Matters of Faith

by jclong

Gendo is out to do some good, in the only way that he can; by being the most magnificent, manipulative bastard that he can be. Rei is out to help us all, by doing SCIENCE!

33. Chapter 32

Asuka stared blankly at the ceiling, counting out numbers in her head, trying to fall asleep but failing, just as she had for the last few days. While this place wasn't home, what with both pilots having moved underground, nearer to the Evangelions, there was more to it than that. Shinji was gone again, and this time, it was possibly for good.

He had disassociated entirely into the LCL in his Entry Plug, his ego barrier collapsed in the height of combat.

He was gone, lost in the combat that had saved them all from Third Impact, buying humanity precious time, staving off the end of the world yet again, despite her failures against the Angel. Perhaps more so than Toji's case, she had failed the Third Child.

Sighing, she flopped onto her front, staring at the room's spartan interior, the broken mirror, the smashed alarm clock, and the boxes of long abandoned books and technical manuals sitting and gathering dust.

With a disgusted sneer, Asuka unsteadily got to her feet. Deciding to take a bath, she stripped off her thin shirt and tossed it on the floor as she walked to the door. Misato had always said baths were good for cleansing both body and soul, but Asuka had never really believed it. Sure, baths and saunas were good for relaxing, but there wasn't anything that 'cleansed' the soul. Of course, she wasn't sure if Misato believed what she said. All the soul-searching her commanding officer seemed to do was at the bottom of a can of beer.

Either way, she could use some relaxation. A hot, steaming soak might be just the thing she needed to get to sleep. Stepping into the central area the two rooms shared, she cursed violently, glaring at the door to the tiny bathroom, suddenly remembering these barracks areas only had showers. She'd have to go up ten floors to get to the nearest gym with a hot tub and pool. If she wanted an actual bath with privacy, she'd have to go to the living sections of the Geo-Front and gain access to one of the suites there.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Rei stared blankly at her clones, and they stared back at her, mindless and empty. Agent Kaji slept, snoring, chained to a gurney in one corner of the laboratory, barely audible over the hum of equipment and machinery. Her other active drone lay sleeping in a room near the Evangelion cages, under the supposed observation and supervision of the Sub-Commander, who was actually in the middle of a meeting with the other senior staff.

Shinji was lost, and it was all her fault. He was lost, she didn't have a backup of him, and she didn't know how to get him back, or even if such a thing was possible.

If she hadn't wasted so much time trying to decide what to do with the spy, she could have done enough work to have been able to copy him into the machine and work from there. Just having a backup copy of him available would be better than nothing.

Growing a clone was easy, if time-consuming, and it was not as if she lacked genetic material from him. But what was the point in cloning him now if she didn't have a scan to upload into his brain? His empty body would be of no use to her. She could make it live with Science, but it would still not be Shinji. She could even program a modified MAGI core with a personality matrix to resemble his. As a replacement for a normal human brain, it wouldn't be noticeable to the naked eye. But, as she was loathe to admit, it would still not be Shinji.

She had no idea what she should do.

But what was worse, even worse than anything else, was that the Commander had no idea what to do.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Gendo, Kozo, Misato, and Ritsuko sat in the conference room, printouts and handwritten notes spread over the table, computer screens on the walls glowing with more information and detailed sensor readings. Boxes of more documents sat on the floor, waiting for their turn to be rifled through and for any pertinent information to be taken and scanned by the MAGI. These were most of the original documents from the very start of Project E, the brainchild of Doctors Ikari, Sohryu, and Akagi, the original drafts and plans, concept sketches, and mathematical models.

This was information so sensitive it had never before been loaded into a computer system, having existed only in hard copy, sealed in plastic bags and metal crates, and stored in one of the septic tanks serving the underground fortress. This was the information Gendo and Kozo had used in their attempts to force Yui Ikari out of the Evangelion Core to salvage her. This was the information Naoko Akagi had used in her attempts to salvage the first Rei. It had failed them in both attempts.

It also was not helping them in any way at all now, either.

"This situation is different on several levels," Ritsuko said, her tone straddling the line of explanation and complaint. "He did not contact the core; his ego border collapsed! He lost himself in the chaos and sublimated into the LCL. The waveforms are completely different, even though the net result is much the same."

"Yeah, about that..." Misato piped up, shuffling the papers she had been looking at, "Are you certain the others won't do the same? I mean, you said-"

"While it is always a possibility," Ritsuko said with a sigh, "it was always far more likely to have happened with Shinji, what with the unusual connection he and Unit-01 have, and even then, it wasn't very likely at all."

"Because he would have had to put everything into the fight? But what about his berserker states?"

"That was his soul joining back together during the stress of combat." Gendo dropped the sheet he had been going over back onto the table. "This was much different. Note he never entered the berserker state while fighting the Angel. He was in complete control of himself up until the very end when he sustained the final, mortal wound. If anything, this is more akin to Instrumentality on a local level. He has ascended from his frail, human body and joined with that of his superior, more durable body. He has truly become the Evangelion."

"What about the extended run time of Unit-01? We all watched his internal batteries run out."

"This isn't the first time Unit-01 has displayed anomalous behavior with the power supply, and we will investigate that behavior in due time. However, figuring that out needs to take a back seat to getting the pilot out of the Evangelion." He stood up, shaking his head while motioning for Kozo to stay and Misato to follow him. "As much as I need to work on this, other issues require my attention. Until this is resolved, you two are to focus entirely on this. Sub-Commander Katsuragi, you will oversee the rehabilitation of the remaining pilots and the repair of the other Evangelions."

"Yes, sir," Misato said, clearly unconvinced, glancing at the others, the older man's face inscrutable and her friend's haggard and worn. "About the pilots, sir, about Rei, really..."

"We will discuss her extracurricular activities at a later date." Gendo turned back to look at the pair of scientists. "Get my son out of Unit-01."

"This may sound harsh, but at this point, shouldn't we also ask if we should bring him back out, even if we can?"

Gendo leveled a stare at his chief scientist, a frozen and glacial look that was not quite a glare.

Ritsuko adjusted her glasses, answering his look with one of her own, one of clinical detachment she had honed over the years, watching Rei grow up under the shadow of the Evangelion project.

"Look at the Suzuhara boy. Look at Asuka. Look at Shinji's experience with the Fifth Angel. Look at Rei's injuries from the incidents with Unit-00. If we were to pull him back out of the Evangelion, what condition would we get him back in? Will he be in any condition to fight? Will he be in any condition to live? You saw what the internal logs had recorded once we reestablished contact."

"You misunderstand me. As long as the boy is alive, he can fight, even if only in the berserker state, exulting in mindless violence and destruction. As long as he has a pulse, we can keep him alive. But we need him out of Unit-01 because the longer his soul is joined, the harder it will be to separate it again later. His power inside Unit-01 derives from the unbridled joy of being complete and whole. His soul will defend itself against anything that threatens it. If he becomes desensitized to the feeling of being whole and complete, if he becomes used to this feeling, then he will no longer be useful as a pilot."

"You want him out, even if he has to be connected to a machine to live?" Misato asked angrily, eyes flashing. "Even if-"

"Even if all we have left of him is a mangled pile of meat, one we keep alive in a modified Entry Plug, one we only keep alive so that we can defeat the Angels and SEELE, then yes. I want him out of Unit-01. Intact, if possible, by all means. If not… well," he said, pushing his glasses back up his nose, "we have ways of keeping him alive."

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

"Sir, we have no idea when or where she acquired the nuclear shell or when she modified it into that lance weapon of hers." The Section 2 officer looked slightly apologetic and a little baffled. We've accounted for her every movement for the last three weeks and are currently reviewing the reports and tapes and going back further. The MAGI reported they moved the lance from the primary weapons supply room to the delivery point and it had been checked into the special weapons inventory at some point. We aren't missing any of our stocks, and according to all security footage, she never set foot into the storerooms-"

"Yet she does not deny she is the one who acquired and modified the weapon. She has given us some of the design plans and described the processes in such detail that there is no doubt she was the one who created them."

"There appears to be some inconsistencies with the reports from the MAGI and the technicians conducting cleanup and the initial decontamination. They are saying the contamination is inconsistent with a W33 shell. The weapon appears to have been made from material skimmed off the nuclear reactors and enriched on-site."

Gendo gazed through the chief of his security agents, his eyes focused on the wall behind the man's head. "What worries me more than her creating this 'atomic lance' is that she could completely evade all security, not only on her but the facilities. She admits to no subversion of the security systems and no special attempts to evade her security detail. If she has managed to evade our security, then it is possible other agents, such as SEELE agents, can do the same. Find me how she did this thing. Find out the holes in our security."

The assembled agents, the most senior of Section 2, nodded in silent obedience, none asking the question at the forefront of their minds. Instead, they rose, left the spacious office, and headed for the center of their web of shadows. As the door shut behind the last agents, Gendo sighed as he leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling and wondering if he should reset Rei now. The girl was starting to act outside the expected behavior track, and with the boy currently unavailable, he doubted anyone present would know her well enough to know that she was rebooted. Of course, there would have to be some sort of accident requiring her to be hospitalized for the story to go through.

Gendo also wondered if the others would go along with it. Kozo would, of course, but Ritsuko and Katsuragi might have misgivings about the casual replacement.

He frowned as the god-thing in his hand spasmed, the tendrils running up his arm tightening uncomfortably. Rubbing at his shoulder, he shook his head. There were still too many questions that needed to be answered and too many issues requiring his attention. Killing the girl right now would put more on his plate. Better to wait, he thought, and see how the situation played out.

But there was something he could do that might alleviate some of his problems. Picking up the phone, he dialed Rei's room.

She picked up almost immediately, with no sleepiness in her voice, as usual. Always ready and alert, the perfect and willing pawn. A pawn that may be getting out of hand.

"Yes?"

"Rei, I will have dinner with you tonight."

"Yes."

"I am sure you know I will have some questions for you."

"Yes."

"Good. I will see you later, Rei."

"Yes, Commander."

He hung up, wondering if the answers he would receive at dinner would be more beneficial than what had been given before. He had not interrogated the girl about the lance; only Katsuragi had done so. He had given Rei mostly free reign of NERV for most of her life and took a step backward, letting her grow closer to the boy. Now, it was time he stepped back into her life and see what she had accomplished.

Gendo closed his eyes, recalling the image of Yui, the woman for whom he had done all of this. He thought of Naoko and of her daughter, Ritsuko. He thought of his son, Rei, Asuka, and her mother. Misato, as a child and now as an adult, and of her father.

There had never been a chance for normalcy for any of them. No matter how pleasant it had been at the Halloween party, that life was a sham. It could never have worked, he told himself, but the pain of regret was still there. Those whose lives were touched by the shadow of Instrumentality were cursed. The burden upon them to stop this outrage from occurring was heavy and costly. Human lives were the weights that balanced out the scales of cosmic justice, and where human lives were involved, there was always pain.

Opening his eyes, he glared at the floor, at the symbol of the Tree of Life inscribed there. NERV had been a reactive force for a very long out of necessity. Against the Angels, against the Diet and United Nations, against SEELE, all of his interactions with them had been defensive, subversive, delaying, and outmaneuvering. Direct action was planned for, but only at the very end of the war, and it was against the few heads of SEELE that he knew.

They were testing his defenses, looking for holes and openings. They had been at this for a long time, secretly undermining the systems they helped prop up, rigging the system to send it all tumbling down at the end once they were sure the way was clear. They taunted him and flaunted their superior board position. Surrounded on all sides, he did not lack targets; instead, he lacked the opportunity to mount a proper offensive. NERV could hold the line for now. It had been holding the line for some time. To open the gates of this defensive fortification was to weaken that line, so he had to wait it out and endure this siege.

It may be time for a change, no matter how risky. He looked at the papers on his desk, at the images of Unit-01 fighting against the Angel. His son was locked inside the Evangelion, just as his wife was locked inside an Evangelion's core. One willingly so, and one perhaps not so much.

It had been some time since he had last talked to his wife. Would she care that her son was locked away just as she was? Perhaps, but he had doubts about her maternal instincts. Her family had just been a means to an end, that end being Instrumentality.

He rose from his chair, heading for the door. Perhaps it was time that he changed some things.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Rei looked around her lab, now almost in a panic. She had known when she began to augment his Scenario with her own plans that she would one day be called to account for her actions by the Commander, but was still unsure what to tell him.

She had hoped it would have waited until the day of Third Impact.

She might be able to fool the others, but she could not fool him. That was, without a doubt, why he had called her. He knew she was obfuscating the details of her actions, and he wanted to know why. Her gaze resting on the still prone form of the agent, she started collecting some of her tools. If she were to keep running her own Scenario, she would have to give up a laboratory and workshop. He would want to know where she had done the work on the lance, and she would have to show him. Fortunately, there was another location that she used to store some of her things, so she could avoid losing this lab.

She would have to work quickly, but that was the easy part of her task. The hard part would be telling the Commander what she had done without telling him more than she needed.

She would have to sacrifice enough projects to keep him from suspecting that she was holding out, but most of the work she had at present was concerning Shinji, and she wouldn't give that up.

Giving up her last link to the boy now that she was on a course to get him back would be intolerable, even if it was to the Commander.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Toji's eyes opened, and he groaned, trying to sit up. His entire body felt weird and sore and, at the same time, strangely light. Shock and horror slid across his face as he looked down at the shattered remnants of his body.

The teenager screamed, tears streaming down his face as he sobbed. Nurses rushed into his room, one calling for the doctor on duty.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Shinji slept as Unit-01 slept, dreamless and alone, but the pressure was beginning to build.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

"Hikari is going to kill me," Asuka told Toji as she pushed him down the hallway in his wheelchair. "I thought NERV would have told her, or your father or grandfather would have. And then I forgot to, after all the shit that's happened. I haven't talked to her in ages."

"They didn't want to scare them," Toji said morosely. "They called them to let them know I had been hurt and that it would be some time before they heard from me. Dad said they didn't really want to burden them with trying to keep how bad it was from my sister."

Asuka shook her head. "Well... well..fuck."

"Yeah, that pretty much sums it up."

The rest of their trip was silent until they reached the observation catwalk overlooking Unit-01. Setting the locks on the wheels, Asuka sat down next to him, her legs dangling over the edge, leaning against the railing.

"So what did you want to talk about?" she asked, watching the small team of techs working on the giant, bandaging up the face, having just removed the claimed mask.

"Well... it's weird." Toji started to explain, looking around. "When Kensuke and I got interrogated after Shinji rescued us during the second attack, some of their questions were weird. I mean, all of it was weird, but even with what I know now, it's still weird."

"Like what?"

"Like stuff about... contamination. Mental contamination. Contact with the Angel."

Asuka stiffened and turned to look at the boy staring at their friend's Evangelion, his eyes distant. "Did you say anything to them about it?"

"No. It wasn't really… I mean, it's like it was a dream. Looking back, it doesn't seem like it was real, or if it could be."

"But the feelings are in your gut, right?" the girl asked, watching his face intently. "But the memories aren't yours, even though they feel like they are?"

Toji looked at her, confused. "No, it's not like that. What-"

"What was it?" she quickly interrupted him. "Did the Angel talk to you?"

"Ye-yeah." Toji's face twisted, thinking about the strange encounter with the Angel. "It's like we were at the school gym. It was almost twilight, with orange light coming through the windows. Everything was... washed out by it. It was there, the Evangelion, but more like my size. Like a person, though it was still huge."

Toji sighed, making a disgusted face. "He... it... wanted us to join together. It said it wanted to join our songs together. It said something about completion. They want to get to Lilith, the one you told me about, in the basement. It called her the Great Mother."

Asuka frowned, puzzled by Toji's story. "What exactly did it say?"

"Well, it talked about how it wanted to merge our songs and for me to join with the light of its soul. It called the Evangelions shadows and said the task was done."

"What task?"

Toji shook his head. "I don't know, it just said the task was done, and the Great Other was destroyed. It wanted me to join with it, kill you and everyone else, go to the basement, and achieve completion."

"And you refused, obviously."

"Well, yeah. I mean, fuck it. But I could fight it there. It called the place we were in an interface and said that our souls had power there." Toji smiled, nodding as he thought about it. "Well, it was right. It was like the Matrix, you know? It was like Neo and Smith fighting, but something happened, and I don't remember anything after that."

"It must have been when I managed to get your plug out of the Evangelion," Asuka offered, thinking about the fight. "It was a lot harder after that happened." She made a disgusted face. "Almost as if it wasn't distracted by something else."

"Like fighting me?"

"Yeah."

Scowling, Asuka glared at Unit-01. "At least the fucking JSSDF came in handy, those bastards."

"Yeah."

They sat awkwardly for a few minutes before Toji spoke up again. "What do you think it meant by the Great Other?"

"I don't know how much I believe this, but..." Asuka started to explain, looking uncomfortable. "I talked to Lilith by myself. I snuck back down there later, the night after they showed her to us and talked to her. She... she gave me some of her memories, I think. I was her, but I was watching the whole thing like it was a movie. She was here, I'm pretty sure. Here on Earth, I mean. And then something happened. There was a massive fight with what looked like... well, an Evangelion made of fire or light. She called it the Other." She wet her lips and then sucked a long breath and sighed. "They fought for what felt like forever, and I was confused about it before, but it's starting to make sense now. I think she made the Angels to fight it. She couldn't beat it by herself, even with this weapon she had. The one that was recovered."

"That Lance thing?" Toji asked. "The one they found in the ocean?"

"Yes." She took a deep breath, putting puzzle pieces into place. "ADAM is connected to the Lance, somehow. The higher-ups know, but they won't say anything about the actual event, just that it was an accident. I think this Other is ADAM. Lilith made the Angels to fight it, and now they are just trying to come home to their mother."

"But... isn't that supposed to cause Third Impact?" Toji objected. "I thought they said the Angels were related to ADAM."

"That's what they say, but I don't know how they know this. There's supposed to be some sort of agreement between us and Lilith, but I don't know what it is or if it's between us as NERV or us as humanity."

"Do you think that the others know the Angels are the children of Lilith?"

"I don't think so unless they lie to us about that too. They've told us a lot of lies. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more." Asuka shook her head again. "But there are limits to how much we can communicate with Her. It's hard; she's not... like us, obviously, but still... She's our mother too, apparently, but different somehow."

Toji stared back out over the cage. "Do you think I did the right thing, not telling them about this? I mean, the first time they talked to us, it sounded like this contamination thing was really bad, and-"

"No, it was the right thing," Asuka said, nodding in approval. "Who knows what they would do to you? They were going to check Shinji out for contamination after he woke up, but... there was no time."

"And now he's gone."

"It makes me wonder if the collapse of the ego barrier makes you join with the Evangelion the same way the Angel wanted to join with you."

"But... well... the Angel did say something about... um... usurping the Evangelion. Doesn't that mean there are souls in the Evangelions if the two things are the same?"

The two children watched the silent titan, the horrifying grinning face, half-covered in bandages, new questions forming in their minds, new problems that needed to be solved.

"So, in our synchronization experiments, are we somewhat joining our souls with another soul? It's not just a neural linkup?"

"This shit is fucked." Toji said, shaking his head again. "Although that makes a lot more sense than Shinji's ego barrier collapsing from a neural connection with the on-board AI that drives Unit-01."

"While it means that more of what I thought about the Evangelions isn't true, this answers some questions. It also gives me some ideas."

"But what are we going to do in the meantime?" Toji asked, looking worried. "And don't you think we should tell Rei? I mean, this affects all of us."

"She's the Commander's pet. We can't trust her not to go running to him."

"But she's totally in love with Shinji. I mean, she wants him bad. You never saw her before he showed up, but she's a completely different person now. Plus, I mean, if this changes how we deal with the Evangelions and the Angels, she should know. It's only right."

Asuka made a face. "I don't trust her. She's creepy, and she's been up to things and keeping secrets from us. What about her nuke on a stick? What the hell was up with that? She won't give me anything on when or where she made it, and don't forget she was in lockup, so she had to have done so a long time ago."

"But we're up to stuff, and we've been keeping secrets from her," Toji argued. "It's not like we could have told her anything when she was in solitary, but still."

"We can't trust anyone else but ourselves. The higher-ups know things they won't tell us, and Rei might like Shinji, but who knows what she's up to?" She shook her head. "No. We need to keep this to ourselves."

"I don't like it," Toji replied after a few moments, "but I don't know what else to do. But I want us to talk to her if things get any weirder."

"Maybe." Asuka stood up, stretching. "C'mon, let's get moving. We'll go check out my Unit-02."

"Have they said anything about how they will get him out of Unit-01?"

"Not yet. I don't think they know if they can."

Vier, Drei, Zwei, Eins!

Ritsuko looked up as the phone on the wall rang. Quickly crossing the room, she motioned at Shinji to keep still as she picked up the receiver. As soon as it cleared the cradle, she could hear the alarms going off in Central Dogma just as a new klaxon began screaming throughout the base.

"What's going on up there?" she demanded, her other hand going for her tablet. "What-"

"We need Shinji in Unit-01, Doctor!" Maya shouted into the phone, still barely audible over the other noise. "The Angel has defeated the others!"

"Shit. Shit. Shit shitshitshit!" Ritsuko swore, dropping the phone as she spun around, shouting for the other nurses. "Prep him for combat! Emergency! Code Delta Zero!"

Shinji paled as the attending nurses started ripping the cords from the machines as they bustled him onto a gurney, tightening the transport straps down. He gasped as Dr. Akagi slid a needle into the catheter in his arm, hooking up a saline bag.

As two large Section-2 men grabbed onto the rails of the gurney and began running him down the hallway, the blond doctor kept up with them, squeezing hard on the bag and forcing the fluid into Shinji's veins. "I'm sorry, Shinji, but we don't have time for anything else. We've got to get to the Evangelion."

"The Angel..." he gasped, wincing as the pressure in his arm increased. "What about the others?"

"I didn't ask. We won't have time to do a regular prep, so you're going in cold. No suit and with emergency start-up sequences. Synchronization will occur as soon as the plug is inserted."

"Brace for elevator!" One of the security guards interrupted as the four reached the elevator bank. Although the men slowed down as much as possible, a jolt ran through Shinji as the gurney hit the back of the elevator, which shot off as soon as they entered. The lift doors remained open, and he could see the glowing floor numbers changing in a blur too fast to read.

"You saw the Angel- you know what it looks like. It's inside the Geo-Front, and it shrugged off a nuclear blast. Stop it! You must stop it before it reaches Absolute Dogma!"

"Cage floor coming up soon!" one of the guards warned as the glowing blur began to flash red. The three adults tensed, waiting for the elevator to halt, which it did, slamming against the emergency supports.

Watching the overhead lights rush past, Shinji swallowed, tightening his jaw. He could already smell the LCL and hear it draining out of the cage before they rounded the corner, and the smooth floor gave way to the grated metal of the gantry catwalk. The quick-release buckles were undone, and the men picked up the pilot as the base shook, several new alarms sounding as the lights switched to emergency backups, casting the room into shadows, pools of dim light offering meager visibility.

"It's inside Central!" Ritsuko cried, shoving the gurney back. "Shinji, you must stop it! It cannot be allowed to initiate Third Impact! You are the only one now! It's all up to you!"

The agents positioned him on the throne, one throwing him a thumbs up while the plug began to seal shut. "Good luck!"

The plug sank into the Evangelion, the emergency protocols flooding the chamber with LCL at speed, a rushing torrent flooding over him from below. Breathing in deep, Shinji clenched his hands around the controls, feeling the thick fluid fill his lungs. Synchronization hit home like a spike of fire burning through his spine, his awareness expanding out through the senses of the armored giant. Sending out his AT-Field in a pulse, he paled further when he found it tearing through the base, almost at Central Dogma. Cold fear and determination sank through him as he clenched his fists.

Slamming into motion, Shinji flicked the external speakers into life. "Location confirmed. Open lift three's gates, please." Shivering, he climbed the tunnel to the surface and headed for his foe.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Techs screamed in terror as the wall of monitors and displays went dark and crumbled inwards, the Angel's face grimacing at them from behind the ruined wall. Gendo stood before it, glaring at the enemy. "Now!" he thundered, almost inaudible over the near-deafening mix of destruction and alarms.

The security agents of Section 2 opened up with the mortars pulled from the arms rooms, along with recoilless rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. Showers of phosphorus rained over the front of the Angel, sending up eye-searing showers of white-hot flame and choking smoke. While it could only ever be a delaying tactic and a pitiful one, every second they bought for the last pilot was invaluable. As expected, their attempts against the Angel were as futile as Asuka's initial attempts to fight it. Men and women died as the monstrous alien struck back, the whip-like arms tearing up large swaths of the cavernous control room.

"Keep firing!" Gendo bellowed, dashing forward to collect the grenade launcher of a fallen agent. Sliding to a halt, he loaded another grenade, brought it up to his shoulder, and fired. Loading another grenade, he leaped to the right, changing location before firing again. "Delay the Angel at all costs!"

The seconds ticked on like minutes as they fought the losing delaying action. The few remaining technicians struggled to monitor Unit-01's status as they huddled behind their workstations.

"He's almost here!" Maya called out, her voice lost in the sounds of battle. "Hurry, Shinji," she breathed softly, ducking back under her station as debris flew overhead.

Gendo ditched the launcher as he scrambled away from danger, waving the others away as chunks of concrete and metal rained down over them. The Angel roared, whip arms cutting through the air at them. Gendo turned to glare at the Angel, his face hard, clenching his fists. He had tried to see if he could manifest an AT-Field before using the nascent Angel implanted in him, but he had no control over what was growing within him. He only hoped Ritsuko would have enough time to implant the thing into the backup recipient after his son defeated the Angel.

He didn't flinch as Unit-01 slammed through the wall, the glowing hexagonal field driving before the titan like a hammer, battering aside its deadly weapons.

Roaring, the Angel turned towards the interloper, eyes glowing. Shinji screamed back at it, forgetting his external speakers were still on. The two giants traded blows like freight trains impacting head-on. Ducking in under the whips, Shinji grappled with the Angel, trying to push it back out of the base.

Shrugging off the Evangelion, the Angel reared back, sending both arms flying at its foe. Shinji threw up his AT-Field instantly in response, but the deadly paper-thin blades tore through the shield and then through his arm.

Shinji threw himself back, howling in pain, clutching his arm inside of the plug, beating his head against the back of the seat. Blood and oil splashed out in a foul shower over the broken remains of the room, drenching Gendo completely. Wiping the blood from his face, Gendo nodded, grim but expectant.

"And now, the berserker," he whispered, a shiver running through him, waiting for the change.

But the Evangelion did not break through its restraints and unleash its primal roar, for the screams of anger and hate that sounded were merely those of the boy sitting inside the armored cockpit of the war machine. Shinji leaped at the Angel, his AT-Field slamming into its lower body, sending it to the ground. While they scrabbled about, Shigeru blanched as he furiously typed commands into the computer terminal, trying to adjust the Evangelion's onboard systems.

"Synchronization is at 43% and rising fast! Plug depth is increasing!" he shouted at the other two techs. "48%! He just jumped up five percent!"

"Vital signs are strong, but the pulse is almost 200 beats per minute!" Makoto called back, trying to assess Shinji's condition while dodging debris and shrapnel.

"Neural stress is increasing! Synchronization now at 50%!"

Shinji, his one arm wrapped around the Angel, threw the both of them out through the hole his entrance had made and down through the elevator shaft, falling back towards cages. Their impact sent smoke and debris throughout the cages, electricity arcing from severed cables.

"Open all gates to the surface!" Shinji screamed into his microphone, blood pouring from his nose and ears into the LCL, tinting his view red. Slugging the Angel across the face, he pushed it away from him and then charged it. Hissing as two deep cuts ripped through his shoulders as the Angel cut off Unit-01's shoulder fins, they crashed onto another catapult lift. "NOW!" he shouted, barely seeing the small blond figure slamming down on the emergency override that activated the electromagnetic drive system.

The edges of the tunnel burned bright red with heat as the platform shot up through the earth back to the surface, and Shinji brutally smashed the Angel's face against the wall, filling the air with the smell of burning bone, blood, and metal. The walls were suddenly gone as they hit the surface, the pair flying up into the sky over the battered city. As he tumbled through the air, Shinji ejected the cut umbilical cable, eyes tracking the Angel as it corrected its fall into a controlled glide, floating back down to the ground.

His own descent was not so graceful, slamming through several buildings. Light flashed through the sky as the Angel sent its devastating energy weapon into the dust and smoke that rose from his landing.

"Synchronization is at 60% and still climbing! Life signs are erratic!"

"Shinji, we're sending weapons to the surface and all power stations!"

Eyes suddenly glowing in the smoke, Unit-01 charged out, ducking under the whips as they lashed at it. Impacting against the regenerating Angel, Unit-01 sent it flying back through another building.

"Shinji, you have to get to an energy station!" Shigeru shouted. "You're running down on the clock!"

"No time... to..." Shinji grated between gasping breaths of LCL, throwing himself to the side and away from another energy blast. "Can't... let up... the attack..."

"You have no backup! You are it! You have to have power! If you run out of power, everyone dies!"

Shinji turned away from his enemy and thundered across the battleground to the nearest power station. Just as he seated the plug home in Unit-01's back, he was sent flying as another blast hit home, causing the clock to continue its run down.

Shinji threw up his AT-Field again as a shield, dumping all he had into it. The clock began ticking faster as all the remaining energy went to the emitters. His own eyes started to glow red inside the plug as his veins stood out against his skin.

"Synchronization is at 90%," Maya screamed, cutting through the noise of men fighting fires and tending the wounded, causing all present to reflexively look towards the ruined main screens and then up towards the surface world. Such a thing was impossible; they all knew that. Maya collapsed to her knees as she watched the digits hit 100%. "One... hundred... percent.." she whispered as the life signs flatlined.

"No vitals! Shinji, respond!"

"Less than thirty seconds of power left!"

Above ground, the Angel beat at the brightly glowing ball before it, but the deadly whips could not cut through the AT-Field.

"I have visual!" the bespectacled lieutenant shouted, beckoning the Supreme Commander over.

"MAGI!" Gendo shouted as he crossed the room, "Prepare emergency countermeasures, Code Revelations!"

"Ten seconds of power! Five, Four, Three, Two, One!"

The glowing ball of light did not vanish.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Toji and Asuka watched from their catwalk as another small group of NERV personnel left lit candles at the ever-growing shrine before the silent Evangelion. No one had claimed responsibility for it, for it had sprung up at night a few days ago. It had been almost two weeks since the battle, and cleanup and repair were still underway. The other Evangelions were nearing complete repair, although the pilots still had a haunted, beaten look. Asuka shook her head as the group of three, wearing regular office clothing, left the area.

"They probably don't even have security access to be in here, let alone that close to an Evangelion," she said, flipping her hair back over her shoulder. "I don't see why they're letting people in to add to it."

"That's because you're heartless," Toji replied, but not unkindly. "They want to show their respect and hope he returns."

"You mean they hope that we can pull him out of it," she said with a snort. "They call it salvage. Salvage! As if he was just a chunk of metal or a computer part." Asuka slammed a fist against the railing, anger twisting her face. "That's all we are to them. Replaceable components. Equipment to be recovered if possible. Even Rei knows it. Hell, she knew it before anyone else, what with her talk of 'being replaceable'!" Slamming her fist against the railing again, she glared at the technicians who glanced up at them. "Bergungsarbeiten? Was für ein Schwachsinn!"

"Have they made any progress on it?"

"Nothing I know about. Ritsuko and the sub-commander have been locked away and working on this. All the other technicians handling Evangelion-Pilot synchronization are working twelve-hour shifts with them. I don't think they have seen the sun since the fight."

"I wonder if they ever planned for something like that. I mean, there's supposed to be safeties and stuff, right? How come they didn't engage?"

Asuka's face darkened, twisting her frown into a full glare as she stared out at the sleeping giant. After they had wrapped the face and submerged the rest of it in the LCL, they had put repairing the armor on the back burner for repairs until the other Evangelions were wholly restored and they had a better idea about how to get the boy back. As it was now, only the bright greenish-blue eyes and a horrifying grin could be seen amidst the bandage-wrapped head.

"Kensuke actually gave me some information about that. There are significantly fewer safeties on Unit-01 than are on the other Evangelions. In fact, there are only three, and they all are easily broken. All three were broken during the fight as the plug went deeper as his synchronization increased."

"That doesn't make any sense. If Unit-00 has them, why not Unit-01? It's a second version."

"More mysteries. More secrets. More lies from the top. They wanted something like this to happen. Maybe not this time, and probably not in this way, but they wanted him to be able to contact the core."

"But that's how they lost his mother and how yours... um..."

"Yes. I know. It's how I lost my mother." Asuka growled, scowling. "He says hi, by the way. He hates it out there in the country. Working on the files I've smuggled to him is apparently the only thing keeping him from losing his mind."

"Yeah, uh... are you sure you guys are safe enough? You'll probably get off the hook 'cause you're a pilot, but they'll lock him in jail and throw away the key. If things are part of a hidden conspiracy, they won't like it if they find out we're snooping around."

"I've taken every precaution I can. Thanks to a passcode borrowed from Ritsuko's notes, I've bypassed MAGI control checks on outbound and inbound traffic."

Toji whistled, impressed. "Where the hell did you get that from? I thought she was shut up working on the project?"

"I got it from inside the MAGI housings," Asuka said smugly. "All original notes and design work are inside them, throughout all the service tubes and component housings. If you know what you're looking for and are as brilliant as I am, you can find what you need."

"And if everyone else is busy working on other things." Toji countered and nodded. "Sounds pretty slick. I bet you could even get a high-level account setup for yourself or him."

"Yeah, but that would get noticed. The super-user lists for MAGI systems are very, very short. A super-user login from the middle of nowhere would be flagged quickly."

Toji shrugged. "Probably. Oh! Well, I finally called up Hikari today. She says hello to you and to Rei and Shinji." The wheelchair-bound boy made a face. "I told her... about all of this."

"Oh, Toji..." Asuka said, reaching out and grabbing his hand. "I'm-"

"It's okay, really. She cried, of course, and yelled at me, but... she's not mad. Not really. It's..more acceptance than anything else. I told her not to worry and that everything was okay. I... I didn't tell her about him. Of course, I didn't because it's classified, but I didn't even want to."

Choking a little, he coughed hard. "It's not fair. He's been through so much, and no one's ever given him a choice. I mean, they bargained with me. You and Rei, you've both grown up with this. He was just thrown into it."

Asuka watched the boy and then turned away, blinking back the wetness in her eyes. "He was born into this, just as I was," she said, keeping her voice level. "His father and mother are both central to the project, both-"

"But he was never brought up with it like you were. I mean, his dad had sent him off for years and years, then called him in, and bam! He's a pilot. And he's suffered so much in the Evangelion. Over and over..." He waved at his own body, at the missing arm, the amputated legs, the hair that was just now starting to cover the scars of surgery to save his brain and repair his skull. Scars, which would have left large masses of hairless tissue if it hadn't been for LCL therapy. "He's a hero, several times over. I don't deserve his friendship; I never did. He's risked this so often. He lost his leg, he's... he's felt his own body ripped and beaten apart. We've seen the battle footage. The fight with the Fifth Angel, where he took the laser blasts, that fight... boiled alive. And still, he gets into the plug. He just keeps doing it."

"He does, doesn't he..." Asuka murmured, more to herself than to her friend. "We've all had bad, but... He does have the longest combat record. I've pushed him... He really is a hero, isn't he? I mean, we all have put our lives on the line, but he... he's never cared about the glory... the prestige. He's always... just..." her words trailed off as wistfulness and frustration warred on her face.

"It's not fair to him to be lost like this. He keeps pulling off the impossible, but you all have."

"So did you!" Asuka snapped at him. "Fighting the Angel within your mind, against synchronization. Refusing to give up, standing with an iron will. Blood and Iron! You fought, expecting to die!"

"I did, really. I thought... no, I knew, in there, at that moment, that I was going to die. I was going to die, and I was going to make sure it did, too. It's a miracle I'm even here."

"Four teenagers, four Children, standing between the world and oblivion. It's a miracle that any of us are here. It's a miracle we've come this far. But with Kensuke's help, I've made some headway toward my other project. They are almost done working on my Unit-02, and once it's been given the green light, I'll put it into motion."

"When are you going to tell me what it is? You've been damn secretive about it."

"Once I'm done. I can't risk telling you if we are being overheard. Even here." She hated lying to him, but she wasn't sure if she could trust him with what she was doing.

They sat in silence, watching as another small group walked up to the shrine, two lighting candles and one lighting a stick of incense. They bowed to the picture of Shinji, a rare one of him smiling, before turning and leaving. Since the shrine had been put together, there hadn't been a moment when candles or incense had been burning. Small strips of paper with words of gratitude and wishes for a safe return sat among the lights. The whole thing felt absurd to the girl.

They were present at the ceremony, where they saw the addition of over fifty names to the memorial walls in the main surface office. Most of the names were of the Section-2 agents who had fought the last delaying action before Shinji arrived, but there were still some 'civilian' casualties who had been unable to escape the path of the Angel. It had been a somber affair, headed up by Misato, as the Commander was off doing something else, and the senior Sub-Commander was busy working on a way to recover Shinji.

The two girls had spots to the right of the podium, looking out at the faces of the audience. Misato had mentioned their mostly futile attempts to stop the Angel and recognized Toji's coming out of his coma. Still, there was one name missing from the honor roll the buxom woman read off, a name everyone was thinking about.

After the battle, she had, at first, been furious. All that the two girls had done, it had barely been an annoyance to the Angel for all it had accomplished. For Shinji, freshly awakened from his coma, freshly abducted, to have fought and destroyed the most powerful Angel they had encountered yet by himself in a titanic battle... Well, it was embarrassing. It was more than embarrassing; it was galling. But she had seen part of it, and after watching what battle footage existed, going over the sensor readouts, and then watching the hours, then days, tick by without any evidence of any progress of them getting him back...

Fury turned to guilt and doubt. Doubt turned back to anger as Kensuke hacked through the protections on the data she sent him. Anger and guilt festered in her now, fueled by new suspicions of her superiors. There were only two other people she trusted right now, the broken pilot sitting next to her and the nerd she had been so dismissive of in the past, who was so far away.

And Toji would be leaving soon- they knew it, though it wasn't official yet. Awake and as well as he could be, he would be sent off to join Hikari's family. He would undergo physical therapy there, away from the dangerous Tokyo-3 and the newly vulnerable Geo-Front. It was only a matter of time, and to be frank, the fact that it had yet to happen was a sign of how thin on the ground senior leadership was with the current issues at hand.

She wasn't looking forward to being alone again. Rei was in the room next to hers, in their new quarters down on the cage level, but she wasn't to be trusted. The lab where she had built the atomic lance had been seized, and Asuka had looked at the notes concerning the confiscated materials. The girl had been building a small particle accelerator, of all things! Designs for the lance and several other weapons of dubious nature had been recovered, along with numerous tools, components, a CNC mill, and a 3-D printer no one knew was missing from the fabrication department.

She was downright jealous. It was so rude! Rei hadn't even invited her to share lab space! But the girl was secretive and still had exclusive access to the Commander. They had dined a few nights ago, right before the taciturn girl had led security agents to the laboratory. Of course, the girl had given up the lab because of whatever had been said over dinner, but who knew what else had gone on.

In addition, the girl was seemingly relatively calm about the situation. In the past, she was nigh inseparable from the boy's side when he was in the hospital, but she hadn't even come to watch the Evangelion or do so much as look at the shrine. This, from a girl who was almost murderously covetous of Shinji. No sight of her down here. Whenever she wasn't training in the simulators, she sat staring at the wall in her room. Meals were a chore: sitting there silently, eating whatever the cafeterias had prepared that day. Neither really felt like cooking anything. For her, that was something Shinji had always done. Who knew what the girl thought.

Things were getting out of hand. No, she shook her head. Things had been out of hand for quite a while. Things were so out of hand that it was hard to think they had even been held.

Sighing, she pulled herself up, stretching. Disengaging the wheel locks, she started pushing Toji back towards the elevators. It was almost time for her to prepare for the simulators, and he was due for another checkup and meeting with the therapist.

How much longer would they have to hold on? How much longer would they have to fight? What did the future have in store for them? Tokyo-3 would never be the same again; most of the city was now such a mess of ruins and destruction that there was no point in trying to clear the streets of the rubble apart from recovering resources to rebuild armor plating and shield walls. There was no one left here but those employed by NERV. Except for the train lines and a few city blocks, NERV had abandoned the surface for habitation and human use.

Even the once verdant and lush Geo-Front was a mere shadow of its former glory, with almost two-thirds of the forest destroyed and reduced to splintered kindling. With its battleship, while much lower than before, the great inner lake was being replenished by a small waterfall from a surface stream that had its course altered during the battle.

Before all of this had started, before the Angels had come back, she had taken great pleasure in her abilities with Unit-02, outperforming entire armies in the simulated battles. So confident in her skills, those early days now so far behind them. Even the early fights and small obstacles to her successes were now a distant memory. This past fight only reinforced her growing doubts about her skills and abilities. Each fight had seen her less and less capable of dealing with the threats they faced, and after each battle, they needed more time to recover. The toll was beginning to wear on them.

They needed a break, a breather. Barring that, they needed something else, an ace in their pocket. She would have to be that ace. There was no one else she could trust to do it.

Vier, Drei, Zwei, Eins!

The glowing ball of light shrank back to nothing as Shinji threw his Evangelion into a run, tearing through the war-torn city at the Angel. He felt light, refreshed, and relaxed. To be sure, he was hurt and almost choking on the heaving breaths of LCL, but it was like a load had been taken off of his shoulders. He felt cool as the city burned around the two belligerents. It was almost as if a light breeze had kicked up.

Outside, a light layer of frost was forming on the Evangelion, and indeed, a wind had begun to blow as the air cooled around Unit-01. He rocked backward as an energy blast slammed into him head-on, but it only momentarily slowed his headlong rush. They crashed together, struggling for supremacy, Shinji's grunts of exertion sounding across the land. The Angel shuddered as it came into contact with the freezing armor of the giant, feeling a measure of its power drawing away and into the Shadow of the Other.

The Great Mother it could feel, down below, far underneath the cavern where they had first clashed. But to reach Her, this annoyance would have to be destroyed. Still, the Shadow was weak and inferior to a true child of the Great Mother.

The Angel's eyes flashed as another energy blast erupted, this time not at Unit-01 but at the ground they fought on. The devastating power of the Angel's primary weapon tore through the weakened landscape, causing a large section to collapse and fall back into the Geo-Front.

As Unit-01 fell away from it, the Angel slowly descended, lashing out at the tumbling Evangelion, knocking it about and cutting through armor and flesh. Shinji howled in pain with each new wound, lacerations forming all along his body as he fell, dizzy and disoriented.

"No, no..." his muttering sounded over the battlefield, weirdly rebounding across the landscape of the hollow dome.

Far below the falling titan, emergency recovery teams looked up in horror as they tracked the giant's path. Still clutching at her shoulders, Asuka watched from within the shelter of the ambulance, a look of horror on her face.

"No..." she whispered, echoing the boy's own words, new tears forming in her eyes having nothing to do with the pain she was in. "C'mon, Dummkopf, you've got this... you've got less than five minutes, no time to slack off..." She tore her eyes from the falling titan to glare at the battleship sitting motionless in the lake. "Warum tun sie nichts?" she screamed, the medics unsure what she was saying. "Warum feuern sie nicht? Wozu sind sie überhaupt gut?"

Almost as if the crew had heard her cries, the ship's cannons began to flash with light, the thunderous sounds shaking the Geo-Front. Massive shells smashed into the glowing shield of the Angel, unable to penetrate its AT-Field. The Angel ignored the ship's attempts to distract it from its true prey and lashed out at the falling Unit-01.

The medics and pilots all shuddered when the boy howled in pain again as his legs were cut from his body.

Shinji stared in shock at his remaining lower leg separated from his knee, bright red blood pumping out of him into the LCL with a strange sensation. Warmth spread through his body as shock gave way to renewed anger.

His eyes now burning a bright red, tracing lines through the LCL as he jerked his head back up to glare at the nigh victorious Angel; Shinji slammed his hands back onto the controls.

"NO! NEVER!" Shinji shouted, reaching out and grabbing one of the whips, yanking down on it as he fell. "FUCK YOU!" he screamed, jerking his body back against the tension, ignoring the blood flowing from his palm.

The breeze that had been blowing kicked up into a full-on gale as lines of fire sparked into life, flowing off his back. At first, they were long tendrils of flowing flames, smokeless fire standing out against the growing storm clouds spiraling down into the hollow cavity that had once been a pristine garden. Lightning cracked across the sky as the tendrils became wings. Then the air around Unit-01 parted as it rocketed up back towards the Angel, the pair vanishing as the multiple sonic booms thundered throughout the Geo-Front and Tokyo-3, shattering what few windows remained intact. The clouds and smoke from the burning city boiled up and around the wake of their passage, twisting into strange designs.

Rei, staggering to her feet against the protests of the medics, stared at the sky, one arm limp at her side, blood still weeping from a cut on her forehead.

"Yes..." she whispered, her eyes starting to glow as she smiled softly, staring up at the stormy sky, ignoring the driving sheets of rain and howling winds. Down below, in their tank, her drones erupted into mindless gales of laughter, empty red eyes glowing through the darkened room like those of wolves. Kaji, still chained to his gurney, began to shiver uncontrollably, not knowing if this was the prelude to Third Impact or some other horror.

Entire clouds turned to ice as Unit-01 rose on glowing wings of flame, igniting a hailstorm that rained burning ice down over the ruined city. Behind it, the Angel bucked wildly, lashing at the Evangelion with its unrestrained arm, trying to free itself.

Shinji was beyond pain at this point and was only peripherally aware of what he was doing as they fought. Swinging his captive up and around, he launched the Angel out in front of his ascent and, with a furious beating of his wings, impacted against the Angel with a thunderous ringing boom. Roaring with fury, Shinji hammered at it with a fist and the ruins of his other arm. Shrieking, he brought his head back and then slammed it straight down onto the skull face, shattering Unit-01's horn.

"I'LL NEVER LET YOU START THIRD IMPACT!" he announced, spitting blood and teeth from his mouth as he took an energy blast to the face. "I'LL DIE BEFORE THAT YOU MONSTER, AND YOU'LL DIE BEFORE ME!"

"My god..." Ritsuko said as she looked up from the computer terminal, listening to the boy's echoing shouts being picked up by the few remaining above-ground sensors. "He's in full control. He's not berserking..."

"Did I not tell you?" Gendo asked, staring dispassionately at the small screen. "I told you before, nothing can stop us now. Look at him; listen to him. This isn't even just about Rei anymore. The Beast has awoken."

"Full synchronization. Who knows what he is capable of now? How will we hide this from them?"

"We won't need to," Gendo said, shaking his head. We can initiate Impact ourselves as soon as ADAM is ready. Besides," he said, pointing at another screen, a frown starting to form, "not even I could hide the fact they are on an escape trajectory."

High above the landscape, more clouds formed around the fighting giants, lighting flashing around them as they traded blows. Finally, the Angel broke free of the Evangelion and dropped back towards the ground.

Shinji darted after the Angel in quick pursuit, throwing his arm out, hand cocked as if he was holding a pistol, jerking it slightly as his AT-Field shot off like a bullet, a rod of golden light chasing after the fleeing Angel. The monstrous entity screamed a wail of pain and anger as it plummeted from the sky, a large section of its lower body missing.

Fire poured off Unit-01 as Shinji threw himself into a dive, thrown back hard against the throne inside the Entry Plug. His laughter trailed after him, lost in the rush of flame as he swallowed down breaths of bloody LCL.

"DON'T RUN AWAY! YOU CAN'T RUN FROM ME!" Shinji bellowed in between mindless gales of laughter. "CENTER THE TARGET!" he screamed, his wings burning brighter as he tore through the storm-ridden sky. "PULL THE SWITCH!"

When they impacted against one of the mountains ringing the valley bowl, it set off a shock-wave rattling the Geo-Front, and several tsunami sensors in the Pacific picked up the resulting seismic activity. The mountain shook and buckled under the impact, sending up a mass of debris and triggering a landslide of rain-soaked earth toward the city.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Rei watched the man inside the tube spasm as she downloaded him into the system. Her hesitation with what to do with the agent had delayed the tests, and her weakness with the man's discomfort at the beginning of the experiment might have cost her Shinji. She would not let that happen again. She could not let that happen again.

She had a new plan which might work and could be done on a shorter timeline. Shinji had joined completely with whoever sat in the core of Unit-01. Still, she should be able to run a copy of the core into a series of MAGI cores, and then, armed with copies of her love's neural scans from physicals, simulator training, and former battle data, she could sieve his consciousness from the core copy.

Once she had that, she could upload him into one of her drones as a test before growing him a new body from the samples she had harvested.

But first, she needed to see if she could successfully upload someone not her into one of her drones. If it did not work, she would have to develop something else.

But to upload someone else into a drone, she needed a copy of them.

Kaji's eyes rolled up into the back of his head as blood trickled from his nose into the LCL mixture. Sensor data looked as it should, but so did the other tests. However, there were several discrepancies when she reviewed the download data. She had made several adjustments to this test run, but while it appeared to be less painful to the man than the others, he still had adverse reactions. What this meant for the integrity of the download remained to be seen.

Dinner with the Commander had gone more or less how she had anticipated. Her work in preparing a secondary, sacrificial location had paid off. However, while she couldn't fully explain away how she had circumvented the security team assigned to her, it was well known that she could easily find her way through the air ducts.

Being able to remotely activate her drones and run them in tandem was very useful, and she wasn't ready to give up her secret just yet. She had wondered if the Commander might try to reset her to an earlier backup, but he was foregoing that option for now. They had made small talk, mostly over her health, before he had brought up the atomic weapon. Afterward, she had eaten a small dish of ice cream while he watched her silently, sighing before dismissing her.

She hated keeping him in the dark, but if she was to continue her operations to keep his Scenario on track, it would have to stay that way. He would thank her in the end, after everything was done. He would know that it was all for him.

He and Shinji.

As the test was completed, she poured over the data, humming a song Shinji had shared with her one night when he played his cello for her. Eventually, she could put the world back to rights with the data she had gathered. When broken down into small pieces, everything could be understood and manipulated. It was only a matter of vision and time. Nothing could stand in the way of Science.

Pushing the wrappers and remains of past meals off the work table onto the floor, Rei plugged the tablet computer into the socket interface to the MAGI terminal. Eyes glowing with intense concentration, she continued to study the data and refine her methods.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Asuka waved at Toji's train until it was out of sight, leaving the ruins of the Fortress City. Tokyo-3 had once stood as an example of mankind's will to live, but now, as the redhead wandered through the flooded and burnt ruins, it seemed more an example of the universe's will to see them erased from history. Filled with a restless energy, she had no desire to go back underground just yet.

She snorted as she climbed atop the twisted ruins of a building, carefully picking her way through broken glass and other debris. Once at the top of the listing shell, she looked out over the rest of the city. Over a quarter of the city was flooded, low-lying sections filled with water as the streams that drained into the bay had been diverted throughout the fight. The last battle had changed the topography even more than when the Fifth Angel had been fought here. Only a few buildings remained even remotely intact, with tarps and plywood boards covering the gaping holes where gleaming windows had once sat.

Tokyo-3 was a devastated war-torn ruin, a shattered husk of the gleaming jewel it had been. The scars of the war had been etched into the landscape just as they had been cut into the people who lived, fought, and died here. Gone were the forests that covered the mountains, burnt away or blasted out of existence. Only a few clumps of broken and dead trees dotted the ravaged land surrounding them, a marked difference from the sides of the mountains that did not face the city- on the other side, the lush forests remained. But down here in the bowl, all anyone could see was destruction and ruin.

To be sure, not all of the city was a loss. The sounds of construction and recovery efforts sounded day and night, but they were confined to a small city section. They had done a lot of work, initially on controlling the water spread that threatened to overtake the entire city, but things were slowly improving. Even with the efforts of her and Rei in their Evangelions, it would be a long time before the city was restored. Primary efforts, of course, were directed at repairing the breach in the Geo-Front, but while that continued apace, the rest of the city looked forlorn and forgotten.

There was only so much they could do, and some of them, she knew, had to be thinking that this reconstruction was all in vain. What was stopping the next Angel from picking up where the last one had left off and burning the rebuilt portions off the face of the Earth?

Her phone vibrated in her purse as she kicked her heels against the wall. As she dug it out, she considered the strange, desolate beauty of the ruined landscape.

The message was short, and let her know to check her special email account. Smiling as she stood back up, she looked around at the ruins of her home. They had stood against a terrible foe; no, she corrected herself, they had stood against several terrible foes. Each had come with all the fury and power of a hundred armies, each thousands strong. And each time, four Children had stood against them, between the savage foe and the world, between oblivion and all mankind.

She could not give up hope. They were on the edge of a breakthrough; she could feel it. Soon, her modifications would be complete, and she would establish a modified form of contact at the core of her Unit-02. More than regular synchronization but less than a complete Contact Experiment.

Vier, Drei, Zwei, Eins!

"DIE! DIE! DIE!" Shinji bellowed as he clawed at the Angel, ignoring the howling thunderstorm surrounding them. Each blow that landed added a new thunderous peal to the sounds echoing across the land.

He was thrown back as another blast of energy smashed into Unit-01's chest, sent crashing through the forest, continuing to burn despite the downpour of hail and sleet. The Angel kept the attack up, lashing out with the whips, cutting through the smoke and fog. Unit-01 rolled away from the cutting limbs before rising again on the fiery wings fueled by his anger.

Turning a graceful arc through the stormy skies, Shinji lashed out again with his AT-Field, rocking the Angel backward, driving the whip aimed at his neck down and into his shoulder.

The already handless arm fell away, as did Shinji's own, inside the plug, although he barely noticed it.

Snarling with hate, Shinji caught the falling limb and threw it at the Angel. The limb painted the bone mask red as it rebounded off the leering grimace.

Throwing himself into a dive, Unit-01 hurtled through the distance, a new glow burning in the eye slits of the shattered mask. Dodging the whipping blades, Shinji impacted against the Angel again, beating against it with burning wings. Another energy blast knocked the Evangelion, tumbling away from the Angel, which rose back into the air. Shinji spun around to face the Angel just in time to watch the monomolecular-edged blades cut through the Evangelion's midsection.

A sudden coldness cut through him and his rage, and he looked down to watch as his lower body separated from him, his intestines starting to uncoil out from his halves. The fire of the burning wings went out, suddenly extinguished. Coughing, Shinji vomited, blacking out as the Angel lashed out at Unit-01 again, the whips aimed at its head.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

"So, as you can see with the current repair schedule, I am confident we will be able to repulse the next Angel if it arrives in accordance with the adjusted timeline," Gendo reported, eyes looking ahead, ignoring the other members of SEELE, focused only on the old man on the opposite side of the table. "Even if it arrives as much as three weeks early, I am confident we will be able to destroy it with minimal damage to facilities here."

"And how do you aim to do that, Ikari?" one monolith sneered, the derision plain even without any body language to read. "This last one nearly cost us everything."

"Not at all," Gendo rebuffed the man's scorn, his own voice as level as ever as he smirked underneath his hands. "Damage to the Evangelions was light, if specifically targeted, and both female pilots were cleared for duty almost immediately. Munitions were conserved, and firing emplacements were relatively undamaged. Almost all damage to defensive facilities was superficial, although impressive at first glance."

"And Unit-01? I notice you haven't mentioned its pilot's duty status."

"Unit-01 remains in observation and repair after the berserker event. The pilot remains stable, although unresponsive, as is common after these events. We will adjust the projections accordingly once he is back on his feet."

"Very well." Lorenz, as SEELE-01, said, his tone inscrutable. "You've done well, even in these trying times, Ikari. You have my full confidence."

"What about ADAM?" another member asked, cutting in before Kiel could call the three-hour-long meeting to an end. "I am not entirely convinced it is… safe… for us to hold the sample there at Tokyo-3."

"I assure the committee the sample is safe and responds well to the recipient. Even if Tokyo-3 was unsafe for it to be stored here, it ultimately would not matter, as the only reason the city would be unsafe is through an Angelic incursion resulting in Third Impact, which would eliminate our need for it entirely. The sample is incredibly resilient, as you are no doubt aware."

"Indeed," another member intoned, voice dry enough to parch a rainforest. "What are you getting at, saying the sample is not safe? Surely you trust Ikari's judgment in this matter?"

"Well, of course I do, but-"

"Enough!" Kiel cut the bickering pair off, his command sharp and final. "Ikari proves to have been a wise selection for this role. He continues to have my fullest faith and confidence. In our next meeting, we will discuss the gestational rate and the expected time of full readiness. However, I expect a report on the operational capabilities of the auto-pilot systems. I see that the test systems were installed, but not much has taken place in the way of testing."

"Of course," Gendo replied with a nod. "I will ensure testing is worked into the schedule alongside using the Evangelions to assist in repairs."

"The Evangelions are weapons, Ikari, not workhorses."

Gendo nodded as the illuminated holograms flickered out of existence, leaving just him and SEELE-01, which changed over to show the old man, the lines on his face more pronounced than when Gendo had seen him last. Time had not been kind to the old man.

"According to the latest working models, we have only a handful remaining before the way to Heaven's Gate is clear."

"On that fateful day, we will seize the reigns of our future and destiny, and all of our promises will be realized," Gendo responded, unfolding his hands away from his face.

"There can be no rebirth without death. It is all part of the great cycle, and once we achieve Instrumentality, we will set to rights everything that ever went wrong."

Kiel terminated his connection, leaving Gendo alone at the table. From the shadows, where Kozo usually stood, Misato approached the Supreme Commander.

"Such a nihilistic view of the world," he commented as he pushed away from the table, standing up. "Their fetishistic longing for the end of the world is perhaps what worries me the most, even more than the idea of our failing in our endeavors here. They desire, with their maddened minds, the greatest possible destruction, for from the ashes of such total devastation of the world, do they expect the greatest possible rebirth."

"If you say so," Misato answered, shrugging. "I don't really know too much about philosophy."

"Of course," Gendo commented, "I am so used to Kozo being in the shadows. But enough of that. What did you learn from the meeting?"

"They still have some vested interest in having the rest of the world upset with us, and they are trying to use that to hedge us in and limit our resources here. Make us more dependent on them."

"Good. But did you notice they asked after our missing spy?"

"They wanted to know if he was still on the missing persons list. Yes, I noticed."

"This tells me that either his disappearance was not part of their plans or they expected him back before now. Either way, either someone else has done something with our spy, or he has taken hold of his good sense and fled the area without leaving any trace.

"We haven't found anything so far," Misato reported as they left the conference room. "It is somewhat fortunate the destruction caused during the incursion was such that we can do a thorough systems check without it being suspicious. If he was up to something, he was interrupted before he could do it."

"Which is not entirely reassuring. We did not interrupt him; if SEELE did not, then there is a third agency at work here. My agents in the JSSDF and the Diet assure me it is not them. Some unseen hand is moving, and that hand is moving pieces I do not know about."

"Or he just left," the woman sighed, throwing her hands up in confusion. "But that's not like him at all."

"No, Sub-Commander, no, it is not. This is why we must verify his last known whereabouts and proceed from there. We are too close to allow some third party to cause unforeseen snags. The game is not over. While SEELE cannot initiate Instrumentality on their terms, the possibility exists we can lose to the Angels or that our initiation of Instrumentality can be disrupted or even countered outright."

"What if they abduct Shinji? What happens if we get him out of Unit-01 and they succeed in nabbing him?"

"Even if they were to succeed in abducting the Third Child, I have taken steps to ensure that if they took him, Rei, and the sample, they would still be unable to advance in their plans. Instrumentality is beyond their grasp now, although the means of Third Impact are still within their reach."

"What steps? Do you mean like the material denial systems? Or something else?"

"Both. While the denial systems were not specifically designed with this particular event in mind, they serve as a useful deterrent against the committee. No, there was another smaller detail I had left unattended for far too long. While it makes things a little more difficult for us, the effects are relatively minor."

"Is this something that I need to worry about?" Misato asked, rubbing her nose as they walked down the hallway.

"No. It has no effects on the Pilots or the Evangelions. Link up with Section 2. Establishing Agent Kaji's whereabouts is now a priority task. I want to either talk with him or see his corpse."

"Yes, sir!" Misato saluted and left the man as he entered the tomb-like office. Hurrying down the corridor towards the elevators, she wondered again about the man's grip on sanity. He seemed very expectant that Shinji would be recovered from Unit-01, although it had been almost a month with no significant progress. He maintained his unshakable belief that Ritsuko and Kozo would be able to do what neither he nor Kozo and Naoko had ever accomplished.

She was reminded of one of the absurd little graffiti scrawlings that dotted the fortress in different places. 'Gendo Ikari always has it his way.' Usually, it was true, but that could be said of anyone who headed a multinational research and design weapons company who owned entire cities.

There was one more thing that had bothered her, the little argument at the end of the meeting. The Commander had claimed he had ADAM stolen from SEELE, but they seemed to not only know he had the thing but that they trusted him with it.

Was this some sort of message? Some kind of 'we know that you know that we know what you did' thing?

Grumbling to herself, Misato scowled at her reflection in the elevator. She wasn't cut out for these labyrinthine mazes of espionage and subterfuge. Sure, feints and false movements had their place on the battlefield and in fighting, but still, there was a point where respectable folks drew the line.

She needed to talk to someone and unwind, but there was no time to relax and no one to speak with. Ritsuko was wrapped up trying to get Shinji back and had her own problems… Kaji was missing, off somewhere, either causing problems by snooping around or slutting it up. The girls were unsociable, with Rei being even more Rei-like than before, and Asuka… well, Asuka had been hanging out with the Suzuhara boy. Still, now that he was gone, Misato had little expectation the redhead would socialize with anyone.

She needed a drink, and bad. She hadn't had anything to drink in weeks. Misato sighed at the irony. Shinji had always after her to cut back on the boozing around, in his own sweet, nonconfrontational way, and now it was only after he was gone that she was on the wagon.

The Commander was letting her in closer, allowing her to become privy to more secrets, but she was sure there was still more waiting to be revealed. She had seen things unimaginable since her time here at NERV had begun, but it seemed they were all built on lies and half-truths. Misdirection and deception were the rule here. Even with the disaster centered on Shinji's condition, she wasn't sure the Commander was playing with his cards face up. She couldn't get a straight answer from them about the fact that Unit-01 had apparently turned the Angel's core into a fully functional S2 Engine. That was another thing which 'simply had to wait.'

Sighing, she opened her office door, glaring at the stack of papers on her desk. She needed a drink.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Asuka stared at the picture of the boy for minutes that felt like hours before shifting her gaze to meet the Evangelion's empty stare. The eyes, which were completely blue now, with no traces of the original brilliant green, were open and staring, vacant and devoid of recognition.

The eyes opened and closed periodically; sometimes, the people's movements inside the cage were tracked. It was unnerving for some, although to Asuka, it was just another oddity she had not figured out yet.

Toying with the unlit candle in her hand, she looked back down at Shinji's picture. He seemed as happy as she had ever seen him. It was rare he ever camee out of that shell of his, no matter how much she had poked and prodded him.

He had done so well. He had fought until the very end; he had fought with every last ounce of energy and ability. Neither she nor Kensuke had figured out how he had done so, continuing the fight without a power cable. The fact remained however that he had stood there, grinding the Angel's advance into the ground, despite paying a terrible price for each meter denied to the enemy.

Part of her wondered if he was dead and if the talk of him sublimating into the LCL was just another fiction of the senior leaders. High Command hadn't let her see the internal recorder logs, although by now, even if they did, she would have to wonder if they were doctored to show her what they wanted her to see.

She needed to know. No matter what, she wanted to see the truth.

Sighing, she lit her candle from one of the already burning tapers, then carefully settled it into place amongst the others. Toji had asked her to do this for him, emailing her after he arrived at his new home, several prefectures away. He said he had begun to regret never doing it before leaving and wanted her to do it now that he couldn't.

Stepping back, she stared into the flickering lights; she felt something deep within her break, and physical pain shot through her abdomen as tears began to well up in her eyes. Clenching her teeth, she swallowed back sorrow and sadness. Spinning on her heel, she marched away, fists clenched tightly at her sides.

She would get the recorder logs, but not by asking. She now had enough uncontrolled access to the MAGI systems to get the live feed from Unit-01.

She would see the truth that they were hiding. She would get to the bottom of this. She had a right to know. They all did. If Shinji had died for them, then he needed a better memorial than this. If he had paid the ultimate price for mankind, then she would see to it that his memorial would be worthy of the most significant and bravest warrior to walk the face of the Earth.

And then she would make everyone responsible pay for their lies.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Rei watched the drone float in the tube, taking detailed notes as the image was installed into the empty vessel. She could no longer control it, which the girl took as a good sign. The previous attempt had not gone well, but Rei was not perturbed. Not very many people ever succeeded at playing god on the first try.

After all, it had taken the Commander several times to create her.

The drone opened its eyes, a look of shock crossing the pale face before the body fell apart into a bloody mush, limbs, and organs slowly disintegrating in the orange liquid.

Rei sighed as she shut down the program.

Sitting down, she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.

Sister, how is it?

Not very well, the voice of Unit-00 came back, but he still wasn't responding to anything. Neither is Unit-01. Unit-02 is baffled. She can't figure anything out either.

After I clean up the mess in the tube, I will join you.

Did your experiment fail again?

Yes.

If you don't have anything else you want to do, come on in. Unit-00 sounded unsure but somewhat uninterested. It can't hurt anything.

A few days after the fight, bored, Unit-00 had gone to Unit-01's train car and had made an astonishing discovery.

Shinji Ikari was sprawled on the opposite side of the car, slumped over, sleeping, and unresponsive to any stimuli. Unit-00 had fetched Unit-02, who had checked over the boy before instructing her to contact her sister.

It was reassuring to see her love, if only in the twilight realm of the Evangelions, although nothing she did could rouse him to wakefulness.

He bore none of the wounds he had suffered in the waking world. Even his missing leg was restored to him here.

The MAGI were sure what to make of that, but to Rei, it meant his soul was still somewhat separate and unique and not merged entirely, but there was no telling how long it would remain so. The Commander feared prolonged exposure to the soul of Unit-01 would cause the boy's spirit to become indivisible from that of the Evangelion's.

Unit-01 sat across from the boy and was just as unresponsive. Where Shinji had been restored to full apparent health, Unit-01 looked as it had after the fight with the Angel. The trio had conducted numerous experiments where Unit-00 and then Unit-02 had struck Rei and each other, but neither of the sleepers was roused to action.

While she tried to perfect the imaging system, the Evangelions worked at attempting to wake the boy and his Evangelion.

Part of her wondered if she should come clean and share her findings with the Commander. She had already given him much, although most of it was paltry stuff, mere diversions and amusements amongst the meat of her actual work.

But without solid results, she could not ensure that the Commander would let her continue her experiments. After all, he had always taught her not to pin any hopes on chance.

The Commander never gambled. He rigged the game in his favor, even against the house.

Rei sighed, setting about her laboratory again, pumping the mess out of the tube to be processed and cleaned. She had learned well from her father, from the careful observation of mankind and experiment to the risks and pitfalls of weaving secret plans and setting scenarios to work.

The day of Third Impact was fast approaching, time slipping by and away, lost forever as they hurdled through space. She had no time anymore for amusements or diversions. While this was not to be her greatest task, her ultimate part in the vast plan of Instrumentality, retrieving Shinji Ikari, was to be her dearest duty.

There was only one truth in this world, one immutable fact that stood above everything else.

There was more to do here than in the twilight world. She would be unable to advance her experiments there and would only be wasting time.

Rei began to pour over the data gathered from the failed attempt.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Alone in the darkened room, Asuka choked as she patched into the onboard sensors and cameras of Unit-01's Entry Plug.

The blood had been long since filtered through the scrubbers, leaving the LCL clear, but half of the boy still remained, his lower waist locked in place in the throne, entrails floating limply upwards. One arm hung suspended in the fluid, fingers splayed out as if trying to grasp hold of something. Two legs, one metal, the other flesh, had floated away from the throne.

Of the rest of him, there was no sign.

Her hands shaking, Asuka typed a new set of commands into her terminal, calling up the recorded logs.

She would not cry, she told herself. She would not vomit. She would find out what had happened, who was responsible, and then she would avenge her fallen pilot.

Vier, Drei, Zwei, Eins!

Unit-01's remaining arm swung up and caught the whips in its fist as lightning flashed overhead.

Surprised, the Angel jerked back, but Unit-01 held on tightly, pulling the Angel forward, wrapping the bladed limbs around its wrist and forearm.

The pair struggled silently for long seconds as the storm howled around them. Slowly, with the sound of stressed metal giving way, the Evangelion's jaw opened, thick ropes of saliva shaking in the wind and rain.

Yanking hard on the captive Angel, the Beast howled, splitting the silence with its primeval roar.

The ground shook as the disemboweled Evangelion screamed. Fire flickered in its eyes, and a new light began to glow just above its head, suspended in the air.

The glow began to brighten as the pair struggled before bursting into a halo of fire.

Golden light shone as Unit-01 rose, a brilliant fire forming into legs and a lower body. A new arm flared into existence, stretching out into the sky, dripping flames as clawed fingers formed and clenched.

With terrible, exultant laughter, the Beast jerked the Angel toward it again and, with the burning arm digging into the Angel's chest, ripped the whip-like arms from their shoulders.

The Angel let out an awful, keening howl, a screech of agony that rebounded and echoed in the storm, undiminished by the driving rain and howling winds.

Lightning flashed in the Angel's eyes, but the energy blast reflected off the Beast's AT-Field into the sky. Lifting its captive high, Unit-01's remaining corporeal arm twisted and contorted as armor broke from the inside, new muscle and sinew forming.

Unit-01, with deliberate slowness, ripped off the stubby legs from the Angel, casting each to the side. Dropping the wounded Angel to the ground, Unit-01 reached up and tore the remains of its shattered helmet and facial armor from its head, exposing the monstrous, misshapen muscled skull underneath. Bright green eyes burned with fire, and its halo's radiance brightened, rays of light burning through the pitch-black storm clouds overhead in a display visible from space.

When the halo's glow dimmed, the parts formed from flame had settled into real flesh, a somewhat twisted reflection of a human body. However, the proportions stretched out into the unique silhouette of the Evangelion. Claws adorned the fingers of the restored arm. The Evangelion's face remained skinless, however, with scraps of metal still adorning the twisted skull. Fangs jutted from bloody gums, over which the edges of nasal openings quivered as the Beast breathed.

Screaming again, the Beast pounced upon the stricken Angel, grinding it into the ground. With incredible effort, Unit-01 began to peel the grimacing bone mask from its owner.

Deep inside Central Dogma, Maya sprawled on all fours, vomiting. Makoto had collapsed, passing out. Aoba shook, barely able to tear his gaze away from the gristly spectacle, sneaking quick glances at Commander Ikari's impassive and unmoving face.

Howling triumphantly, Unit-01 raised an arm to the sky, bloody prize clenched in its fist. Underneath, a ruined mess oozed with ichor, two burning dots visible amidst the remains of the Angel's face. Still holding the mask, the Beast lowered its face down over the Angel's and then began to feed.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

Asuka looked over from the growing pile of bent and twisted metal where the two girls were dropping recovered girders and metal supports to stare at the patch of ground where Unit-01 had feasted upon the dying Angel. The ground was scorched and blackened, warped from the terrible heat put off by the Angel's eventual death.

It was a testament to the death throes of the Angels that this one, much more so than usual, had left the area still so recognizable even after almost a month and a half.

Forcing herself to concentrate, she returned to work, scavenging the flooded parts of the city for armfuls of metal to be recycled into new material. The regular work crews were hard at clearing the battered city's dry areas while the two operational Evangelions cleared out the flooded sections. Water that would cause trucks and heavy construction equipment to falter was nothing to the giants.

As much as she wanted to spend more time figuring things out, Asuka was glad of the distraction. Besides, it wasn't as if this was entirely wasted time - she had uploaded a small program to Unit-02 that was recording information vital to her upcoming experiment.

If she was to ever get to the bottom of things, she would have to be careful. While going through the data logs, she saw where she had tripped a few markers and set up some red flags on the system. Fortunately, it appeared nobody had caught them, so she could remove the evidence of her intrusions. Everyone was busy restoring the fortress city's security or recovering Shinji from Unit-01.

It was hard watching the fight reach the end and watching the trauma endured by the boy.

He hadn't flinched when his arm separated from his body. Asuka wondered if he had even noticed.

Looking across the city, she watched Unit-00 wrench out part of a broken building, knee-deep in brackish water. This part of the city wasn't flooded by the sea or the river but rather by the massive storm that had sprung up during the fight.

Which was another interesting thing. This wasn't the first time a storm had come up unexpectedly during a fight between Unit-01 and Angel. It took little for an observant person to make the connection between the continued operation of Unit-01 and the sudden appearance of storms. What exactly it meant, however, was something else. She had sent some of the sensor data to Kensuke, but he had yet to respond. It would be interesting to see what he made of it with no other knowledge of the fight.

Still watching Unit-00 as she made her way through the city, Asuka wondered what Rei was thinking. The girl was as enigmatic as ever, spending long periods locked away in her room. She wondered if the girl was ready to hear the truth, to see the truth, or if it was better to wait and see what the adults did.

Sighing in resignation, the German girl returned to work, sloshing through the muck to get at the ruined mess she was dismantling. Dust clouds rose, and concrete chunks fell as she battered down walls, tearing support beams and rebar free. The former she would pile up for trips back, and the latter she twisted into a large ball. Manipulating the thin metal rods was good practice for them, requiring a delicate touch. Once, she would have delighted in showing off the super-fine control she enjoyed over her Unit-02. Now, it was merely a chore to occupy her time, keeping her busy and away from her new calling.

After pulling free a large I-beam, she gazed over the shattered city to the sea on the far side of the broken buildings. The day was nice and not too hot, but she was glad she couldn't smell the city. It still stank of trash, fire, and rot. The weapons emplacements had escaped mostly intact and were all operational and resupplied. The repairs to the edges of the breach in the Geo-Front were nearing completion, although it required a lot of resources.

That was where their salvaged material was headed. Nearer to the breach, black smoke rose from the new foundry and mill, turning out reforged metal installed as supports and armor plating. Metal from all over the city was pouring into the fires of their industry.

The relatively small hole the Angel had created on its way into the Geo-Front had expanded considerably as the battle raging below and above the surface weakened the protective shell. After the battle had ended, work had started almost immediately to strengthen the area, but area after area had collapsed inwards, leaving a considerable gap in their defenses. New weapons emplacements were being installed, along with new sensors and access points.

Asuka hoped that she would get some more support before too long. With Toji gone, she had no one else to talk with.

But still, watching the city slowly recover under their hands, watching the mystery of the Evangelions peel back under her careful scrutiny, gave her hope. Hope for a better tomorrow. Hope for a brighter future. Once she had unlocked their true secrets, she would then be able to unlock their full potential. No Angel would then be able to defeat her.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!

The wind howled around him as he struggled through the war-torn city. Dust and smoke, mixed with sleet and hail, made it hard to see as Shinji staggered through the storm, seeking shelter. It seemed like he had been lost in the wreckage of Tokyo-3 for hours, although he couldn't remember when he had gotten here or where he had been before. He was cold, wet, and miserable. So far, every building he had stumbled upon had offered no shelter from the elements. He was sure that everything would be fine if he could find his way into the Geo-Front.

Squinting into the icy rain, his breath fogging around him, Shinji tried to get his bearings. Unfortunately, all the street signs were missing, and he couldn't recognize the buildings anymore, as they were mostly ruins. Periodically, he saw shadowy figures moving around, but they vanished in the smoke and rain whenever he called or tried to catch up to them.

Sensing a presence behind him, Shinji spun around, almost slipping in the icy water swirling around his ankles. A pale hand reached out and caught his arm, steadying him.

Red eyes stared down into his, and he recognized the shifting form of the woman who had woken him up before.

"You are lost, my child," Lilith said, her voice a whisper yet carrying effortlessly to his ears over the wind and rain. "You must find yourself and find your way back. You threaten everything by being here."

"Who are you?" Shinji asked her, his voice lost in the storm. "WHO ARE YOU?" he shouted, wiping rain from his eyes.

"I am Lilith. I am the one who tended this planet and brought it to life. I am your friend. Come with me." Lilith led him away towards a structure he hadn't noticed before. She began to shrink, and clothes formed on her body to match Rei's uniform, and her face shifted slightly to perfectly match the girl's. The door opened at her touch, and they entered the still-intact building.

"You're the Angel down in Absolute Dogma?" Shinji asked, shivering. He was soaked to the bone, although his companion was completely dry.

"Yes. I must wait until all the Angels have come to try to reach Completion with me. The children of ADAM, the First Angel, must be destroyed if humanity is to survive. You are all my children. ADAM is the Other, a great enemy I fought with of old. Now you, my children, must fight with His children."

"What is this place?" Shinji asked, rubbing his arms, trying to get warm. The room was dry but not noticeably warmer than outside.

"This place is an interface where our souls can interact. You have been taken into the Evangelion Unit-01, drawn within the core to protect and keep you safe from harm. The soul of the Evangelion wants to protect you. While you are there, you are here. In this place, our souls have power. Think about being warm and dry, and you will be warm and dry. Think of a pleasant place, and you will be there."

Suddenly, Shinji found himself dry and warm, dressed in clean clothing. "This is amazing…" he said, marveling at the change.

"We are not beings of crude matter, Shinji Ikari. We are luminous beings, but your kind is far removed from me. You are your soul, Shinji. That thing you call an AT-Field is the light of your soul. Your kind can only manifest it with the help of the Evangelions. The Angels can manipulate theirs and project it as easily as you can breathe. This is why when you fight, you erode their AT-Fields. You destroy their very souls. Come and see."

Lilith waved her hands, and the building vanished. They were now at one of the scenic overlooks dotting the roads leading up into the mountains. Before them stretched the valley Tokyo-3 sat in, though the city was obscured by smoke and storm clouds.

"You are not meant to be here. If the Angels are to be defeated, you must return to your world. I cannot help you, nor can I show you the way. You must find your own way back."

"But you helped me before," Shinji replied, "Why-"

"This is different." Lilith waved a hand dismissively. "Whatever happened before is not what is happening now. This is important. This is what matters."

"You said I threatened everything by being here," Shinji commented, watching the Angel, his voice unsure. "Is that because I need to return to fight the Angels? Or is it something else?"

"Both. You see the storm?" Lilith asked, pointing at the city below. "Your soul is broken, somehow. Broken and shattered. In this place of unity and completion, your broken soul acts as a raging storm. Love can repair you, fill in the empty parts of your being, and make you Whole. Love will soothe you and calm your troubled spirit. But here, in this place, your broken self causes disunity. It threatens the interface. You must return and find your Love in your world."

"Rei…" Shinji said, knuckles whitening as his hands gripped the guard rails.

"Do not be so quick to trust her, Shinji Ikari," Lilith warned, turning to face him. "She is not your Love. She is using you for her purposes, just like everyone else."

Anger blossomed across his face as he spun to face the Mother of Mankind. "Just what-"

"Trust me, Shinji Ikari. You will not remember this meeting or this place when you awake, but you must remember you cannot trust Rei Ayanami. There is another that you met only briefly who will fill your heart with joy. You must find your faithful Love. Only once you let your Love become your master instead of your anger will you be healed."

There was a flash of light, and suddenly, Shinji was left alone at the roadside.

Farther up the mountain, Lilith smiled, watching the boy turn and search for her. Face and body shifting again, Kaworu Nagisa's smile stretched across his face before he vanished.

Vier, Drei, Zwei, Eins!

Unit-01 sat back on its haunches, hot breath steaming in the cold air of the Geo-Front. Before it sprawled the ruins of the Angel, which still twitched as it tried to regenerate itself. Unit-01 was completely regenerated, and the parts formed from the fire of its AT-Field were now replaced by flesh and blood. Wiping its mouth with a blood-covered forearm, the Evangelion reached down and grasped the red orb that was the Angel's core. With great effort, the titan ripped the glowing sphere from the stricken form and pressed it against its own flesh, which opened to accept the gristly souvenir.

The burning halo of light flashed as Unit-01 stood up, its midsection sealing around the incorporated core.

Laughing, the Evangelion picked up the bone mask of the Angel and pressed it against its face, eyes burning from behind the empty eye sockets. The mask shifted and reformed, the grimacing face becoming the more familiar bird's skull. Still laughing, Unit-01 threw its arms up to the sky and roared.

"I AM!"