Chapter 24: Into the Depths

Chapter 24:
Into the Depths

 

“What?!”

Once past the initial resistance of the corroded ground, Final Model found himself in free fall.

Was this an underground cave system?

“Dammit!”

He attempted to spread his wings on instinct, but the shaft was too cramped. The wings slammed into the wall behind him, and the force violently bounced him around within the stone cavity.

I’m putting out so much energy, I can’t make fine adjustments!

Final Model’s wings dispersed. He’d escaped the legs of the Carrier, but now he experienced a kind of vertigo as he rattled down the shaft. He didn’t know which way he was facing, but at least he knew where up was.

Matarael crawled across Final Model’s back, as if blocking his escape path. It kicked its long legs into his body, sending the Eva tumbling. His free fall continued. He tried activating his wings of light again, but they only slammed his body into the wall.

I’m heading straight down.

He’d inadvertently fallen into a deep fissure that ran vertically along Yomotsu Hirasaka. While it wasn’t a wide crevice, it was wide enough that you couldn’t span it by spreading your arms. Shinji extended his A.T. Field outside of himself, scraping the walls behind and in front of him to slow the free fall.

The Carrier gave chase as soon as he slowed down. Matarael’s four long legs extended out of its belly like a lance. It brought its spear down on the spherical A.T. Field, which Final Model had formed to prop himself against the wall. He blocked the attack with the Bizen, but Matarael’s legs were harder and sharper than before, possibly an effect of the Tower of Babel. Shinji slanted his sword, redirecting his enemy’s attack, and slashed up. Sparks flew as the two switched places in free fall.

He plunged the blade into the underside of the Angel Carrier and pulled it out again with great force. The blow lopped off the Carrier’s arm, along with the Q.R. Signum in its shoulder.

Pressure and temperature rose around him. Shinji looked down into the fissure and saw a faint red glow. He’d succeeded in reducing the force of the two-hundred-kilometer moon rock, but it had done plenty of damage all the same. Its impact had opened fissures all over the Earth’s crust.

That red glow must be magma.

Perhaps the impact had caused it to overflow, or perhaps it was escaping through a crack in the bottom of the sea.

Either way, lava had risen from the core to form a magma pool at the bottom of this fissure. But there were circular rocks peeking out of the lava that looked like they might make a good foothold.

Final Model put the Bizen to one side as his left hand held one of Matarael’s legs at bay. He slipped past its other legs, lunging to the front of the Carrier as the Angel’s remaining three legs tried to enclose him. The Eva was too fast for it, and the Carrier’s back slammed into one of the circular islands in the magma. Final Model brought his knee strikers down upon the cocoon in the Carrier’s abdomen, crushing Matarael’s larva.

The one-armed Carrier thrust its hand at the Eva, but the Bizen quickly destroyed its remaining Q.R. Signum with a side swipe.

 

Shinji had succeeded in defeating one of the Carriers, but another soon joined him. He’d seen this coming.

Another Sandalphon Carrier.

He kept it in his sights. “Toji, what’s going on at your end?!”

But then he remembered. The Babel effect prevented him from communicating with anyone on the Earth’s crust.

 

Shinji had expected to engage Armaros soon after landing on the island.

If nothing else, my heartbeat should’ve called it here. I can’t be sitting around under the Earth’s crust like this. I have to get back to the surface.

He had to return so he could attract the black giant.

“But can I fight Horaki-san?”

He heard a knocking. A knocking that came from the entry plug’s hatch.

Eva-01 Final Model was currently under Yomotsu Hirasaka. As such, it was impossible for anyone to access his hatch.

“Open center hatch,” Shinji whispered, remaining alert. The virtual display above him disappeared. The ceiling slid back, replaced by fluorescent ceiling lights hanging from fireproof tiles.

The noisy classroom.

That answers that question.

Shinji couldn’t exist outside of the Eva’s dream. The classroom was his only link with reality.

“Ikari-kun? Where are you right now?” Rei Trois asked. He could see her black hair, corrupted by the Q.R. Signum, but he couldn’t afford to look at her just now.

“Under Yomotsu Hirasaka. Fighting a Carrier that just fell into a lava pool!”

Final Model removed the Powered 8 railgun from the clamp on his back and replaced it with the Bizen blade. His display warned him that the 8 might not work under these circumstances, but he fired a test shot to see. With a successful bang, the gun told him that it would work just fine. He lowered his body and approached the bubbling surface of the lava.

Trois remained expressionless, despite being the oldest of the Ayanami Reis. She whispered, to avoid attracting the attention of the other students.

Katsuragi Misato invited the Seelefied Kaji Ryoji.

Memories came back to Shinji. “I thought I saw something when I left Hakone. So it was the mutant Eva.”

The mutant Eva-0.0 was piloted by the turncoat Ayanami Rei Quatre. She must have been present as well.

“She seems to be negotiating with him for information. For something…in exchange for the replica Longinus.”

“She’s what…?”

“Will it be all right?” Trois asked, with a rare note of dissatisfaction.

Shinji didn’t have to say anything to make his dissent known.

Part of the lava flow slowly rose, and Shinji fired the 8 at it, sending bursts of molten orange everywhere. But nothing came of it.

They’d gone through hell and back to retrieve the replica Lance of Longinus, which had first been stolen when Asuka fought off a Carrier in Eva-02. Shinji had then found it, and Rei Trois, on the Apple’s Core—the testing grounds for the Human Instrumentality Project—with Rei Quatre’s help.

“To me, the replica Longinus is our most dangerous asset. You also took it back so that Seele wouldn’t get his hands on it.”

“I don’t think Misato will give it up so easily. I think she might hand it over to Seele if there was no other way. But if we can’t use it…”

Not that he could go back and take it now if he wanted to.

Is that why she gave us permission to leave? Because things would get complicated if we stayed behind?

“Dammit. To hell with the consequences. I would’ve brought it along with me if I knew this would happen!”

Chairs rattled as the school bell announced the end of a class.

“Thank you, Ikari-kun. I have to go now.”

“Trois?” Shinji glanced at the hatch and found that it had closed. His virtual display returned to the screen.

Is she planning something?

The Lance of Longinus replica. A powerful weapon currently possessed by Nerv Japan. Shinji had thought of bringing it with him, but Misato had stopped him, saying it wouldn’t make sense to bring such a weapon on a classified reconnaissance mission.

“I don’t know if it’s actually going to work against Armaros. Better to leave Hakone with some way of defending itself.”

Perhaps they’d resigned themselves to defeat on their way to the island.

Either way, he’d be fighting Hikari.

<<God knows what effect the actual Longinus would have on Armaros, given how wild this island is.>>

<<But we can’t let them take away the replica. That would be the worst possible scenario.>>

“What? Who’s there?” Shinji looked around the inside of the plug. The voice sounded like…his own. Or at least, it felt like it. “What was that?”

The voices were audible representations of Shinji’s thoughts. He was inside the Tower of Babel, the structure made by the Carriers’ staves. It interrupted communications on the outside, but it had the opposite effect on the inside, where thoughts and energy were transmitted at a rapid rate.

Is it happening again?

Shinji remembered the battle at Novaya Zemlya. The Carriers were stronger inside the tower, but their conversations still proceeded at a linear pace.

A communications boost doesn’t mean anything when I’m alone. But the Carriers are still a lot stronger…

<<They might be disrupting our A.T. Fields.>>

<<And we’re up against Sandalphon, an Angel particularly attuned to volcanoes. This won’t end well.>>

Shinji gasped as he felt the ground shift beneath him. Matarael’s corpse, which Final Model had been standing on, was beginning to disintegrate. Its body had been splayed out over the circular boulder, its long legs spread in four directions, but the rock was softer than he’d expected. He began to wonder whether it was a rock at all. Either way, the Matarael Carrier was sliding into the red-hot lava with Eva-01 Final Model still on top of it.

Shinji grunted. While the A.T. Field was supposed to protect him from the intense heat, he still felt the liquid fire coming in from all sides. He struggled, grasping for the rocks within his reach. But the boulders were slippery. He couldn’t get a good grip on them. To make matters worse, he was now experiencing tunnel vision due to the bright magma around him. The A.I. registered the surrounding curvature and reflection as a hit to the library, and the icon for “Designated Sealed Target” popped up. As his entire body sank into magma, a large oval shape layered itself on top of his display.

“Chronostatic Sphere 70%.”

“Wha…?!”

THRUM!

Final Model’s heart leaped in his chest.

Why here?!

The magma behind him erupted. All he could do was wait for the Sandalphon Carrier to fall back down.

Immediately, Shinji readied the Powered 8.

Immediately, Shinji evaded.

Immediately, Shinji switched back to his blade.

What flooded his consciousness was more than mere words. The three actions of Final Model overlapped like pictures and then froze. The three Evas conflicted with each other, not only in words but in motion.

“The boundary between thoughts and words isn’t the only thing getting blurred. The possibilities… They’re overlapping!”

Why had he immediately thought of that?

Was this another effect of the Tower of Babel? Lilith was present on the bridge to the new world. She was the center of the Chronostatic Sphere, the black egg…

The Carrier tackled him as he stood frozen.

“Gah!”

His back slammed into the Chronostatic Sphere.

Blood rushed to his head.

What is this thing doing here?!

<<It’s because this is the elevator to the moon!>> one of his fragmented possibilities said.

Shinji had had a hunch that the black egg would have been relocated to the moon after it disappeared from the old Geofront. And now, here it was, halfway on its journey. Its next stop would be the moon itself.

Final Model, waist deep in magma, pointed the gun with his right hand, while his left hand reached for the sphere behind him.

“Father! Ritsuko-san!” Shinji banged on the surface with his fist.

Lilith had generated the Chronostatic Sphere three years ago at the Battle at Nerv HQ, engulfing dozens of personnel. Commander Ikari Gendo and Dr. Akagi Ritsuko were among those lost to the sphere.

<<Communication and impact shouldn’t get through if it’s made of the same material as the Glass Egg in Hakone.>>

<<I can’t call on Father or Ritsuko-san in that case.>>

“Shut up!” Shinji shouted down his Possibilities.

He’d yet to find closure with his estranged father, even after three years. In fact, he’d forced himself to forget about finding closure. But how could he when time in the sphere had stopped? No one blamed him, and he couldn’t even blame himself. The people inside the sphere had been counted among the dead a long time ago.

That was supposed to be the end of it. The end of his father.

So why was he so troubled by it now?

Because time is moving inside that thing!

<<Maya said that someone worked on Super Eva on the inside to turn him into Final Model.>>

<<Father, Ritsuko-san, they all worked on me, touched me. But I can’t remember a thing.>>

That’s insane!

His father had carved a message into the exterior of his foot, presumably halfway through the remodeling.

<<I observe from the far side of time.>>

Shinji could almost see his smirk.

His heart pulsed like a warning bell. Yet the Chronostatic Sphere remained indifferent. Much like his father.

Final Model continued sinking into the lava. Pain rushed up one of his legs. The Sandalphon Carrier had bitten it.

His vision turned upside down.

The density of the magma here was three times that of water. Theoretically, objects tended to float more easily in heavier liquids. But the Sandalphon Carrier had latched its maw onto the Eva and was dragging him down into the lava.

“Dammit!”

Shots flew from the railgun at his feet. The lava absorbed most of the energy from the bullets, so it was doubtful that any of them had hit Sandalphon.

Final Model’s pulse rang louder than the 8’s shots now. The Eva could sense wavelengths from another planet if the pilot was up to it. But Shinji couldn’t spot the Sandalphon Carrier hidden in the magma, possibly because he was finding it difficult to concentrate. He carried on firing at his legs, risking self-harm, but it seemed to be working. The force clamped on his foot soon faded.

Final Model continued to flail within the pool of magma. Even as his vision dimmed, he could still make out the object of his obsession—the giant black egg looming over him like a shadow.

Magma continued to flow, burning Eva-01 Final Model’s shoulders. The Chronostatic Sphere started moving, slowly rising out of the lava.

“Ooooorgh!”

Final Model spread his wings of light, pushing the black sphere, which was larger than he was, out of the molten pool. His heart raced, and the black disk on his back, the Time Brake, glowed. The four pylons opened and started pushing him out.

“Aaaaargh!”

Shinji screamed with all his might as he stumbled in the magma. With a groan, he lifted the sphere out.

But that was all he could do.

The top of the egg stopped. Something was preventing its movement, aside from the sheer weight of the thing.

“What now?!”

Sandalphon had smacked Final Model as it stood in the lava. He lost his balance and fell. Without any footing, he could no longer hold the Chronostatic Sphere, and the black egg landed upon Final Model, pushing him into the magma.

 

Final Model reached up to climb the wall of the fissure.

“No!”

The rock face crumbled when he grasped it. All that power, and he could do nothing with it.

“Damn it all!”

An alert sounded from the threat behind him. “Pattern Blue, eight o’ clock.”

Final Model reached for the Bizen and caught a full view of Sandalphon. It was eight times larger than the Eva, about the size of the old Angel Gaghiel.

The Angel Carrier was missing. Perhaps Shinji had managed to destroy its Q.R. Signums when he blindly fired the 8. But it was more likely that the Carrier had simply been crushed under the combined weight of the magma and Sandalphon’s girth. That was what the appearance of Pattern Blue suggested.

I can’t breathe.

Final Model attempted a counterattack, but his branching selves blocked him.

“I won’t fall for it twice!”

Shinji took a deep breath of the LCL, bracing for the Angel’s second attack. His possibilities split again, but they didn’t come into conflict. The three hypothetical Final Models jumped in three different directions, each readying his own Bizen.

The wings of light were more difficult to close than they were to spread. Kaworu had warned him about the difficulty of returning to his human vessel once he flew in Super Eva. Now his wings were sparking like a jet engine. The action was more thrust and less flap.

“Hah!”

Shinji did his best to control it through his breathing. With a flash, the wings of light subsided and then he jumped. The three strikes lopped off both of Sandalphon’s arms.

What is this? It’s hard to breathe, but I can put out a lot of power…

The giant Angel fell into the lava, its armless body splashing about like a flatfish. Molten orange splattered in all directions. Three blades immediately pursued it, piercing right through its core.

I’m burning up!

And not simply because he was in a high-temperature, high-pressure environment.

Shinji slowly pulled the Bizen out of the Angel’s flesh.

“What’s happening over there?”

Another Final Model stood in front of him. He pulled the Bizen out of the core, and his body was covered in black outlines. Then the shade disappeared.

“Oh… That’s me…”

Shinji felt like he was hearing an alarm clock in his sleep; distant and constant. The warning windows in his plug were wrenching him from his slumber as they detected what was happening to his consciousness. He’d been going to school, but he’d never attended any classes that taught him how to deal with a phase-changing Final Model.

“This is bad,” Shinji said, realizing the trouble he was in. He was carrying the world’s biggest payload, the peak of the Third Impact’s power, and with a lit fuse, no less.

His four pylons were already working overtime to help the Time Brake halt the discharge. His display showed the black void on his back glowing a menacing red. If the brake failed, the Third Impact would resume.

“Eva-01 Final Model to Hakone command!” he shouted at his console, despite the futility of it.

“Aaaargh!”

Shinji calmed himself. He was out of breath.

Why… Why am I more worried about Father than my friends and the world?

Ikari Gendo was a stubborn man. Shinji denied any similarity between him and his father any time someone pointed one out.

We’re not alike at all. We’re complete opposites.

He remembered his father when he spoke to Ayanami.

That was the second Ayanami. But now…

An image of Rei Trois flashed into his mind.

“Ah…”

“You have to face your father.” That’s what Misato-san would say.

Shinji felt this was inevitable, the way things were going.

I have to see Father.

And that was why he couldn’t let it all end here.

The peak of the Third Impact’s power. He couldn’t just open the lid like a boiling kettle. He had to figure out how to direct the energy.

Which can only mean one thing.

“I have to gather the energy—in my right hand—before it runs out of my body!”

Ayanami Rei Trois had previously decided to travel into space as a sniper. Shinji had escorted her into orbit himself. Upon reactivation, Eva-0.0 had photonized the excess power of the exterior S2 engine and ejected it from the Eva.

Now, get out! Shinji said this to himself, underlining his intent. Again, the possibilities branched. Two more Final Models walked out of Final Model.

<<I’m holding a weapon in my right hand. I’ll use my left hand!>>

<<There’s so much power. I’ll need both hands!>>

The possible futures are being realized in this prologue to the new myth.

“Don’t screw this up, Shinji!”

It was the first time he’d been so assertive with himself. The two Final Models turned to look at him.

<<So that’s how it is,>> said one of the possibilities.

<<No time for second guessing now,>> said another.

The possibilities should have returned to him, since he’d decided they were mere possibilities. “But…”

<<But even if it’s a long shot…I’d like to see it.>>

<<Only one way to find out.>>

The three Final Models formed a circle before he could explode. They put their right hands on top of each other. The concentrated light from the impact felt dense and heavy, pulling their arms down under the weight. The three Evas fell to their knees, their shoulder pylons scraping against each other.

All the possibilities lifted their hands in unison.

“Woooooaaaaargh!”

He couldn’t fall now. He still had to confront Hikari/Armaros. Then they would all return to Hakone together. He would talk to his father in his own words. He couldn’t fall. Not now!

“I don’t know what I am!”

<<I don’t know what this world will become!>>

<<I don’t know what my place will be!>>

The three Final Models came together, lifting their shining right hands to the sky.

Hear me!

 

Meanwhile, on the surface of Yomotsu Hirasaka Island…

“Whoa!” Toji saw the exact moment the soapy membrane of the Tower of Babel broke. A pillar of light shot into the sky. The beam kept getting longer and longer.

“Wh-what?!”

Under the Earth, a gigantic arm of light reeled, as if throwing a javelin.

“Whooooaaa!”

“Keep it down, Suzuhara!”

“I mean, look at that thing!”

The arm of the giant of light. The very arm that had carried Yomotsu Hirasaka to Earth. The arm flung the spear at the spatial lens in orbit.

 

Kaworu’s voice whispered in Shinji’s ear.

That was a lance you actualized using the limits of your consciousness. No weapon. No myth. The lance of philosophy. The Lance of Lucretius. The Impactor will demand full disclosure, because you’ve struck at the placenta of the new world. I can’t wait to see how the world reacts to this.

Countless crystal fragments sparkled across the sky. The original Lance of Longinus orbited the globe at an altitude of twenty thousand kilometers. Now, the spatial lens, presumed to be a field distortion situated at a similar height, shattered like glass upon the spear of light’s impact.

The spear turned a metallic gold as it passed through the lens, grazing the moon before speeding away.

The great pillar of seawater rushing from the coast of Yomotsu Hirasaka lost its momentum and collapsed.

Victorious, Eva-01 Final Model had reverted to its original state and was now clinging to the edge of the gaping fissure.