Chapter 4: The Best Laid Plans

No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the enemy.

-Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

Salt water flowed in rivulets off the creature's smooth back as it silently rose from the depths of the pacific. Almost immediately, it was met by a volley of fiery projectiles from the annoying flying creatures that circled over its hovering form. They detonated harmlessly on its hardened purple carapace, leaving little more than a series of scorch marks.

It briefly considered extending an arm to swat the creatures away as they made another fruitless attack, but it was hardly worth the effort. There was nothing the Lilin, if that was what these irritating pests were, could possibly do to even scratch its armoured skin, let alone harm it.

More importantly: from somewhere over the horizon, something called to it.

It was the thing's creator; its father which had blessed it with the gift of flight. Unique among Adam's children, it could freely roam the skies of the world that was rightfully theirs.

The creator's anguished cries told the creature that it was somehow imprisoned by these tiny things. It would free him, so together they could retake what was theirs by birthright.

Yes, these flying pests were of no consequence. Once it rejoined with the creator, they and the rest of their kind would be cleansed from the face of the earth, exterminated like the vermin they were.

Turning to face the direction of Adam's call, the massive being pushed off against the air like a fish against the water. Its first few seconds of flight were unsteady; it was, after all, effectively a newborn infant. But after a few wobbly moments, it steadied itself by dipping an insect-like leg into the ocean, and soon it was confidently jetting off low across the water, leaving its attackers far behind.

It slowed to a leisurely pace once it could no longer detect the pursing Lilin behind it, and focused its attention on the dark mass of land appearing on the horizon. More of them were approaching from that direction, some flying, some floating on the ocean's surface.

Perhaps it would stop just long enough to destroy a few, if nothing else for the satisfaction of showing the Lilin what true power looked like.

"All rise! Bow! Be seated!"

Shinji went through the mechanical motions to the sound of the class rep's nasally voice as the doddering old teacher shuffled over to his desk.

Gee, I wonder what he'll talk about today he thought, already bored as his gaze slid towards the windows.

"Good morning class, today we'll be continuing our discussion of post-second impact world history. Please open your computers and bring up the notes for chapter four."

Shocker.

As he settled in for another dry lecture he had already heard, he cast his eyes about the classroom. He had only been in class 2-A for a bit over a week, and yet there were already noticeably fewer students than when he had arrived. No doubt their families had fled as a result of his pitiful performance in battle.

How many had died because of his cowardice? How many had been maimed and wounded? According to Misato, or anyone else he asked at NERV, it was none. But he knew better; they were lying to him just like they lied to the public. Looking behind, he caught a pair of girls staring at him, turning away with a giggle as soon as they saw his eyes.

They knew. They knew he was the coward who had let their city be ravaged, and they hated him.

And so they should. As he replayed the events of the fight over and over again in his head, he found plenty to hate himself for. If he had shown a bit of courage and gone straight for the core as Misato had instructed him to, then maybe Unit-01 wouldn't have gone berserk and rampaged through the city. Maybe the Angel wouldn't have destroyed a chunk of the city, and taken god knows how many lives with it when it self-destructed.

He wanted so desperately to be brave. He knew what was at stake. But whenever he mentally put himself back into the entry plug, staring down the enemy, he willed himself to fight but again and again found himself paralyzed by fear.

Why couldn't he be like Misato, who seemed to actively seek out the thrill of danger rather than run from it. And why couldn't he be like the pilot?

The man had seemed cool as a cucumber as he climbed down from his aircraft at the conclusion of that hair-raising flight a few days ago. He and Misato later ran into him back at the apartment complex's parking lot, the pilot gathering his things from the back of a beat-up green Datsun pickup truck as Misato parked next to it. Not at all the type of vehicle Shinji Imagined a fighter pilot would drive, but he supposed the used car market in Tokyo-3 didn't exactly spoil one for choice.

The Major was mortified to see the damage he had inadvertently caused to Misato's blue Renault, and immediately insisted on paying for the repairs out of his own pocket. Shinji strongly suspected Misato had planned the encounter with just such an outcome in mind, though she still refused a polite number of times before accepting the offer with feigned reluctance.

Misato then insisted he join them for dinner, and the pilot was just as calm as he had been that morning as he regaled them with the tale of his narrow brush with death over a meal of instant curry. He even managed to get a chuckle out of Shinji by jokingly comparing Misato's cooking to military rations, when she was out of earshot of course.

For her part, Shinji thought Misato had been a bit rude during the dinner, endlessly interrogating their guest about every detail of the day's flying. Certainly not what Shinji would consider polite dinner conversation, but if the pilot were offended he gave no indication, and he supposed Misato probably had her reasons. When his guardian had finally played out that line of questioning, she casually asked if their guest had any good war stories to tell.

His blunt reply had stayed with Shinji ever since. The only stories that came from war, he said, were tragedies. There was a time and a place to share them, but it was not in pleasant conversation around the dinner table.

From his own experience of war thus far, Shinji was inclined to agree.

The conversation stagnated after that, and the pilot soon after thanked them for the meal and excused himself, disappearing into the night.

Sparing a quick glance at Rei's bandaged form, slumped in her chair with her chin resting on her palm as usual, he returned his gaze to the blue skies outside. Misato had mentioned there was another test flight scheduled for today, maybe the pilot would pay them a visit and drown out the teacher's ceaseless yammering with a roar from those huge engines.

"... and we turn our attention now to North America. Of all the nations of the northern hemisphere, the United States was one of the worst affected by the disaster known to us as the second impact. You children are too young, but I can remember a time when the United States was not just a superpower, but was the dominant power in the world. Even more powerful than the UN is today. They had military installations on every continent, including in Japan."

Huh, the teacher had actually managed to stumble onto a topic Shinji hadn't already heard about half a dozen times. Figuring he ought to knock off his daydreaming before he was called out for it anyways, he began to pay attention for the first time that morning.

"Yes, the United States of today is a mere shadow of its former self. Over a third of the population was wiped out almost immediately by the wave of tsunamis and flooding, caused, as you all know, by the sudden melting of the Antarctic ice cap. The changing climate turned the Southern part of the country into an uninhabitable desert, and Millions starved as crops wilted and lakes dried up. Six months after second impact, nearly half of the population of the United States was gone."

Scrolling through the notes on his laptop, Shinji came across a map of North America. It was huge, he realized, it seemed like a dozen or more Japans could fit just into the southern half of the US.

He lifted his eyes back to the front of the room as the old man went on. "The north, meanwhile, was inundated with tens of millions of refugees from the south. There simply was not enough food or water to go around. The government of the United States had all but collapsed by this point, and could do nothing to stop the chaos that began to engulf the country."

The teacher paused for a moment to clean his glasses, before continuing his grim lecture.

"It was at this moment, that a group of Generals; known today as the 'Junta', used what was left of the once mighty military of the United States to seize control of the country, restoring order through a brutal crackdown. The problem of too many mouths to feed remained, however, and the Generals cast their eyes upon their neighbour to the north."

Canada. Looking down at the map on his screen, he glanced over the impossibly vast land that lay north of the US. He recalled seeing the word stitched on the sleeves of the pilot's uniform. So that's where he came from.

"Thirty-five million people lived in Canada at the time of second impact. Compared to the United States or Japan, the population was concentrated much further inland, and so Canada lost only about fifteen percent of its people to the immediate effects of second impact. It was once a very cold country, with the vast majority of its land being unsuitable for agriculture. However, with the warming climate, hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of previously frozen tundra soon became arable land, and this along with a longer growing season meant that food was in abundance. In addition, Canada's lakes and rivers hold twenty percent of the world's fresh water, and its tar sands contain around ten percent of the world's oil reserves. It should be obvious, then, why tensions quickly began to rise between the Canadian Government and the new American Junta."

Shinji couldn't believe that so few people lived in such a huge country. Despite the losses from second impact, there were still about eighty million crammed into Japan.

"Now, today, Canada is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, a political alliance similar in function to the European Union. It was a founding member, along with Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, and over a dozen other countries, mostly former British colonies, have since joined. All of the commonwealth countries owe allegiance to the British monarch, and together they act as one in world affairs, though member states must still maintain their own military forces. Back then, however, though these countries maintained close ties, no such formal alliance yet existed, and Canada had to face the Junta alone."

A ding from Shinji's Laptop told him he had received a message from a classmate, but he ignored it for a moment. To his surprise, he'd found himself genuinely invested in the coherent narrative the dotard at the front of the class had managed to piece together for a change.

"Throughout the summer of two-thousand-one, relations between the two previously allied countries steadily deteriorated, as the Junta demanded ever steeper terms in negotiations regarding resource-sharing and refugee resettlement. By September, all diplomatic ties were severed, and the Junta decided to take what their country needed by force. On October first, American forces marched across the border, aiming to quickly seize the capital of Ottawa and other major cities in Eastern Canada. Their goal was to force the country to surrender its land and resources without a fight. Instead, as the Americans advanced north, they met with increasingly fierce resistance. Canadian forces, despite being heavily outnumbered, were determined to fight for every inch of ground. The other commonwealth nations soon rallied to their cause, and what followed would become the longest, one of the bloodiest, and certainly the most dramatic of the conflicts now known as the 'impact wars.'"

Huh, so that was the war Misato mentioned. Maybe I should ask the pilot about it some time. He remembered, however, how uncomfortable the man seemed to become when the subject was brought up. Hmm, maybe not.

"...Luckily, you children will never have to experience such a conflict. Thanks to the wonders of science, the tireless peacekeeping efforts of the United Nations, and the blood, sweat and tears shed by your parents, wars between countries are a thing of the past. Your generation will have a solemn duty to ensure that humanity continues to move forward as one, and..."

There it is. A collective silent groan rose from the class as the teacher launched back into his usual spiel.

"And just as he was gettin' to the good part too" he heard the kid with glasses mutter to himself.

Lowering his eyes to the laptop screen, he clicked the message notification, and his heart skipped a beat when he read it.

Are you the pilot of that robot? Y/N

"General quarters, all personnel to battle stations, condition one."

The monotone voice repeatedly blared over the intercom as Misato shouldered her way though the organized chaos in the corridors of NERV headquarters.

Alright, we get it already. Tan-uniformed men and women hurried in every direction as they rushed to get to their posts, but she paid them no mind, focused on projecting an aura of authority as she passed through the command centre's blast doors.

"Officer on deck!" Hyuga's shout brought the bridge crew to attention, to which Misato could only roll her eyes.

"Oh for god's sake Hyuga, I thought I told you to knock that stuff off. This isn't the navy." Her subordinate still stood at attention, however, motioning with his eyes to the top deck of the bridge, where the Sub-Commander had evidently entered at the same moment as she.

"Oh, sorry sir..." she mumbled, unconsciously coming to attention herself under Fuyutsuki's steady gaze. There was no reproach from the elderly gentleman, just a small smile.

"Think nothing of it, Captain. The commander is in the capital for a meeting, so I will be taking charge of this operation. Now, all of you, to your stations. Mister Hyuga, a report on the situation please." His voice carried its usual tone of calm command. The bridge crew returned to the their terminals, the bespectacled young man clearing his throat as he launched into a rundown of recent events.

"Half an hour ago, a JMSSDF submarine detected a massive object lying on the seabed about a hundred kilometres off the southern coast. It quickly rose to the surface and was engaged by air and naval assets, with no effect. It is now flying on a direct course for Tokyo three, and at its current speed will make landfall over Odawara in fifteen minutes."

"We're receiving visual data now, it's up on screen" Shigeru Aoba, the shaggy-haired technician, interjected. He typed away at his terminal, and the huge display in front of the bridge came to life to show a massive insectoid creature skimming low along the Ocean's surface, a barrage of missiles all detonating harmlessly a few metres from its purple skin.

"The MAGI are all confirming pattern blue, it's an Angel." Maya Ibuki's voice was the next to reach Misato's ear, reporting what was already obvious to all present.

"Great, and it took those clowns this long to notify us?" Misato cursed the military's pride, the stubborn old Generals refusing to defer to NERV until well after it was clear they could do nothing to stop the Angel. Their arrogance had cost precious time, and severely limited her tactical options. "Where's Shinji?" she demanded of the bridge crew.

Ibuki answered her. "He and Rei are still at school, Ma'am, Section two are collecting them now."

"How long until we're ready to launch?"

"They'll be at headquarters in ten minutes, it will take another five to have Shinji prepped and in the entry plug."

Shit. Looking out at the terrain map displayed on the floor in front of the bridge, her first instinct was to deploy Unit-01 on the ridge that extended south from mount Myojingatake: about six kilometres east of Tokyo-3. The position overlooked the Odawara coast, and would allow Shinji to engage with ranged weaponry as soon as the enemy appeared on the horizon, while leaving him plenty of room to manoeuvre or fall back if necessary. It was also where some of the JSSDF's heaviest coastal artillery emplacements were located, and with the Eva nearby to neutralize the Angel's AT field they might actually be able to do some damage.

It was a good plan, she thought, but it was being rapidly overtaken by reality. Unless Shinji could teleport, the Angel was likely to pass over the position before he was ready to launch. The only other option was to deploy within Tokyo-3 itself. Certainly, such a deployment brought certain advantages, such as having support from NERV's own specialized gun and missile batteries, as well the ability to manipulate the armoured skyscrapers to provide Shinji with cover to duck behind.

However, the confined streets offered little room to manoeuvre, and forced an engagement at close range. Shinji still had next to no training in melee combat, and if the battle devolved into a fist fight as the last one had... Well, she had no illusions about the likely outcome.

There was also no fallback position save for recovery to the geofront. Fighting in Tokyo-3 meant fighting with their backs against the wall, there could be no retreat. If Shinji were defeated, and they were unable to recover him in time, then there would be no second chance.

She turned her eyes back to the main display, watching a pair of JSSDF fighters dive in for another futile attack on the Angel. At the sight of the aircraft, she remembered Major Bishop mentioning that another test flight was scheduled for today, this time a live fire exercise. She assumed Takao wouldn't decline the opportunity to test out his weapon on the real McCoy, and some useful air support might be just what she needed to buy some time.

"Hyuga, has there been any word from the team at Camp Fuji?" she strode over to his terminal as he brought up the communications log.

"Negative Ma'am."

She frowned for a moment, before asking him to bring up the surface-to-air radar display. He typed a command, and the screen showed a line sweeping in wide circle over a map of the surrounding area, with Tokyo-3 at its centre. There was a huge blip over the ocean to the east, with a swarm of smaller dots milling around it. To the west, however, where NERV's newly acquired airstrip was located, there was no activity. She hoped that meant they hadn't started yet, and not that the test had already concluded.

"What do you have in mind, Captain?" her commanding officer inquired from above and behind her.

She turned and stood straight. "It's going to take a while to launch unit one, and that means we will be forced to deploy in a less than optimal position. With your permission sir, I'd like to order an attack using the prototype kinetic energy weapon, it may be able to buy us some time."

The old professor thought about that for a moment, before nodding his assent. "Very well, Captain, make the necessary preparations." A small smile crossed his face.

"Let's see what our Canadian can do."

"Just like with a lady, huh Major?"

One of the mechanics flashed the pilot with a toothy grin, wiping his hands on his heavily stained jumpsuit.

Bishop raised an eyebrow as he looked up at the man from his clipboard. "How's that?" he asked, knowing full well what the answer would be.

"Gotta make sure its lubed up before it goes in!" The crude attempt at humour drew a chorus of groans from the man's compatriots. The crew of mechanics were wiping down the silver dart with grease-soaked rags as it sat with its tail fins folded on a trolley beneath the Avenger, ensuring every inch was coated with the lubricant before it was loaded into the waiting launch tube.

The Major just rolled his eyes with a smirk before replying. "Can't imagine you have much experience in that department. Not with that ugly mug of yours, Sendai." The mechanics had a hearty laugh at their friend's expense, the man grinning sheepishly as Bishop gave him a playful punch in the shoulder.

"Get back to work you knuckleheads, I want to be ready for startup in fifteen minutes." He was pleased at the unison "yes sir!" that followed his command. NERV's mechanics and technicians never failed to impress him, always in good humour as they worked tirelessly to keep the massive organization running.

"You heard the Major, boys. She's good and greased, lets get her loaded!" The chief's shout followed him as Bishop moved towards the nose of the aircraft and the hangar doors. He passed the armourers, feeding a belt of thirty-millimetre ammunition into the open access panel for one of the twin cannons.

He had been quite surprised when he'd arrived at Fuji that morning to find the techs cleaning and oiling the guns, clearly preparing them for action. He inquired about it one of them, who reached into a crate and handed him a twelve inch long cartridge. Bishop immediately recognized it as being a 30x173mm round, the calibre used by the Avenger's Oerlikon KCA cannons, though the projectile was of a type he had never seen.

The massive bullet was shaped like the standard armour piercing incendiary round, though with a different colour scheme. Instead of the usual red-tipped black, the round was bright orange with a black tip and two silver stripes. The tech explained that they were specialized rounds developed for Tokyo-3's anti-angel gun emplacements.

The rounds were similar in concept to standard API ammunition, in that they featured both a penetrating and burning element. The penetrating core of the round was made of a depleted uranium alloy, which while not quite as dense as tungsten had the advantage of being flammable, and would self ignite upon impact with the target. This core had a small but extremely potent explosive filler that would detonate once inside the target, leaving a jagged hole. Packed around the penetrator was a proprietary thermite compound, which would be ignited by the uranium core and would enter said jagged hole while burning at roughly 3000 degrees Celsius.

Tokyo-3's defensive gun emplacements consisted of twenty-millimetre Gatling cannons, and despite their bespoke ammunition, they had proved utterly useless against the first Angel attack. The weapons department planned to replace them with heavier guns, of the same calibre as those on the Avenger, and so the engineers had prepared a batch of the special rounds in thirty-millimetre to test against the same target as the silver dart.

The huge reinforced concrete block that would serve as his target for today's flight was covered with the same armour plates used by the Evangelions, and the plan was for Bishop to empty the guns into it before climbing to altitude for an attack with the dart. It was reasoned that if the rounds could put a dent in the Eva's composite armour, they would likely hurt an angel with no AT field deployed as well.

Failing that, it was all but guaranteed that God's arrow would not only punch through the plates, but all the way through the concrete and out the other side.

Reaching past one of the armourers to ensure that the cannon's action was properly oiled, he ticked off the appropriate item on his checklist before continuing towards the open hangar doors. Out on the tarmac, he passed the clipboard off to a tech and paused for a breath of fresh air, fiddling with the collar of the orange pressure suit to try and get a bit of air moving through it.

It was no use, and he cursed the ever-present heat for the umpteenth time that day. It was then that he noticed something peculiar about the view to the east. He thought for a moment that his eyes were playing tricks on him, but after a few seconds he was sure.

Tokyo-3's skyscrapers weren't there.

He clearly recalled the tops of the buildings being visible over the ridge when he was last here, but now the mountain's pine forest touched nothing but blue sky. His confusion at this odd sight was forgotten an instant later, when a familiar sound reached his ear from the direction of the vanished city.

It was the wail of an air raid siren.

The pilot froze in place. His mouth went dry, and a shiver crept up his spine despite the oppressive heat. The haunting sound carried with it a flood of memories; none of them pleasant. The other personnel on the tarmac stopped to listen as well, and it was only someone shouting his name from inside the hangar that snapped him out his trance. Turning, he saw an engineer urgently waving him over to the hangar's back wall, where the camp's one and only working telephone was located.

Almost everyone at NERV carried a mobile phone, however the hangar landline was a direct, secure connection to headquarters for use in emergencies. Judging by the young woman's expression as she spoke into the old-fashioned corded phone, this was just such an emergency, and Bishop hurried as best as his stiff suit would allow.

Arriving at the back wall, the woman looked at him with eyes full of concern.

"Yes, he's right here" she said into the receiver, handing it off to the confused pilot.

Returning the engineer's worried look, he took the phone and lifted it to his ear.

"This is Bishop," he said, the eyes of all in the hangar upon him.

"Major, it's me, Misato." Her voice, though tinny over the old landline, was deadly serious and carried a commanding tone. A far cry from the carefree goofball she had been when he'd last seen her a few days ago. "We have a situation here, I need you to listen carefully."

He stood stock still as she explained what was going on, and asked him to once again fly into battle.

The pilot hesitated only a moment before giving his answer. Granted; he had come here only as a test pilot, and his superiors back home would probably frown upon him engaging in any sort of combat operation without orders from them.

The hell with them. It wasn't like he could get into any more trouble with the brass than he was already in. Furthermore, the echo of the siren caused a familiar feeling of anger to swell in his chest, a burning rage he hadn't felt in many years. He remembered the awful feeling of being powerless as he stood by, unable to protect his own family or the countless others who had died under the bombs back home.

But he wasn't powerless now. He would never forgive himself if he again stood helplessly by, not while there was something he could do to help protect these people. "I'll go" he spoke into the phone.

"Great, get airborne as quickly as possible and radio the command centre once you're up. Good luck." He scribbled the radio frequency onto his kneeboard as Katsuragi repeated it to him, before hanging up the phone and turning to the expectant ground crew and engineers. Takao, though currently back at headquarters, was technically in charge here, and he briefly considered phoning the chief engineer to ask his permission.

No. This was now a combat scramble, and every second wasted could mean lives lost.

The friendly and joking Bishop was gone in an instant. In his place, the ruthless ace of old rose back to the surface. His booming voice filled the hangar, and everyone in it jumped to their duties at the sound.

"All of you, look lively! We are launching now. Get the tug in here, I want this aircraft on the flightline in one minute! Is the dart loaded?"

"Yessir!" Called a mechanic through the frenzy of activity.

"Good, get the launch tube stowed and get your men clear. What about the guns?"

"Thirty seconds sir!" came the shouted reply from the aircraft's nose.

The tug driver reversed his squat vehicle up to the jet, and a pair of mechanics hurried to secure the towing arm to the nose wheel. The armourers slammed the gun panels shut and managed to secure them just as the Avenger began to roll forward, and Bishop grabbed his helmet to follow his mount out into the midday sun.

"That's far enough!" he called to the driver, and the jet bumped to a stop about fifty meters outside the hangar. As the tug pulled away, he quickly ran his eyes over the aircraft a final time, and seeing nothing amiss mounted the ladder to the cockpit.

"Chief, get the starter cart hooked up, all the rest of you get clear!" he roared as he reached the top of the ladder.

A moment later, the Avenger was rising away from the runway. The silver bird of prey was ready to hunt once again, although this time in foreign skies.

And for a new type of quarry.

For a few brief minutes, there was nothing for NERV's command staff to do except monitor the situation, and the bridge was silent save for the sound of Misato's footsteps as she paced back and forth across the steel deck.

"How long until it makes landfall?" she demanded of Hyuga.

"Seven minutes, Ma'am."

She turned to Ibuki. "Where's Shinji?"

"On a car elevator, they should be at headquarters in five minutes, Ma'am."

"And our air support?" She spoke now to Aoba, who had been placed in charge of communications and wore a headset over his mane of hair.

"No word yet, ma'am, I'm monitoring all channels... Wait a minute, I'm hearing something, but I can't understand it. I think its in English or something."

"That's him, put it up on the speakers." Aoba removed his headset and hit a button, and the crackling sound of a radio filled the bridge. There was a moment of static, before the message Aoba had heard repeated. Misato recognized the voice as the Major's, though she could only understand part of the transmission.

"I say again, this is NERV one-seven-niner calling command, do you read me? Is anyone there?"

Misato was about to key the mic switch on the bridge console to ask him to repeat the message in Japanese, but Fuyutsuki's calm voice cut her off. To her surprise, the old professor responded to Bishop in perfect, unaccented English.

"Major, this is Sub-commander Fuyutsuki, we read you. I know that English is generally the preferred language for aviation, however I'm afraid I'm the only one here in the command centre who can speak it. Would you mind switching to Japanese?"

There was a brief pause before the reply came, this time in a language all present could understand. "Ah, sorry sir, old habits."

"Not at all, Major. You will be under Captain Katsuragi's command for this operation, I'll hand you off to her now. You will obey her orders as though they were my own or the commander's, is that understood?" The gentleman gestured down to his subordinate, who gave him an appreciative nod.

"Understood, sir" came the reply over the radio.

"Major, can you hear me? Where are you now?" Misato spoke into the bridge microphone, leaning over Hyuga to see the radar display on his screen.

"I hear you. I'm climbing through ten thousand feet, headed east. I just passed over... that big lake south of the city, I think."

Hyuga pointed out the appropriate blip on the radar display. "Got it, get up to attack altitude and orbit over the Odawara area. Report in once you're there and wait for further instructions. Oh, and time is a factor here, Major."

"Roger."

Misato smirked at the calm and curt reply as she took her finger off the mic key. Certainly nice to be working with a professional for a change, she thought, hoping that meant that for once her orders would be followed without hesitation or question.

Standing straight again, she directed her gaze back to the main display. She had been paying very close attention during the test flight the previous week, and knew both from her own observations and from her conversation with Bishop afterwards that it would take about four more minutes for him to reach altitude, and another three minutes or so to line up for an attack. Once he entered his dive, it would only be about fifteen seconds until the weapon hit the target.

She decided she would order the Major to strike as soon as he was ready, which would be right around the time the Angel was set to cross the coast. Assuming a successful hit halted the enemy's advance for even a few minutes, that should give them enough time to deploy Shinji on the high ground.

She briefly considered a second option, having the aircraft standby at altitude while Unit-01 engaged the enemy in the city, ready in case Shinji needed assistance. However, they still had no real idea what effect, if any, the weapon would have on the target, and it seemed unwise to rely on it as a backup plan. If they used it right away and it missed or had no effect, then at least they wouldn't be any worse off than before.

Her decision made, she again turned to Aoba. "Keep monitoring the radio, inform me as soon as the Major makes contact. Get in touch with the JSSDF as well, tell them to prepare their coastal batteries in the Odawara sector."

"Yes Ma'am."

Watching another fruitless attack unfold on the display, she added "and tell them to get the rest of their toys out of there. They're in the way."

Where the hell is Odawara?

Having been built in the '80s, the Avenger had no such luxury as a modern GPS system, navigation being one of the jobs of the radar operator. Lucky for him, Bishop had remembered to slip a map into his kneeboard at some point, and now as his jet climbed towards the sun the pilot struggled to unfold it in the cramped space without bumping any switches. The map was of the entire island of Honshu, and it took him a few moments to find the area around Tokyo-3.

A quick glance at the altimeter showed him climbing through 60,000 feet. With another couple of minutes before he had to level off, he looked back down at the map. It was from before second impact, he realized, as it showed much of the mountain valley where Tokyo-3 now stood as being occupied by a golf course. After a few seconds of searching, he found Odawara, a sizable city on the coast about 15 kilometres east of Tokyo-3; an area which he knew to now be flooded.

He dipped a wing to look in that direction, noting landmarks he could steer for once he was levelled off. Satisfied that he knew where he needed to be, he set about the tedious business of re-folding the map. It was a pain in the ass to be sure, but at least he'd spared himself the embarrassment of having to call Katsuragi to ask for directions.

80,000 feet ticked by on the altimeter, and he eased the stick forward to level off, pulling the throttles back from full afterburner to conserve fuel. The response from the controls was noticeably more sluggish than on the last flight, the heavy load in the weapons bay making itself known. But the big Orenda turbofans had never failed him before, and they didn't fail him now, soon pushing him past mach 2 even without the aid of the afterburners.

Steering north, he checked and rechecked the switches on the armament panel, ensuring the launch tube was armed and deployed, and searched for his target on the radar. The display showed the coastline far below, and he banked the aircraft a bit to direct the beam further out to sea, where his target should have been.

He was puzzled, however, as the only contacts to be seen on the surface of Sagami bay seemed to be fishing boats and military vessels. Nothing that looked like the big game he was hunting. He switched the radar on and off again, still nothing.

Not good. If he couldn't lock the thing on radar, he would have to try and eyeball it. Though he reckoned himself a damn good shot, he didn't fancy his chances of hitting a moving target with a torpedo-sized projectile from eight miles above.

About to call command to report this turn of events, he first acted on a hunch, and flipped the radar's mode switch to air-to-air. With its look down/shoot down capabilities, the system was able to pick out low-flying contacts from any ground or ocean interference, and soon the display showed a huge blip skimming a few hundred feet over the surface, shadowed by a swarm of smaller contacts he assumed to be aircraft.

So this one flies. That would have been useful information. He locked the contact into the targeting system and waited while it worked out a firing solution. It took a fair bit longer this time, no doubt since the target was both moving and airborne, but after a few moments it displayed a trajectory that intersected with the Angel's course right over the coast.

Looks good enough to me, he thought with a small shrug. "One-seven-niner, calling command. Do you read me?"

"We read you, one-seven-niner, go ahead." It was a man's voice, one he didn't recognize.

"To whom am I speaking?" This was an open frequency, after all, and one couldn't be too careful.

"This is Lieutenant Aoba, I'm one of the command staff under Captain Katsuragi. Her orders are for you to commence your attack as soon as you are able, Major." He supposed that explanation passed muster, not like he had time to argue.

"Very well, Lieutenant, tell the Captain that I am attacking now. And send out a message to all those aircraft down there to stay well clear of my target."

"Understood sir, you're clear to proceed."

With that, he lined up the bullseye on the HUD, lit the afterburners, and dipped the nose slightly to pick up some speed. He'd learned the hard way the other day that he needed to carry as much momentum as possible into the dive. Not that he didn't have confidence in his mount; the old bird had proven that it was still tough as nails, and the engineers had been hard at work reinforcing a few problem areas of the airframe that their sensors had identified during the last test.

Still, better to have a bigger than smaller margin of error.

The bullseye dropped off the display, and he reached over and flipped one last switch before rolling over into the attack.

He recalled a line from a book he had once read, the memoirs of a World War Two Stuka pilot. We taught them to dance to the Jericho trumpet it said; or something to that effect anyways.

The pilot knew not what manner of enemy was waiting for him 80,000 feet below, but it too was going to learn to dance to that old tune.

The bridge crew sat in stunned silence for a moment, before a chorus of cheers erupted at the grisly scene on the main display.

It had happened far too quickly for the human eye to comprehend. All they saw was a flash as the dart, white hot from the friction of tearing through the air at six-and-a-half times the speed of sound, first punched through a weakened AT field with a sound like breaking glass, and then shattered the thing's purple carapace in the middle of the hump behind its spade-shaped head. It ripped all the way through the Angel's body and buried itself somewhere on the coastline. A gaping, jagged exit wound was left in the centre of the creature's underbelly, where many of its insectoid legs were broken or severed.

They had a brief, gruesome view of the thing's alien innards as they dangled from the hole in its belly, before it began to lose altitude. Misato had thought she heard a rumbling groan from the enemy as it plowed into a hillside a hundred metres inland, before any other noise was drowned out by the deafening sonic boom that followed god's arrow and the otherworldly wailing of Bishop's siren.

Was it a groan of... pain, perhaps? Did Angels feel pain?

I fucking well hope so, she thought. She had no sympathy to spare for the thing as it lay in the massive crater created by its hard impact with the ground. Several severed legs lay scattered around it, and a river of its blood flowed down the hillside into the sea.

It wasn't dead. She had seen the thing's core, located just a few metres away from where the dart had hit, and knew the red sphere had survived intact. The clock was now ticking.

However, the result was still better than she had dared hope. The swarm of JSSDF aircraft, in a rare show of initiative, now launched a furious attack with whatever munitions they had left. Pieces of purple carapace rained across the hills as the explosives found their mark in the entry wound left by the dart. The frenzied attack was soon joined by an earth-shaking barrage from the nearby artillery emplacements, with dozens of six-inch shells impacting against the Angel's faltering armour.

It seemed to be too weak to deploy an AT field, and Misato silently prayed that it would remain so for just a few more moments. Hopefully, it would still be knocked down when Shinji arrived on the scene, and the rookie Evangelion pilot would simply have to finish the Angel off with a burst of fire to core.

The aerial attackers soon expended their payloads, and the swarm scattered to return to their bases. There remained only one contact on the radar, rapidly approaching from seaward as the Major recovered from his dive and returned to the scene to examine his handiwork.

"Ma'am, Shinji is at the EVA cage and is being prepped for launch, the techs say three minutes." Maya's voice interrupted her thoughts, and she nodded her understanding.

"Good, not a moment too soon. Is the position ready for him?"

"Yes Ma'am, we have an umbilical cable and a pallet rifle with five spare magazines set up at the top of the mountain. Launch route zero-nine-three is cleared and ready." That would spit the Evangelion out in Kiga, at the eastern edge of the Hakone caldera and a kilometre downhill from the fighting position.

No matter, the Eva could climb the mountain in just a few strides.

"Uh, Ma'am, we have movement from the target..." Hyuga said in a slightly alarmed voice from his console. All eyes turned to the main display, watching in grim fascination as the stricken Angel gave a twitch, and then began to slowly raise what Misato assumed to be its head from the dirt. It held its head a little ways off the ground for a moment, as though scanning its surroundings.

From the right side of the display, Bishop's silver aircraft became visible, flying low and slow over its crippled prey.

"Are you guys sure that's an Angel? It looks completely different from the last one." came his confused voice over the radio.

That drew a chuckle from Misato, before she keyed the mic switch to reply. "Trust me, Major, its an Angel. Good shooting, by the way."

"Thanks, but I don't think its dead..."

"It's not, but Unit-one should be there shortly to finish the job, stand by-"

Her words caught her throat as on the screen the Angel suddenly reared up like some skyscraper-sized cobra. The two large limbs that had been folded up under its head while in flight now extended out to either side, reminding Misato of a cross. From these arms, a pair of glowing tentacles slowly extended, wriggling like giant earthworms.

Its entrails still dangling from the wound in its gut, and with loose shards of its carapace falling into the crater, the Angel slowly spun in place, stopping when it faced Bishop's aircraft. The silver jet was still lazily circling the impact site, and Misato shouted into the microphone for him to get away a split second after the glowing tentacle was already shooting towards its target.

Shamshel was angry.

It knew that the flying Lilin circling the spot where it had fallen was the one that had done this to it. It had sensed the attacker screaming down from the heavens, but had paid it no mind until it was already too late.

How was it to know that it would be different from the others?

The white-hot projectile passing through its body had broken its back and paralyzed the creature, and it was powerless to avoid the looming hillside that it now lay on.

Then, after it lay stricken, the Lilin had the gall to howl a challenge at its wounded foe, a screaming wail that all but dared Shamshel to stand back up and fight.

It took only a few moments for its broken spine to heal, and despite the painful wounds that remained, it would oblige its challenger.

This flying pest was larger than the rest; perhaps it was their leader. Rearing up to its full height to let its opponent know just what it was dealing with, the Angel extended its energized whips and turned to face the slowly circling enemy.

The effort required to energize the weaponized limbs meant that the regeneration of its damaged thorax had to slow to a crawl, and it could not extend the protective shield that Adam had gifted to all of his children, but it mattered not. If it couldn't defeat this puny creature in spite of its wounds, then it did not deserve to inherit the earth from its creator.

When it was ready, it launched a tentacle at the foe, intending to finish the fight with a single, devastating blow.

"Oh shi-" was all Bishop had time to utter as a flash of bright purple filled the canopy.

Well-honed instincts kicked in, and he threw the Avenger into a snap roll that put the aircraft just out of the path of the striking tentacle an instant before it would have had him. Pulling away from his attacker, he looked in the mirror on the canopy frame and breathed a small sigh of relief as he saw that the creature remained anchored in place. Another whip-like tentacle shot out in pursuit, but seemed to reach the limit of its range about three hundred metres from its origin.

Heading straight for a few seconds to open the distance a bit, Bishop then turned to again circle his enemy, this time giving it a much wider berth. The giant bug just stood there with its mangled body facing him, wriggling its grotesque limbs.

Nice try big fella, but tougher things than you have tried to kill me. His self-congratulations on once again cheating death were cut short, however. A cloud of dust erupted from bottom of the creature's long body, and its vast bulk lifted off from the hillside as lightly as if it were filled with helium.

It now hovered in the upright position, slowly turning to follow his every move. "Uh, Katsuragi, this might be a good time to send in that robot of yours..." he said into the radio, a mounting dread starting to fill his chest.

"Its on the way, Major, thirty seconds. Just keep it occupied, okay? Major, did you get that?" He detected a note of panic in the woman's frantic message, but events unfolding left him no time to reply.

As quickly as a viper striking, the Angel leapt forward into its horizontal position. With its gaping wound now facing downward, various bits of giant viscera tumbled out and splashed into the sea, but if the loss of internal organs affected it in any way it certainly didn't show.

Its arms remained extended at its sides, perhaps now acting as wings, and the glowing whips trailed behind as it shot towards Bishop like a giant purple missile.

The pilot only had a moment to appreciate the sheer absurdity of the situation he now found himself in, before instinct again took over and he pulled into a hard turn away from his pursuer, leading the Angel back out over the sparkling waters of the Pacific.

Throttles shoved as far forward as they would go, he willed his mount to give him every inch of speed it possessed. He hoped against hope that the thing would be lumbering and sluggish in the air, but instead it seemed to be slowly but steadily growing larger in the mirror.

He couldn't run forever, then. Eventually it would catch him, and he would have to turn and fight. Thankfully, though he had expended his most potent weapon, he was far from being unarmed.

I've got four hundred rounds with your name on 'em, you ugly fuck, he thought as he once again reached down to the armament panel. The switches for the twin cannons were flipped from 'safe' to 'fire'. With his thumb, he clicked the weapon selector on the control column into the position marked 'guns', and brushed his index finger against the trigger.

Katsuragi was shouting something at him over the Radio, but he had no attention to spare for it. His mind was oddly calm, completely focused now on doing the only thing he had ever been good for.

If the Angel wanted a fight, he would bloody well give it one.

A/N: Thanks for the kind reviews so far, it really means a lot :) Sorry to leave it there, I originally intended for the Shamshel fight to be all one chapter, but It kind of got away from me. I figured since it is the first major point of divergence from the original timeline, the fight and aftermath were worthy of two chapters. Coming soon!