Chapter 8: Second Joker in a Deck
Chapter 8:
Second Joker in a Deck
LITTLE REI SIX’S Eva-00 Type-F Allegorica was changing course despite being in a state of high acceleration. Her back was pressed to her seat, the plugsuit locked in to withstand the heavy load. The reverse acceleration would end soon.
Eva-0.0 was facing her objective now. She used the lidar of the Angel’s Backbone firing system to do a sweep for the Type-N robot and make sure they were on the same vector. Six was projecting her A.T. Field to catch her little friend when suddenly—
BEEP!
Alarms went off in her plug. Having finished its analysis, her A.I. informed her of the object’s true identity.
<<Object has an eighty-three percent chance of being designated Relic One or One Dash. Indicators have been changed accordingly.>>
“You’re kidding!”
Laser scans indicated that the thing she’d previously thought to be a Type-N robot was actually one of the most dangerous objects in the universe.
I’d know that shape anywhere! What now?!
Six magnified the density of her A.T. Field and then set her graviton floaters to maximum output before rushing straight for the advancing relic.
She abruptly cut power to both systems. The lance relied on Eva-00 Type-F Allegorica’s A.T. Field to hone in on its core; without that field, Six would be able to manually dodge it. In the darkness of her plug, lit only by her sub-display, she vented gas to evade the lance.
The relic whizzed right past her, but it was going so fast that it somehow produced a sonic boom in the silent vacuum. She caught a glimpse of its shaft as sunlight reflected off the red spear.
“The Lance of Longinus! But which one?”
This was the copy produced by Seele.
Designated Relic One Dash, it had been stolen by the Leliel Carrier and found by Shinji on the Apple’s Core, the site of the Human Instrumentality Project’s initial test. Super Eva had then proceeded to throw toward Earth. The lance had returned to lunar orbit after crossing the vastness of space.
The lance sped by Eva-00 Type-F Allegorica at blinding speeds but then returned to its original course.
“What is it doing here? I have to go after it.”
Eva-0.0 rushed into position to give chase.
When Shinji had prepared to throw the lance into the sky, Rei Quatre—who was then also on board Super Eva—had calculated the longest trajectory it could take to Earth. Given that the Apple’s Core was a distant planet on the far side of the sun, the lance had moved ridiculously fast.
Six didn’t know what the lance had been through and could only stare, mouth agape. The original Lance of Longinus had become the Ring of Longinus that constricted the Earth. It had extended itself until it finally came down from the atmosphere to pierce Super Eva’s heart. Six had heard it was tens of thousands of kilometers long by then.
She accelerated Eva-00 Type-F Allegorica after the lance and was disheartened when she saw it cross the moon’s horizon.
“Huh?”
Eva-0.0’s high speed camera caught something. Six zoomed in on the lance’s tail and spotted a rice cooker caught between its bloated helixes. A Type-N robot was hanging on for dear life.