Chapter 11: Onto the Stage

Chapter 11:
Onto the Stage

 

ASUKA STARED DOWN the sights of her Powered 8 at the Angel Carrier. The white giant was coming toward her, and then it suddenly stopped.

The Carrier looked toward the source of the sound that wasn’t a sound.

Thud!

 

In Cage Two, Eva-01 sensed it was being watched and raised its head, visor still closed—as if it could see through metal, stone, and earth—to look back at its observer.

“It’s moving!” Aoba said.

There was another loud noise, this time from the locks on the gantry supports as the steel latches snapped apart. The Eva easily tore free from the external restraint devices, which had been weakened, but not broken, up to this point.

As multi-ton objects flew through the air like pebbles, smashing into the heat-blasted concrete wall, the crew finally came back to their senses.

The rumbling of destruction filled the room.

“Everyone, evacuate the cage!” someone shouted, and the teams started running.

Suddenly self-conscious of her part in their irrational revelry, Maya blushed. “What…were we doing?”

“We can talk about that later!” Aoba shouted, pulling her arm.

Toji looked over his shoulder. “Shinji? Are you doing this?”

“Later,” Aoba repeated. “Let’s get out of here!”

 

Misato tried to connect to Cage One.

“Maya! Chief Ibuki, is this commotion coming from your building? Are you there?”

Someone cried out from the middle deck, and Misato’s eyes darted to the main screen, which displayed an image from one of the exterior cameras. That’s over at the far edge of the HQ.

The dome of Cage Two blasted into the sky.

A purple giant burst out into the world, as if nothing in heaven or on earth could stand in its way.

“Is that…” Misato squinted in disbelief. “Unit One?”

 

Still smoldering from Asuka’s full-power EM attack, the Angel Carrier paid no heed to Eva-02 and began walking in the direction of the sound that wasn’t a sound.

“Hey!”

Asuka prepared to launch another attack that she knew would be futile. Eva-02’s hand dropped as the giant crouched to charge, when suddenly the ground began to vibrate, fast and strong, with no discernible source.

Where is that coming from? Asuka asked herself. And then she knew the answer—the other side of Mount Kozuka.

In the next instant, a figure came leaping over the mountaintop. The figure was huge, growing larger as it drew closer. And then it landed, cratering the earth and sending chunks of dirt and stone flying.

“Unit One? Is that you? Shinji?”

Eva-01 didn’t respond. The purple giant wore armor Asuka hadn’t seen before, moving nimbly despite its rugged appearance.

Without pause, Eva-01 went on the attack, slamming into the Angel Carrier’s shield. The two giants stared each other down.

Asuka let out a startled yelp. “Shinji! This bastard’s shield is strong. Put up your A.T. Field before you get killed!”

But Eva-01 ignored her and repeated its charge.

Has it gone berserk?

The Eva pounded its fists against the Carrier’s shield to no effect—or at least, that’s what Asuka thought until its arm suddenly penetrated the shield amid a shower of sparks and grabbed the Carrier’s face.

“What?” Asuka blurted. What’s happening?

Before she could recover from her shock, Eva-01 had crushed the Carrier’s face. The Eva’s hand and arm plates glowed, bands of interference dancing across the surface of its body.

“What?” Asuka repeated. “The Eva isn’t projecting an A.T. Field outside itself. It’s generating one along the contours of its body!”

Nobody can do that—and even if they could, it would immobilize them. How is Unit One moving?!

 

Not about to be discouraged by a crushed face, the Angel Carrier swung its staff, but Eva-01 dodged the attack and sprang into the air with such extraordinary force that the ground beneath its feet erupted like a giant column of water.

Is this thing still an Eva?

Eva-01 landed on the Carrier’s shield from above. The shield withstood the impact but was thrown to the ground along with its wielder. They bounced once before coming to a stop. The ground liquified from the impact, and when Eva-01 stomped on the shield again, the force of the blow buried the Carrier more than halfway.

“Unit One is out of control,” Asuka said.

Misato, in the command center, must have sensed the same danger. <<Asuka, put some distance between yourself and Unit One. The Eva isn’t responding to us. There’s a chance it won’t be able to distinguish friend from foe.>>

Is there, though?

In that pulsing beat, Asuka had felt her own heart yearning to join in. It was a feeling of something shared… Emotion, maybe.

Together, they had kept the same rhythm.

 

The Angel Carrier cleared away the sediment with its shield and lurched to its feet.

This Carrier, unlike the previous one, had two shoulder pylons resembling those of an Evangelion. On the fronts of the pylons were black sigils, and Asuka let out a breath as she saw them turn red and begin to glow.

Those pylons…

Asuka had seen those sigils and their red glow before—in the Geofront, on the first Angel Carrier she’d defeated, in the empty cocoon that had held Sachiel.

And this one has two? On its shoulders?!

Eva-02 stood up straight. Asuka knew what she needed to do. She would wait for Eva-01 to leap at the Carrier again. Then she’d come from the monster’s left, since the staff was in its right hand.

She circled around to the opposite side. Every moment mattered. Her internal battery was nearly drained.

The moment she was waiting for came quickly. Eva-01 pounced on the Angel Carrier, and the Carrier summoned its shield around its staff, swinging from left to right.

Just as I thought—the Carrier is focused entirely on Unit One.

“A lucky win is still a win!”

Asuka aimed the Powered 8 at the plate on the Carrier’s exposed shoulder and emptied the pallet gun.

The rifle had been down to six bullets, and the railgun mechanism fired all of them so quickly that they made one continuous report. The shoulder plate shattered into red, crystalline fragments.

 

Eva-01 dropped to all fours and ducked under the staff. The Carrier continued its sweeping motion and threw the staff at Eva-02, hitting it in the stomach and sending Asuka reeling.

Through bleary eyes, she saw Eva-01 deliver a crouching kick to the Angel Carrier. It’s so incredibly strong.

Eva-01 had broken the Carrier’s leg in a single strike.

Fighting through the intense feedback pain, Asuka shouted as loudly as she could manage. “Shinji! Finish it!”

 

Shinji could see. He jumped to his feet.

Eva-01’s visor lifted, and its eyes opened.

The world was beautiful. The world was ugly.

Shinji’s mind raced to process the sudden abundance of information that filled his view. But before he could even comprehend the state of the battle, his body moved by instinct.

The Angel Carrier had one shoulder pylon remaining.

<<The plate!>> Shinji shouted, and everyone connected over Nerv Japan’s communication link heard him.

The heavily armored giant spun with surprising speed and kicked out with its right leg. A cloud trailed from the tip of its foot. When the kick connected, the overwhelming force shattered the Angel Carrier’s shield and the remaining shoulder plate.

Red, crystalline shards scattered like a spray of blood, only to vanish before they even hit the ground. The Angel Carrier collapsed like a marionette whose strings had snapped. It flopped onto the dirt, a corpse again.

The mass-production Eva quickly disintegrated.

 

Eva-01 looked around. Eva-02 was kneeling, its internal battery fully spent. Somehow, Asuka’s Eva seemed smaller than it had before.

“Asuka… What’s going on?”

<<I’d like to ask you the same thing.>>