So, um... yeah. That promised update didn't materialize in the end. See now why I don't want to make update schedule promises?
Anyway. Like I said above, I cut the chapter in half. So sadly, the awesome and the terrifying parts are missing. On the other hand, in an attempt to get my muse rolling, I decided to do some dusting on the first chapter. No major changes to the content, just fixing inconsistent (and at places cringeworthy) characterization for Kaworu and changing some wording and descriptions in the prologue. In any case, my little quick-fix somehow ended up adding another 500 words to the chapter, but it's all good. And it made me feel a little bit of shame to see that I've started posting this over three years ago and we're
still only here with the plot.
Chapter 38 follows.
----
Tokyo-2, Downtown
January 9, 2042
1529 hours
"You know you could've just told me in person after class, right?"
"Are you stupid? If I suddenly call you outside, everyone will know something's up."
Kaworu rolled his eyes. – "And dropping a note in my lap with a message in German isn't suspicious at all. Okay."
"Why, did anyone notice?"
"Aida did." – Rei spoke up from behind the two.
Both Kaworu and Asuka turned to look at her. – "How do you know?" – Asuka demanded.
"He read the note after class was out and is now following us."
Kaworu decided not to ask her how did she know
that. Chances were, it wasn't by means meant for Asuka's ears; Rei stressed it to him repeatedly that whatever...
special things the two of them had, no one must know. He had no idea why she was so insistent about it; if anything, she seemed almost
afraid of being found out as anything but a completely normal human.
"He could be living in this direction." – Asuka pointed out.
"We are not between the school and his place of residence. Suzuhara's residence is also not in this direction. Therefore, he has no reason to be here."
"How do you even know where those two idiots live? Did Nagisa take you to their places once or something?"
"I've never been to their places myself, so no." – Kaworu interjected.
Asuka looked behind them briefly, seemingly ignorant that doing so is the fastest way to alert someone tailing her that she's aware of having company other than the two she was walking with. – "I don't see him. Are you sure he's following us?"
Or maybe she just didn't care.
"He is falling behind by one block to avoid detection."
"What do we do, then? Go in circles until we lose him?" – Kaworu asked.
"Hell no. I ain't gonna be late because of that idiot." – Asuka grumbled.
"He'll see us go into the personnel elevator." – he pointed out.
"I don't care."
"But-"
"Look. We were told to keep our employment discreet, right?"
"Yeah."
"Which means not
telling anyone. He sees us going inside, how's that our problem?"
"He's doing that because of you doing something suspicious."
"How ELSE was I supposed to tell you there's a test, huh?"
"After classes, maybe?"
"Look, I gave you that damn note to make sure you know ahead of time and don't plan on running off with your idiots for the afternoon, only to have to tell them at the last minute that something came up! 'Something came up' just begs the question '
what came up'. Do you really need it spelled out for you?"
"What the hell is your problem all of a sudden?"
"I'm allergic to stupidity, that's what!"
Behind them, Rei let out an inaudibly quiet sigh.
----
Geofront, AEL Headquarters
1647 hours
By the time they reached the Geofront facilities, however, the upcoming event appeared to be more than just a routine test, if one of the staff directing them to a conference room instead of the locker room was of any indication. And as soon as Shephard crossed the threshold of the room a few minutes after them, Kaworu immediately noticed the man was tense.
"Change of plans, kids. Test's cancelled because we have a live target, but the son of a bitch couldn't possibly be any more off the beaten path if it tried."
"Where?" – Asuka demanded, tone turning serious and no-nonsense so swiftly Kaworu looked at her in surprise. It was
nothing like her previous bitchiness. Not even close.
"Western Siberia, couple dozen klicks west of the Yenisei river." – her father replied, activating the conference desk's built-in projector to display a map indicating a location somewhere in northern Asia. – "Weather is awful there at the moment; 100% cloud cover, so we don't have a satellite visual on the target. And if that's not bad enough, weather radar flagged an incoming snowstorm that will get there before you, so visibility's going to be nearly nonexistent."
"And you expect us to walk all the way there?" – the girl asked in a skeptical tone. – "I'm not sure the reactor will last that long."
"It won't, but the navy's lending us some airlift. The Evangelions are getting ready for transport topside, after which they're gonna get strapped onto three frigates and taken up to a suborbital trajectory. Apparently the doc managed to get her hands on some kind of harness that can be attached to the bottom of a frigate to haul an Evangelion; where she got it and so soon after the tactic we improvised for the last battle, I have no idea. But we're gonna use 'em."
"Is it the same tactic as the one used by Unit-00 in the last engagement?" – Rei asked.
"No. They're gonna drop you off at low altitude, no orbital drop this time because we're taking full combat gear. If you have anything to do, food, drink, potty break, anything else, now's the time because you're not coming back out until it's over." – Shephard stressed. – "Again, weather's really bad and it's over sixty below outside, so you can't pop the hatch if you need to take a leak because a plugsuit will
not keep you from freezing to death within minutes."
"Why are we even going in there if it's that bad? The previous ones all came to us. Whatever they're after is probably right here." – Asuka guessed.
"We don't even know what they're after and for all we know, this thing could just head off and attack somewhere at random if we don't respond."
"Yes, but look at the terrain and the weather. This could be a trap."
"For what?"
"Luring us out of here so that another one can move in for the kill before we can double back, for one. That's what I'd do."
"I know what you're saying but even if it would come right here, we're in the middle of a major city. Which means
collateral damage." – Shephard pointed out. – "Bunkering down might give us the home field advantage, but I don't think the locals will appreciate it if there won't be much of a city left by the end. We
have to intercept them in the countryside whenever we can. It's not going to make deployment or retreating easy, but it's either that or leaving a couple hundred thousand people homeless."
"Did the president specify such rules of engagement?" – Rei asked.
Shephard made a dismissive gesture. – "Like hell. Doc says ROE's my call and she agrees with me on this, so we're doing it."
"How about the temperature?" – Kaworu asked. – "Can an Evangelion even stay online in that cold?"
"Doc says it can for as long as you keep the reactor running." – Shephard replied with a shrug. – "Anyway, like I said, we're taking full combat gear. Nagisa, you're going in with B-type equipment, same as before. Asuka, the doc was planning on having you test the A-type equipment next week, but there's no time for that. So you're going in live. You read the manual?"
"Yeah. I'll figure it out."
"Good. As for you..." – The man turned his attention to Rei. – "If the visibility was any better, I'd send you in with G-type equipment for fire support, but it's useless here and the F-type's servos would just get filled with snow and I have no idea if the servos will hold up in the cold. So you're going in with C-type." – He looked back at the others. – "If anybody has equipment problems from the cold, just ditch it and keep going, we can always go back for it later once the weather improves. The doc's not gonna be happy but we're
not losing anybody over this, understood? The faster we nail this bastard, the sooner you'll have extraction and the less chance of equipment malfunction. We
have to wrap this up and extract before nightfall because if this drags out and your reactors won't have enough juice left to run overnight, you either freeze to death or ditch the Evangelions and the doc will kill you."
"Damned if we do, damned if we don't." – Asuka chimed in with a smirk.
For what it's worth, Shephard did return the smirk but kept his seriousness otherwise. – "I know, but my point still stands."
"What is the expected time frame of our deployment?" – Rei asked.
"You're gonna be crossing four hours' worth of time zones but even with that, you'll only have about two hours until sunset because it'll take time attaching the Evangelions to the ships so that they don't fall off during the acceleration."
"If it takes that much time, how are we going to come back here? They can't reattach us that quickly." – Kaworu reasoned.
"You'll have to grab onto the ships and ride them on the top. They'll have already seen you by that time, so there's no point in hiding anymore. As soon as you're up, the ships are heading south to Novosibirsk, but it's a 1500 kilometer ride and if you run out of power on the way, you're gonna fall off. Doc's gonna send people to the rendezvous point to juice the Evangelions up, then you'll come right back here."
"I still don't like this." – Asuka grumbled.
"Well, we're not paid to like it. Don't be getting cold feet on me now. No pun intended."
"I am
not getting cold feet." – she fired back. – "But like I said, this is exactly what I'd do if I was in their place."
"Asuka, we don't even know if they're smart enough for tactics like that."
"How do we know they
aren't?"
----
1819 hours
At an improvised airstrip near the city, a Navy officer with the four-star insignia of a Commander pulled the overcoat on top of his EVA suit tighter around himself. – "Когда мы стали частным грузовым транспортом армии?" – he grumbled in heavy accented Russian.
"Они всегда зависели от нас за их тяжелый подъем." – the similarly uniformed man standing next to him answered.
"Я знаю, но это смешно! Мы фрегат, а не проклятый запас корабль. Можем ли мы даже взлететь с этой вещью, свисающей с нас?"
"Мне говорят, что мы можем. Во всяком случае, что это?"
"Что-то классифицировано. Даже я не знаю." – The captain shivered. – "Черт возьми, здесь холодно... Как долго до завершения погрузки, лейтенант?"
"Около получаса, сэр."
"Хорошо. Сообщите мне, когда это будет сделано."
Despite 48 years of life behind him, Kouji Takao didn't think he had ever gone through a winter as cold as this. Then again, he did spend the last few of Earth's winters in space, so he easily could've missed one or several. Then there was the fact that a sizable portion of the ones he
did experience, he did so in a poorly heated apartment in Sapporo during the Occupation, which went a long way towards desensitizing him to winters during his formative years.
At least walking back inside the mercifully air-conditioned ship he spent the last few years commanding spared him from being exposed to it any longer. For now, at least. People might want to say it's also cold in space, but those people obviously never looked into the fact that the reason why the civilian spacecraft of the pre-Impact era often had a chrome shine to them was because the entire hull functioned as a massive radiative heatsink to keep the instrumentation from cooking the astronauts alive with waste heat, to say nothing of the additional heat influx from solar exposure
and the astronauts themselves getting warmed over from wriggling around in the cramped space of their capsules.
While an Ezekiel-class frigate was quite a bit bigger at 96 meters, it was of course packing a nuclear fusion reactor crammed into the aft section, to say nothing of the fusion rocket engines and, to a lesser extent, the spinal coilgun when it was firing. Takao himself had seen plenty of times the effectiveness of infrared sensors during war games and still remembered the endurance training of preparing the crew for working with the reactor off for an extended period, which more often than not meant until every visible surface had condensation frosted over it, so he knew exactly how much of a double-edged sword heat was in space. Still, that didn't mean he didn't enjoy the simple creature comfort of walking through the decently warm corridors back to the bridge, nodding at the crew's salutes as he passed by them. He saw no point in ditching his EVA suit just yet; if anything came up and he had to go outside again, it would be a waste of time to have to put it on again and he did
not want to go outside in his regular uniform.
Or go outside at all, for that matter.
It was until he was back in his seat in the CIC that he leaned back and idly gazed at the whiteness beyond the forward viewscreen as he reflected on recent events. He of course heard about the giant alien creature attacking Tokyo-2 in September. Although it wasn't exactly the most believable story, it was impossible to miss the fleetwide announcement of DEFCON 2, so there went the theory of it only having been a rumor. The complete destruction of an entire carrier group with all personnel confirmed KIA two months later was just the proverbial cherry on top, along with the fact that a frigate was supposedly called upon to airlift something massive into orbit, then release it on a reentry trajectory into the city that somehow participated in a counterattack that destroyed the hostile entity.
He didn't know what was going on; in fact, no one he knew on the force did, not even his superiors. All he knew is that he and two other frigates have been abruptly handed orders earlier this day to land near Tokyo-2 to receive cargo they were to deliver posthaste to the middle of nowhere. Suspicious, especially since said 'cargo' turned out to be three extremely large objects so heavy his crew would have to redline the engines to even get off the ground, but orders are orders.
Even so, he had to admit he felt mildly tempted to peek under the tarp just to see what was underneath. Especially since the technical personnel who accompanied the cargo and oversaw its handling were not only civilians, but apparently personnel of something called NERV, which he immediately remembered was a name he heard from the mouth of none other than president Keel himself in his public address shortly after the incident with the carrier group as the name of a private military contractor tasked with handling the situation. Although a quick online search found literally nothing about them aside from news reports of the public address and speculations, he still realized something was up.
The signs where there. Giant aliens attack Tokyo-2 and are repelled by unknown means that included a frigate airlifting something heavy, followed by Keel's address that NERV did it, and now he's suddenly ordered to airlift heavy cargo for NERV, except the destination was far away from everything of value.
He knew there was something big going on here. He just didn't know what.
When his XO finally returned to the CIC to inform him that the cargo is secured and started giving orders to the operator personnel, Takao remembered the instructions handed to him and grabbed his headset before keying a communication frequency into the controls on his headrest. – "Shalkar Actual, comm check." – Said instructions specified that he was to contact a specific radio frequency before taking off and stand by for additional orders, though they did not specify who those orders would come from.
To his surprise, a response came almost immediately. – "
Shalkar Actual, Red Queen. Loud and clear." – The voice was female, almost on the young side, but professional.
"Red Queen, Shalkar Actual. Request identification."
"
Negative."
His eyebrows went up at the reply. Whoever it was, she refused out of hand to identify herself beyond her call sign. – "For what reason?"
"
Opsec."
Or she was ordered to refuse, it would seem. – "Understood. Request payload status."
"
Three units, classified. Awaiting delivery to op area."
And they were given three objects to transport. That was all but confirmation that whatever the cargo was, it was manned. And the last two words sent alarm bells ringing in Takao's head; they weren't ordered to prepare for combat upon delivery, but the person on the other side was treating this as a combat drop. Were they taking something to an exercise they weren't told about? – "Pre-flight checks are in progress. Delivery will commence in ten minutes."
"
Shalkar Actual, copy. Request notification prior to arrival at op area."
"Copy that. Any additional mission parameters?"
"
Drop at low altitude. After drop, hold position and land, but keep the engines running and stand by for extraction. Red Queen, out."
----
39 minutes later
"Time's up. You ready to go?"
"
All systems online."
"Okay. Let's roll."
"
Initializing transdimensional entropic reactor starter sequence."
----
Geofront, AEL Headquarters
Same time
"What's our status?" – Yui asked as she walked into the control center.
"They should be arriving right about now." – Shephard replied over his shoulder before turning back to the central display, currently showing a map with six indicators, three blue and three green, with the green ones marked
00,
01 and
02.
Yui opened her mouth to reply but was interrupted by Hyuga. – "Sir?"
"What is it?"
"It could be nothing, but the gravimetric array that got installed last month just picked up a new contact. It's about a hundred kilometers east of here."
That immediately got Shephard's attention. – "That's right inside Old Tokyo! Where did it come from?"
Hyuga shrugged. – "I don't know, it literally just showed up on the screen."
"Another Angel?"
"MAGI says no correlation with their usual pattern." – Maya reported. – "But if it was anything else, it shouldn't be detectable this deep within the Earth's gravity well."
----
"
Power output stable at 35%. Initializing neural interface."
Around the figure, the walls lit up and before him, the text
E-OS v2.01 MK-II/A briefly flashed along with an insignia of a bifurcated lance superimposed on a circle with twelve wings before all was replaced with a seamless external view, leaving him and his seat appear all but suspended in the air for a moment before a body materialized below them.
"
Synchronization stable at 51%. Routing power to Aeon drive."
Snow fell away as the armored humanoid rose onto its feet, wings spreading with a rising hum before it rose into the air with a barely visible blue glow from nozzles across its wings, the snow underneath completely melting in a few moments to reveal rapidly blackening concrete.
"
Ramscoop intake set to atmospheric mode. Ionic accelerator online, density coefficient set to atmospheric mode. Theater coordinates locked, calculating intercept trajectory now... Trajectory set. Projected arrival in 23 minutes. Standing by for acceleration."
"Punch it."
----
"Ma'am, the military issued an air traffic warning." – Aoba reported, looking up at Shephard and Yui. – "They picked up an unknown flying object above Kanto, headed west-northwest at high speed in the upper troposphere. Same location as the gravimetric signature."
"On display."
The map zoomed out to show the rest of Asia and yellow marker appeared over Japan, marked
UNKN. Shephard was about to ask for further details when he realized something was off about that marker, albeit it took him a few more seconds to realize what.
On a map spanning thousands of kilometers,
he could see the marker move.
"...how fast is that thing moving?"
Aoba turned back to his terminal. – "Checki- oh what the
fuck." – he swore.
"Language, mister Aoba."
"Excuse me, ma'am. The target is moving at Mach 6.2."
Shephard's eyes all but bugged out. – "Say what?!"
"It's still accelerating. Now at Mach 6.4. Target has reached stratospheric altitude."
"No way that's not an Angel."
"But the gravimetric pattern-"
"Unless someone managed to get their hands on an old SR-71 and
doubled its speed just for the sake of buzzing us with it, that's definitely not one of ours!" – Shephard declared.
"Target is now at Mach 6.8!"
"In the
stratosphere?" – Hyuga asked in a startled tone, looking up from his terminal himself. – "How the devil is it not burning to a crisp that low?!"
"Better yet, where the hell is it going?" – Shephard demanded. – "It flew right by us, so it's not coming here."
"I can't tell without knowing how long it's going to keep accelerating like that." – Aoba replied. – "Current trajectory puts it over China, but it keeps moving further ahead."
"Then just draw a damn line on the map!"
After a short while, a line shot out from the yellow marker... and directly intersected the blue and green markers halfway across the continent.
"...it's going for the kids."
----
Western Siberia, Yenisei Estuary
1458 hours, local time
Snow flew up into the air as three massive pairs of feet landed in the meter-deep snow, the Evangelions rising to their full height. – "Detachment complete. Shalkar Actual, proceed as planned and stand by for extraction. Red Queen, out." – Asuka called into the radio before looking around.
As expected, it was near-complete whiteout. Even with the panoramic display darkening to compensate for the brightness of the snow, she could barely tell where the sky ended and the ground began, even without the powdery snow whirling around them from the wind and the aftereffects of their own landing.
"Well, they weren't kidding about the cold." – she remarked as she glanced at the external environmental readouts.
"
I was hoping they would." – Sekhmet grumbled.
"What, you feeling chilly?"
"
No, you brat! Blood is meant to flow hot and free, not run cold and sluggish! This is cold enough to freeze blood solid! It denies me even the most basic pleasures in life."
"You... consider killing a basic pleasure?"
The AI scoffed at that. – "
What do you think I was created for, to be a nanny? I'm a weapon that's meant to kill and destroy. Why shouldn't I take pleasure in my work if it's what I'm supposed to do anyway?"
Asuka shook her head. – "I think you need to get a few bolts tightened."
"
Very funny."
"I don't suppose anyone here wants to swap rides?"
"
No." – Lilith replied immediately. – "
Rei-san is and always has been my operator. Although my continued service is not contingent on the status quo, it is preferred."
"How about you, idiot?"
"I have a name, you know. And anyway, is this really the time for this?"
"
Target is about 5000 meters in this direction, according to pre-launch data." – Lilith interjected and a waypoint marker appeared on Asuka's HUD. The girl had a feeling the other AI picked the timing deliberately to break up a possible fight before it began. While she
was told that part of the purpose of an Evangelion's AI was to monitor the pilot's mental health to ensure they don't go off the deep end while behind the controls of a thousand-ton killer cyborg, Lilith felt unusually...
proactive for an AI.
Then again, Asuka herself felt more than a little anxious. Which did not lessen even as they arrived to the waypoint... for a quite simple reason.
"...where is it?"
"
This is the epicenter of the gravimetric reaction. It should be right here." – Sekhmet replied as Unit-02 looked around, seeing nothing but white. If anything, the wind was even more intense now, snowflakes whirling around them in a maelstrom no sane person would venture out into.
"Well, it's not! Are your sensors even working?"
"
My sensors are picking up the gravimetric distortion as well." – Lilith added. – "
It's not equipment malfunction."
"Switch to infrared." – The entry plug around her switched to uniformly dark blue, with only the other Evangelions' outlines being any brighter at light blue. Then again, it's not like an infrared sight would see much in a storm to begin with. – "Anything?"
"
No. Either it froze to death already or the blizzard is too heavy to see it from here."
In his own Evangelion's entry plug, Kaworu sighed. – "Well, we're not going home until we find it. Any idea-"
"Contact!" – Asuka snapped, Unit-02 bringing its weapon up into firing position.
"Where?!"
"I saw something move when I switched back to optical. It's gone now."
All three (or six, depending on whether one counted the Evangelions) kept a watchful eye, Kaworu's gaze slowly sweeping across the whiteness, as if he could discern where their foe lurked. No such luck, though: his eyes told him nothing other than the snow.
But there was something. Shortly after the frigate carrying him stopped shaking from the resistance of atmospheric reentry, he began to feel it, a pressure in the back of his head. With the attention Rei paid to him in the time since the last Angel, doing whatever she did while poking around inside his mind, his head hurt only slightly this time, but it was there. A scratching presence, as if he was being watched from behind.
And based on how much luck they were having right now, he knew it wasn't through eyes like his.
"There!" – Asuka barked again, Unit-02 flinching in a different direction this time.
Once again, Kaworu had no luck. – "I didn't see anything. Adam?"
"
I did." – Adam replied. Kaworu only noticed during the last sync test before New Year's that the AI's vocabulary underwent a sudden change. Well, mostly: he no longer referred to himself in the third person but was still as overly eloquent when asked something.
The teen hadn't asked yet, but he wasn't stupid enough to think this was the time for it, so he mentally filed that away for later.
"
As did I, but not at that position." – Lilith added.
"What do you mean?"
"
I saw movement in this direction." – A marker appeared on Unit-01's HUD.
Nearly at a right angle to where Unit-02 was pointing its weapon at the moment.
"...that's nowhere near what she saw."
Then Unit-02 suddenly fired off a burst in the direction it was facing. – "The fuck?!"
Needless to say, that got the others' attention. Unit-00 immediately spun around with its assault cannon rising to firing position, Kaworu himself flinching in alarm as he frantically swept the whiteness himself. – "What?!"
"That was definitely on target!" – Asuka declared in an agitated tone.
"Remember, these guys got those territory shield things!"
"
Absolute Territory field." – Lilith chimed in with the code name Yui chose for the phenomenon in question. Kaworu didn't quite understand the point behind over-complicating the naming like that and voiced that opinion, only to be reminded by Shephard that the whole situation was still 'kinda hush-hush', so being obscure was a bonus if someone heard the phrase 'AT-field' who wasn't supposed to be in the know. After all, a too self-explaining code name was worse than no code name at all, since it still attracted attention to the fact that there is something someone wished to hide.
"I know but there was nothing like that! It just vanished!"
"You missed."
"
I did not fucking miss! The tracer went right through, I saw it! Sekhmet, where the hell is it?!"
"
No infrared or radar signature. Snow playing with your eyes?"
"
I DID NOT FUCKING HALLUCINATE! It was right fucking there!"
Kaworu was about to retort when the words died on his lips.
Right in front of him, in plain sight, was the Angel.
It looked almost like the first one: no neck, just a three-eyed face on the front of its upper body. But that's where the similarities ended: while the first one had an almost skeletal appearance, this one was, for lack of a better word, skinny. It didn't even have distinct shoulders to show where the torso ended and the arms began; if anything, the top of its silhouette, from three-fingered hand to three-fingered hand, was an almost seamless half-circle. Almost as if someone flipped an anchor upside down and gave it legs.
But that was not the weirdest part. It was an alien, after all, it was bound to look weird.
No, the most unsettling part was that it was not doing anything. Kaworu
knew it saw him before he saw it, it had the element of surprise – and didn't take it. Instead, it just stared, right into Unit-01's eyes... and yet, some part of Kaworu felt as if the Angel was staring through the Evangelion's chest, through the entry plug's wall and right into
his eyes.
He didn't know for how long did they stare at each other; seconds, maybe. But Adam evidently sent out word because both girls whipped around, weapons trained. – "Wait!" – he reflexively called out.
"What?!" – Asuka fired back. He didn't reply immediately; the seconds stretched out... and nothing happened.
"Why is it just standing there?"
Then right before their eyes, another Angel came out of the haze.
And another.
And another.
And another.
And another.
"...Adam." – Kaworu said slowly. – "Am I hallucinating that there's six Angels that look exactly alike?"
"
Negative. Six visual contacts confirmed. No infrared signature or radar signature detected."
"
Wait. I've seen this before." – Tabris suddenly interjected.
'
Where?'
"
I don't remember."
Then all six Angels moved at once and all hell broke loose.
A thundering boom announced Unit-00 firing its assault cannon, spitting a deadly accurate shell at the nearest Angel. Yet the projectile found no target and hit only the ground behind the Angel as it kept charging, without even bothering to defend itself.
"Lilith! Reconfirm visual contacts!" – Rei barked as off to her left, the thrusters on Unit-02's back came to life and the red Evangelion swiftly boosted away from the others, two Angels turning to follow it.
"
Confirmed."
Unit-02 fired its assault rifle at one of its pursuers but all it did was kicking up the snow in their trail. Suddenly stopping, the Evangelion stepped to the side to avoid the lunge of the closer Angel and swung its own leg at its quarry in a kick...
...only to stumble in lost balance as the leg sailed right through the Angel's body with no resistance whatsoever. – "Wha-?!" – Asuka yelped before the other Angel crashed into her Evangelion and sent it to the ground. She immediately snapped her weapon arm up and fired, but once again the tracers went right through it before its clawed hand dug into Unit-02's lower torso.
Asuka grit her teeth. She knew it was going to hurt, but it still caught her unaware how much it hurt. If anything, it definitely put a bad period to shame. Even so, it wasn't bad enough to keep her from rolling to the side as soon as the Angel pulled back for another strike, evading the blow. Yet she barely got one foot under her before the first Angel announced its return to the fray by way of a kick to the face so powerful it literally sent the Evangelion flying. But Asuka wasn't slow on the uptake either and immediately fired up the Evangelion's flight thrusters, halting her ballistic trajectory into a hover...
...only for the Angels to immediately launch into the air after her. – "Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me!"
A short distance away, Kaworu wasn't faring any better. He swung Unit-01's elbow at one of the Angels assailing him but just like with Asuka, it went right through the Angel's face and out its back. Behind him, Unit-00 was weaving left and right while backing away at maximum speed, unloading its chest autocannons at the Angels lunging at it with no sense of self-preservation whatsoever.
"What the hell is going on?! Anything I throw at these things goes through them! They don't dodge, they don't shield, they just walk through it!" – Asuka cried before throwing Unit-02 into a sideways flip to avoid an Angel's attempt to grab the Evangelion's ankle, crashing back down to the ground from lack of control but scrambling back to her feet immediately.
"I noticed!" – Kaworu shot back, leaning out of the way of an incoming swipe. – "It's as if they're not real!"
"Well, their claws feel very much real! Sekhmet, any ideas?!"
"
I already told you, brat! If they were a figment of your imagination, I wouldn't see them on cameras, but I do!"
"
We all see them!" – Lilith confirmed.
"Then how come they don't show up on infrared or radar?!"
"Wait!" – Rei interjected, eyes narrowing as she stopped evading for a second and took an incoming blow, but the damage was acceptable and the time was enough for her to see what she wanted to see. – "They do not make footprints!"
"How the hell?! They must weight a thousand tons each, how the hell are they not leaving footprints?!" – Kaworu complained.
"Wait a sec! Blueberry, do you have airburst?!" – Asuka demanded.
"I have!"
"Fire at the ground between us!"
Rei didn't react immediately. A claw meant for Unit-00's arm cleaved only air as the Evangelion spun out of the way then bent forward to evade its other assailant's follow-up attack, turning the loss of balance into a forward tumble that ended with the Evangelion rolling up into a sitting position, heels slamming into the ground barely a second before its assault cannon fired again. The recoil from firing without bracing itself knocked Unit-00 flat onto its back, but the Angels leaping at their fallen foe like hungry wolves grasped only snow, as Unit-00 immediately rolled to the side and kicked itself off the ground, twisting itself into a standing position before landing on its feet.
Inside the entry plug, Rei winced with a small gasp from the flare of pain in her hip.
"
Careful, you're putting too much stress on my joints!" – Lilith warned.
"I cannot afford not to!"
Outside, her shot detonated off to the side of the Angel Asuka was futilely trying to keep away with suppressive fire. – "Shit, I didn't see it! It's too fucking bright outside!"
"
See what?!" – Sekhmet growled impatiently.
"I don't think these guys have shadows either!"
"So?!" – Kaworu asked back before he let out a yelp when Unit-01 suddenly stopped moving and fell onto its back from momentum. Briefly shaking the disorientation away, he was in the middle of opening his mouth when Adam beat him to a punch with an outline of the Evangelion, the storm rollers highlighted in red with the text
ACTUATOR FAILURE.
"No heat, no radar, no shadow, no footprint! These things are definitely not physical objects!"
"I concur!" – Rei added. – "Our attacks do not hit because there is nothing to hit!"
Kaworu barely managed to scramble back to his feet before the Angels were on him, this time splitting up to circle around him like sharks sizing up their prey before moving in at the same time and forcing him to jump back. – "What, are these things holograms?!"
"They've got to be!"
"But how can they physically interact with other objects without other objects being able to interact with them?!" – Rei asked.
"
I DON'T KNOW! But there must be something that's projecting and controlling them! Sekhmet, can you scan the area?"
"
How?! You keep moving around!"
"Triangulate, you idiot! You've got two antennas on your head for a reason!"
"
Gravimetric interference is blanketing the entire area! I cannot even detect each other!"
"Search for differences in intensity, then! Lilith, Adam, network together and triangulate! Blue, Nagisa, scatter and draw these fuckers as far away from each other as possible!"
"Easy for you to say..." – Kaworu muttered under his breath as he gave up trying to get his storm rollers to work again while evading Angel attacks at the same time. They were clogged up with snow, it would seem.
So he did the only thing he still could: he ran.
It was a good thing there was an inexplicable stop in Angel attacks for over a month, as it allowed him to get a bit more up to speed with his piloting in the meantime. He still had to pay full attention to what he was doing, but at least he wasn't stumbling and tripping anymore (for the most part), which was a start. Of course, he was nowhere near Rei's level and even Asuka turned out to be surprisingly quick at figuring things out; in fact, Kaworu had a hunch she had overtaken him already.
That being said, running on soft ground was not something they practiced at the Geofront, the snow was deep enough that a conventional vehicle would've required tank treads to traverse it and it became quite slippery under an Evangelion's weight, so he still had to mind his step.
He was only peripherally aware that the girls were already beyond visual range, leaving him alone with the two Angels on his trail. Speaking of which, the two didn't seem to have much trouble with the snow, striding over it with long steps that seemingly didn't have his problem with traction.
Then again, if Asuka was right, they didn't need traction whatsoever.
"
Interference spreading out. Two composite sources confirmed." – Lilith reported.
"That's it! Keep drawing them apart!"
As if on a sign, Unit-01 stepped on a rock under the snow and almost lost its balance, but recovered with only a stumble. '
How long is this going to take, damn it?' Kaworu grumbled internally. '
Tabris, do you have anything for me?'
'
I know Harachel is capable of this, but this presence is not his.' the Angel replied. '
It is likely one of his pupils, but I cannot tell who.'
"
Third composite source confirmed."
"Guys, do you still have two on you each?!" – Asuka demanded.
"Yes!" – came Rei's response.
"Me too!" – And that was more than enough, as far as he was concerned. At least the Angels didn't seem to have any kind of ranged weapons, or he would be hosed.
Then again, he thought with exasperation, he likely just jinxed it. Seeing how much luck he had in his battles so far, it wouldn't be out of the question.
"
Fourth composite source confirmed."
"Mark epicenter!" – Asuka barked and a waypoint marker appeared on Kaworu's HUD. – "Everyone, double back and group up!"
'
She is quite the commanding type, it would seem.'
'
Not now!'
He knew immediately that simply doing a 180° would get him nowhere: although he'd go right through the Angels if he just charged straight into them, their claws wouldn't return the favor. While he already had several gashes in Unit-01's armor, the ones that went beyond the armor were relatively shallow and the cold numbed the pain for the most part. On the other hand, the feeling of an open wound exposed to
massively subzero temperatures was anything but pleasant. In fact, Kaworu wondered as he grit his teeth whether he might've been better off just being cut open without the cold.
So, he veered off to the right and started to come about in a wide circle. And luckily for him, the Angels seemed to be too stupid to do anything other than blindly run after him. They didn't even try to cut him off and overtake him. He couldn't really see where he was going, but his destination and the other Evangelions' position were on his HUD, so he knew where to go.
Asuka got there before him, wildly gliding left and right to evade the Angels' charges like a matador but not firing back, evidently having realized it was a waste of ammo. Rei appeared in his sight a few moments later, holding her assault cannon across Unit-00's chest in an equally passive manner.
Kaworu spared a quick glance behind himself to make sure the two Angels on his tail were far enough away to give him room to think. – "Now what?!"
"Blue, hold fire! Nagisa, suppressive fire!"
"What?!"
"
Just fire your fucking gun!"
With that, Unit-02 fired a long burst flat in an arc loosely centered on the waypoint marker on his HUD, waving back and forth as if with a water hose. Deciding not to argue, Kaworu followed suit and opened up himself...
...and noticed the Angels in his sight all freezing mid-movement like marionettes for a moment.
Then a bullet ricocheted off a familiar octagonal wall of energy and Unit-00 immediately moved like lightning, taking aim and lobbing out a shell that exploded in mid-air and flared up the AT-field again.
"Target confirmed!" – Rei barked as the assault cannon's autoloader worked.
"Nagisa, get in there!" – Asuka howled as she focused her fire at the AT-field to keep it visible, soon to be followed by Unit-00's autocannons. – "
GO! GO! GO!"
Kaworu, remembering the 'tactical meeting' they had in December that he was to take point, started sprinting at the disembodied AT-field at the same time as the six frozen Angels around them started flickering like a mirage. Yet he barely made a few strides before he heard it.
"
Damnation, they're on to us!" – a male voice, sounding not more than someone in his twenties, swore.
"
I'm dropping the camouflage, get ready!" – a female voice replied.
"
Do it!"
He thought he saw something materialize but a split second later, a massive circular shockwave erupted in the exact spot he was headed to, hitting him with enough force to make Unit-01 stumble back and turning everything white. – "What the-?!"
"Smokescreen!" – Asuka barked. – "It kicked up the snow to obstruct line of sight! Eyes out!"
He waited, his eyes looking left and right, but there was no movement. Then, as the powdery snow settled down, he saw the Angel.
Or rather, Angels. There were two this time, looking exactly like the six they've been playing tag with up until now. Except as he squinted, he realized they weren't
completely identical, with one having a very slight, almost golden sheen to it, while the other was more of a silvery color.
Then as if executing a synchronized dance, the Angels crossed their arms in front of themselves before going through what looked almost like a martial arts kata he once saw on TV, slashing the air with their clawed hands in a complex pattern before dropping into a fighting stance, several translucent AT-fields flaring into existence around each arm and rotating slowly in opposite directions.
'
So this is why I could not recognize the presence.' Tabris mused. '
I though there was only one.'
'
What do you mean? Which one is the real one?'
'
Both are real.'
'
There's two Angels?'
'
Now that I know, I recognize them. Israfel and Sarafiel.'
----
For those not immediately familiar with the name,
Kouji Takao is not an original character, but a member of the Wunder's crew in Rebuild 3.0, named only on the official character sheets but having a speaking role nonetheless and apparently being an acquaintance of Kaji.
While the Evangelion fanbase knows Israfel as the angel of music, Israfil (whose name means 'The Burning One' and is alternatively spelled as Esrafil) is actually an Islamic archangel whose praise of God sung in a thousand languages breathes life into hosts of angels. He is also the unnamed angel who blows the trumpet at the beginning of Armageddon. Sarafiel (not to be confused with Seraphiel, who's a Jewish angel) is an alternate name for the same angel and he is also associated to the Christian archangels Raphael and Uriel.
