Didn't have time to get this beta-read, sad times.

Well, it's the quickest angel fight anyone gets to write lmao. I promise after this they get an actual break

X-X-X

Chapter 32

One Third Of All The Stars

X-X-X

"Alright! What are we looking at?!"

Asuka would never be called soft-spoken, and at the top of her voice, she could yell over even a chattering herd of bridge staff. The automatic doors in NERV-J HQ always opened silently, but had this not been the case, she would have kicked the control room door open for emphasis.

"Good, you're here." Misato took the pilots' arrival in stride. "It's an unusual threat. We're not sure of the best way to counter yet."

"That explains the Red Standby," Shinji muttered from the end of the row, his voice almost lost in the busy atmosphere. "Usually it's straight to Red Alert."

"Yes, usually by the time we detect Angels, they're moving in to attack," Misato continued, nodding. "However, this one isn't even on earth… yet. It was detected by chance on one of our auxiliary radio telescopes."

"Why the hell do we have radio telescopes looking out at space?" Asuka cut in.

"Partially in anticipation of this very situation," Misato replied, "But more because there's a lot of crossover between AT detection array technology and conventional radiography. Academic research grants aren't the majority of our funding, but they're not an insubstantial fraction."

"Huh." Asuka deflated slightly. "I guess that makes sense."

"Major," Mari cut in. "What do you anticipate?"

"At this point it could be anything. I have no idea what to expect on the ground." She inclined her head as Maya approached from her left side. "What's the run-down, Lieutenant?"

"We first detected the signature about thirty AU in from heliopause. It's hard to know the exact velocity yet, but AT blueshift suggests a meaningful fraction of c-zero, so -"

"C-zero?"

"The speed of light in vacuum."

"Oh damn. Uh… continue."

"Thank you. Technically, I can't even be sure it's targeting earth yet - this far out, all trajectories towards the terrestrial planets look the same - but it seems like a safe bet." Maya flicked over to a different tab on her tablet computer. "Our long estimates are somewhere between forty and eighty hours to earthfall."

"And the short estimates?" Misato's voice was hard.

"Fifteen to twenty hours. Less than twelve hours would constitute a theoretical impossibility, since as far as we know, not even AT tech can violate the speed-of-light barrier… and if it had somehow managed anyway, we wouldn't be detecting it at all."

"Thank you, Lieutenant."

"Of course, Major."

"So we hang around the base just sitting on our hands for a while?" Asuka's resting angry-face was a little too angry to be entirely resting.

"Suit up and prepare for launch, but yes, essentially," Misato replied. "I'll stream tactical updates to your teamcomm. If it's looking like a longer wait before launch, we'll let you disembark for meal breaks and to stretch your legs."

Asuka just nodded, her expression still irritated, her eyes tired.

"Any questions?" None of the pilots spoke up. "Alright. Fall out."

X-X-X

This body is 10.69 years old and its heart has beat 448,755,001 times.

"Updated ETA is about 8 hours, pilots. Feel free to break watch for awhile. Get some food and rest if you can."

The intercom clicked off with a short burst of line static. Behind her, Rei heard one of the other pilots shift.

"Don't think I could eat right now if I tried," came Asuka's tired growl.

"Me neither," muttered Shinji. "I hate this."

"The waiting?"

"Yeah. Pain hurts and all, but waiting for it, trying not to anticipate it…" Shinji shook his head. "Much worse."

"Gotta agree with you there," Mari piped up. "I can fight back an angel. Harder to fight back anxiety, you know?"

This body is 10.69 years old and its heart has beat 448,755,105 times.

The Evangelion units were like deep pools of cold water, their orange AT presences dormant and calm. Overhead, a titanic ball of wrath burned like a second sun, creeping closer across the astronomical expanses between planets and stars.

She looked up at the purple hyperdiamond of Unit 01's helmet. She'd gravitated towards this cage because Unit 01 comforted her, and the other pilots had clustered in out of an unconscious (or perhaps conscious) desire to keep their tight-knit social cluster together.

A soft touch nudged her thigh, and she looked down to see Asuka's toe prodding her. She looked back, questioning, but Asuka looked away without saying anything more.

Rei looked back up at the masked leviathan. After a moment, her hand idly came around to rest on Asuka's ankle.

Mari made a soft noise, one that Rei was learning meant she had seen something she deemed cute. Oh. I did not think there was significance to this gesture…

"Hey, any idea what we're up against, Blue?"

Rei looked back again. Mari's expression was not quite accusatory, but it was certainly a little knowing.

"Nothing… Nothing like anything we have faced before." She felt her shoulders hunching in. "It may break us."

Mari seemed to accept that was all. "We gotta stay strong, then," she murmured. "Keep that chin up, Blue."

Rei did lift her chin, but not because Mari told her to; rather, to look back over at the war mask of Unit 01.

This body is 10.69 years old and its heart has beat 448,755,440 times…

X-X-X

"I didn't expect this one to follow so soon after the Siege." Kōzō stood as stiff as ever, eyeballing the main control screen with a baleful glare. "Do you think our current evangelion corps is up to handling the threat?"

"We have no choice," Gendo replied shortly. "Either they will suffice, or they will not."

"Do we have any reasonable contingency plans for a scenario where evas are destroyed?"

"We have already planned expansion of the corps." Gendo briefly looked down, examining one of the readouts on his desk screen. "If all goes well, a new lot of units will be ready for fully active testing within a matter of weeks. The Russian pilot has already successfully completed semiactive testing on his designated Eva."

"What if we get another Bardiel?"

"Infectors have been effectively dealt with twice before." If Gendo were a man who ever varied his tone of voice, he'd have sounded smug. "Unit 03 single-handedly revived the stalled Elohim project, and I'm given to understand her pilot is recovering quickly - she'll be ready for physical therapy soon."

"Hmm." Kōzō shook his head. "Still doesn't feel right, treating children this way."

This time, Gendo simply ignored him.

X-X-X

The first thing Asuka noticed, when Unit 02 exited the launch elevator, was the second sun in the sky.

Well, it didn't quite look like another sun. But it was bright, bright enough to appear as a bright star even in the daylight blue of the afternoon sky. As she kept watching, Asuka was sure she could see it growing slowly brighter.

"With the Angel maintaining constant speed, we now have to assume it means to strike us like a meteorite. And even discounting AT effects, it's carrying enough momentum to not just puncture the geofront, but also probably turn the whole Hakone metro zone into a shallow bay."

"And we're going to try to catch that on our shields."

"Correct, Lieutenant."

"This is the best plan you've got?"

"Look me in the eye and tell me you really think a nuclear ground-to-air attack will even seriously change its course, Asuka."

"Fuck, okay, no need to be like that about it."

"And that's not even to mention the difficulty shooting at something moving near the speed of light."

"Yeah, I get it." Asuka turned her head, her four eyes meticulously scanning the cityscape around the launch elevator. "Please tell me you've got target spots picked out, at least."

"We've identified three likely weak spots in the geofront where we think it may focus its efforts. We've deployed your team units accordingly." Misato's voice was grim. "The radiolab said they'd have an update any minute n- oh, there she is now."

Misato pressed a button on her desk, and Ritsuko's sharp frown appeared beside her feed.

"Near telemetry seems to indicate the angel has subdivided its mass. Two smaller projectiles have separated along individual trajectories." The radiolab feed blinked to another map. "The revised target estimates are as follows: smaller masses towards New Yokosuka Harbor and NERV Regional Airport, the primary mass towards the geofront epicenter."

On the other feed, Misato's scowl depend. "It's never good news," she hissed, before composing herself once more. "Lieutenant Langley-Soryu, we can ill afford to let this Angel cut NERV off from the outside world… but protecting the geofront must come first. Distribute your forces as you see fit."

Asuka nodded, already kicking Unit 02 into a brisk walk and opening the teamcomm.

"Asherah, to the airport. Ishtar, downtown. I'll take the docks." She looked over the map again. "Baal, take a roughly central position, and identify your best roads."

"Clarify, leader?" Mari's voice was quizzical.

"You're the fastest. I'll move you in as we get further updates. Most likely downtown."

"Understood."

Asuka closed her eyes for a moment, reaching out to locate the control yokes by touch. They didn't vibrate as Unit 02 walked - the entry plug's stabilizers eliminated that kind of external feedback - but the impression of a physical link to the evangelion helped ground her.

Catch it on the shields. These things are going to hit us harder than most strategic nuclear ordinance and we're going to catch it on the shields.

So far, the average evangelion's nuclear threat resilience had been tested in a near-miss against one of the smaller, lighter nukes in the UN Armed Forces Arsenal. Something orders of magnitude more powerful, in a direct hit, was terrifying to contemplate.

Deep breaths, Asuka.

Upshifting Unit 02's reactor output, Asuka kept moving.

X-X-X

The new star was growing very bright now, nearly matching the sun's radiance. Perhaps, though, the blazing glare did not quite burn from heat alone.

Looking up from his perch on an outlying radio tower, Kaworu narrowed his eyes. The fiery hate falling from his star-born brother might have killed a lesser seraph; even to Kaworu's more resilient AT field, it prickled uncomfortably. Only a pure-blooded human would be able to remain blissfully unaware.

You make strike a wounding blow, Sahaquiel, but you will not finish them. You were not made to wage planetbound war; and if these Lilin fall, they will not fall to you.

There was no answer. Sahaquiel was not a creature of subtlety, and was not inclined to be argued out of anything. Kaworu was not even completely sure it could hear him.

It need not be this way, brother, Kaworu thought mournfully.

There was no response forthcoming from the sky, only silence and fire.

X-X-X

"Looks like the big target is downtown. Baal! Move to support Ishtar!"

"Aye-aye, leader."

Asuka bit her lip, trying not to draw blood.

"Be ready to burn out your amplifiers," she muttered, looking back up at the falling stars. "I think it's going to take that much, and then some."

X-X-X

As had become usual, Hikari Horaki found herself staring at the white ceiling of the NERV hospital, the aches and pains in her body dulled by the soft warmth of intravenous morphine.

Keep that chin up, girl. Two steps without the bar is amazing progress. Most people would never even stand up alone again, after getting a leg minced up like that…

She was beginning to suspect, however, that the dark malaise pulling her mood down wasn't the normal mix of pain and exhaustion and loss that marked most of her days. Rather than lethargic and useless, she felt keyed up, her remaining hand twitching, her heart rate elevated, her breath coming faster until she consciously slowed it.

I heard alarms outside. I wish I knew what's going on.

"Miss Horaki?"

Hikari turned her head to see Lieutenant Ibuki standing in the doorway of the hospital room. "I told you, just Hikari is fine."

"Alright, Hikari." Hikari tried to nod. "I need to take your vitals. Don't worry, there won't be any needles this time."

The blood pressure cuff wasn't comfortable, but compared to some pains Hikari had suffered recently, it barely even registered. Likewise the thermometer and the blood oxygen meter.

"Hmm… curious. That supports my hypothesis. Too bad I can't take AT measurements right now…"

"What is?"

"Hmm?" Maya looked up from the chart.

"What is curious?"

"This physical response. I'm sure you heard the alarms outside?"

"Y-yeah." Hikari nodded. "What's that about?"

"Same as usual; an angel attack. I've been investigating -"

"An angel?! Are we safe? Is my family safe, my classmates? I don't want to die here!"

Maya put down the clipboard, then reached out to put her hand on Hikari's shoulder.

"The NERV geofront is about the safest place in Tokyo-3 right now." She seemed torn, her expression wavering between soft and resolute. "I… there's no way for me to check the occupancy of the shelters right now. But we had some advance warning for this angel. I'm sure your loved ones made it to safety."

Hikari looked down, willing herself not to cry. I hate not knowing. I hate waiting. This no better than being stuck in the shelters.

"Is there anything else you need?"

Hikari looked back up, sucking in a deep breath. "Yeah. I want a hug."

Maya hesitated, clearly off balance, but Hikari had too much experience putting on puppy-dog eyes for any adult to resist for long. The hug was awkwardly angled, and Hikari swallowed a pang of hurt at the reminder in her asymmetric grasp, but it was still a much-needed comfort.

"What were you saying a minute ago?"

"Oh - yes." Maya released the hug and stood up, looking back over her clipboard. "In reviewing vitals records and such, I've noticed that pilots respond physically to angel attacks. At first I thought it was just a normal combat stress reaction, or perhaps the central nervous system strain of the link circuit, but since I just confirmed my findings with a new pilot who won't be on deployment this time… clearly it's something else."

"Huh."

"Yeah. I wish I had time to bring some AT instruments in here, but unfortunately I've got to report back to the control room shortly."

Hikari looked down, nodding tiredly. "Makes sense. Go on, then." She closed her eyes, leaning back onto the pillows and counting the seconds to time her breaths. "I'm sure I'll still be here when you're done."

X-X-X

"Hey, Shinji?"

"Yeah, Mari - er, Baal?"

"If we don't make it, it's been an honor."

X-X-X

Real short, I know… and continuing my pattern of shitty cliffhangers. Wish I could give y'all more, but I don't want to push back my update schedule, and I just haven't been able to write much. I'm not sleeping well and my physical health is on the downswing. Gonna have to cut back on some commitments before I burn out, but don't worry; this story isn't a commitment I'm willing to drop.