Here we are, everyone. We've reached the end of Chapter 10. It took 10 months and totals 66.5k words. I honestly did not expect any part of that. Well, reaching the end of Chapter 10, maybe.
There may be a short break before the next part of A&T, to give me a little time to work things out. You'll see once you get to the end of this piece that canon is well and truly blown to Hell, and I need to work out what happens now. For one thing, the matter of what to do with the 17th Angel is now... different.
@Avian Overlord,
@Jedijinnora, thank you for the likebombing runs. I did see you.
Art? Oh, you bet there's some art. Some is located in the story itself, at the appropriate parts.
Some music, too!
Chapter 10.21
Choices And Sacrifices
+++
The featureless white thread of the Angel sizzled through the air like a snake, wriggling and twisting through the air with a hissing sound of AT-Fields shoving gravity aside. It's 'nose' twitched back and forth between Unit-02 and -03 for a half-second before diving towards the closer black Eva.
Kaworu brought the Progressive Glaive up to a guard position and fought down the urge to throw up his own AT-Field, incomparably stronger than the relatively meager one Unit-03 was managing with his deliberately throttled Synch Rate. His skin itched with the need to put up that impassable barrier, but the knowledge that doing so would be completely impossible to hide from NERV's sensors held him fast. He braced himself, the ultrasonic hum of the Progressive Glaive's blade a faint background sensation relayed through the Eva's hands.
He had barely a second to prepare in any case. The Angel streaked towards him like lightning, the unearthly keen of its Song screaming louder and louder in his ears as it closed the gap. It struck Unit-03's AT-Field like a javelin through paper, tearing a hole like it wasn't even there and spearing for Unit-03's gut...
...only to be slapped aside at the last instant by a precisely aimed and timed tungsten-carbide bolt from Unit-00's sniper rifle.
The impact threw the Angel's probing tentacle to the side, the bolt failing to penetrate its skin and spinning off into the trees. The Angel recoiled from the attack anyway, the 'nose' of its body snapping around to point at the blue Evangelion that had shot it.
From within the Entry Plug, Rei stared right back at it, her lip just barely curling into a snarl. "You will not harm him. I will not permit it," she growled. She cycled the action on her rifle and lined up her next shot.
The Angel did not give her the time. It shot towards her even faster than it had attacked Kaworu. The ground shook as a line of 1,000 kg explosive shells from Unit-01's Pallet Rifle chased it fruitlessly as it slithered through the air to attack Unit-00.
"Rei, move!" Asuka called, seeing the Angel's course. Unit-02 was already breaking into a run, raising its axe. Asuka danced between the shots Shinji was firing without conscious effort, instinctively knowing where Shinji would fire and where he wouldn't.
Unit-00 stood its ground. Rei flared her own AT-Field to its utmost, buttressed by her own Synch Rate hitting a new high.
It provided no more obstacle to the Angel than Unit-03's had. The glowing white body of the Angel slammed into Unit-00's stomach like a runaway freight train, the finest armor mankind could manufacture flowing aside like melting butter as the Angel's flesh made contact with Unit-00's own.
+++
"The target has come into physical contact with Unit-00!" Lieutenant Ibuki reported.
"What's the status of Unit-00's AT-Field?" Misato demanded.
"It's being deployed, but the Angel is penetrating it! She's still under attack by the Angel!"
Ritsuko stared at the displays in mounting horror. "It's trying to achieve first level contact with Unit-00?!"
+++
Rei grabbed the Angel's body with her Eva's left hand and pressed Unit-00's rifle right up against the skin of her enemy. She pulled the trigger once, twice, three times, the meter-long tungsten-carbide bolts ricocheting off the Angel's body with thunderous clangs.
The Angel continued burrowing into Unit-00's belly. Bulging lines of infection began to radiate outward from the point of impact as well as up Unit-00's hand where it grasped the Angel.
Rei twitched and writhed at the disgusting sensation. Matching lines began to appear on her own body, under the skin of the plugsuit. She could feel the hot, alien press of the Angel's AT-Field invading her own, so unlike Kaworu's welcome warmth. She arched her back in involuntary reflex at the swelling agony as the infection crept up her stomach and chest. She bit down on an urge to scream as the rifle fell out of her hand. She grabbed at the Angel with both hands, trying to bodily pull it back out. Even her best efforts produced no movement, nor could they completely stop a moan of pain escaping from between her gritted teeth.
+++
"The First Child is in danger! The Angel is invading Unit-00! It's already over 5% biofused!" Maya reported.
"Kaworu, Asuka! Deploy your AT-Fields and attack the Angel from behind! Assist Rei!" Misato ordered.
+++
"Rei! We're coming!" Asuka shouted over Rei's moans. She charged forward, raising the Progressive Axe. "Stop hurting my friend,
Arschloch!"
Unit-02 brought the Axe down in a full two-handed swing. The humming edge of the huge blade bit into the Angel's skin and a spray of blood erupted.
Rei screamed in synch.
Kaworu's heart screamed right along, Rei's pained outcry running chills up his spine. Unit-03 jabbed the Glaive forward, one urgent swipe actually connecting to the wildly thrashing Angel, tracing a thin line of blood along its skin for a few meters. His strike coincided with yet another shout of pain from Rei.
'Are we... its Song is trying to harmonize with hers! She's feeling it when we strike it!' he realized in shock.
'I ha-UGH!'
He looked down, his own diaphragm paralyzed from the hit. The Angel had somehow split it's body, the tentacle embedded in Rei's gut dividing in two, and sent the new limb spearing straight into Unit-03's guts. It was already burrowing hard into his Evangelion's armor and flesh.
He clenched his jaw against the sudden wave of pain and disorientation that swept over him. He raised the Progressive Glaive in both hands, trying to aim at the Angel's glowing form, but his vision was swimming and the Angel kept thrashing madly. He stabbed downward anyhow, hoping to pin it. Against the odds, he connected solidly, nailing the Angel to the ground.
"AAAAAAGH!" He arched up off the control seat in pain. It felt like he'd stabbed himself right between the shoulder blades with a speartip bigger than his hand. He could feel the Angel's AT-Field infecting Unit-03's, as well.
He writhed in the seat, his hands blindly flailing for the control yokes. He tried to focus.
'One pulse of my own AT-Field, and I could expel this thing in an instant. But then everyone in NERV would know exactly who the 17th Angel is... damn it, I can feel it-'
His eyes widened. He could feel the Angel. He could feel it rapidly encroaching on Unit-03's flesh, spreading up towards the Eva's Core. He could feel Mrs. Horaki's sudden panic and pain at feeling 'her' body and Core invaded.
He could feel Rei.
He could feel her pain from both her Eva being invaded and from the wounds in the Angel, her fear she would fail her friends, her anger and frustration that she couldn't seem to stop the Angel's attack, her determination and love...
...for all of them.
For Shinji. For Asuka.
For him.
Suddenly the pain didn't matter.
+++
Asuka pulled her axe back, reveling in the spray of more blood from the Angel's wound. Her wolfish smirk faded almost immediately, though. The Angel's flesh healed up so fast she could see the edges of the gash meld back together in just a few seconds. "Oh come on, that's
Bockmist! Ok, fine! If that's how you want it, let's see who's faster!"
Asuka began chopping away at the Angel, as fast as she could push Unit-02's limbs.
'Come on, Mama! We have to kill this beast! It's hurting our Rei!'
'Y-Yes!'
She managed four good, bloody chops into it before its tail end whipped up and around the head of the Axe and nearly wrenched it from her hands. "Oh no you don't,
Arschloch! That's my axe! The one I'm going to dice you into tiny bits with!"
The Angel's tail drilled into the head of the axe itself, and bulging lines of infection began to spread under the surface of the axe.
"Was zum Teufel?!" Asuka snarled. "Shinji! Give me a hand! This thing's trying to steal my-Aaagh!"
The Angel had looped a coil of its body around her ankle during the struggle, and when it used this to trip Unit-02 it took the opportunity to yank the axe out of her hands.
Asuka rolled backwards, careful not to crush her Umbilical Plug. She bounced back to her feet, immediately drawing Unit-02's pistol and Prog Knife. "Ok, now I'm even
more angry! No stealing my axe! It's new! I haven't even gotten to kill you with it yet!"
"Asuka!" Unit-01's rapid approach made the ground tremble as Shinji ran towards her. "Are you ok?"
"I'm fine! I just need to get my axe back!"
The Angel swung the stolen axe at Unit-02. Asuka dashed forward, catching the axe's edge on her own knife, and shoved the pistol against the Angel's skin. "Dodge
this!" She pulled the trigger over and over, dumping the entire magazine into the Angel's skin. Blood sprayed everywhere as the end of the Angel holding the axe suddenly developed a lot of gaping holes. "Ha! Didn't like that, di-"
They both were distracted by the sudden screams of pain in stereo from Rei and Kaworu. They looked towards the other two Evas. Unit-00 was on its back in a fetal curl, the Angel's infection swelling its belly up to grotesque size. Unit-03 was still barely on its feet, making weak stabs at the Angel's wriggling body, but the stabs were feeble and slowing.
"
Scheiße!" Asuka spat. "Shinji, you help Kaworu! I've got Rei!" She dropped the empty pistol.
"Roger!"
Unit-01 took off running as fast as he could. Asuka turned back to the end of the Angel still whipping the axe back and forth long enough to slash underneath with her Prog Knife. The Angel screamed again, and Asuka smirked once more as she caught the axe as it fell into her hand. "I told you, that's mine!"
She took off running towards Unit-00. She was only two steps into her movement when the hand holding the axe began to burn. Asuka looked down.
A glowing stub of the Angel still stuck out from the blade, wiggling and pulsing... in the same beat as the lines of infection now spreading up Unit-02's arm from her right hand.
"Oh,
Scheiße..." She looked to Shinji's comm window. "Shinji! Don't let it touch you! It-"
The other end of the Angel struck Unit-02 right in the center of her back.
+++
Shinji skidded Unit-01 to a stop next to Unit-03, which had just collapsed to its knees. "Kaworu! I'm here!"
"AAANNGGG!" Kaworu moaned through his teeth. "G-Get back, Shinji! Help Rei! REI!"
Shinji turned and fired another burst into the loops of the Angel writhing slowly above Unit-03.
Kaworu screamed again, as did Rei.
And Asuka.
+++
"Unit-02 now infected as well!" Aoba reported. "It's spreading rapidly through all systems!"
"Bio-readouts on Pilot Ayanami becoming unstable!" Maya added. More alerts began screaming on her console. "Pilots Nagisa and Soryu too!"
+++
Asuka's head was spinning. The waves of pain exploding from her back only made the disorientation worse. She couldn't think straight. But she could feel. She could feel her Mama screaming in bizarre two-part harmony. She could feel Unit-02 falling forward, toppling onto its face in a crash whose pain was not even a tithe against what she already felt. She...she could feel... Rei? Kaworu?
She shook her head dizzily, trying to make one thought follow another. Where was Shinji? She could hear him shouting her name, and Rei's... She could feel Kaworu's increasing worry, and a terrible resolve starting to make its way up from below that. She... felt his love? For Rei? Shinji? Her? What? Who?
She could feel Rei's love for them all, so intense... And the same resolve, something... wait... someone else was... talking? To Rei? She... had to... help.
She could still feel the Progressive Knife in her left hand. She bent her arm back, waving it near the Angel's tentacle she could feel in her back. She almost blacked out from the pain when she felt the blade bite into something, but she refused to give up. She would save her friends. She would not fail.
She dug the knife in harder.
+++
"M...Misato-san! What do I do?!" Shinji pleaded. "Every time I hit the Angel, they all scream too!" He fired again anyway, hoping it would stop the Angel. All it produced was more torrents of Angel blood from holes that rapidly healed, and a fresh chorus of screams from his friends. "I can hurt it, but I can't find its Core! All I can see is glowing skin! How can I kill the Angel if the Core is hidden under white skin?!"
+++
"Can we eject the Entry Plugs on Unit-00 or Unit-03?" Misato shouted. "We can have Unit-01 recover them, and hit the Angel with an N2 Mine while it's trying to... assimilate the Evas, or whatever the Hell it's doing!"
"Unit-00 is on its back against a hill!" Lieutenant Hyuga replied. "If she ejected, she'd plow right into the ground! And..." He hammered at his controls. "...No good. Unit-03's ejection signal is not being received. The Angel has already corrupted that system."
"Get... get the Special Attack Flight ready," Misato said, her voice full of ash. "We may not have the choice, if Shinji can't cut them free. I won't let the Angel take them. But we'll give Shinji every second we can."
+++
It was going to kill Rei.
It was going to infect her and consume her and kill her and he had to stop it he couldn't let it kill her or Asuka or Shinji or anyone he had to stop it had to stop it had to not worth living like them he was only going to hurt them hurt her destroy everything anyway it was better this way he loved her he loved Shinji he loved Asuka they all were so bright so beautiful he loved her he had to save her he didn't matter nothing mattered but her
Kaworu Nagisa made his choice.
Kaworu's hand reached for the Mode: D handle cover behind his seat.
+++
Rei blinked. The Entry Plug was gone. She was somewhere... she was inside. Inside her Eva. She could feel... everything. Unit-00, thrashing in the dirt as its body swelled larger and larger as the Angel converted Unit-00's tissue into itself. Kaworu, his desperation rising, as was his panic... before that suddenly flattened, replaced by a terrible sadness and a feeling of farewell and love. Asuka, nearly blinded by pain, but stabbing at the Angel's body over and over, trying to cut her way free, determined to save Rei.
She could feel... someone else... watching her... Not the other her, the her in the Eva. Someone else.
The Angel.
"Who are you?" Rei asked it.
It looked like her. It knew no other form to appear in, but the ones it had found here, in Unit-00's Core. The form of Rei Ayanami. It raised its head, seeing her.
"Do you want to become one with me?" it asked, its voice queerly flat, yet almost manically intense.
"No, I am I. I am not you," Rei replied. "I am separate. Other. Individual."
"Yes, but you shall be. It is too late."
The infection spread all over Rei's body in this place, thick, bulging ropes of alien matter now reaching from her legs all the way to her face.
"I give you part of my heart. I give you this emotion." The Angel smiled. "Pain... See, your heart is full of pain."
Overwhelming emotions poured into Rei's mind from the Angel. Raw, singular, aching.... familiar.
"Pain?" Rei managed to barely shake her head. "No... Loneliness. This feeling is loneliness. I know it too well."
"Loneliness? I do not understand," the Angel said.
"Do you hate being alone?" Rei asked it. "We are many, but you are alone, like he thought he was. You hate it, don't you? That feeling."
"That was in your heart... but you have filled it. Give it to me. I hate this 'loneliness'. I do not want to be alone."
"No," Rei refused. "You cannot take it like that. You cannot take myself, or my friends. Release us. You can only find the end of that feeling in others."
"I have found it," the Angel said, its smile becoming twisted and mad. "I have found it in you and you and you and I will take it into me and we will all be one. I will not be alone."
"No!" Rei shouted, despite the way it made the pain return. "You will not! We are individuals! You cannot take us into you!"
"I already have. It is too late. You cannot refuse me."
"I WILL NOT PERMIT IT!"
+++
Unit-00 thrashed harder. Its hands were still futilely locked around the tentacle piercing its guts. It sat up, curling forward into a ball as the flesh on its back burst out of the blue armor and shot skyward in a grotesque tower of mutating tissue. Flippers, wings, eyes, insectoid legs, flaring arms, all the distorted features of the past Angels protruded from places on the tower as the Sixteenth Angel fought to encompass the many into a one.
+++
"Unit-01, cut the Entry Plug free from Unit-00 immediately."
Misato snapped her head around to stare at Commander Ikari. "What?"
"Rescue the Pilot of Unit-00. We will then set it to self-destruct to eliminate the Angel."
"What about Unit-02 and -03?" Misato demanded.
"If the self-destruct of Unit-00 is insufficient, we will proceed with the N2 strike. The Pilots of Unit-02 and -03 are to eject if possible."
"And if they can't?"
Commander Ikari's glasses glittered coldly at her. "You've already made that decision, Major Katsuragi. You know the stakes as well as I. We cannot allow the Angel to win, no matter what."
Misato glared at him, knowing despite his words they had very different criteria for when that strike would be launched if at all. But she merely jerked a nod and turned back to the main screen. "Shinji, hurry. The jets are on their way. Rei... get out of there, now."
+++
Shinji fired his last burst into the Angel and tossed the Pallet Rifle aside when it clicked empty. It had done a lot of damage, but he still couldn't find the Core. He pulled out his Prog Knife and slashed at the area behind Unit-00's neck, trying to dig for the Entry Plug. He had to grab Unit-00's head to hold it in place. But as soon as Unit-01's hands touched it, the infection began to crawl up the Eva's hands and arms.
Shinji's eyes widened as tiny figures that looked like Rei, Asuka, and Kaworu began to appear on the surface of his own hands on the control yokes, reaching out to him with tiny arms and pleading eyes.
"It hurts hurts.... being alone... become one with us, Shinji... please... we don't want to be alone..." they whispered in unsettling chorus.
+++
"NNnnggg...NGGGGG!! YEEEAAAAAAAAH!!" Asuka's screams of pain became a roar of triumph as she finally managed to sever the tentacle in her back from the rest of the Angel. She could feel it still there, in Unit-02's systems, but for the moment the pain receded and she could move.
She struggled to her feet and staggered towards Unit-00 and -03. "Hang on, Rei! Kaworu! I'm coming!"
She took a tighter grip on her knife and leapt the last distance as her legs began to fail her. She landed near Unit-03, spotting Unit-01 already trying to help Rei. "Kaworu, eject! I'll get you clear!"
"No!" he shouted back at her. "Save Rei! I'm... I'm ok! I've got this!"
Asuka grabbed the part of the Angel sticking out of Unit-03's stomach. "You stupid fish! You're the worst liar in the world!" She brought the knife down in a blur.
Unit-03's hand caught hers before it got even halfway. "SAVE... REI!" Kaworu growled, shoving her towards Unit-00.
+++
Rei blinked. She was back in the Entry Plug. Unit-01 stood over her, knife digging painfully at her back.
She could still feel Kaworu. Feel everything he felt. Pain, loneliness, resolve... love. She felt every last drop of his feelings for her.
It was beautiful. More beautiful that even his own Light appeared in her eyes, a beauty she'd never found the words to speak to him, or anyone. 'Rainbow' was the weakest, most insufficient way to describe his Light. It had been impossibly strange, once, when they first met. But now it was different. It had changed and shifted every time they spoke, becoming more and more... familiar. Brilliant. Warm. And now every element of it was suffused with care for her, beaming out from him like sunlight. She could have bathed in his Light forever, for the billions of years Lilith had lost in sleep and regret. All was right with the world. Kaworu Nagisa loved her.
Tears began to run down her face. He was... such an idiot...
She could feel the Angel feeding on it, drawn by the agonizingly blissful answer to the burning incompleteness at the core of its own heart. The Angel wanted,
needed that sensation, that divine feeling that 'You are not alone. You are fulfilled. You are completed.' It wanted to be one with Kaworu, with Shinji, with Asuka... But the Angel could not understand. It would continue to consume and absorb them all, trying to collapse into one being what could only be sustained by individuals. In seeking to be loved, it would destroy her and everyone she cared for.
She would not permit it.
Gripped by pain, her body covered in Angelic infection, her eyes blind with tears, Rei Ayanami made her choice.
+++
The signals on Maya's console went mad.
"AT-Field has been reversed! It's collapsing inward!" she reported.
"To contain the Angel?" Ritsuko speculated.
+++
Kaworu's hand was flung away from the red handle in the recessed panel behind the control seat in his Entry Plug. The feeling of connection to Rei and the Angel disappeared.
"No! NO! This is my fate! This is what I'm supposed to do! I'M SUPPOSED TO BE THE ONE, REI!
PLEASE DON'T DO THIS!" the Seventeenth Angel begged.
+++
Unit-03 jerked and spasmed as the glowing tentacle of the Angel suddenly ripped its way back out of the Evangelion and retracted into Unit-00's suddenly re-swelling belly. The Tower of mutated Angel forms sticking out of Unit-00's back collapsed downward back into the body of the blue Prototype.
Unit-02 fell to its knees again as the infected tissue ripped itself out and raced to join the rest of its fellows in Unit-00. Asuka's head was suddenly clear. Her eyes went wide as she saw what was happening to Unit-00. "REI! GET OUT OF THERE!"
The tiny figures on Shinji's hands vanished, sinking back into his skin. The ropes of infection on his hands retreated into Unit-00's flesh an instant before the sudden orange flash of an AT-Field flung him backwards away from Rei. His Prog Knife spun away into the woods.
Unit-00's belly swelled up to triple the size of the Eva it was attached to. Unit-00's Core cracked and pink globs of infected tissue began to bubble out of the center.
+++
"AT-Field limit reached! The Core can't hold up much longer!" Maya exclaimed.
"Rei, eject NOW!" Misato ordered.
+++
"No good. If I eject, the AT-Field will disappear and the Angel will resume its attack. I will not permit it," Rei said hoarsely. She opened the panel behind her seat, let the red handle rotate into position where she could reach it, and pulled.
On the side of the control seat, MODE: D lit up and the Eva's Core controls engaged the last resort.
+++
"
REI!!" three voices cried.
+++
The swollen blob that had been Unit-00's stomach suddenly stopped growing. It collapsed back inward in rapid-fire pieces, snapping back like something was taking huge bites out of the perimeter.
+++
"Core pressure exceeding final limits! It's going critical!" Maya looked up from her console to the main screen.
+++
She felt a presence behind her in the last instant. She turned around to see Kaworu smiling sadly at her, gently, welcoming... loving.
"I'm sorry..." she whispered.
Rei's world became pure white light.
+++
Three Evangelions, no more than 100 meters from the center, threw up their hands as one, frantically projecting the strongest AT-Field they could.
Unit-00 became the heart of a star.
Thunder followed after.
+++
Stunned silence filled Central Dogma in the wake of the massive explosion.
It was nearly a minute before Lieutenant Aoba could find his voice. "T....Target has... disappeared," he reported.
"....The operation is finished," Misato said in a hollow voice. Her whole body shook with a mix of pain and fury. "Move to a Level One alert."
"R-Roger," Hyuga responded, snapping out of his shock. "Moving to situation yellow immediately."
"Unit-00's status?"
"....Entry Plug ejection not recognized. No signal," Maya answered hollowly.
"Rescue the Pilot as soon as possible. Hurry!" Misato bit out.
"If there still is one, you mean," Ritsuko said mournfully, her voice barely more than a whisper.
Misato refused to turn her head. That way neither one of them had to see the other's tears.
No one in Central Dogma but Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki heard the tiny, anguished, "...Rei," from beside him.
+++
"Rei..." Shinji stared numbly at the glowing-hot crater in front of him that had once been Owakudani district. This couldn't be real. This couldn't...
+++
"No. No. No. No. No. No," Asuka chanted. She bit down on her lip until she tasted blood. She was not going to cry. She was not going to cry
because Rei was not dead. NO!
+++
The Fifth Child sat, staring blankly at the crater. Only his hands shook. The rest of him was utterly still.
He stared, but did not see. His eyes were too full of tears to see. It didn't matter. There was nothing
to see.
The Light had gone out of the world.
His eyes began to glow red.
+++
End of Chapter 10.
Tip Jar.
