punched his Evangelion and now they were outright broken; more like crushed into gravel, from Shinji's point of view. He decided to replace his visor and tried to calm himself, knowing that angry people made foolish mistakes, but he really didn't want to calm down; he wanted total and brutal violence done upon the horror movie reject who felt inclined to murder five innocent people right in front of him. He realized that a lot more people than that had already died, and many more were soon to follow if Shinji didn't get his act together. He ignored the pain and began to focus, having to repeat the mental process as he psychically popped his ribs back into alignment.
Each time he did it it felt like being kicked by an angry mule from the inside-out.
He had to repeat the procedure eighteen times.
His Nephilim healing abilities would take care of the rest, aided thankfully by his suits built-in medical suite. Pain killers were injected directly into his blood stream, stimulants followed which would further speed the healing. He heard an eerie kind of growl, like a mixture of howling winds and an entire pack of angry wolves growling all at the same time. He pushed his Eva into a sitting position, then quickly got into a crouch. He realized that while the Angel was down he could finish it off, but from the sounds he heard, it was now either back on its feet and murderously angry, or getting to its feet and murderously angry. Shinji almost immediately heard the sound of huge, slowly advancing footsteps, followed by a hideous howl of rage, and guessed it was option number one.
Shinji realized that the Transcendence Material's unique radiation was escaping from the MAGI-2, and when he quickly checked the MAGI-2 schematics and compared them to what had actually been installed into the Evangelion, his blood boiled anew. The innocuous and relatively unimportant seeming specialized outermost casing for the unique bio-computer had been either left out of its installation, or removed after the fact. The casing was meant to contain and reflect the Transcendence Material's unique life-renewing and mutation inducing energy back into the MAGI-2, and most importantly, into Unit-01's core. While the majority of it was actually going where it was supposed to go, which also allowed the Eva to operate without an external power supply for several hours, a small but still substantial amount was escaping, and it was effecting the Angel as well, inducing mutagenic changes in the beast, which probably explained why it was so different than what Shinji had initially expected.
It could audibly communicate, it seemed to have a distinct sadistic streak, and it was undergoing a profound physical transformation. In an instant, Nerv Headquarters received the relevant information, along with detailed scans the MAGI-2 had been compiling since he struck the first blow. Shinji wanted to fully engage the berserk system and rip his opponent apart, but there would be such a release of Transcendence radiation that he'd probably end up making the Angel even more dangerous than it already was. That was simply unacceptable.
As he pondered his now many problems, the MAGI-2 pilot interface system responded to his thoughts and began analyzing the problem from the inside out. It sent the accumulated data to Nerv headquarters, where Dr. Gannon, after giving Commander Ikari a withering look, whipped out his PDA, entered several passwords into a specially programmed application, and remotely connected to the MAGI-2. He thankfully had a feature- two actually- designed into each layer of shielding in case one layer was damaged or failed to aid in containing all the radiant energy.
Each shielding layer generated a harmonic resonance field that was a polar opposite to the energy being generated by the Transcendence Material born bio-neural tissue but because the Transcendence Material generated so much of the miraculous power at one time, each individual layer could only contain about a third of what was generated. That's why there was an inner layer, a mid-layer, and an outer layer. The MAGI-2, through the very material its living circuitry was grown from, could generate its own power, and a staggering amount at that. There were also specialized converters that could use the unique energy the Transcendence Material generated to produce regular electricity to power each shielding layer.
These same shielding layers first emergency feature was simply a power setting system for the converters; Gannon simply typed in a command and the converters began using more of the Transcendence energy to generate more electrical power to power the shielding layers. Feature number two was a bit more straight-forward, but no less risky, since each shielding layers converters were rated to handle only so much, and now they were being taxed well above the highest safety rating for the devices. Feature number two, a genuine miniaturized cold fusion reactor, would also be employed to provide a power boost to the shielding layers, but it would also mean overloading those same shielding layers all the faster.
"Screw it", Shinji snarled to himself as the Angel came into view again, cracking its new knuckles getting ready to smash Evangelion Unit-01's head to pieces. Shinji could actually feel the LCL in the Entry plug begin to get warmer, and realized that it was the Angel's power doing it. The holographic display to his right came on, showing a very concerned Misato and a flustered Dr. Gannon.
"Shinji, Me lad, I got the converters for the shielding layers cranked up on bust, so we won't have to worry about the Angel gettin' a power-boost its own self. Just whatever ya do, don't use the bloody Berserk system!"
"Please, Shinji, just come back to base and we'll try to fix whats wrong, then you can have another crack at the bastard!" Misato desperately pleaded with the young Nephilim as a warning timer displayed appeared on-screen as well, indicating to Shinji that he only had about an hour before the converters over-loaded.
He turned to his quirky mentor and new commanding officer and smiled at them both, which made the two adults look at the charge questioningly. Shinji flicked a switch on the wrist of his plug suit, which caused a recessed panel behind his left butterfly grip to slide open. Gannon understood immediately what Shinji meant to do, but before he could issue any protest, Shinji slammed his closed fist onto a rather large and dark red plunger button. He heard a sound reminiscent of a large turbine engine coming up to speed, followed by an explosive sound like a rocket engine igniting. Those sounds meant that the miniature cold fusion reactor had just activated and powered up to maximum. With a quick mental command from Shinji, the reactor channelled about thirteen percent of its total power to the shielding layers, while the rest of it went to powering the Evangelion.
Dr. Gannon and Misato both yelled for Shinji to stop and listen to them, while the Commander threatened to expel Shinji from Nerv and place formal charges against him if he didn't power down the reactor at once, all saying that he now only had approximately ten minutes before all his systems overloaded from the extreme strain of channelling all that power now surging through the Evangelion's power systems.
Shinji smirked and looked to the screen again and said, "Sorry everybody, but its the only way I'm gonna beat this thing. I'm gonna use the Berserker system now, since I don't have to worry about Ugly out there getting a boost himself anymore because of a hardware glitch that somebody tried to cause because the outer-most layer of shielding was taken off the damn MAGI-2!" He cut communications just as the Angel bent down and grabbed Unit-01 by the throat and picked it up. Its grip was solid, but strangely steady; it also grabbed the Eva's left arm as Shinji tried to punch it, and blocked the other fist and both feet with its own AT-Field.
Its unearthly voice, strangely smooth, slid against Shinji's ears as it spoke aloud again, "Any last words before you I send you to your final rest?"
"Yeah", Shinji answered through the Eva's loud speakers as the Angel's blood red core began to glow with an intense lurid light.
"And what would that be, little monkey? Your construct is strong, but I, Sachiel, am so much stronger" The Angel questioned, sounding mostly amused, but with a distinct hint of angry malice tinting its voice, all the while trying to break the Eva's left arm but with little success.
Shinji's answer was a single word:
"Berserker!"
Dr. Gannon's initial mistake when he saw thatbrilliant light issuing from within the Evangelion was that Shinji had activated the Berserker system, but in fact the MAGI-2 lacking its outer-most layer of shielding allowed a substantial amount of Transcendence Energy to escape which caused the incredible physical transformation in Unit-01, plus the Evangelion was somehow channelling its pilots incredible anger. He had completely misunderstood the actions of the Evangelion, he had been so wound up by those people getting killed and everything else that was goin' on. He felt like an idiot for jumping to conclusions, but now he felt like an even bigger idiot for building the Berserker System in the first place!
He now had front-row seats to the true activation of the Berserker system, and that horrid alien getting ripped apart by a forty story bio-mechanical killing machine that was, for all intents and purposes, about to go completely insane with killer rage, as well as blow itself sky-high in the process.
The mighty Unit-01 roared with such power, that the Angel lost its grip completely and staggered back, but completely deployed it AT-Field to defend itself. The now crazed Evangelion, its eye now glowing a wild electric green, unfurled its own AT-Fieldand slammed into the startled super alien's own At-Field, the two opposing fields rippling like water, sparking like blades as they pulsed and ground against each other. The Eva roared again at its enemy's defiance and rammed the tips of its fingers into the very center of the clashing fields.
Somehow, its fingers found purchase, but only in the enemy's AT-Field, as the Evangelion's own Field seemed to wrap itself around the Eva's fingers of its own accord like it had a mind of its own, and the Evangelion began to physically tear a hole in the Angel's AT-Field, once thought to be a wholly impenetrable energy barrier. The crazed war machine snarled and roared and snarled again in mindless rage as the Angel's field fought against the Eva's brute strength. It was of no avail as the Evangelion managed to tear a whole big enough for it to focus its own field through like a spear which spread apart into many great talons of amber energy and ripped the opposing field apart, shattering it like pane glass as the Evangelion's field explosively expanded. The Angel shrieked in protest, then audibly roared what sounded like Arabic curses in anger, firing a powerful blast of crimson energy from its core, an attack it had been charging up for since before Shinji activated the Berserker system.
The mighty Evangelion dropped to a crouch so fast, the deadly beam shooting past and missing completely, and then sprang straight up, getting some air and hopefully buying a few moments. Sadly, the Angel had the same idea and was now face to face with the huge bio-mech. Just before it brought both its arms down onto Unit-01's head, Shinji realized, still self-aware enough to think at all, that the Angel's two faces had merged into one single coherent head, which greatly resembled an Evangelion's, but with a solid bone shell; it had an actual mouth that was armoured with an external jaw bone, and the skin of its mouth actually covered its teeth when its mouth was closed, but in this case, it mouth was pulled back into a demonic, fang filled angry smile. Shinji felt his head being slammed into his stomach by the double axe-handle slam and fought to stay conscious, even as his Evangelion was sent hurtling back to the Earth. Shinji flipped the Eva over so it landed on its huge feet and shot back up after the Angel, who had shot down after the Evangelion. Unit-01 whipped out an upper cut hay-maker that caught the Angel right under its new jaw, shattering the outer bone, and probably the inner bone as well, abruptly halting its downward momentum, snapping it back upward, along with snapping its head back so far it seemed to touch its own spine, twisting and breaking the spine in the process as the Evangelion spun like a cork-screw in mid-air.
The Angel squealed in agony and shock as its torso was twisted in ways no living beings body should ever be twisted, and tried to lash out with its now strangely five-fingered clenched fist, but the now berserk Evangelion clamped down on the offending limb with its teeth and savagely ripped it off then slugged the alien abomination in the lower chest area with a straight right, its enormous purple fist bursting out through the back. It quickly jammed its other hand into the gaping wound and proceeded to savagely rip the Angel bodily in two.
It grabbed the Angels legs and used the Angels lower half to swat the Angel away like some kind of annoying insect, but just as it did, the whole lower body seemed to liquify and wrap around the startled bio-mechanical monster.
For the briefest of instances, the Angel's black flesh glowed like a star, so perfectly blinding and searing, night turned into day and the very air seemed to catch fire, but then it exploded as the Angel's flesh detonated with the force of a medium-yield ballistic missile, but was strangely directional as it sent the now charred and smoking Evangelion flying many miles past Tokyo-3's city limits and into the rural countryside.
The Angel, on the other hand, had now fully regenerated its upper body while it was now rapidly growing an entirely new lower body, pursuing the Evangelion to make sure of its defeat simultaneously. In under thirty seconds, it had completely recovered from its butchering by Unit-01, and appeared to shake itself off, grumbling, "That is the last time I underestimate these disgusting little monkeys. It is also certainly the last time any of them do that to me!"
As the Angel landed on its new feet, giving the area a cursory glance to be sure of its enemy's demise, it once again began advancing on Nerv Headquarters but suddenly it heard a most discomforting sound. A familiar roar split the air, and the Angel whipped around in time enough to get both of Unit-01's huge feet slammed into its chest on either side of its core. The Angel was in a state of perfect surprise as it briefly registered that the enemy had itself completely regenerated, but how could its artificial parts restore themselves?
One of the huge bio-mech's hands viciously dug into the flesh just to the side of its glossy red core, and grabbed on for dear life. The Eva wasn't trying to rip out the core, though. What it did was open one of its odd shoulder pylons, grabbed its progressive knife, and drove the weapon right up to the hilt in the Angel's armoured head. Unit-01 then proceeded to tear the blade out of the Angel's head, right through its hideous visage and then rammed the giant-sized knife into the Angel's chest, right below the core, twisting and turning the blade every which way, trying to simple hook and rip the core out, wielding the progressive knife like a crude scalpel. It began tearing out the external ribs of the Angel, even going so far as to stab the Angel with its own torn-out anatomy. It clawed out the Angel's eyes, ripped off portions of the boney casing of its head and stabbed it with them, biting and chewing at its throat, its mutilated face, anything it could lash out at.
The truly savage Evangelion had clamped down on the Angel's throat, attempting to quite literally bite the things head off, when a sudden violet blast of light erupted from the Angel's core and sent Unit-01 flying once again. The Angel dropped to one knee, undergoing yet another transformation even as it healed, coughing up great gouts of blood and chunks of its own tissues. It was now distinctly humanoid, its boney shoulders now reasonably proportioned, and a more substantial physique. Its feet ended in five clawed toes, it had boney armour on its legs and arms, giving it the total appearance of wearing macabre body armour over a black body suit. The external ribs were now armored with heavy bone plates, but the core was left exposed.
"Enough of this. What patience I had has been wasted on this ridiculous little fool and his lunatic weapon. Ireul was right when he told me not to underestimate humans or their inventions. I have made a fool of myself and my siblings by not finishing this quickly, but humans are so much fun to terrorize!"
The Angel braced itself as it began to power up for a another blast, but this one would not be the halfhearted attempts like before. As Sachiel felt the power flow and build within him, he noticed something strange; several things actually.
Firstly, the human flying machine Sachiel had made note of earlier had released a large object from beneath it, and said object had actually stopped its own descent, right next to the now strangely calmed human construct. Why had it calmed so?
Dr. Joseph Carmine saw Shinji activate the Berserker system and swore the air blue. The kid was missing a layer of shielding on the MAGI-2, and had turned on the built-in cold fusion engine? Damn crazy fool boy; no wonder Carmine loved the boy like a little brother, but there'd be time for catching up later. He transmitted a code to the MAGI-2 that would force the Berserker System to recognize him as an ally; friend-or-foe systems were so handy! The Evangelion regarded the approaching super carrier with some trepidation, but mostly barely contained rage, and what Carmine would consider frustration at having its fun interrupted. He released his cargo and banked away, smiling as he saw the packages plasma engines kick in, pure white super-hot flame stopping the downward momentum in a heartbeat.
The mysterious package was in fact an second Exo-shell, but what nobody except for himself and Chairman Keel knew was that this exo-shell was the one meant for Unit-01, not the one that Commander Ikari had so conveniently misplaced. The first exo-shell was in fact meant for the prototype Evangelion, Unit-00. The Commander's passionate resistance to any kind of upgrades to Unit-01 had given Keel the rather sneaky idea to have back-up plans in place to make the upgrades happen, Ikari's blessing or not.
Ikari had basically wasted time and personnel trying to track down and sabotage the wrong exo-shell, not to mention given away the fact that he had attempted such subterfuge in the first place.
As the exo-shell meant for Unit-01 landed, it initially looked like a long, bulky high-tech coffin or escape pod, but the instant it touched ground, heavy mechanical locks began to disengage and powerful servo motors started up, all initiating a physical transformation that in under fifteen seconds had converted the exo-shell from its stasis form into a gigantic, color-matched, heavily armored power suit meant for an Evangelion, but one with Unit-01's dramatically increased mass and heavier proportions, a very well predicted side-effect of Transcendence Material radiation.
The Evangelion regarded the shell warily, but approached it slowly and even began to sniff it like a dog trying to scent something unfamiliar, though it remained standing up. It seemed to grudgingly accept the shell, though it jumped back in surprise as the shell opened like a blossoming flower. The Eva slowly stalked back up to the shell, and seemingly emboldened, actually climbed inside and connected itself to the proper ports, locking in to place with several hard metallic bangs. The shell closed around the Evangelion, establishing a real-time connection between the MAGI-2 and its own on-board computer system. It also established a hard connection to the Eva's power systems using the excess energy to speed its own full activation. With the exo-shell equipped, the potentially catastrophic overload was quickly averted, and with only a mere five seconds left to spare.
The exo-shell required three cold fusion reactors to function to its full potential; two of the reactors was built into the shell itself and the other, the MAGI-2's additional power source, was now safely tucked away within Unit-01's armored abdomen. The shell now had all the power it would ever need, and the Angel now only just realized it had allowed its enemy to acquire a particularly deadly new weapon.
"Superior life-form, I called Myself. Yes, well, not so much it seems!"
The Angel's self-deprecationwas well founded as the now exo-shell equipped Evangelion Unit-01 raised its massive armored left arm and fired off a barrage of heavy missiles. Even as the Angel quickly deployed its AT-Field to block the attack, it could intrinsically sense something very wrong with the projectiles being launched against it; not wrong as in mistake-kind-of wrong, but wrong as in unsettling-and-abhorrent-kind-of wrong. When the missiles hit Sachiel's AT-Field, for the briefest of instances they seemed to drink up the very substance of his Field, which was then instantly regurgitated, but not from the points of impact where it was taken from, but at random points across the entire field. This created a startling visual effect, as the image of the Angel seemed to warp and twist, portions seemingly pulled into what vaguely appeared to be stylized interpretations of miniature black holes, and spit out somewhere else. The following effect was far more dramatic, as the Angel's own AT-Field seemed to back fire on its self and self-destruct. The Angel's body seemed to rip itself apart in a fiery conflagration, sending what was left of it into a near-by lake. As its head and what remained of its upper body sank like a rock, its core crack and partially dislodged from what was left of its torso, began to sputter and spark, but not before one last ditch effort. The Angel used but the smallest portion of its remaining power to launch itself back out of the lake and right at the Evangelion. It screamed defiance as it willfully detonated its own core, quite literally right in Unit-01's heavily armored face.
"For you, My Kin! DIIIEEEEE!"
The resultant blast was akin to several N2 mines being detonated at the same time against a single target. The black midnight sky turned so brilliant a white, that if anyone had looked directly at the blast, they would have gone permanently blind. The ground seemed to bounce and roll like waves from the shock-wave from the blast, solid rock that had lain undisturbed for countless millennium uprooted and pulverized to powder. The roar of the explosion was so powerful, the pressure waves alone would have shattered solid steel like fine crystal, and the sound itself could be heard on the mainland, knocking people to the ground like they had been struck hard.
Everything within a seven mile radius was completely vaporized. Everything else was either pulverized of flattened by the concussion waves and flash fried by the heat blast.
There is a passage about 'Hell coming to the sinner'.
Hell had come to Japan.
Tokyo-3 still stood, but even the heavily armored buildings meant to stay on the surface looked like they would fall to pieces with so much as a gentle tap from a child's fingers. To be blunt, the city, what buildings and other structures that had not been retracted into special heavy bunkers, had been utterly devastated.
This was only the first of many battles to come.
The Nerv command center was a hectic mess, as technicians and bridge crew tried to re-establish visuals of what was going on, recalibrate sensors and other equipment which had been disrupted by the Angel's self-destruct blast, clear significant amount of debris, and restore main power. Components had to be completely replaced and calibrated anew or hastily repaired and re-calibrated. Some personnel had been too close to pieces of equipment which had completely blown up or was struck by falling debris. One person was dead, his face charred and ruined right to the bone. Several more were badly burned and cut up by shrapnel, and one other person had their legs crushed by a support beam. Medics were hastily patching them up and spiriting them away to the medical bay. Thankfully, while some were indeed injured, they gritted their teeth and soldiered on, still able to stand, and in their own minds still able to work.
Dr. Gannon had been thrown across the bridge when one of the main consoles blew, trying to shield Maya and Shigeru; both had bumps and bruises but were okay. Dr. Gannon himself however...was missing an arm. What was left of the limb had closed up nicely, and it already starting to grow back, making Misato glad the man actually was part Angel, but sadly wishing he could pass that ability around.
The temperamental Scotsman shoved his dislocated shoulder back into place with an angry growl and walked back to the main console, trying to give the three 'bridge bunnies' a helping hand with his remaining hand, but being politely rebuffed and asked by all three to go to the medical bay to get checked out; Maya was aghast at his injury, Shigeru thought the foreigner was trying to be a bad-ass for trying to work even after losing a limb, and Makoto actually asked aloud, incredulous as all get out, "Are you nuts or something?"
Dr. Gannon answered, quite seriously, "I'm not really sure", and then ducked past the three and proceeded to strip some wiring-with his teeth. They all stared at his backside, since the rest of him was deep into the damaged console. They all realized that he had no tools for stripping the damaged wiring of casing and so Shigeru asked, "Uh, Doc, what are you using to strip the wires?"
Gannon stuck his head back out enough to look at the three, and they all saw he actually had several wires between his teeth. He simply pointed to his busy mouth, and said through the wires, "Any other questions?" Gannon grumbled something in what the Makoto thought was Old Gaelic and then suddenly thrashed about. The three quickly pulled him out of the console and Maya yanked the live wires from his mouth, noticing his badly burned lips.
"Knock it off, you whack job! Are you trying to get yourself killed?" An Angry Misato yelled at Gannon's Antics. The Scotsman simply groaned as the two male senior technicians helped the odd-ball doctor to his feet and began escorting him to the Med-bay. Misato heard Maya grumble as she got under the console herself, making damn sure to power it down first, and attempting to properly make repairs.
"Handsome? Oh, yes. Smart? Definitely. Funny? Sure. Quirky? Absolutely! Common sense? Nada". Misato snickered at that, and hoped that Dr. Gannon would hopefully look before he leaps from now on; while he may be some kind of super genius, he also had several very large screws loose.
"Yes!" Maya whooped with laughter as she managed to fix the console properly and finally get the external cameras back on line. She was so excited, she came up so fat she banged her head on the bottom edge of the console with a resounding bang, swearing emphatically and holding her head in both hands. The Deputy Commander had come down to see what he could do to help, so for the moment he gingerly helped a smarting Lt. Ibuki, while the Commander himself was actually helping other tech crews, a surprising action coming from the normally aloof head of Nerv. As the Deputy Commander helped Maya into her work chair, the other techs had managed to get primary systems back on-line. As the command center's lighting flickered back on to a steady glow, the holographic main view-screen ceased fritzing and once again projected a steady, solid image.
Everyone in the command center had soon wished that the image had not been nearly so clear, because what they saw outside was akin to Hell itself. There were pools and rivers of red hot liquid rock everywhere, like the caldera of an active volcano. Winds swirled and roared like a great storm, carrying with them hot sulfurous ash and oily black soot that would choke the life out of anything that got too close, a great ink-black cloud stretching across the once beautiful night sky. There was a great swirling mass of white hot flame at the center of the inferno that the Nerv staff now witnessed which seemed to fill up the screen. Some people weeped quietly, some did not. Some swore and cursed, angry at what the invader had done to their homeland, and many swore vengeance, silently or other wise.
As the sheer horror of what they all saw truly began to sink in, the great fire storm suddenly began to collapse into itself, as though being swallowed up from the inside out. All of the heat and flame and contaminants were actually being drawn back into the center of what had been the firestorm. The now rapidly cooling air was being drawn into a swirling vortex that steadily grew with every second, creating a massive column of spinning atmosphere that looked quite a bit like what people thought the pillar of cloud mentioned several times in the Christian Bible would look like.
After a full minute, a vague image could be seen at the center of the vortex, but whatever it was, it was huge. As the image slowly began to become more focused, clearer and more well defined, the Nerv staff were simply dumb-struck as each and everyone realized not only what the mystery form was, but also what was causing the vortex.
Evangelion Unit-01, still equipped with its exo-shell, confidantly strode out of the great pillar of cloud like a great royal purple armored God, immense and powerful and striking, its neon green highlights and black colored sections of armor shockingly impressive without the shell normally, but now with it, Eva Unit-01 was all the more visually stunning.
The Evangelion retained the Herculean physique it gained thanks to the Transcendence Material energy. The Exo-shell made it seem monstrously larger. The entire body was encased in a powered exo-skeleton that, when closed, was a completely integrated system, not a collection of powered components and add-ons. The legs began initally as a collection of bulging, curved heavy armor plating that vaguely resembled muscle groups tightly locked together that seemed to flare out somewhat at the hip. The outer thighs were fruther protected by rounded single-piece armor plates that were lined with glowing piping and large bluish mirror-like lenses. The knees integrated the hardened guard that waspresent on Unit-01 to start, but locked them down onto the heavily armored shins, just below a wicked looking triangular knee guard that could double as a stabbing weapon. The boots were a blend of intricate bio-mechanics, layers of decorative, interlocking heavy armor plating and heavy duty machinery, with what looked like arrays of cylindrical generators along the outside of the calf.
The torso section looked more than capable of lugging the much heavier armor, with armor plates designed to mimic the now tightly packed, hulking muscle underneath. Some of the exo-shell had a type of armor plating that was structured after actual muscle groups, known as Bio-Cybernetic plating; shape and placement, all capable of flexing just like living muscle tissue and just as pliable. Some of the mechanics were on the surface as well, musculature duplicating robotic motor systems and powerful servo motors, pneumatics and hydraulics but armored themselves as well. The ridiculously heavy looking body armor was topped off with large vents on either side of the Eva's ugly head, much more armor on the shoulder modules, the pylons folded down backward, two large cylindrical reactors on the back, and finally enormous heavy guantlets that started at the mid-bicep and ended with razor sharp claws that semed to be made of seemless metal that ended in claws, jagged along the back of the digits that each had a shield mounted to the fore-arm, which housed an extensive on-board weapon suite, not including all of the full exo-shell's weapon suites
Its most prominent physical change, however, was its head; a mechanized collar made the now muscular neck seem almost dome-shaped and the back of the ehad now completely protected by scale-like plate armor, a spiked jaw-piece making its demonic visage even more dreadful, but now the existing helmet piece had extra armored plates that covered each side of the beastial face with stylized optics proteting the eyes, connected near the back of the Eva's armored skull, though not connecting along the top of the Evangelion's head and snout, but connected via the heavier jaw add-on and a rather large, prominent curving crest that rose above the head like a sweeping crown. All in all, it gave the Evangelion the visage of an armored and angry saurian, like some kind of monstrous dinosaur.
Intimidating? Yes. Frightening? Absolutely. Something you want to make angry? Commit suicide now!
The Evangelions heavily armored hands now clenched into fists and the Eva adopted a stance, its legs spread apart, its fists held out in front of it, as though inviting attack, and then suddenly it roared as loud as it did when the Berserker system had truly been deployed. The pillar of cloud blew away, leaving a crystal clear night sky. The Evangelion now stood in the center of a fourteen mile wide crater. It stopped roaring and looked around, to the left and right and then behind. It turned back around and then, rather oddly shook its head slowly, as though greived by what it saw, and slowly but surely walked back toward the base.
As the Bridge crew fought to get over their stupification, monitors and computers came back on line and began displaying the pilots vitals and stats. The crews began to get their collective heads back into the game and began relaying information as it was displayed on their monitors. While some of what they were reading seemed relatively normal, some of the readings made no sense whatsoever. As Misato mentally slapped herself back to attention, She began asking the technicians and bridge crew what made the new readings so out of the ordinary.
One of new additions to the staff, an Ensign Kaede Agano, spoke up from behind her.
"Ma'am", Ensign Agano began, "While Pilot Ikari's heartrate is good, the readings we're getting show a kind of, well, 'heartbeat echo', like he has two hearts, maybe more. That's not the most unusual part. We're getting a distinct blue pattern from within the Entry plug; well, not a perfect blue pattern, but something that while its pattern is reading as something predominantly Angel, there is still a trace of a human pattern interlaced with this new signal, but its like the two patterns are intermingling and changing. What's more, there seems to be evidence of a completely unique and never-before identified pattern type beginning to emerge from Pilot Ikari himself".
Before Misato could even begin to formulate something to say to that, the Commander beat her to the punch.
"Send the emergency remote deactivation override command to Evangelion Unit-01 Immediately! Power it down, have it transported back to base, and place it on full emergency lockdown and put into immediate cryo-stasis! When the pilot is recovered, restrain and sedate him, and put him into full quarantine isolation! The possibility of contamination may have occurred!"
"Commander Ikari, Sir!" Misato tried to interrupt, but the Commander was having none of it.
"Captain Katsuragi, I have given My orders, and I expect them to be carried out. There will be NO discussion of anykind until a full and exhaustive examination of Unit-01 can be performed, safely and in a controlled environment. Or perhaps you would like to join Pilot Ikari?" He annunciated her rank for emphasis of his authority without having to remind her of it, and the threat was to make very plain his orders were to be followed to the letter; without question, without hesitation.
Misato Katsuragi growled underneath her breath, but calmly and clearly replied, "Sir! Yes, Sir, Commander Ikari!" She turned to the other bridge crew and said, "Dispatch a security team to the Eva cages! Also, deploy an ultra-heavy transport truck and service/supply team to pick up Evangelion Unit-01 after it has safwely and completely powered down. Initiate emergency Entry plug ejection and send recover teams to take the pilot into custody! Move!"
"Yes, Ma'am!"
Unbeknownst to everyone, someone sat in the Commander's huge and intimidating office, relaxing rather blithely in the Commander's large Corinthian leather chair, sipping Macallan, fine single-malt scotch and smoking a hand-rolled Cuban cigar, one of twenty remaining in all the world since Second Impact and The Resource Wars left Cuba a drowned-and bombed-out wasteland. He had his thousand dollar Guchi leather boots kicked up onto the Commander's massive desk, occasionally glimpsing at the small video monitor built into the desk, observing the battle and aftermath with almost lazy boredom, but scrutinizing every minute detail as they generated.
He missed nothing.
He held his cigar with his teeth as he raked his freed hand through his platinum white hair, the blacks of his eyes makig the electrical blue of his iris' pop. His eliptical pupils narrowed like a snakes as the battle concluded, and Ikari barked and struted about like the fool he really was. Oh, he'd come to Shinji's rescue soon enough, but the show was far too entertaining to pass up! He smiled his vampiric smile, the dim light of the office making his very pronounced canines gleam. He stood from the desk and downed the last of the Macallan, swearing at himself for finishing that fine drink in so brutish a manner, then smiled ruefully and shrugged, as though to say 'oh, well'. He began walking toward the sweeping rear window of the office, but from his pace, it seemed he wasn't going to slow down, not at all.
Even more bizarre was the fact that the mystery man seemed to become transparent as he walked becoming less substantial as he walked, eventually disappearing all together when he was but five steps from the window.
No one ever realized that someone had been there.
Author's Notes: Well, Folks, I never thought that I'd get this out to you so quickly, so everybody had a great surprise! I hope you have enjoyed reading this latest installment as much as I have had in writing it and presenting it to all of you! Please, read and leave me reviews, they inspire me to write faster! I hope to see you all again in our next installment of Forbidden Designs, titled "Backstories Better Left Alone".