The current title of Evangelion: The Awakening is pretty much just a working title. Mike suggested it based on the themes present in this chapter. After Googling though, I found like...five fanfics with Awakening in the title, so I'm not sure if it's a good idea to make it the permanent name
I must stress that I can't guarantee when I will have more chapters out. This chapter took approximately a week, and that was mainly because it was THIS chapter that the majority of my daydreaming focused around, so it was the part I already fleshed out the most. After this one, the story will to the past for a while as I go into what actually happened between Asuka and Shinji. I do have typed-up notes going from EoE up to a few months post-TI, but they're basically just ideas for scenes right now.
This is my very first stab at actually creating a story. Expect errors and such. And I would like to give many, many, MANY thanks to Mike Mars for seeing the idea and giving me the support I needed to make this happen.
SPOILER: Show
The Awakening
Chapter 1
The air was still. As if it were holding its breath in anticipation of what was to come in only a few short minutes. There was not a cloud in the sky, and the noon sun shone brightly, reflecting off the blade of a gigantic axe clutched tightly by equally gigantic armoured red fists. The owner of the fists stood in the middle of the street, angry green eyes locked onto a spot to the east. Behind it, hiding partially in the shadow of a tall windowless building, a second figure clad in blue armour aimed a long rifle past the one in red, focusing on the same point over the horizon.
A loud, petulant tone finally cut through the silence of the scene as the red armoured person gave voice to its displeasure.
“Where the hell is this thing?! It better not be late to its own funeral!”
“Asuka, relax for a moment will you? The MAGI are tracking its progress over the hills, it will be here shortly.”
An annoyed huff. “Relax? How about I shove you in here, put you outside during the next fight and then tell you to relax?”
“I'd like to see you try, missy! No way you’re getting me anywhere near the inside of one of those things!”
“What's the matter, Misato? Scared?”
A third, authoritative voice cut in before the argument could devolve any further.
“Settle down, both of you. According to the MAGI, your target will be coming into range in three minutes.”
Somewhere deep underground, a soft slap was heard in the command centre of NERV, as Ritsuko Akagi's palm met her face for the umpteenth time since she'd first met Misato Katsuragi. The chief scientist slowly shook her head as she realised she had grown used to these arguments between the relatively new commander of NERV and its most abrasive pilot. That didn't mean, however, she was anywhere close to enjoying having to break them up when they started taunting each other as if the command structure didn't exist. Both Misato and Asuka had an uncanny ability to irritate her, and she was almost positive that most of their bickering was deliberately designed to tick her off.
Standing a few feet away, her purple-haired superior officer turned and glanced at Ritsuko, a disappointed look on her face for a few seconds before hardening up as she turned back to the holographic display projected in the air before the control stations.
The display showed an overhead view of the city above their heads, with Unit-02 and Unit-00 on the left side, and a red blip designating their enemy on the right, slowly moving through the green hills of Tokyo-3. Below the map, deep red numbers counted down the seconds before visual contact would be achieved by the Units, and to the right, data streamed past as the supercomputers of NERV analysed the target, attempting to acquire as much information as possible on the enemy.
“How are their sync ratios?” asked Misato, finally breaking the uneasy silence that almost always preceded an engagement.
Ritsuko peered over the shoulder of the technician closest to her and replied, “Rei is at 64%, Asuka's at 88%, and Shinji is-”
“The same as always before a fight,” Misato interrupted
“Of course, until the fight actually starts. Then all bets are off.”
“So...since we still have a little time before contact, have you thought of a name for this one yet?” Misato asked, looking sideways at Ritsuko. “Or can I see if the MAGI have a random name generator?” she added with a smirk.
Sighing heavily, Ritsuko briefly considered facepalming once again at the question. Misato had to be doing this deliberately. “Commander, the MAGI is the most advanced computer system in the entire world. It essentially controls this entire city with just a fraction of its processing power. Are you seriously asking if it has the capability to make up names?”
“Eh heh, now that I think about it, I don't really want to see what the MAGI consider a name,” Misato replied sheepishly. “It'd probably come up with either something completely inappropriate, or a bunch of numbers and letters as a designation rather than a name. How about you, Rits? What do you think we should call this one?”
The chief scientist waved one arm absently in the air as she gazed up at the ceiling, deep in thought. “Since we're still sticking to that naming convention someone came up with ages ago, how about Raziel?”
Misato raised an eyebrow, before shrugging. “Fine, that's its name. It's about as good as we're going to get on such short notice.”
The mood turned serious as the countdown timer reached 00:30:00 and an alarm chimed to signify imminent contact. Misato closed her eyes as her hand reached for her neck, grasping for something that was no longer there.
“What do you think will happen this time?” whispered Maya Ibuki, with a troubled look spread across her features as she turned to her fellow technicians.
“Nothing bad I hope,” Makoto Hyuga replied, alternating between staring at his console and glancing up at the giant map with a pensive stare.
“I'm sure everything will be fine,” Shigeru Aoba attempted to reassure his two co-workers, his own eyes fixated on a fourth blip on the map labelled Unit-01, far to the south of the other Evangelion Units.
Maya glared at him. “How can you say that, after everything that's happened?!”
“Hey, I guess I've become an optimist.” Shigeru shrugged.
“Even after everything we've been through?”
“Especially after everything we've been through. We can't afford to give up. Not now, not ever.”
__________
As the timer in her entry plug reached 00:30:00, Asuka Langley Soryu clenched her progressive axe tighter and gritted her teeth, throwing a glance to the south, where the third member of the pilot corps was stationed.
'Just this once, Third Child, stay the hell out of my way!' she thought to herself, not bothering to waste breath on the demand. 'It's not like he'll listen to me anyway, the idiot.' Crouching slightly and leaning forward, she prepared to charge as soon as the damned thing showed itself. Why did they always have to take so long to arrive?
Behind her, Unit-00 raised the rifle scope to its cyclopean eye, zooming in on the projected location for the creature to emerge. Inside its entry plug, Rei Ayanami sat, patiently waiting for the signal to fire. Only someone who knew her very well, and was staring intently at her face, would notice the faint frown and slightly narrowed eyes indicative of worry on the First Child's face. When she spared a fleeting look south, the intensity of the expression deepened slightly.
“Here it comes,” announced Misato over the radio as the massive white and orange humanoid form of the newly-christened Raziel slowly crested the last hill to the east. The first thing the pilots saw as the abomination lurched towards them was a disgusting, red-lipped face that took up almost the entirety of the head. The lips stretched back in what appeared to be a grimace of pain, and hideous orange growths covered most of its face before trailing down its right arm, covering the entire limb in a giant pulsating mass of orange flesh. The creature was hunched over with another large orange growth on its back, the remains of what appeared to be wings just barely sticking out at shoulder height. Its left arm hung limply at its side, obviously dislocated, and it walked as if it were barely stopping itself falling over. A sickly red and orange core sat in the centre of its torso, visibly pulsing like a heartbeat.
“Mein Gott, these things are getting uglier every time!” The exclamation from Asuka was partnered with a look of disgust on her face as she stared at the target.
“Do not let its appearance deceive you, Asuka,” Rei calmly replied. “They are becoming more dangerous every time they arrive, regardless of how damaged they appear.”
The sarcasm was thick in Asuka's reply. “Oh, I was not aware of that, Wondergirl.” She let out a heavy sigh. “I wish they would show up without heads just so I don't have to see that disgusting mouth again.”
“I find myself echoing your wish. The base physical appearance of these creatures is...disturbing to me as well.”
“Yeah, well you weren't the one that got ripped apart by them, so shut up!” Asuka angrily closed the comm window between their units and refocused on the disgusting creature in front of her. Now she could see why this one had taken so long to arrive compared to previous attacks.
Rei stared at the blank communication screen for a moment, before turning back to her scope. She had not intended to remind Asuka of the pain she had suffered, but it seemed inevitable that the topic would arise, given the nature of their current enemy. Rei's hands tightened slightly on her controls as her radio came to life again.
“10 seconds to contact,” came the call. “Try and make it a clean one, we're already having trouble with the funding for rebuilding this city.”
Any hopes that this would be an uncomplicated fight were shattered as an unearthly roar shook the city, the shrieks of ripping metal almost lost in the noise as Unit-01 tore its way out of the launch cradle as if it wasn’t even there. Heavy stomping from the south told Asuka that Unit-01 was already racing towards their target, and she surged forward before Misato could order her to advance.
'Schiesse, here we go again!' she thought as Unit-02 rushed down the street, ripping up asphalt and shaking buildings with every step the behemoth took, the power cable unfurling behind her. 'Jumping the gun as usual.' She had to get there before Unit-01 did, or there would be nothing left. 'Of which one though? The monster...or Shinji?'
“No. Shut up,” Asuka muttered to herself, trying in vain to banish the stray thought. “He's the Third Child, he's invincible.” Despite her attempts, she couldn't shake the foreboding sense that had wedged itself into her brain ever since the Angel alarm had sounded earlier that day. Asuka had a bad feeling that if she didn't take out this angel, something terrible would happen.
As fast as she could make Unit-02 move, it may as well have been standing still compared to Unit-01. Barely ten seconds had passed since the “launch” before Raziel raised its right arm, and multiple shimmering walls comprised of orange hexagons appeared in front of it in an attempt to stop the charging purple beast, which simply ducked its head and ran straight at the orange barrier. The impact could be heard for miles around, a discordant musical note, as gigantic armoured head met AT-Field. Raziel was driven several giant steps backward, its feet tearing up chunks of earth as it tried to brace the field. Unit-01 bounced off and landed on its back, the single giant horn on its head snapping from the impact. The barrier did not fare much better however. Four layers had been simply shattered by Unit-01's reckless attack, but the remaining layer held strong.
Asuka finally caught up to the fight as Raziel passed Unit-01, still dazed from the massive headbutt it had just delivered but slowly making its way back to its feet. Raziel simply ignored its first assailant, focusing on the bright red Evangelion running up the street towards it. The beast stood up straight, dropping all pretence at limping, and braced itself for another impact. Unit-02 brought its axe around in a mighty swing at the final barrier before the creature could shore up its defenses. Sparks flew as the blade simply skittered across the field, unable to gain any purchase on the frictionless wall. Backing off to avoid a retaliating swipe with that ugly orange arm, Asuka brought up her own AT-Field to neutralise that of the creature's. Before she could capitalise on this however, Asuka was nearly knocked to the ground as Raziel suddenly flew past her, tackled by Unit-01 from behind. A string of colourful German curses was flung at Unit-01 as Asuka dropped her axe, but her words did nothing to slow the two brawlers. Both of them plowed through a building, sending rubble flying everywhere, and Asuka backed up as a massive cloud of dust momentarily obscured both fighters from her view.
During the engagement, Rei remained where she had been assigned. She watched as the beast's AT-Field went down, but before she could fully line up a shot at its core, Unit-01 had interfered and she was forced to hold off to avoid friendly fire. As the dust cloud from the building collapse impeded her sight, she calmly switched her scope to thermal view, trying to keep a bead on the creature's core.
Laying in the ruins of the destroyed building, the grimace on the creature's face became a sickening grin as Unit-01 began wildly punching it in the head. Its whole body tensed, and then its left arm swung up and around. Despite appearing to be dislocated, the arm certainly had enough strength in it to send Unit-01 flying sideways and into another building. This time however, the building stayed mostly intact and stopped Unit-01 from crashing through and falling to the ground again.
As the creature got to its feet, a deafening crack was heard as the dust cleared and Rei finally had a perfect shot on the core. Her rifle fired a massive metal slug over Asuka's shoulder as Unit-02 bent down to retrieve its axe and into the red-orange orb, sending the creature stumbling backwards as its right arm crossed over its chest to protect the core. The single shot was not enough, but the core now had spider-webbed cracks all through it. Rei fired again, but the round was simply absorbed by the strange orange flesh around the right arm as it shot up to protect itself.
It was a testament to NERV's pilot training program that Asuka did not so much as flinch as both rounds passed within meters of her Unit's head. When she heard the first shot, Asuka had frozen so as to not accidentally get in the way when the second round passed by. She knew from extensive simulation training that Ayanami was scarily accurate when deployed as a sniper, which suited her perfectly as a primarily melee fighter. Asuka could keep the target occupied while Rei set up her shot.
There may not be many opportunities for a sniper shot in their engagements, but Rei never missed during their team training simulations. During one such simulation, Asuka was positive that a shot had actually brushed past her Unit's chin as she was moving away to give Rei a clear field of fire. Afterwards, Rei had denied that she deliberately gave Unit-02 a “friendly tap” with a sniper round rated for attacking Angels, and since it was a simulation there was no physical evidence, but Asuka was positive that she had seen the faintest glimpse of a grin on the First Child's face.
Refocusing on Raziel after only briefly considering complimenting Rei on her usual superb accuracy, Asuka stood up and stalked forward, preparing to bury her axe in its nauseating face. Memories of a previous fight tried to interfere, to make her freeze at the sight of the grin, but she squashed them down under mounting rage. She would never lose again. Not to such a putrid creature that relied on cheap tricks to defeat its target.
If Raziel had eyes, it would have widened them as it finally recognised the red armour of its current adversary. The grin grew even wider, and a thick red tongue poked out of its mouth and licked its lips as if witnessing a delicious buffet. It extended its left arm, no longer dislocated, and made a “come get me” gesture at Unit-02, mocking its pilot.
“Das ist es! Ich werde sie am ENDE!” Asuka shrieked, as pure condensed anger erupted and propelled her Evangelion forward, crossing the distance between them in a heartbeat.
__________
“Well, that's certainly new,” remarked Shigeru as the command personnel watched Raziel provoke Asuka.
Misato raised an eyebrow. “Is it trying to make her careless?”
“Whatever its intention, Asuka's sync ratio just jumped twenty points when Raziel taunted her. She's sitting at 114% now.” replied Makoto.
“And Shinji's? Unit-01 hasn't budged from that building yet.”
Makoto turned and gave his superior officers a serious look. “0%, ma'am.”
Ritsuko interjected. “What about Rei's sync ratio?”
“70%. Ever since Unit-01 got thrown into that building, it's been slowly but steadily rising.”
“What's the status of Unit-01? Has it taken any damage?”
“Light damage to the head and back, from the charge and the buildings,” Shigeru reported.
As the technicians refocused on their screens, Ritsuko stepped closer and whispered to Misato, “What did Asuka just say? I didn't like the sound of it and my German's a bit rusty.”
Misato turned to face her friend, a worried look on her face. “Mine too, but I think she just said 'That's it, I will end you.'”
“Why the long face? Asuka's in top form as always.”
“Yes, but look at what just happened. That thing recognised her. The others only saw Unit-02 as just another enemy, but Raziel has somehow retained enough awareness to know who she is. And it's toying with her again! Just like...” she trailed off, remembering what had happened before.
“Just like when she fought all nine Mass Production Evangelions to a standstill before running out of power.” Ritsuko finished for her. “There's nothing to worry about now. There's only one of them, Asuka's cable is still connected and she has fire support from Rei. If that's not enough, we still have some of the stationary defenses active if you want to call in more long range support.”
Misato sighed and rubbed her forehead. She couldn't help herself. They may not be blood-related, but the Children were her children. Every time she had to send them out to face humanity's enemies, a little piece of her died. If there had been anything at all she could have done to prevent them getting into the Evangelions, and let them have a real, safe life, she would have snatched that opportunity long ago. No matter what it cost her. The Children deserved better than this. They were expected to act as adults, soldiers in someone else's war, yet were treated like...well, like children.
It was a titanic struggle to cut down on her drinking when she had to live with the possibility of her wards screaming and dying as a gigantic monstrosity tore them apart. There had been many nights since being transferred to Tokyo-3 as NERV's Operations Director where she had awoken in the middle of the night due to nightmares about their deaths. At that point she would always get out of bed and check each bedroom, reassuring herself that they were still alright before grabbing more beer out of the fridge to try and drown the memory of the nightmare away.
Once, after a particularly horrifying dream, she had fallen asleep on the ground with her back to Shinji's door, as if guarding him from anything that might threaten the closest thing she had to a son. This had earned her a strange look from Asuka when she awoke to go to the bathroom a couple hours later. The redhead knew the burden that was on Misato's shoulders, and merely covered her in a blanket before heading back to bed, silently thankful that someone cared that much about the pilots as people, not as soldiers.
Turning back to the fight on-screen, Misato tried to swallow down the unease she felt. Ever since Third Impact, things had not been getting back to normal as quickly as had been expected. More attacks from these things that were not Angels, yet were named as such to the media to avoid more panic, delayed the rebuilding of Tokyo-3.
“They're my kids, and all I can do is sit down here and order them into combat,” Misato finally whispered.
__________
Asuka swung wildly, her axe missing by a narrow margin as Raziel jumped to the side, placing him at the left of Unit-02's wild charge. Without missing a beat, Asuka continued the swing, turning her whole Unit around and adding momentum to her attack as the axe sunk into the its right shoulder. The beast did not seem to notice, and Asuka's attempt to pull the axe out was thwarted as the wound appeared to close around the blade. The surface of Raziel's right arm began to writhe as it started pulling the axe into its mass. Realising that it was trying to trap her, the redhead let go of the handle, back-pedalling as she reached for her shoulder-mounted progressive knife.
“Asuka, avoid that right arm! We don't know exactly what it's made of but it seems to absorb any matter that comes in contact with it!” her radio squawked. She didn't bother responding to the blatantly obvious order, and began to think happy thoughts, like ripping that goddamn tongue out of Raziel's mouth.
Rei was forced to shift position as the fight progressed and Raziel moved out of her firing line. During Asuka's initial attack she picked herself up and ran to the north down the street as armoured buildings, controlled by the MAGI, sprung up to shield the blue Evangelion's movements. Asuka was keeping Raziel distracted with her attempts to perform a tonsillectomy, both fighters ducking and weaving around each other as if they were dancers at a rather strange costume ball. Setting her rifle up on a partially raised building for support, Rei gazed down the scope, bringing Raziel and Unit-02 into view. She tapped a button and her comm unit came on as she softly uttered two words.
“In position.”
Asuka heard Rei's call and stopped her attack, backing up as if she were catching her breath. Raziel did not appear to notice Unit-00 setting up and stalked towards Unit-02, slowly licking its lips again. A shudder ran down her spine at the sight, but Asuka kept slowly backing up, letting Raziel advance on her.
“Hold him there,” came the order as Rei carefully aimed at the beast's core from behind. Asuka feinted a swipe with her progressive knife at Raziel, stopping it in its tracks. A perfect shot for Rei, and one Raziel never saw coming. The shot stabbed through its back and impacted the core, further fracturing it, but still not enough to cause it to shatter. Orange goo started leaking out of the cracks in the core, seemingly attempting to seal itself back together.
Asuka looked on with glee as her enemy stumbled forward from the shot, impaling its skull with her knife as she stabbed it up through Raziel's chin. It threw its head back and roared in pain as she lost her grip on the knife, and she was completely unprepared as the right arm writhed and swung at her. Asuka's smile quickly left her face and the redhead let out a shriek of agony as she felt Unit-02's right arm fall away and a stabbing pain in the side of her chest, She grabbed at her own right shoulder as she once again felt the sympathetic feeling of a limb being severed. Blinking to try and clear the tears of pain from her eyes, she saw her own axe blade in front of her. The blade swung down twice more, easily severing Unit-02's power cable before being embedded again in Unit-02's right torso as the blade snapped off. The rest of the axe was ejected from the orange mass and clanged to the ground at Raziel's feet. The beast was no longer grinning.
It turned around, facing towards Rei, and raised its right arm again as it moved several paces towards her. The orange flesh writhed yet again, and a hole appeared at the end of its arm. Something fired from within, and only Rei's quick reflexes saved her as she ducked behind the armoured building. Her rifle was destroyed, the scope cleanly shot through, and had Rei not been so quick, she would have taken the hit, and the remains of the scope, in her Evangelion's face.
Back inside the NERV command room, alarms were blaring as the damage to Unit-02 was displayed.
“Unit-02's left arm has been severed!” yelled Shigeru. “Power cable also severed! Five minutes of internal power remaining!”
“Reduce the plug depth! Her sync ratio is too high!” ordered Ritsuko. “The sympathetic pain is too much for her, we need to do what we can to suppress it!”
“Affirmative, reducing plug depth! Sync ratio dropping, currently at 80%!”
Ritsuko turned back to face Asuka's comm window, a grimace of pain clearly evident on the young girl's face, tears streaming from eyes clenched shut. “Asuka, get out of there! Your cable has been cut, you only have five minutes before shut-down!”
“Unit-00 has lost its rifle! It can no longer provide support from its current location!” Makoto reported
“Do we have any more firearms nearby?” demanded Misato. “Can we send another rifle up for Rei?”
Makoto tapped on his keyboard before shaking his head. “Anything we have down here will take too long to send up at our current state of reconstruction. All we have up there right now are pallet rifles and handguns in an armoury block to the west.”
“That will have to do. Rei! Get a pallet rifle and go help Asuka!”
“Affirmative.” Rei's voice was calm, despite the chaos of the situation. Misato watched the main screen as the dot representing Unit-00 headed west. The cold feeling of unease in her gut had turned into an icy ball of fear. Once again she was merely on the sidelines, forced to watch as everything went to hell and her children were in trouble. She turned to Makoto. “What's wrong with Unit-01? Why hasn't it rejoined the fight yet?”
Makoto's eyes were locked on his display. “I don't know. We lost all telemetry on Unit-01 shortly after it was thrown into that building.”
“Is it shut down? Has something gone wrong? Is Shinji alright?!”
“Unknown, sorry Commander.”
Misato sighed heavily. “It's not your fault, Hyuga. Someone up there just really hates us.”
__________
Rei stormed through the city, a pallet rifle in her Evangelion's hands and a handgun holstered on its hip. The buildings in front of her were retracting far too slow, and some were even jammed, their elevator mechanisms obviously still not fully repaired. Her only option was to turn south and head back to her original firing position.
“Asuka, I have retrieved another weapon and am currently on my way to assist.” That damn Wondergirl, always staying calm while everything around her turned to shit. She wasn't the one staring down a demon that had haunted her dreams ever since that first night on the beach.
'Caught out again! And this time with my own verdammte axe!' Asuka thought, nearly paralysed by both fear and pain as Raziel turned back to face her. Reducing the plug depth only slightly helped. Now it only felt like her entire arm had been stabbed, instead of severed. She had attempted to back away while Raziel's back was turned, but her movements were sluggish now that her sync ratio had sharply dropped and the pain still assaulted her. This wasn't supposed to happen! She wanted to wipe that stupid grin off Raziel's face, but not like this! Where the hell is Shinji? Probably still in that building, sleeping on the job like an idiot.
“Damnit, Shinji!” she cried as tears streamed down her face. “You had better get over here! If I get killed with you nowhere to be found again, I'm going to really be pissed off!” She expected no reply from the purple Evangelion, and thus was not surprised when nothing happened. Shinji was a useless lump nearly all the time, and his Evangelion was just a bigger lump that got in her way. Unit-01 and its pilot were constantly stealing her glory and her kills, but what she wouldn't give for him to steal this kill right now.
As Raziel advanced on her, Asuka's eyes widened as something horribly familiar slid out of its right arm. A double pointed weapon, twisting around itself a third of the way down its length and becoming a handle. Her left eye twitched as she recalled the searing pain of the lance as it speared her Evangelion through its eyes, leaving her half-blind and crippled. As if it too remembered, Raziel raised the points of the lance to the height of Unit-02's head, forcing Asuka to back away quicker, but the back of the red Evangelion slammed into a building before she could get very far.
“Shit! Is that the Lance of Longinus?!” Misato swore.
“No, I will not go down like this!” growled Asuka, as she finally forced herself to stop holding her own arm and wrapped both hands back around the controls. Unit-02's remaining arm shot up as the shoulder pylon released its knife. Asuka wasn't left-handed, but all pilots were trained to use a knife in both hands in case of injury to their dominant side. Her training did not help, however, as Raziel's left arm shot across to grab her wrist as she swung the knife at its head again. Leaning hard into the building to brace herself, Asuka brought a leg up and tried to kick at the damaged core, but the pain and her reduced sync ratio meant there was little force behind the kick. She pushed herself harder into the building behind her and brought both legs up, trying to push Raziel away with her feet, but it was like trying to push a mountain. Raziel's grimace turned back into the familiar disgusting grin as it watched its prey struggle. Its left hand squeezed, and Asuka could feel the bones collapse as a fresh wave of agony shot up her arm.
“Arrggh! Where the hell are you, Wondergirl?” she screamed as she began kicking wildly at Raziel, trying to loosen its grip and force it away.
“I am nearly there. I have reached Unit-01's location. It appears to be deactivated.”
“Of course it is. Once again, Shinji's completely useless and expects us to do everything! Give him a kick for me will you? Maybe that will wake him up.” The insults served as a minor distraction from the pain. Rei diplomatically chose to remain silent rather than state her belief that mere percussive force would be insufficient to awaken their downed comrade.
As Rei continued past the half-destroyed building, she thought she saw a flicker of light in Unit-01's eyes, but when she turned back to verify, they remained blank. She did not have time to examine the purple Evangelion, so she ran on, leaving Unit-01 behind. Asuka needed her assistance far more. Unit-00 rounded the final corner and faced Raziel, still focused on the struggles of Unit-02. Raising her pallet rifle, Rei sent several bursts down the street at its back, trying to draw its attention away from Unit-02. Asuka was directly behind her target, so she had to be very careful where her shots were targeted. The rounds of the pallet rifle did not have the power of her destroyed sniper rifle, and simply bounced off the armour on Raziel's back, or were absorbed into the mass near the destroyed wings. Rei did not stop firing, every shot hitting its back, but Raziel simply stood there, looking over its shoulder at Unit-00 and smirking at its defiance in the face of adversity. With a final crushing squeeze, Raziel let go of Unit-02's left arm and instead grabbed it by the neck. It then whirled around and brought the red Evangelion, still kicking, in front of it. Rei was forced to stop shooting. The core was the only place she could conceivably damage, and Unit-02 was directly in front of it
“Shinji, if you wouldn't mind getting off your lazy ass and helping, that would be nice! Shinji!” yelled Asuka, starting to choke as she almost begged Unit-01 to come to her aid. Outside her cockpit, she could see Raziel raising its right arm, lance pointed at her Evangelion's core.
“Shinji!”
The arm surged forward.
“Shinji!!!”
A sound was heard. A loud noise, horrifying and yet it was the sound that everyone had been holding their breath for. The sound stopped the lance millimetres before it could penetrate Unit-02's core, its distracted wielder looking to the south-west, scanning for the source of the disturbance. Its grin faded from its face as the roar continued.
It was a sound that made Asuka forget about her injuries, the pain unnoticed as she turned her head and focused on that beautiful sound she had been secretly hoping for. A sound that lifted her spirits and promised that everything would be alright.
It was a sound that put a small but warm smile on Rei's face as she heard it. Her pale hands, previously clutching the controls so tight they left imprints on them, relaxed as the sound surged through her.
It was a sound that shook the earth for miles around, and even deep underground in NERV, Misato could feel the vibrations in her feet. She clutched at her neck again as the sound melted the ball of ice in her gut and replaced the look of shock on her face with a faint grin.
“Go get 'em, Shinji,” she whispered.
Chapter 1
The air was still. As if it were holding its breath in anticipation of what was to come in only a few short minutes. There was not a cloud in the sky, and the noon sun shone brightly, reflecting off the blade of a gigantic axe clutched tightly by equally gigantic armoured red fists. The owner of the fists stood in the middle of the street, angry green eyes locked onto a spot to the east. Behind it, hiding partially in the shadow of a tall windowless building, a second figure clad in blue armour aimed a long rifle past the one in red, focusing on the same point over the horizon.
A loud, petulant tone finally cut through the silence of the scene as the red armoured person gave voice to its displeasure.
“Where the hell is this thing?! It better not be late to its own funeral!”
“Asuka, relax for a moment will you? The MAGI are tracking its progress over the hills, it will be here shortly.”
An annoyed huff. “Relax? How about I shove you in here, put you outside during the next fight and then tell you to relax?”
“I'd like to see you try, missy! No way you’re getting me anywhere near the inside of one of those things!”
“What's the matter, Misato? Scared?”
A third, authoritative voice cut in before the argument could devolve any further.
“Settle down, both of you. According to the MAGI, your target will be coming into range in three minutes.”
Somewhere deep underground, a soft slap was heard in the command centre of NERV, as Ritsuko Akagi's palm met her face for the umpteenth time since she'd first met Misato Katsuragi. The chief scientist slowly shook her head as she realised she had grown used to these arguments between the relatively new commander of NERV and its most abrasive pilot. That didn't mean, however, she was anywhere close to enjoying having to break them up when they started taunting each other as if the command structure didn't exist. Both Misato and Asuka had an uncanny ability to irritate her, and she was almost positive that most of their bickering was deliberately designed to tick her off.
Standing a few feet away, her purple-haired superior officer turned and glanced at Ritsuko, a disappointed look on her face for a few seconds before hardening up as she turned back to the holographic display projected in the air before the control stations.
The display showed an overhead view of the city above their heads, with Unit-02 and Unit-00 on the left side, and a red blip designating their enemy on the right, slowly moving through the green hills of Tokyo-3. Below the map, deep red numbers counted down the seconds before visual contact would be achieved by the Units, and to the right, data streamed past as the supercomputers of NERV analysed the target, attempting to acquire as much information as possible on the enemy.
“How are their sync ratios?” asked Misato, finally breaking the uneasy silence that almost always preceded an engagement.
Ritsuko peered over the shoulder of the technician closest to her and replied, “Rei is at 64%, Asuka's at 88%, and Shinji is-”
“The same as always before a fight,” Misato interrupted
“Of course, until the fight actually starts. Then all bets are off.”
“So...since we still have a little time before contact, have you thought of a name for this one yet?” Misato asked, looking sideways at Ritsuko. “Or can I see if the MAGI have a random name generator?” she added with a smirk.
Sighing heavily, Ritsuko briefly considered facepalming once again at the question. Misato had to be doing this deliberately. “Commander, the MAGI is the most advanced computer system in the entire world. It essentially controls this entire city with just a fraction of its processing power. Are you seriously asking if it has the capability to make up names?”
“Eh heh, now that I think about it, I don't really want to see what the MAGI consider a name,” Misato replied sheepishly. “It'd probably come up with either something completely inappropriate, or a bunch of numbers and letters as a designation rather than a name. How about you, Rits? What do you think we should call this one?”
The chief scientist waved one arm absently in the air as she gazed up at the ceiling, deep in thought. “Since we're still sticking to that naming convention someone came up with ages ago, how about Raziel?”
Misato raised an eyebrow, before shrugging. “Fine, that's its name. It's about as good as we're going to get on such short notice.”
The mood turned serious as the countdown timer reached 00:30:00 and an alarm chimed to signify imminent contact. Misato closed her eyes as her hand reached for her neck, grasping for something that was no longer there.
“What do you think will happen this time?” whispered Maya Ibuki, with a troubled look spread across her features as she turned to her fellow technicians.
“Nothing bad I hope,” Makoto Hyuga replied, alternating between staring at his console and glancing up at the giant map with a pensive stare.
“I'm sure everything will be fine,” Shigeru Aoba attempted to reassure his two co-workers, his own eyes fixated on a fourth blip on the map labelled Unit-01, far to the south of the other Evangelion Units.
Maya glared at him. “How can you say that, after everything that's happened?!”
“Hey, I guess I've become an optimist.” Shigeru shrugged.
“Even after everything we've been through?”
“Especially after everything we've been through. We can't afford to give up. Not now, not ever.”
__________
As the timer in her entry plug reached 00:30:00, Asuka Langley Soryu clenched her progressive axe tighter and gritted her teeth, throwing a glance to the south, where the third member of the pilot corps was stationed.
'Just this once, Third Child, stay the hell out of my way!' she thought to herself, not bothering to waste breath on the demand. 'It's not like he'll listen to me anyway, the idiot.' Crouching slightly and leaning forward, she prepared to charge as soon as the damned thing showed itself. Why did they always have to take so long to arrive?
Behind her, Unit-00 raised the rifle scope to its cyclopean eye, zooming in on the projected location for the creature to emerge. Inside its entry plug, Rei Ayanami sat, patiently waiting for the signal to fire. Only someone who knew her very well, and was staring intently at her face, would notice the faint frown and slightly narrowed eyes indicative of worry on the First Child's face. When she spared a fleeting look south, the intensity of the expression deepened slightly.
“Here it comes,” announced Misato over the radio as the massive white and orange humanoid form of the newly-christened Raziel slowly crested the last hill to the east. The first thing the pilots saw as the abomination lurched towards them was a disgusting, red-lipped face that took up almost the entirety of the head. The lips stretched back in what appeared to be a grimace of pain, and hideous orange growths covered most of its face before trailing down its right arm, covering the entire limb in a giant pulsating mass of orange flesh. The creature was hunched over with another large orange growth on its back, the remains of what appeared to be wings just barely sticking out at shoulder height. Its left arm hung limply at its side, obviously dislocated, and it walked as if it were barely stopping itself falling over. A sickly red and orange core sat in the centre of its torso, visibly pulsing like a heartbeat.
“Mein Gott, these things are getting uglier every time!” The exclamation from Asuka was partnered with a look of disgust on her face as she stared at the target.
“Do not let its appearance deceive you, Asuka,” Rei calmly replied. “They are becoming more dangerous every time they arrive, regardless of how damaged they appear.”
The sarcasm was thick in Asuka's reply. “Oh, I was not aware of that, Wondergirl.” She let out a heavy sigh. “I wish they would show up without heads just so I don't have to see that disgusting mouth again.”
“I find myself echoing your wish. The base physical appearance of these creatures is...disturbing to me as well.”
“Yeah, well you weren't the one that got ripped apart by them, so shut up!” Asuka angrily closed the comm window between their units and refocused on the disgusting creature in front of her. Now she could see why this one had taken so long to arrive compared to previous attacks.
Rei stared at the blank communication screen for a moment, before turning back to her scope. She had not intended to remind Asuka of the pain she had suffered, but it seemed inevitable that the topic would arise, given the nature of their current enemy. Rei's hands tightened slightly on her controls as her radio came to life again.
“10 seconds to contact,” came the call. “Try and make it a clean one, we're already having trouble with the funding for rebuilding this city.”
Any hopes that this would be an uncomplicated fight were shattered as an unearthly roar shook the city, the shrieks of ripping metal almost lost in the noise as Unit-01 tore its way out of the launch cradle as if it wasn’t even there. Heavy stomping from the south told Asuka that Unit-01 was already racing towards their target, and she surged forward before Misato could order her to advance.
'Schiesse, here we go again!' she thought as Unit-02 rushed down the street, ripping up asphalt and shaking buildings with every step the behemoth took, the power cable unfurling behind her. 'Jumping the gun as usual.' She had to get there before Unit-01 did, or there would be nothing left. 'Of which one though? The monster...or Shinji?'
“No. Shut up,” Asuka muttered to herself, trying in vain to banish the stray thought. “He's the Third Child, he's invincible.” Despite her attempts, she couldn't shake the foreboding sense that had wedged itself into her brain ever since the Angel alarm had sounded earlier that day. Asuka had a bad feeling that if she didn't take out this angel, something terrible would happen.
As fast as she could make Unit-02 move, it may as well have been standing still compared to Unit-01. Barely ten seconds had passed since the “launch” before Raziel raised its right arm, and multiple shimmering walls comprised of orange hexagons appeared in front of it in an attempt to stop the charging purple beast, which simply ducked its head and ran straight at the orange barrier. The impact could be heard for miles around, a discordant musical note, as gigantic armoured head met AT-Field. Raziel was driven several giant steps backward, its feet tearing up chunks of earth as it tried to brace the field. Unit-01 bounced off and landed on its back, the single giant horn on its head snapping from the impact. The barrier did not fare much better however. Four layers had been simply shattered by Unit-01's reckless attack, but the remaining layer held strong.
Asuka finally caught up to the fight as Raziel passed Unit-01, still dazed from the massive headbutt it had just delivered but slowly making its way back to its feet. Raziel simply ignored its first assailant, focusing on the bright red Evangelion running up the street towards it. The beast stood up straight, dropping all pretence at limping, and braced itself for another impact. Unit-02 brought its axe around in a mighty swing at the final barrier before the creature could shore up its defenses. Sparks flew as the blade simply skittered across the field, unable to gain any purchase on the frictionless wall. Backing off to avoid a retaliating swipe with that ugly orange arm, Asuka brought up her own AT-Field to neutralise that of the creature's. Before she could capitalise on this however, Asuka was nearly knocked to the ground as Raziel suddenly flew past her, tackled by Unit-01 from behind. A string of colourful German curses was flung at Unit-01 as Asuka dropped her axe, but her words did nothing to slow the two brawlers. Both of them plowed through a building, sending rubble flying everywhere, and Asuka backed up as a massive cloud of dust momentarily obscured both fighters from her view.
During the engagement, Rei remained where she had been assigned. She watched as the beast's AT-Field went down, but before she could fully line up a shot at its core, Unit-01 had interfered and she was forced to hold off to avoid friendly fire. As the dust cloud from the building collapse impeded her sight, she calmly switched her scope to thermal view, trying to keep a bead on the creature's core.
Laying in the ruins of the destroyed building, the grimace on the creature's face became a sickening grin as Unit-01 began wildly punching it in the head. Its whole body tensed, and then its left arm swung up and around. Despite appearing to be dislocated, the arm certainly had enough strength in it to send Unit-01 flying sideways and into another building. This time however, the building stayed mostly intact and stopped Unit-01 from crashing through and falling to the ground again.
As the creature got to its feet, a deafening crack was heard as the dust cleared and Rei finally had a perfect shot on the core. Her rifle fired a massive metal slug over Asuka's shoulder as Unit-02 bent down to retrieve its axe and into the red-orange orb, sending the creature stumbling backwards as its right arm crossed over its chest to protect the core. The single shot was not enough, but the core now had spider-webbed cracks all through it. Rei fired again, but the round was simply absorbed by the strange orange flesh around the right arm as it shot up to protect itself.
It was a testament to NERV's pilot training program that Asuka did not so much as flinch as both rounds passed within meters of her Unit's head. When she heard the first shot, Asuka had frozen so as to not accidentally get in the way when the second round passed by. She knew from extensive simulation training that Ayanami was scarily accurate when deployed as a sniper, which suited her perfectly as a primarily melee fighter. Asuka could keep the target occupied while Rei set up her shot.
There may not be many opportunities for a sniper shot in their engagements, but Rei never missed during their team training simulations. During one such simulation, Asuka was positive that a shot had actually brushed past her Unit's chin as she was moving away to give Rei a clear field of fire. Afterwards, Rei had denied that she deliberately gave Unit-02 a “friendly tap” with a sniper round rated for attacking Angels, and since it was a simulation there was no physical evidence, but Asuka was positive that she had seen the faintest glimpse of a grin on the First Child's face.
Refocusing on Raziel after only briefly considering complimenting Rei on her usual superb accuracy, Asuka stood up and stalked forward, preparing to bury her axe in its nauseating face. Memories of a previous fight tried to interfere, to make her freeze at the sight of the grin, but she squashed them down under mounting rage. She would never lose again. Not to such a putrid creature that relied on cheap tricks to defeat its target.
If Raziel had eyes, it would have widened them as it finally recognised the red armour of its current adversary. The grin grew even wider, and a thick red tongue poked out of its mouth and licked its lips as if witnessing a delicious buffet. It extended its left arm, no longer dislocated, and made a “come get me” gesture at Unit-02, mocking its pilot.
“Das ist es! Ich werde sie am ENDE!” Asuka shrieked, as pure condensed anger erupted and propelled her Evangelion forward, crossing the distance between them in a heartbeat.
__________
“Well, that's certainly new,” remarked Shigeru as the command personnel watched Raziel provoke Asuka.
Misato raised an eyebrow. “Is it trying to make her careless?”
“Whatever its intention, Asuka's sync ratio just jumped twenty points when Raziel taunted her. She's sitting at 114% now.” replied Makoto.
“And Shinji's? Unit-01 hasn't budged from that building yet.”
Makoto turned and gave his superior officers a serious look. “0%, ma'am.”
Ritsuko interjected. “What about Rei's sync ratio?”
“70%. Ever since Unit-01 got thrown into that building, it's been slowly but steadily rising.”
“What's the status of Unit-01? Has it taken any damage?”
“Light damage to the head and back, from the charge and the buildings,” Shigeru reported.
As the technicians refocused on their screens, Ritsuko stepped closer and whispered to Misato, “What did Asuka just say? I didn't like the sound of it and my German's a bit rusty.”
Misato turned to face her friend, a worried look on her face. “Mine too, but I think she just said 'That's it, I will end you.'”
“Why the long face? Asuka's in top form as always.”
“Yes, but look at what just happened. That thing recognised her. The others only saw Unit-02 as just another enemy, but Raziel has somehow retained enough awareness to know who she is. And it's toying with her again! Just like...” she trailed off, remembering what had happened before.
“Just like when she fought all nine Mass Production Evangelions to a standstill before running out of power.” Ritsuko finished for her. “There's nothing to worry about now. There's only one of them, Asuka's cable is still connected and she has fire support from Rei. If that's not enough, we still have some of the stationary defenses active if you want to call in more long range support.”
Misato sighed and rubbed her forehead. She couldn't help herself. They may not be blood-related, but the Children were her children. Every time she had to send them out to face humanity's enemies, a little piece of her died. If there had been anything at all she could have done to prevent them getting into the Evangelions, and let them have a real, safe life, she would have snatched that opportunity long ago. No matter what it cost her. The Children deserved better than this. They were expected to act as adults, soldiers in someone else's war, yet were treated like...well, like children.
It was a titanic struggle to cut down on her drinking when she had to live with the possibility of her wards screaming and dying as a gigantic monstrosity tore them apart. There had been many nights since being transferred to Tokyo-3 as NERV's Operations Director where she had awoken in the middle of the night due to nightmares about their deaths. At that point she would always get out of bed and check each bedroom, reassuring herself that they were still alright before grabbing more beer out of the fridge to try and drown the memory of the nightmare away.
Once, after a particularly horrifying dream, she had fallen asleep on the ground with her back to Shinji's door, as if guarding him from anything that might threaten the closest thing she had to a son. This had earned her a strange look from Asuka when she awoke to go to the bathroom a couple hours later. The redhead knew the burden that was on Misato's shoulders, and merely covered her in a blanket before heading back to bed, silently thankful that someone cared that much about the pilots as people, not as soldiers.
Turning back to the fight on-screen, Misato tried to swallow down the unease she felt. Ever since Third Impact, things had not been getting back to normal as quickly as had been expected. More attacks from these things that were not Angels, yet were named as such to the media to avoid more panic, delayed the rebuilding of Tokyo-3.
“They're my kids, and all I can do is sit down here and order them into combat,” Misato finally whispered.
__________
Asuka swung wildly, her axe missing by a narrow margin as Raziel jumped to the side, placing him at the left of Unit-02's wild charge. Without missing a beat, Asuka continued the swing, turning her whole Unit around and adding momentum to her attack as the axe sunk into the its right shoulder. The beast did not seem to notice, and Asuka's attempt to pull the axe out was thwarted as the wound appeared to close around the blade. The surface of Raziel's right arm began to writhe as it started pulling the axe into its mass. Realising that it was trying to trap her, the redhead let go of the handle, back-pedalling as she reached for her shoulder-mounted progressive knife.
“Asuka, avoid that right arm! We don't know exactly what it's made of but it seems to absorb any matter that comes in contact with it!” her radio squawked. She didn't bother responding to the blatantly obvious order, and began to think happy thoughts, like ripping that goddamn tongue out of Raziel's mouth.
Rei was forced to shift position as the fight progressed and Raziel moved out of her firing line. During Asuka's initial attack she picked herself up and ran to the north down the street as armoured buildings, controlled by the MAGI, sprung up to shield the blue Evangelion's movements. Asuka was keeping Raziel distracted with her attempts to perform a tonsillectomy, both fighters ducking and weaving around each other as if they were dancers at a rather strange costume ball. Setting her rifle up on a partially raised building for support, Rei gazed down the scope, bringing Raziel and Unit-02 into view. She tapped a button and her comm unit came on as she softly uttered two words.
“In position.”
Asuka heard Rei's call and stopped her attack, backing up as if she were catching her breath. Raziel did not appear to notice Unit-00 setting up and stalked towards Unit-02, slowly licking its lips again. A shudder ran down her spine at the sight, but Asuka kept slowly backing up, letting Raziel advance on her.
“Hold him there,” came the order as Rei carefully aimed at the beast's core from behind. Asuka feinted a swipe with her progressive knife at Raziel, stopping it in its tracks. A perfect shot for Rei, and one Raziel never saw coming. The shot stabbed through its back and impacted the core, further fracturing it, but still not enough to cause it to shatter. Orange goo started leaking out of the cracks in the core, seemingly attempting to seal itself back together.
Asuka looked on with glee as her enemy stumbled forward from the shot, impaling its skull with her knife as she stabbed it up through Raziel's chin. It threw its head back and roared in pain as she lost her grip on the knife, and she was completely unprepared as the right arm writhed and swung at her. Asuka's smile quickly left her face and the redhead let out a shriek of agony as she felt Unit-02's right arm fall away and a stabbing pain in the side of her chest, She grabbed at her own right shoulder as she once again felt the sympathetic feeling of a limb being severed. Blinking to try and clear the tears of pain from her eyes, she saw her own axe blade in front of her. The blade swung down twice more, easily severing Unit-02's power cable before being embedded again in Unit-02's right torso as the blade snapped off. The rest of the axe was ejected from the orange mass and clanged to the ground at Raziel's feet. The beast was no longer grinning.
It turned around, facing towards Rei, and raised its right arm again as it moved several paces towards her. The orange flesh writhed yet again, and a hole appeared at the end of its arm. Something fired from within, and only Rei's quick reflexes saved her as she ducked behind the armoured building. Her rifle was destroyed, the scope cleanly shot through, and had Rei not been so quick, she would have taken the hit, and the remains of the scope, in her Evangelion's face.
Back inside the NERV command room, alarms were blaring as the damage to Unit-02 was displayed.
“Unit-02's left arm has been severed!” yelled Shigeru. “Power cable also severed! Five minutes of internal power remaining!”
“Reduce the plug depth! Her sync ratio is too high!” ordered Ritsuko. “The sympathetic pain is too much for her, we need to do what we can to suppress it!”
“Affirmative, reducing plug depth! Sync ratio dropping, currently at 80%!”
Ritsuko turned back to face Asuka's comm window, a grimace of pain clearly evident on the young girl's face, tears streaming from eyes clenched shut. “Asuka, get out of there! Your cable has been cut, you only have five minutes before shut-down!”
“Unit-00 has lost its rifle! It can no longer provide support from its current location!” Makoto reported
“Do we have any more firearms nearby?” demanded Misato. “Can we send another rifle up for Rei?”
Makoto tapped on his keyboard before shaking his head. “Anything we have down here will take too long to send up at our current state of reconstruction. All we have up there right now are pallet rifles and handguns in an armoury block to the west.”
“That will have to do. Rei! Get a pallet rifle and go help Asuka!”
“Affirmative.” Rei's voice was calm, despite the chaos of the situation. Misato watched the main screen as the dot representing Unit-00 headed west. The cold feeling of unease in her gut had turned into an icy ball of fear. Once again she was merely on the sidelines, forced to watch as everything went to hell and her children were in trouble. She turned to Makoto. “What's wrong with Unit-01? Why hasn't it rejoined the fight yet?”
Makoto's eyes were locked on his display. “I don't know. We lost all telemetry on Unit-01 shortly after it was thrown into that building.”
“Is it shut down? Has something gone wrong? Is Shinji alright?!”
“Unknown, sorry Commander.”
Misato sighed heavily. “It's not your fault, Hyuga. Someone up there just really hates us.”
__________
Rei stormed through the city, a pallet rifle in her Evangelion's hands and a handgun holstered on its hip. The buildings in front of her were retracting far too slow, and some were even jammed, their elevator mechanisms obviously still not fully repaired. Her only option was to turn south and head back to her original firing position.
“Asuka, I have retrieved another weapon and am currently on my way to assist.” That damn Wondergirl, always staying calm while everything around her turned to shit. She wasn't the one staring down a demon that had haunted her dreams ever since that first night on the beach.
'Caught out again! And this time with my own verdammte axe!' Asuka thought, nearly paralysed by both fear and pain as Raziel turned back to face her. Reducing the plug depth only slightly helped. Now it only felt like her entire arm had been stabbed, instead of severed. She had attempted to back away while Raziel's back was turned, but her movements were sluggish now that her sync ratio had sharply dropped and the pain still assaulted her. This wasn't supposed to happen! She wanted to wipe that stupid grin off Raziel's face, but not like this! Where the hell is Shinji? Probably still in that building, sleeping on the job like an idiot.
“Damnit, Shinji!” she cried as tears streamed down her face. “You had better get over here! If I get killed with you nowhere to be found again, I'm going to really be pissed off!” She expected no reply from the purple Evangelion, and thus was not surprised when nothing happened. Shinji was a useless lump nearly all the time, and his Evangelion was just a bigger lump that got in her way. Unit-01 and its pilot were constantly stealing her glory and her kills, but what she wouldn't give for him to steal this kill right now.
As Raziel advanced on her, Asuka's eyes widened as something horribly familiar slid out of its right arm. A double pointed weapon, twisting around itself a third of the way down its length and becoming a handle. Her left eye twitched as she recalled the searing pain of the lance as it speared her Evangelion through its eyes, leaving her half-blind and crippled. As if it too remembered, Raziel raised the points of the lance to the height of Unit-02's head, forcing Asuka to back away quicker, but the back of the red Evangelion slammed into a building before she could get very far.
“Shit! Is that the Lance of Longinus?!” Misato swore.
“No, I will not go down like this!” growled Asuka, as she finally forced herself to stop holding her own arm and wrapped both hands back around the controls. Unit-02's remaining arm shot up as the shoulder pylon released its knife. Asuka wasn't left-handed, but all pilots were trained to use a knife in both hands in case of injury to their dominant side. Her training did not help, however, as Raziel's left arm shot across to grab her wrist as she swung the knife at its head again. Leaning hard into the building to brace herself, Asuka brought a leg up and tried to kick at the damaged core, but the pain and her reduced sync ratio meant there was little force behind the kick. She pushed herself harder into the building behind her and brought both legs up, trying to push Raziel away with her feet, but it was like trying to push a mountain. Raziel's grimace turned back into the familiar disgusting grin as it watched its prey struggle. Its left hand squeezed, and Asuka could feel the bones collapse as a fresh wave of agony shot up her arm.
“Arrggh! Where the hell are you, Wondergirl?” she screamed as she began kicking wildly at Raziel, trying to loosen its grip and force it away.
“I am nearly there. I have reached Unit-01's location. It appears to be deactivated.”
“Of course it is. Once again, Shinji's completely useless and expects us to do everything! Give him a kick for me will you? Maybe that will wake him up.” The insults served as a minor distraction from the pain. Rei diplomatically chose to remain silent rather than state her belief that mere percussive force would be insufficient to awaken their downed comrade.
As Rei continued past the half-destroyed building, she thought she saw a flicker of light in Unit-01's eyes, but when she turned back to verify, they remained blank. She did not have time to examine the purple Evangelion, so she ran on, leaving Unit-01 behind. Asuka needed her assistance far more. Unit-00 rounded the final corner and faced Raziel, still focused on the struggles of Unit-02. Raising her pallet rifle, Rei sent several bursts down the street at its back, trying to draw its attention away from Unit-02. Asuka was directly behind her target, so she had to be very careful where her shots were targeted. The rounds of the pallet rifle did not have the power of her destroyed sniper rifle, and simply bounced off the armour on Raziel's back, or were absorbed into the mass near the destroyed wings. Rei did not stop firing, every shot hitting its back, but Raziel simply stood there, looking over its shoulder at Unit-00 and smirking at its defiance in the face of adversity. With a final crushing squeeze, Raziel let go of Unit-02's left arm and instead grabbed it by the neck. It then whirled around and brought the red Evangelion, still kicking, in front of it. Rei was forced to stop shooting. The core was the only place she could conceivably damage, and Unit-02 was directly in front of it
“Shinji, if you wouldn't mind getting off your lazy ass and helping, that would be nice! Shinji!” yelled Asuka, starting to choke as she almost begged Unit-01 to come to her aid. Outside her cockpit, she could see Raziel raising its right arm, lance pointed at her Evangelion's core.
“Shinji!”
The arm surged forward.
“Shinji!!!”
A sound was heard. A loud noise, horrifying and yet it was the sound that everyone had been holding their breath for. The sound stopped the lance millimetres before it could penetrate Unit-02's core, its distracted wielder looking to the south-west, scanning for the source of the disturbance. Its grin faded from its face as the roar continued.
It was a sound that made Asuka forget about her injuries, the pain unnoticed as she turned her head and focused on that beautiful sound she had been secretly hoping for. A sound that lifted her spirits and promised that everything would be alright.
It was a sound that put a small but warm smile on Rei's face as she heard it. Her pale hands, previously clutching the controls so tight they left imprints on them, relaxed as the sound surged through her.
It was a sound that shook the earth for miles around, and even deep underground in NERV, Misato could feel the vibrations in her feet. She clutched at her neck again as the sound melted the ball of ice in her gut and replaced the look of shock on her face with a faint grin.
“Go get 'em, Shinji,” she whispered.
