Chapter 25 - Sahaquiel

"Well, I can't say I wasn't expecting that at least a little bit," Asuka quipped as the pilots pulled out their phones to check the message.

CODE 2.

"Code 2?" Kensuke wondered aloud.

"Probable Angel incursion," Asuka replied, tucking her phone away. "Not a hundred percent guaranteed to be an Angel yet, but NERV wants us there in case it is. Code 1 is a definite Angel attack, and Code 3 is a non-Angel situation that requires us to be at NERV, like for safety or whatever. Come on, Section Two will be waiting outside for us."

"Be careful!" Hikari called after them as the pilots headed off, stunned students barely getting out of their way in time. Shinji looked over his shoulder and nodded at her and Toji before exiting the cafeteria.

Any rule about running in the hallways didn't matter to the pilots; NERV business trumped such petty rules. The four of them ran as fast as they could towards the main school entrance, Asuka shoving the door open with her shoulder and sending it slamming against the wall outside. Four men in black suits, having just been running towards the door, skidded to a stop and urgently waved the teenagers on, falling into step next to them as they approached the black sedans parked outside the school gate.

"Do we know anything yet?" Kensuke asked of the agents as they slowed to a halt to get into the cars.

"Nothing concrete," one of them replied. "I heard mention of our satellites picking something up though."

Any more conversation had to be put on hold; the pilots were split up two to a car, with Asuka and Shinji practically getting shoved into the back of the first vehicle while Kensuke and Rei took the second. The car engines, left running for obvious reasons, roared as the small convoy took off in a manner reminiscent of Misato's driving. Shinji gripped his seatbelt with both hands and idly wondered, as he struggled to stay upright in his seat, whether she had led the driving course these agents had clearly graduated from.

"So this one's coming from space, huh?" Asuka mused, arms folded but otherwise relaxed, casually leaning sideways as the car took a sharp turn. "That could be a problem, depending on how far away it is and how fast it's coming at us."

"What do you mean?" Shinji asked, trying to remember anything he had ever learned about satellites and space, which wound up being practically nothing.

"The thing about space is that you can see for years. Literally," Asuka said with a wry grin. "Anything moving towards Earth, or even wandering our solar system would be picked up well before it could even be considered dangerous. Unless it was travelling ridiculously fast."

That piqued Shinji's curiosity. They were still a couple minutes out from the Geofront; he needed something to keep his mind off what was potentially to come. "Um... how fast are we talking?"

"Well for an extreme example, let's say an alien ship near Jupiter fired a projectile at 99.99% the speed of light. By the time we detected the launch, thirty-five minutes later, we'd only have two seconds before that projectile hit Earth."

Shinji gulped nervously at the prospect. "A-and there's nothing we could do to stop that?"

"Even if you could get a missile off to intercept it, it wouldn't make enough of a difference. In fact, the projectile could just break up, in which case you'd have more projectiles coming at you to worry about." Asuka let out a breath. "Science can be rather scary sometimes, like when it comes to kinetic energy..."

Seeing Shinji's nervousness, she sought to allay his fears. "Oh don't worry, it would take absolutely ludicrous amounts of energy to get up to that kind of speed, and I'm sure even an Angel can't manage that."

"Maybe they have some kind of stealth ability though," the blonde agent in the passenger seat suddenly remarked. "These Angels are made out of bullshit anyway; I wouldn't be surprised if one of them can turn invisible or something. Could explain how this one just showed up right on Earth's doorstep, so to speak."

"Problem with thinking like that is where does it end?" the dark-haired driver replied with a shake of his head. "First it's Angels that can cloak themselves, soon it's Angels pretending to be human."

"...Oh scheiße," Asuka and Shinji muttered in sync.

Now it was Section Two's turn to try and calm them both down. "Hey relax, kids, there's still that blood type detection thing the MAGI have. Don't waste your energy on pointless paranoia."

"Speaking of which..." Blonde put a finger to his ear for a moment. "Okay yeah, it's been confirmed that it's an Angel up there. Couple hours at best before it reaches us."

"Good thing we've arrived then. Be interesting to see how the big-wigs handle this," his partner quipped as they sped through the gate into NERV.

XXX

The pilots, kitted out in their plugsuits, stared up at the screen showing what was apparently the angel; a large black sphere that would have been practically invisible against the backdrop of space were it not for the multitude of eye-like symbols skittering across its surface.

Kensuke tilted his head to one side. "Are we... getting attacked by a psychedelic soccer ball?"

"No," replied Doctor Akagi from where she was leaning over Lieutenant Ibuki's shoulder. "This Angel's AT-Field is powerful enough to bend light around it. This is just what our sensors are capable of perceiving."

Lieutenant Ibuki turned in her seat to address Misato. "The MAGI are reporting a ninety-nine point nine-nine recurring percent chance that it's aiming directly for us."

"Of course it is," Misato sighed. "Well, let's roll out the welcome mat." She looked over at Lieutenant Hyuga. "Initiate orbital bombardment."

"Orbital bombardment?!" Shinji exclaimed as the lieutenant began carrying out the order. "NERV can attack things in space?!"

"Of course we can, Shinji!" Misato replied with a grin. "Never know where an Angel might attack from!"

"Well now they've attacked us from literally every angle," Lieutenant Aoba quipped. "Land, sea, air, in a volcano, and now space. All that's left to surprise us is... I don't know... time travel or something."

"I'm just surprised every other country in the world is apparently okay with weapons of mass destruction literally hovering over them," Asuka remarked with folded arms.

"Satellites twenty-three through thirty rotating to engage target!" Lieutenant Hyuga reported.

Conversation ended as the holographic screen shifted images, now showing the view from a different satellite. Explosions began to ripple across the screen, accompanied by an equal number of shimmering hexagons. There had been no smoke trails to mark their passage, something which confused Shinji until he realised that space-based weaponry would work differently to anything ground-based.

"No effect from the N2 bombardment," Hyuga announced a moment later, sounding rather understandably disappointed.

Misato groaned, raising a hand to rub her forehead. "Alright, get in touch with Commander Ikari. What's the ETA on impact?"

"At its current rate of speed, barring any changes..." Ibuki typed away at her computer. "It will hit us in approximately one hundred and thirty-eight minutes."

"Not much time for a solution," Kensuke mused.

"Nope," said Aoba. "And the Angel's AT-Field must be scrambling our commsat signals as well. We can't reach the Commander."

"Of course we can't," Misato quietly sighed. She shut her eyes for a moment; when she opened them again, they were almost blazing with determination. "Then it's all up to us. We're going to need a hell of a plan."

XXX

The four teenagers were left standing around outside a room where the 'important people' were having a meeting. Apparently, being the pilots of the only weapons capable of stopping the incoming threat wasn't enough to merit being in that room as well; something that Asuka had already voiced her opinion on, albeit out of earshot of the officers in question.

Now she was slowly pacing up and down the corridor as precious minutes ticked past, occasionally grumbling in German. Kensuke and Rei were standing off to one side, him leaning against a wall with his arms folded, her standing stock still and staring at nothing.

"It's too bad we can't just fly up there and engage it away from Earth," Kensuke suddenly spoke up. "I'm surprised NERV doesn't have Eva-sized jetpacks or something."

"The power required to lift an Evangelion off the ground is an order of magnitude greater than any device it could potentially carry," Rei replied. "Specialised aircraft are required for air transport, and they are both slow and require frequent refuelling. There is also the issue of powering the Evangelions themselves. Even the external batteries we used against Matarael would only give us fifteen minutes of usable time, less once we begin combat."

Kensuke sighed, one hand taking off his glasses of as the other swiped down his face. "Nuclear power would be out, since having a nuclear reactor in a combat situation would be a colossally stupid idea."

"Thank you!" Asuka swivelled around and raised her hands to the ceiling in exultation. "Well done, Glasses, you're officially smarter than whoever the hell came up with that dumbass Jet Alone project!"

Rei frowned. "I do not understand how such a concept made it past the concept stage without somebody bringing that problem up."

"Because people are idiots, Wondergirl," Asuka said with a sigh. "I'm sure all its creators wanted was to one-up NERV. They didn't even have a plan for breaching an AT-Field. They thought NERV was making that up for god's sake!"

"So then how are we going to deal with this Angel?" Shinji asked, trying to pull them back on topic. "It's going to be coming at us pretty fast. We wouldn't have time to do anything much before it hits."

Asuka tapped a finger on her chin. "Well... it's going to have a hell of a lot of momentum... If only we could turn that against it somehow."

"If it's that fast, what about a high powered projectile weapon?" Kensuke suggested, clapping his hands together. "That would hit much harder since the target is moving at such a high velocity."

Rei gave a single nod. "Perhaps, but projectiles have been shown to be almost entirely useless against an AT-Field."

Shinji blinked. Hadn't they already managed to break through an AT-Field with a ranged weapon? "What about the Positron Rifle?" he asked. "Could we use that to bring the AT-Field down first?"

Asuka and Rei looked at him thoughtfully. "A good idea..." Asuka began.

"But it would take far too long," Rei continued. "It required several hours just to install the power systems for the Positron Rifle the last time it was deployed."

"Wait, even if that was all sorted, it would still be a bad idea," said Kensuke. He began pacing, tapping the side of his head. "Say we somehow manage to knock the AT-Field down and destroy the core as the Angel's flying at us. What then?"

"Um..." Shinji scratched his head, then gave up and shrugged. "The Angel's dead and we're all fine?"

Asuka suddenly gasped and slapped her forehead. "Damnit, he's right."

"What?" Shinji turned a confused look on her. "What am I missing?"

"The Angel is coming towards us at a high rate of speed," said Rei. "Killing it would not slow it down."

"O-oh..." Shinji's face reddened as his mind caught up with the other pilots. "It'd... still hit the city."

Asuka nodded, but the sound of a door opening precluded any further conversation.

Misato came out of the room, looking dead on her feet. She looked at the teenagers with tired eyes and said, "Guess you kids were trying to come up with something too, huh?"

"Hello Misato," greeted Shinji. "Yeah, but we couldn't come up with anything good."

Leaning against the wall and running a hand through her hair, Misato sighed. "Problem is, we didn't either."

"What?!" Asuka exclaimed. "You telling me you geniuses wasted all that time for nothing?!"

"Not quite," Misato testily replied. "We did come up with a plan, but it's not what anybody would call a good plan. The MAGI are only giving it about a ten percent chance of success."

Asuka rolled her eyes. "Don't tell us the odds, tell us the plan! We're the ones that have to make it work, after all!"

"Yeah," Kensuke piped up. "I don't know how the MAGI worked out those odds, but I'm sure they won't have given good odds for any other fight you've had before now. And yet you guys have managed to succeed every time."

"Well thank you for the vote of confidence." Misato pushed off the wall. "Alright, the plan is actually pretty simple, on paper. You're going to catch the Angel."

Asuka blinked several times, putting her hands on her hips. "I'm sorry... what was that?"

"You're going to catch it," Misato repeated. When the teenagers continued to give her disbelieving looks, she sighed. "Look, just come with me; NERV's already preparing to enact the plan. "

Several minutes of walking later, Misato and the pilots reached a catwalk overlooking a massive underground rail elevator, used for moving the Evangelions around. Unit-01, laying on its back on a train car, was sitting at a tunnel entrance as Unit-00 came up the elevator next. Doctor Akagi was already there, overseeing the operation from a computer console on the catwalk.

"Pilots," was all she said by way of greeting. "I take it you're not sure how everything is going to happen?"

"No, ma'am," Kensuke replied. "We'd appreciate a full briefing before getting sent out."

"Understandable." She typed away at the keyboard, and the screen changed to show a map of the area. "The Angel has entered the atmosphere, and it isn't coming at us in a straight line anymore. As a result, we no longer know its exact point of impact so we can't send you all to a single location to catch it. Even if it hits outside of Tokyo-3 the kinetic energy would blast away most of the greater Hakone region, possibly even resulting in it turning into just another part of the Pacific Ocean."

More typing, and another screen change. "The plan is to split you up, sending you to three points of a triangle bordering the projected impact zone. The weather outside has turned nasty, with heavy rain and cloud cover blocking any visual of the Angel from the ground. You-" Doctor Akagi glanced at Asuka and Shinji, waggling a hand, "-uh... three-and-a-half, will have to locate the Angel yourselves. Whoever reaches the point of impact first will need to catch the Angel with their AT-Field, while the others attack it."

Asuka tore her eyes away from the screen, rubbing them with a thumb and forefinger. "You're basically hoping that AT-Field physics bullshit will let us catch what is essentially a kinetic kill vehicle, aren't you?"

Doctor Akagi nodded. "As much as it pains me to admit it, this is the only plan we have that has any chance to work. That being said, however, it's still a long shot whether we'll even be alive tomorrow. There's..." She looked away slightly, putting a hand over her mouth in thought, before turning back to them. "We still have time before you're needed in your Evas. If you'd like to write a will in case of... you know..."

The four teenagers looked at each other. Down below, Unit-00's train car was stationary and Unit-02 was now coming up the elevator.

"That will not be necessary," Rei quietly stated, looking back at Doctor Akagi. "The Angels must be defeated. We must succeed, therefore we will succeed."

"Well said, Ayanami!" Kensuke stepped up next to Rei and grinned, clenching a fist in front of him. "Who needs a will? We're gonna come through this just fine!"

Asuka moved up on the other side of Rei. "Yeah, we've kicked the ass of every Angel that's come our way so far! This one'll be no different!"

Shinji was right behind her. "We can't go in thinking we won't survive. I'd rather think about what will happen after we win again."

Startled by the response of her teammates, Rei blushed slightly in embarrassment at being the centre of attention.

"Well said, kids!" Misato cheered, before directing a smirk at Doctor Akagi. "See, I told you this was a good plan!"

With a roll of her eyes, the scientist drily replied, "If only the MAGI had taken enthusiasm into account. I'm sure they would have given us better odds."

"Hah. Anyway, speaking of afterwards, I reckon NERV will be happy to spring for a nice celebratory dinner when our winners come back. Isn't that right, Rits?" Misato turned an expectant look on her friend.

"Fine," Doctor Akagi sighed. "Then how about this: Come back alive and I'll treat us all." She glanced at Misato and shrugged. "Easier than trying to wrangle money out of the damn accounting department."

"Tell me about it," Misato muttered, before a klaxon sounded. She looked down below at the Evangelions, to see that they were all in position in front of a train tunnel. "Right, get to your Evas, kids, and I'll see you when you return. That's a promise."

XXX

Shinji stared at the landscape around him. All three Evangelions had been deployed; now there were just final checks to be completed while the batteries were getting topped up. The rain was coming down hard, and the thick grey storm clouds were practically turning day into night. Shinji's mind was wandering as he and Asuka waited for the go signal, and for some reason it decided to wander all the way over to his mother.

Something about sitting in Unit-01 always brought him a measure of comfort, whether in the heat of battle or just during training. He wasn't sure what was causing it, since piloting Unit-02 didn't give him the same feeling. The only thing he could think of that was familiar was-

"Hey Shinji, everything okay?"

Oh, apparently something was getting through the neural link to his co-pilot. He was sitting in front of her, so there was no way Asuka could have noticed otherwise. Thankfully, that did mean she wouldn't notice his face reddening slightly in embarrassment.

"It's... nothing," he said, trying to head the conversation off at the pass.

It didn't work. He could feel her disapproval. Without turning around he knew that Asuka's arms would be folded. "Please don't try and lie to me. Especially when we're in here."

"What?" Shinji twisted in his seat to look back up at her. "You can somehow tell I'm lying through the neural link?"

Asuka waggled a hand. "Not really, but I definitely felt something through the link just now. And since we've still got a couple minutes, spill it."

"Oh, fine," Shinji sighed, turning in his seat to stare out of the plug at their surroundings. It still amazed him that, despite being inside a metal tube inside a giant robot, it was as if he was simply sitting in a windowed room. There were people and vehicles nearby, and the Evangelion's sight had such clarity that, even with the heavy rain, he could make out the number plates on the vehicles as if he were standing out in the open. "It really was nothing important. I was just... thinking about my mother." He silently tried to will the incoming conversation away, but to no avail.

"Ah." Asuka nodded and unfolded her arms, placing them behind her head as she leaned back in her seat. "Is... uh... everything alright there? Can't help but notice you never talked about your parents in our letters to each other. To be fair, neither did I, but... I mean, now I know who your old man is, but whe-"

"She's gone..."

-re's... oh..." Now Shinji could feel something through the neural link. He wasn't going to bring it up though, seeing as he already knew exactly what it was. "...Sorry."

Hearing that word, the one he'd used so often that people had started to admonish him for it, irked him slightly. Especially since Asuka was doing his thing of apologising unnecessarily. "Don't ap-" he began, before something cut him off.

"Get into positions," came the order from Misato.

"...Talk later?" Asuka awkwardly suggested.

Shinji nodded but said nothing, setting his attention on Unit-01 as it leaned forward to place its massive purple hands on the ground like it was a runner at a starting block. The people down on the ground hurried to evacuate the area, leaving the vehicles behind.

"With bad sensor data and worse weather, we're not exactly in the best position to be giving direct orders," said Misato. "This will be all up to you kids, but we'll still give what support we can. Now make us proud! Release the locks!"

The power cable exploded away from Unit-01's back, and its feet scrabbled for purchase in the mud as it shot forward. The tremors from every step rattled the nearby vehicles as the Evangelion found its footing, knocking some over as it stormed past them and onto the main street of a nearby town. Buildings flashed by as Shinji strained to push Unit-01 to its limits while also keeping in step with Asuka.

There were rows of power lines in the way, and Unit-01 practically flew as it hurdled them, sometimes passing over two or three at a time. While it was perfectly fine to simply charge straight through any smaller obstacles such as walkways, it just wasn't worth the risk of getting tangled up in a cable and losing precious seconds.

Then, with one final leap that shattered the road under its feet, Unit-01 crested a cliff and took to the air once more, soaring over the edge and dropping into the valley below. It landed in a small group of trees in the middle of a field of rice paddies, the impact hard enough to send waves rippling along their surfaces. But there was no time to admire the scenery; Unit-01 stormed onward towards the edge of another town.

"How are we supposed to catch a falling Angel when we can't even see it?!" Kensuke groused over the comm system. "By the time it breaks through the clouds we'll likely be too far away to catch it!"

Unit-01's head raised up as Shinji and Asuka scanned the clouds. Flickers of lightning constantly illuminated them, but Shinji still couldn't see anything.

"Command, I need the MAGI for something, quickly!" Asuka shouted. "What area is having the most amount of lighting strikes?"

"I... what?" Misato stammered. Fortunately it seemed somebody else understood what Asuka was getting at.

"Understood!" said Doctor Akagi. There was a few seconds of tapping, and then she returned with, "Sector 7G is showing the most strikes. MAGI are now giving a 98% chance of the Angel emerging from the clouds at that location!"

Shinji had no idea what any of that talk of lightning meant; he instead took the time to check the map. "7G... that's in the middle of Kensuke's zone!" he exclaimed. That spot was far off to their left, and there was still a lot of town left to traverse through with no streets big enough to fit a speeding Evangelion down them without hitting every building along the way.

"Adjusting course!" came Kensuke's response.

"We're picking up a change in the Angel's AT-Field!" came the call from Lieutenant Aoba. "It's morphing and... it's accelerating!"

"New ETA is thirty-eight seconds!"

"I'll be there in thirty!" replied Kensuke.

Asuka swore a spiky oath. "We're too far out to catch it, and we're on the wrong side of this town! And I don't know if Glasses will be able to hold it long enough!"

"But we're already going as fast as we can!" Shinji said over his shoulder. "Especially with all these damn buildings in our way!"

"There's a highway big enough for you at this location!" Hyuga said as a dot appeared on the map in front of Shinji. "It's a hard left turn though, so you'll need to practically stop to make it!"

"Stop?!" Asuka echoed in disgust. "Fuck that!"

Unit-01 dropped, sliding feet first along the ground like a skyscraper-sized baseball player, tearing up huge chunks of pavement that slammed into the buildings on either side of them. The turn came up, and the Evangelion's left hand latched onto a sturdy-looking building on the corner. The building held up just long enough for Unit-01 to swing around onto the highway and back up onto its feet, before the over-stressed structure collapsed behind them.

"Still not fast enough," Shinji groaned frustratedly. While he didn't want to put Kensuke down, he silently agreed with Asuka that their friend was just too new for such an onerous task as catching a falling Angel.

"Then let's go faster!" Asuka shouted down at him. Gritting his teeth and growling, Shinji refrained from sniping back and redoubled his efforts.

Buildings were now flashing by so fast that they appeared as a single solid object. There was a mountain up ahead; Shinji blinked, and suddenly he was at the top of it. Off in the distance, he could see Unit-02 thundering towards them. Somebody swore in surprise through the comm system.

"There! I see it!"

Up above, a spindly object broke through the cloud cover with a roar like an oversized jet engine. It looked like a rainbow-coloured version of the eye symbols that had been covering the black orb, only with two massive sets of similarly-colourful wings that trailed red smoke behind them. What appeared to be hundreds of black humanoid figures, each with the familiar eye symbol on its chest, lined every edge of its body. As it drew closer, Shinji gasped at the size; the Angel looked truly gargantuan, as big as Tokyo-3 itself if not larger.

"Now we need to stop!" said Asuka, with a hint of a smirk in her voice. Debris kicked up as Unit-01 slid for over a kilometre, coming to a stop under the central 'eye' of the Angel.

"This is all you now, Asuka," said Shinji as he stared up at the approaching Angel. Its eye alone was already dwarfing the Evangelion. The word 'giant' just got a new meaning. "I can't do anything more at this point."

"Got no time for self-pity!" Behind him, Asuka rubbed her hands together. Suddenly, she was speaking German. "Na dann: AT Feld volle Kraft!"

The world turned purple.

Unit-01's AT-Field shimmered for a second before vanishing again; a shockwave tearing up the ground around Unit-01. It raised its hands skyward, towards the glowing white dot at the very centre of the Angel. The AT-Field flared back into visibility as it contacted the Angel's own barrier, glowing hexagons radiating out from a point between its hands to match the rings of light flowing across the surface of the Angel's body. The ground cracked under Unit-01's feet, and Asuka groaned under the strain of halting the Angel, the sound making Shinji's chest twinge. The best he could do now was keep an eye open for any surprises. And speaking of which...

Was there a reflective surface up on the Angel's body? He could see something that looked like a shadowy Evangelion. Whatever it was, it seemed to unfold itself, stretching out lanky arms to its own side of the colliding AT-Fields. Shinji saw a face -or possibly a mask on its face- that looked remarkably similar to the horned visage of Unit-01, only with glowing red eyes.

"What the hell..." Shinji breathed. The white circle had reformed into a hollow ring encircling a fleshy mass that the smaller body of the Angel seemed to be growing from. The form wavered then solidified, becoming an almost exact replica of Unit-01, only instead of the clean purple-and-green colour scheme, it was tinted the ugly purple of bruised flesh.

The thing's hands pushed into and through the clashing AT-Fields, eliciting gasps of surprise from Shinji and Asuka. Its hands clasped onto those of Unit-01 in an almost gentle manner; Shinji barely had time to ponder what it was doing before his hands exploded in agony.

"Gyaaaahhhhh!"

Twinned screams of agony burst forth from Shinji and Asuka's mouths. The thing had morphed its hands and arms into drills, spearing directly through Unit-01's hands and continuing on to tunnel into the ground. The LCL in the entry plug boiled around the glowing spots on Shinji's hands, creating columns of bubbles, but he was in too much agony to pay attention to such minor details.

"Geh, wanna play... rough, huh?!" Asuka snarled through her pain.

Struggling to concentrate through the pain, Shinji opened one eye and glared up at the mockery of an Evangelion above them. As best as he could, he forced Unit-01's fingers to latch on to the drills and willed the Evangelion to push back.

"Aida, why have you stopped short?" Rei's terse voice just barely cut through the noise to reach Shinji's ears.

"Wha- oh shit!" Kensuke shouted in response. "Be there in a couple seconds!" In fact he was there right as he finished talking, Unit-02 skidding to a stop to the left of Unit-01. "Where's the core?" he asked.

Through gritted teeth, Asuka said, "I think I can... see it on the... edge of that ring!"

Unit-02's head turned side to side, before focusing on a specific point. "There it is!" Its left pylon opened up for it to grab the Progressive Knife stored there. Pushing through the AT-Field, the red Evangelion aimed at and stabbed the knife towards the familiar red orb that was the Angel's core.

The Angel, clearly deciding not to make things easy, shifted its core, spinning it at high speed around the ring. When Kensuke tried again to stab it, the slight miscalculation resulted in the knife being knocked out of Unit-02's hands. He swore in frustration. The spike launcher in Unit-02's right shoulder also failed to connect.

"Hurry up!" Asuka shouted. "I can't... keep this up... forever!"

"Grab onto it!" Rei ordered as Unit-00 arrived next to Unit-02, a knife in both hands.

As Unit-02 reached a red hand up to the ring, the core slapped loudly into it, halting it just long enough for Kensuke to grab on with both hands. Unit-00 lashed out with its knives, the first one putting a sizeable crack in the core and the second one widening the gap. After straining for a moment to shatter the core through sheer leverage, Rei abandoned the tactic upon hearing more grunts of pain from Shinji and Asuka. Instead, Unit-00's head reared back and slammed forward, headbutting the knife handles and forcing them into the red orb.

The core shattered.

The Angel's AT-Field disappeared, leaving Asuka gasping for breath. Its expansive wings fell almost gently to earth, the humanoid tendrils that lined its body slumping over before suddenly curling up, starting at the edges and working their way towards the central body. Just as it seemed as if it was all over, the mock-Evangelion exploded into blood, completely coating Unit-01.

Through the sludge dripping down the 'screens', Shinji could see that the entire landscape had suddenly been painted red; the blood that was all that was left of the Angel flooding downhill towards one of the districts they had just saved like the most disgusting tidal wave he would ever have the displeasure of witnessing. Already he could see buildings being knocked over by the sheer force of the liquid's passage; even the tallest buildings in the town that withstood the initial surge were now almost completely submerged.

Clutching his aching hands, Shinji breathed heavily as Unit-01 ran out of main power, leaving the entry plug dark, each gasp mirrored by Asuka behind him. The spots on his hands were still glowing and bubbling; an exploratory poke with one finger revealed that the circles were hot, and that he shouldn't have done that as a jolt of agony ran up his arm.

"Fuck," Asuka finally managed to say. "That's using your head, Wondergirl."

Despite the pain in his hands, Shinji managed to let out a chuckle. Kensuke snorted through the comm system, but Rei remained stoic. However, he thought he could hear some satisfaction in her voice as she replied, "I had no more weapons available to me. This seemed like the most expedient option."

Any further conversation was cut off by the sound of cheering from the command centre, interspersed with more subdued remarks of praise from Misato and Doctor Akagi. The cheering soon came to an abrupt halt.

"Incoming communication from Commander Ikari."

The comm channel to command went silent for a minute, before coming back with, "Unit-01, Commander Ikari wants to speak with you two."

Before Shinji or Asuka could respond, a screen flashed to life in front of their faces, mostly taken up by the words 'SOUND ONLY'.

"Captain Katsuragi has just informed me of what happened." His father's voice sounded just as neutral as ever. "The two of you performed incredibly well considering the circumstances."

"Thank you sir," said Asuka. Shinji echoed her, but couldn't stop a hiss of pain escaping his lips.

"...Shinji? Are you injured?" There was just the barest hint of concern, so faint that Shinji couldn't be sure he wasn't imagining things.

"It's just sympathetic pain, sir," Asuka replied for him. "That Angel impaled our Eva through both hands and we're still feeling it."

"I see. Considering the likelihood of the two of you achieving an extraordinarily high sync ratio, you will report to medical as soon as you are able."

"Yes sir," he and Asuka said in sync.

"Hrm." That was clearly all the goodbye he would get from his father; the voices of Doctor Akagi and the bridge officers returned as they sent out retrieval orders for the Evangelions, with priority given to Unit-01.

With a grunt, a pair of red arms flopped down in Shinji's peripheral vision. He turned around to see Asuka slumped over the back of his seat, her head resting on an arm. When she saw him looking at her, she half-heartedly raised her hands a tiny fraction of an inch. "Think we've actually got holes in our own hands now?" she asked.

Looking down at his own gloved hands, Shinji saw that the glowing spots were almost completely faded. "I'm... sure we'll be fine," he said with a modicum of uncertainty, staring at the blankness in front of him. "With that safety system in place, we didn't get over a hundred percent sync each, right?"

Asuka blew a raspberry. "They should have just disabled the damn thing. We were only a second away from losing power when the Angel died."

"That wouldn't have mattered, really," Shinji replied. "All three Evas seemed to lose power at the same time."

"Yeah, true I guess. Anyway..." One of Asuka's hands tapped his shoulder, which she seemed to immediately regret given the tiny 'ow' she let out. "Sorry about dredging up your mum before."

"...It's fine."

"Can I, uh, let you in on a little secret?"

"Huh? Sure, I guess." When Asuka didn't immediately respond, Shinji twisted in his seat to see that she was staring off into space. "...Asuka?"

"My mum's... gone too," the girl muttered dully. "She... died when I was young."

Shinji's heart twinged, and he slammed his mouth shut before he could let out a reflexive apology, pausing to actually think about what to say. "I still mean what I said back in that corridor," he finally said. "If you ever wanna talk about... things, I'll give you my full attention."

"Yeah, I still remember." Asuka patted his shoulder, and Shinji pretended not to notice her wincing at the obviously painful action. A metallic thunk echoed through the plug, and Asuka looked back towards the entrance. "Guess the cleanup crew's finally arrived," she remarked as the entry plug began the ejection sequence.

Harsh light reached their dark-adjusted eyes. The storm had broken, and the clouds were starting to disperse. A weak sun shone its light on the red landscape surrounding them as Asuka and Shinji were helped down to ground level and onto a NERV transport aircraft. Rei and Kensuke joined them a couple minutes later, and the VTOL took to the sky.

Rei stared out the aircraft's window, directing a grimace at the blood-drenched ground beneath them. She said the only words that were spoken on their return to the Geofront.

"If they tell us to clean that up, I shall refuse."