2022-02-10: Furimukanaide

• Log: 2022-02-10 - Furimukanaide
• Cast: Kaworu Nagisa, Lilith Aiden, Zoia Surovy, Shinji Ikari, Eight York, Kamille Bidan, Eisen Daiwel, Rei Ayanami, Asuka Shikinami Langley, Ruri Hoshino, Alma Stirner, Tetsuya Tsurugi, Mari Makinami Illustrious, Misato Katsuragi (NPCed)
• Where: Hakone Bay, Tokyo-3
• OOC - IC Date: February 10, 0096
• Summary: Some things just shouldn’t be. After a narrowly averted catastrophe during its activation, the powers that be have ordered Evangelion Unit-04 to be transferred to Geofront for further testing. But as the escort fleet for Unit-04 arrives in the waters near Tokyo-3, something unexpected emerges. The Seventh Angel manifests, seemingly fixated on pursuit of the Evangelion and its escorts...

---

KTS: Alma Stirner has deployed in MSN-05R Amabilis.
KTS: Zoia Surovy has deployed in Evangelion Unit-Z2.
KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley has deployed in Evangelion Unit-02.
KTS: Eight York has deployed in Clop-class Cruiser Ra Mari.
KTS: Kamille Bidan has deployed in FA-178 Full Armor Gundam Mark-II.
KTS: Shinji Ikari has deployed in Evangelion Unit-01 Test Type.
KTS: Ruri Hoshino has deployed in ND-001 Nadesico.
KTS: Lilith Aiden has deployed in Irish-class Gwennangorn.
KTS: Rei Ayanami has deployed in Evangelion Unit-00.
KTS: Rei Ayanami has changed loadout.
KTS: Eight York has deployed in Clop-class Cruiser Ra Mari.
Kaiju Navi has set the scene to Coastal Region

KTS: Zoia Surovy has deployed in Evangelion Unit-Z2.
KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley has deployed in Evangelion Unit-02.
KTS: Eight York has deployed in Clop-class Cruiser Ra Mari.
KTS: Zoia Surovy has deployed in Evangelion Unit-Z2.
KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley has deployed in Evangelion Unit-02.
KTS: Kaworu Nagisa has deployed in Salamis Kai-class.
KTS: Ruri Hoshino has deployed in ND-001 Nadesico.
KTS: Lilith Aiden has deployed in Irish-class Gwennangorn.
KTS: Shinji Ikari has deployed in Evangelion Unit-01 Test Type.
KTS: Eisen Daiwel has deployed in Evangelion Unit-Zahllos - Carestia.
KTS: Lilith Aiden has changed loadout.
KTS: Rei Ayanami has deployed in Evangelion Unit-00.
KTS: Rei Ayanami has changed loadout.
KTS: Kamille Bidan has deployed in FA-178 Full Armor Gundam Mark-II.
KTS: Kaiju Navi has deployed in The Seventh Angel ~ Jehudiel.

<Pose Tracker> Kaiju Navi has posed.

Evangelion Unit-04 is doing just fine today.

The other day, however, is another matter.

Roughly one week ago, NERV's latest Evangelion testbed nearly underwent a critical collapse during its activation test that would have spelled a horrifically existential end for anyone within an eighty nine kilometer radius from NERV's Second Branch in western Britannia. And then it just... stopped. No one is quite sure why, though one can be sure an enterprising Britannian was swift enough to swipe credit for it.

After this, NERV-02 generously decided to grant Unit-04 to Headquarters in Geofront.

It's a fleet of ships that sees Evangelion Unit-04 to its new home at Tokyo-3 for further, preferably less cataclysmic testing. The aircraft carrier carrying Unit-04's inert body has only just arrived at the bay just outside Tokyo-3, flanked by a host of seafaring destroyer-class ships; the rush of the sea breeze occasionally ripples through the massive tarp enshrouding the carrier's bound cargo, revealing glimpses of polished white armor and what look something like immense gauntlets.

It has, all things considered, been an uneventful journey. Given the reasons -why- their cargo is being delivered to Tokyo-3 to begin with, the aircraft carrier's captain can't help but heave a sigh of relief as he sees the silhouette of the city on the horizon.

And, as if on cue...

---

There is a crackle. A frosty tingle.

And then, with a blossoming, hexagonal flush, the waters beneath the NERV fleet rapidly solidifies, freezing the ships in place.

A slender shadow looms large over the fleet as something begins to approach from the ocean's horizon.

---

LEVEL 2 ALERT! LEVEL 2 ALERT!

                          ANALYSIS COMPLETE 

                Pattern Analysis : Blood Type BLUE 07    
                      Hypothesized as 7th ANGEL          
                                                         

*tink*

*tink*

*tink*

*tink*

It's unnerving, how something so large can make so slight a sound as it moves. Every fall of needle-pointed limbs hitting the ocean's surface sounds like the fall of a cane on marble. With every step comes a sinewy groan of movement as hexagons bloom beneath the Angel's 'feet', ice crystals spreading rapidly as the thing literally walks on water towards its prey.

It is immense. So much so that it dwarfs the fleet of ships it approaches. And yet that size is undercut by the strange slenderness of its body, less a solid structure and more a legion of interlinking, geometric onyx structures of varying shapes and sizes that give the vaguest impression of an esoteric pendulum clock, from the massive, dark red and spiked pendulum that swings back and forth from its lower center, to the way mismatched beaks of its two-masked 'head' - one short, one long - resemble a clock's face. Those two masks, facing opposite each other, are constantly moving in opposing directions - one clockwise, and the other counter, its overall effect evoking a clock where time is moving backwards and forwards simultaneously.

Situated in the center of its long neck, what looks like its core is caught in a tiny cage of onyx, crackling with coruscating crimson colors.

It takes one creaking, clinking step. Two vertically-positioned halos flow into being at its shoulder joints, glowing a faint, phantasmal white.

A second later, the icy ground beneath three of those destroyer ships explodes upward, impaling each of them on the tips of frost-rimed crosses that pulse with pinkish power beneath their frozen surface.

The aircraft carrier, for some reason, remains untouched as the Seventh Angel Jehudiel advances toward it. As if it were seeking that ship out, in particular.

KTS: Eisen Daiwel arrives loaded onto Lilith Aiden's combat deck!
KTS: Alma Stirner has deployed in MSN-05R Amabilis.
KTS: Kaiju_Navi has deployed as a Boss for 11 opponents.

<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.

"Hm hm hm hm hm hm hm hm hm hm hm hm hm, hmhm..."

Kaworu softly hums the most famous bar of Beethoven's 9th, more popularly known as Ode to Joy, as he stands in the middle of Tokyo-3, directly above an elevator that would--and, in another minute, is going to--take him down to NERV HQ in the Geofront. The wind brushes through his gray hair as he faces the harbor where the aircraft carrier bringing Unit-04, among other things, is approaching. His humming stops as, in the harbor, molecules stop and instantaneous ice freezes the ships in place for a dark figure to lumber towards at its leisure.

"So at last, it's your turn," he comments to the air, a faint smile tugging at its lips.

Voices from obelisks only he can see speak to him. That smile fades into cool neutrality.

"...I know," he replies to the invisible waves. "There can be no mercy allowed."

---

"What did you say?!"

The tires of Misato Katsuragi's car screech on the road as she slams her foot on the gas, nearly careening off a mountain road and instead roaring around a corner and down a tunnel. She grips her phone so tightly it might just break.

"The Seventh Angel has appeared, approaching Hakone Bay!" the voice of Makoto Hyuuga reports, crisp and urgent. "It's already destroyed several ships in the fleet escorting Unit-04, and its projected approach has it directly intersect the aircraft carrier transporting it!"

"Dammit! It's after the Eva?!" Misato snaps, as much to herself as to Hyuuga. It would seem like a good thing that she's already en route to the dock where the fleet was going to be bringing Unit-04 and everything else in; however, it functionally means that she's too far away from HQ to monitor the battle from there, and not close enough to the docks to make it on-site in time. Even so, she replies, "I'll be on-site as soon as possible! Until then, launch the Evas ASAP to intercept the Angel! Who's the top officer there at HQ right now?!"

"Administrator Nagisa, ma'am!"

"Then until I get there, he's giving the orders! In the meantime, keep me updated!"

Administrator Nagisa is not technically military personnel, but Hyuuga doesn't argue this. What the administrator *is* is their resident expert on Angels, and if that's good enough for her, it's good enough for him. "Understood!"

---

From a small personal elevator, Kaworu descends on the bridge. He steps off with effortless grace, hands tucked in his pockets, as the bridge buzzes with voices calling information back and forth, and the displays show visual information of the fleet on Hakone Bay--or what remains of it, anyhow--and the approach of the Angel.

"Administrator! Your orders?" Hyuuga prompts, turning in his seat as he approaches.

"There's no need for alarm," Kaworu states calmly. "The Seventh Angel, christened Jehudiel, is a troublesome foe, but not beyond the ability of our pilots. It's powerful but slow, and relies heavily on its A.T. Field for movement and defense. Neutralize that, and it will be vulnerable to swarms and close-range attacks. Units 02 and Carestia are to drop in from the air for a direct assault to draw its attention while Units 00 and 01 approach with caution via ship and issue cover fire. Unit E2 should already be in place on the carrier; she is to continue to defend it until back-up arrives. Non-Evangelion ships and units should be advised to attack at range and allow the Evangelions to defend them."

"Roger!" chorus several bridge operators, who get these orders and directions moving.

Kaworu comes to a stop behind them, gazing up at the vast electronic display of the clock-like Seventh Angel looming over Central Dogma.

"Now then... shall we begin again?" he murmurs with a faint smile.

KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley arrives loaded onto Eight York's combat deck!
KTS: Kamille Bidan arrives loaded onto Eight York's combat deck!

<Pose Tracker> Lilith Aiden has posed.

The Irish-class Gwennangorn was in the area. Heading east on its way to Pendragon for entirely selfish reasons (appaerntly there was a new burger place), it diverted path as soon as the call came out that there was an Angel attack. Lilith Aiden wasn't *necessary*...but that never stopped her and her crew before, as she moved to pick up any needed aces.

Sitting in the bridge, arms resting on her chair, Lilith had already had a long discussion on the way over the icy water. No piloting. She was not going to melee fight an Angel in a Jesta. Ayelock made that clear, not that he was going to mutiny but that if she died he'd be very upset. Something about haunting her, despite that being backwards.

"All stations, prepare for combat. We'll work with NERV, and allow Lieutenant Stirner to steal the show." A clench of a fist. Ayelock wasn't a Newtype, but he could feel his captain's worry easily.

Hovering above the ice, the Gwennangorn is ready to go. One hand under her chin, Lilith tensely speaks to her gunnery officer. "Hanniber, missile salvo. Distract it from the city." "Aye, captain!"

Billiam Hanniber gets to work, as the metaphorical big red buttons are pushed. A remote strike of missiles is launched from afar, moving to bombard the angel while requiring it to either have similar long-range attacks or to move into their range (and cannon range, and away from Tokyo-3) to fight back!

KTS: Zoia Surovy has activated the Spirit Spirit Command.

<Pose Tracker> Zoia Surovy has posed.

There are an infinite number of moves that could have been made.

That's fine.

That's why we plan.

Things freeze over in an instant. Something colossal approaches - and the nearing flotilla can do nothing about the approach of the Seventh Angel. Only the carrier hasn't been touched.

The crew, at least, are moving. Even as one of the three destroyers is shredded by the ice, perilously close and more than near enough to leave the crew swallowing panic, a loud siren rings across the deck of the carrier. The huge ship's rear deck elevator ascends, carrying something enormous and hunched - and rising out of that hunch to reveal a muscular humanoid shape. A huge yellow tarp slithers down from the shoulders of an absolutely gigantic machine about eighty meters tall. It exposes armour plating in shades of powder blue and grey overlying black, gigantic shoulder spars carrying rows of dozens of dark cylinders slung from their flanks and hanging on down on large racks. A backswept horn curves up from the crest of the machine's brow. Its limbs and torso are long, but bulky and heavy-looking.

It's an Evangelion - but a massively-built one. It's so heavily armoured that the type's inherent unnatural lankiness almost looks proportional. Its neck is probably as big around as a typical Eva's torso.

The carrier's reactor continues to churn, feeding into the huge cable running up into the giant pale-blue Eva's back. Driven by the carrier's nuclear generators, the gigantic machine steps forward to the edge of the carrier's stern deck - and it doubles forward.

It's not a fall. It drops into a peculiarly animalistic crouch. Both hands grip the edge of the deck, wrists together. From the armour housings on the back of its calves, a couple of brackets split open to release long struts. They fold out, planting robust supporting plates against the deck.

What follows is a sea of fire that shines against the ocean of ice.

The armoured Eva's cylinder arrays open up with a volley of rockets. Each cylinder disgorges one of them, each one etching a fiery contrail into the chilled sky. The rockets scatter in bizarre patterns as they rip towards the approaching Angel - and as they get close, the tip of each rocket glints suspiciously. A charge of some kind.

Rockets designed to try and spam their way through an AT field.

A second later, there's a click on the communications band - and a voice comes through. Feminine and clearly young, but focused, and with a hint of an accent that's probably Eastern European.

"Evangelion Unit Z2 here. Be careful when trying to engage it. It's trying to isolate the carrier."

Buried deep in the giant Eva's entry plug, a girl with short, gelled blonde hair leans forward in her seat as she finishes the transmission. She squints through prescription lenses at the spindly shape of the Angel, illuminated by the explosions she's just thrown at it. Behind the anxiety, her mind races.

It is an organized race. Considering what pieces the puzzle will present.

KTS: Zoia Surovy targets Kaiju Navi with Katyusha Rocket Concentration!
KTS: Lilith Aiden targets Kaiju Navi with Gwennangorn Missile Pods Remote Strike!
KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage.
KTS: Kaiju Navi blocks Lilith Aiden's Gwennangorn Missile Pods Remote Strike, taking 2100 damage!
KTS: Eisen Daiwel has activated the Spirit Spirit Command.
KTS: Eisen Daiwel has activated the Spirit Spirit Command.
KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Zoia Surovy's Katyusha Rocket Concentration, taking 4800 damage!

<Pose Tracker> Shinji Ikari has posed.

What is it like to be an endangered species that blossoms overnight?

There's six of us now, Shinji thinks, as he and Unit-01 sit on a very nice aircraft carrier and watch the Chuutwo Duo go into melee range. He has the gun. Shinji is awful at the gun. If Asuka's right about there being some minimum for Eva pilot performance, this might be the last time he straps into Unit-01.

God, Shinji thinks, it's big. Shinji can feel his heartbeat, looking up at the frankly bizarre monster. He can feel the heartbeat of another monster, too.

What are you waiting for, it's screaming into his mind.

"Ayanami." Shinji says, roughly, eyes lidded. "I didn't get a chance to welcome you back. How was your trip?" Speaking is an oversimplification; Unit-01 doesn't actually TALK to Shinji, but he does not have the training or base of knowledge to explain what his strange connection with the Evangelion really means. Anything, then, to drown out the urge, because he would drown in his type-b equipment.

"So we just try to chip away at the ATField, Kaworu?" Shinji asks, again ignoring decorum. He never calls Katsuragi by her rank either. "It looks like a Zelda boss. Maybe I could climb it when it gets close enough."

Shinji feels Pressure in his cockpit again, his hands shaking, fear clear on his face. Fear of what is the question, of course, as Unit-01 raises its rifle and fires a few warning shots at the messenger from heaven. Eight York has moved to Depths

<Pose Tracker> Eight York has posed.

The Ra Mari was near Tokyo again, for various reasons--and Eight York could not simply stand by when she heard the alarm. When NERV called out that there was an Angel on-site...

Well, it explained to Eight what the hell she was seeing on the displays, because even at the distance she was from the city, she could see it. The Ra Mari rendezvoused with NERV forces as quickly as possible, and picked up... a Friend.

No, not a friend. But an ally.

So now, approaching from above the buildings, the Ra Mari deploys into the bay, high up above the water, and moving directly towards the Seventh Angel.

"All crew, remain at maximum alert. Pilots, be ready to deploy as soon as we get in close."

That includes.. Asuka.

"Laying down covering fire for your approach--Fari, fire missiles in 3... 2... 1... MARK!"

The Ra Mari's missile bays begin spraying out projectiles for the Angel, as Eight says, "Pilots--READY!"

She sits in her chair on the bridge, utterly focused on command at the moment--counting on their pilot to keep them from suffering the same fate as the icy ships.

KTS: Shinji Ikari targets Kaiju Navi with Type MM-99 209mm AU Assault Rifle Shot!
KTS: Eight York targets Kaiju Navi with Clop Missile Array Remote Strike!

<Pose Tracker> Kamille Bidan has posed.

Kamille Bidan has been very firm that he is with Londo Bell as a doctor. He is a medic. He is not *primarily* a pilot, he will simply deploy when necessary.

And yet here he is, in the Gundam MK II with its armor additions, deploying as Londo Bell backup for NERV when really anyone else could have done it. He has no one to blame but himself, as he rushed to the call. Maybe because it's nostalgic to fight an inexplicable, uncomprehensible monster. Reminiscent of better times, which is a terrible way to think of it, and Kamille knows it. It doesn't matter. He goes where he's needed. So at Eight's command, the CMO of the Ra Mari deploys.

He sends radios to the Eva pilots as the MK II launches on the ship's deck. "Here to provide cover fire for you. You know what to do!" He assumes, as he's been told 'the EVAs know what to do with Angels.' His voice goes dry at that as he actually SEES the Angel, impossibly large, a spindly geometric nightmare. All he can do is stare up at it and fire off a burst from the head-mounted Vulcan Pods, which just feels like a drop of water in a sea.

<Pose Tracker> Eisen Daiwel has posed.

Blue.

Not Orange. Not Red. Not polka-dots anything.

This is blue. This is the color he was warned off. The color that Shinji told him off. The kind of battle that taxes the mind.

Eisen would be lying if he said he wasn't a bit worried about this whole situation. Carestia has so far stood up to the test against most standard Kaiju it's faced. But an Angel is a whole other matter.

---

The Carestia stands upon the bow of the Irish class. One leg on the right side of the launch deck, the other on the second. This is making this whole 'launchign mobile suits' no doubt a pain in the ass, as the creature keeps its wings outstretched and its arms crossed like some kind of bahamut staring down its foe.

Within the cockpit, Eisen doublechecks his buckles and locks his legs into the sides of the cockpit's rider.

The 'thin' being before him looks so... alien. Compared to the Kaiju he's faced before, which have all been somewhat fleshy of feathery or otherwise animalistic in nature -- this is utterly and truly alien.

He likes it.

"So the core is what this is all about. Get the core, and with that, the Angel is defeated."

In ways, he's a bit jealous of the fact that so many Evangelions are showing up now. Perhaps 'just in time' to deal with this kind of enemy.

The youth looks back at the cable fastened to Lilith's Irish-class, making sure it has enough slack as the Evangelion begins to step back a bit, slowly leaning back towards the very start of the launch deck.

<"Irish class Captain. Please order your people to brace."> As it begins its ranged bombardment, as the unit brings its wings higher, and drops two lances. Eisen then guides the unit, as it connects the first lance into the butt of the second, lengthening the spears into a long javelin shape and twirls it horizontally over its head before bringing it back. All of its weight leaning on the center of the Irish class now. Its tail just barely not trashing the bridge...

As the Carestia suddenly rushes forwards, stomping by moving from the left deck with both legs to the right, left, right, LEFT, RIGHT... THROW!

<"FIRST TECHNIQUE OF THE DARK-DEATH CHAOS LORD!">

It halts with both legs spread, putting an ENORMOUS amount of momentum and weight on the vessel. The normal forces sheering as the unit arests its entire body and THROWS its arm forward, sending the javeling straight towards the identified core in the hope to at least smash the barrier!

<"AERIAL GUNGNIIIIIR!!">

As the enormous winged Javelin soars at absurd speeds towards its target.

KTS: Eisen Daiwel targets Kaiju Navi with Wing Javelin!

<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.

It's thin.

That is the sum total, for this moment, of the thoughts of Rei Ayanami, the First -- by service time, not by other metrics, perhaps.

Rei Ayanami thinks this while watching the enemy in the perfect imagery that surrounds and engulfs her within the entry plug. The entire landscape of the battle, soon to be, laid out; the sea beyond, the sky above, and there, the enemy, within its individual space. Set to scale with other sea-craft, accenting size and its latticelike nature.

The entry plug is at a comfortable, stable depth within the cranial/spinal zone of Evangelion Unit 00, the great thing currently laying flat on its front upon the flight deck of a ship. The vessel, "Pachelbel," is under the operational command of NERV; its previous life, as OCSS Blake (out of northern Australia, by necessity) was of minor remark to naval nerds, even if perhaps the days of the sea have turned. But they've said that before.

EVA-00's orange-and-gray dappling could be mistaken for part of the ship itself; the power conduit attached via sternward rigging to a great coil, and thence to the laboring fusion reactors that once drove the ship and later provided megaparticle condensate for a GM squadron. Now it is usually carrying only monitoring equipment. Unlike a battleship or cruiser, Pachelbel has no pretentions of being able to fight an Angel.

Of course, you could be forgiven for taking the Evangelion's primary armament as the ship's gun. After all, most of the barrel is protruding over the front of the flight deck.

Rei is silent. Acquiring targets. Someone asks her something, though. Ikari. Rei's eyes turn momentarily towards the relevant display pane in the plug.

Dense buildings. Small transports. Air like Tokyo-3's. Life, green, resentful of the buildings. Aches, fading. Five meals of strange noodles, that taste of peanuts and chillis. The creature known as 'elephant' gazing at the vehicles. That creature existed before I existed.

"... It was warm," Rei answers Shinji.

She resumes the overwatch. She has not yet fired. She is probably waiting for orders, or failing that, a big red invitation.

KTS: Kamille Bidan targets Kaiju Navi with Pass!
KTS: Rei Ayanami targets Kaiju Navi with Pass!

<Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.

Standing on the deck of the Ra Mari over the bay, Evangelion Unit-02 is nearly a third as large as the ship is long. A cable extends off of it's back and winds serpentine across the deck, swaying in the wind despite its weight and heft. Still she doesn't feel unstable. Unit-02 leans over slightly to get a look at the spindly Angel in the bay. Her viewscreen showing a zoomed in view on its head which feels like a cubist's view of an avian.

Floating gently in her entry plug, Asuka is more calm and focused than nervous. Moreso than any other battle she's been in so far, perhaps it's her first time fighting an Angel, but this is what she's been preparing for her whole life, and she won't let jitters ruin it. There is annoyance though, she always has plenty of that to go around. And this one is squarely at the Federation Cruiser that offered a hand. "Why'd they have to be in the area?" She mutters to herself, yet again, probably the tenth time. She hates relying on others, she hates relying on someone like Captain York who tries to tell her that she should consider the feelings of others even more. "... Whatever." 'Ayanami' "We're seconds out and he's making conversation with the Commander's Pet!?"

Flipping on her end of the comms as she hears the ship's Captain ask if Pilots are Ready, "What are you stupid? You shouldn't even need to ask! Drop distance achieved. Detaching Cable in 5-4-." 'Evangelion Unit Z2 is here. Be careful when trying to engage it.'

Z2

Z

2

Sudden irrational anger floods Asuka's being at the thought of another Child she didn't know in competition with her - with another Evangelion claiming her number. Blood instantly boiling she speeds up the countdown.

"-THREETWOONE!" Evangelion Unit-02 takes off into a run across the deck, footsteps pounding across its launch. "-DETACHING CABLE!"

BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtASTkPNV3k

With an explosive hiss, the cable suddenly detaches from the back as the Evangelion leaps off the deck with arms and legs extended, levelling off horizontally like the world's largest skydiver its pilot ignoring the warning of the Activation Timer countdown beginning. "Your technicians had better catapult that payload properly!"

Falling from high altitude directly above the Angel, Evangelion Unit-02 certainly presents an enticing target, given it's trajectory it's like Asuka is daring the Angel to stop her merely by her position overhead in the sky. It's a message - or a threat perhaps that even a being as Alien as an Angel would likely understand.

A few seconds after her descent, the Ra Mari launches the Evangelion's folded up MM-144 Custom Super-Electromagnetic Crossbow which hurtles through the air towards the Evangelion's right hand. Which her fingertips reach out for- ready to catch it the moment it arrives.

<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.

                       < ALERT >
                       < EVACUATION >
                       < ALERT >
                       < TIME TO GO ! >

The bridge crew of the Nadesico weren't exactly on alert, when Omoikane insistently relays the signals Tokyo-3 relays to the world. This was supposed to be a routine visit, but --

"The public systems are reporting general retreat orders," the Communications Officer, Megumi Reinard, relays to the bridge. "There's an unknown creature approaching on our radar."

"So much for a courtesy call," Minato Haruka, the helmswoman, sighs.

Ruri Hoshino, the child who acts as their systems operator, speaks up from where she sits at the pointed tip of the bridge: "Captain, are we leaving, or do we assist?"

It's a leading, pointed question, from someone like her.

... since this is a combat situation, she can't just ask them to help Kaworu, after all.

"Of course we'll help them! Bring the Nadesico around, and fire!" Those are the orders of their fiery Captain, Yurika Misumaru -- why the Nadesico separates from the dock before it can bring them into Tokyo-3's safety, manoeuvring out into the open water.

"Raising Distortion Field," Ruri reports, rote and stoic, as a barrier -- not entirely dissimilar to an AT Field, though it comes from somewhat different principles, the details of which are corporate secrets -- raises around the hull of the Nadesico, a first layer of dissuasion for anything which might want to approach the ship.

"Omoikane, align with the enemy," Ruri makes her request, hands to her console. "Launch missiles." Missile bays on the Nadesico's forward prongs open, and the missiles careen out.

"Several NERV Evangelions have already deployed," Ruri reports, then. "Clop-class Ra Mari and Irish-class Gwennangorn assisting."

(Eight, she thinks. Will she be hurt here before Ruri even gets to... well, never mind thoughts like that.)

"We'll keep the Aestivalis wing on standby for now," Yurika says, with some Yurika-esque insight she doesn't quite bother sharing with the class. "Maintain distance and continue cover fire for the Evangelion pilots."

KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley has launched from Eight York's combat deck!
KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley targets Kaiju Navi with Goad!
KTS: Ruri Hoshino targets Kaiju Navi with Pass!
KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage.
KTS: Kaiju Navi blocks Eight York's Clop Missile Array Remote Strike, taking 1800 damage!
KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage.
KTS: Kaiju Navi blocks Eisen Daiwel's Wing Javelin, taking 2350 damage!
KTS: Eisen Daiwel roots his unit, coming to a standstill and leaving him vulnerable.
KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley goads Kaiju Navi, reducing its Intuition drastically.

<Pose Tracker> Alma Stirner has posed.

"... Eeeeh? Again?!"

Alma groans a little. This is going to be the second deployment in as many days -- and this time, she doesn't even get to deploy directly alongside Lilith! She wakes up from her nap and kicks her sheets like a kid a little bit, which is mildly unbecoming when you are 32.

Only mildly.

An Angel is worth risking a lot more than a factory -- especially this close to Tokyo-3. Alma is still in her pajamas as she settles into the Amabilis's cockpit. "Fai -- uh, Enchantress... Leader today, actually! Launching!" she says, clearly still a little on the groggy side as she takes Amabilis into a top-speed boost that sees it touch ground next to the assembling Evangelion squad. "Wh-whoa... they're on another level entirely," Alma says, blinking a few times -- and then opening burst comms. "NERV pilots -- this is Enchantress Leader, from the Gwennangorn's mobile weapon team! I'll be backing you up -- stay safe, okay?"

That's... a hell of a thing. It's absolutely enormous -- it makes the Gwennangorn look small. It'd make anything but a Macross-class look small. Alma shifts uneasily in her seat for a moment. Each icy step chills Alma's blood a bit.

For now: she flips the shoulder-mounted twin bazookas of the Amabilis down to point forward, and aims for the legs. She expects most, if not all of this to be eaten by the monster's natural barrier. But she might be able to set someone else up, if she can get even a little bit through it.

KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage.
KTS: Kaiju Navi blocks Shinji Ikari's Type MM-99 209mm AU Assault Rifle Shot, taking 600 damage!
KTS: Shinji Ikari: Will Barrier Activates.
KTS: Alma Stirner targets Kaiju Navi with Twin Shoulder Bazooka Stagger!
KTS: Kaiju Navi blocks Ruri Hoshino's Pass, taking 0 damage!
KTS: Kaiju Navi blocks Kamille Bidan's Pass, taking 0 damage!
KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage.
KTS: Alma Stirner rattles Kaiju Navi, making its next maneuvers more difficult.
KTS: Kaiju Navi blocks Alma Stirner's Twin Shoulder Bazooka Stagger, taking 1120 damage!
KTS: Kaworu Nagisa targets Kaiju Navi with Pass!
Tetsuya_Tsurugi teleports in.

<Pose Tracker> Kaiju Navi has posed.

... shall we begin again?

Jehudiel pauses. Its masks tick-tock-tick-tock in contradicting directions, before a wash of flame and fury engulfs it.

(((T H O O O O O M)))

Kaworu Nagisa's instructions are, if nothing else, preternaturally on point. Jehudiel is behemothic in size, yet spindly in structure... and seems to lack any ability to maneuver in any way at all beyond forward. Missile payloads and cannonades from Tokyo-3's automated defenses wash across the Seventh Angel, but it does not try to outmaneuver them -- it simply -can't-. Shells explode across it in little, infinitesimal flashes of multi-colored octagons. Smoke belches across its form. The rush of wind from the resultant kinetic force alone is enough to make its onyx geometry quiver as if it were impossibly fragile.

But as the smoke clears, the alien life form continues its faint, forward lumber unharmed, its AT Field fading in octagonal shimmers around it as it goes.

But it is not just NERV's automated defenses that the Angel must contend with. The first of the blockades to its goal comes directly from the location of the goal itself: an Evangelion unit far bulkier than the enshrouded counterpart its helping oversee ascends into place on the carrier's rear deck, braced into a crouch, and unloads a hellish volley of rockets upon the Angel.

Jehudiel steps forward

BOOM

and immediately rattles backwards as rocket after rocket rips through its AT Field, battering it open just long enough for their brethren to hammer explosively across the Seventh Angel's interlocking, needle-like limbs.

Kaworu's second observation proves true as that barest contact IMMEDIATELY blows apart the geometric pieces that were composing those bare limbs. Onyx flies through the air, smoking with the excess heat of explosive detonation...

... and then those fragments seem to pause in mid-air.

tick-tock-tick-tock-tick

Within a second, geometric pieces of the Angel that have been blown outward immediately fly back into place, reassembling themselves. There is a *click* sound, as if the being were locking itself back into place.

Needle limbs begin to move anew--

But the raw payload power of Unit-Z2 delays Jehudiel long enough for others to join the fray as the strange being is reassembling itself. First, come head vulcans.

They are so small compared to the Angel itself but, blessed be the nigh-supernatural gift of head vulcans' ability to distract, because as those bullets ripple across Jehudiel's AT Field, the bizarre creature pauses. Its twitching, tick-tocking face masks tilt, until the empty eyeholes of its forward-facing mask stare at Kamille's Gundam. There is no emoting. No overt, explainable reaction. The small beak of the Angel just continues to tick-tick-tick backwards across time as its mask twists, and--

Missiles from the Nadesico, Gwennangorn and Ra Mari join the chorus, hammering the Angel from ahead, behind and above with relentless firepower. Through the rippling explosions of flame and force the thin thing's AT Field can be seen rippling chaotically, flashing red, green, blue in a dizzyingly prismatic sequence. The Amabilis joins in, adding pajama power (and shoulder-mounted bazookas) to the fray as the downward cast of those rockets ripple heat across the spiny limbs. All together, hey shatter through several layers of the barrier --

-- and the Carestia's winged javelin CRASHES into yet more layers with a shattering CRACK of impact in concert with the warning shots of Eva Unit-01.

Jehudiel stumbles backwards several, clinking steps. Its body seems to -quiver- in a strange, shivering procession of the building blocks that compose it.

The smoke billows past its elongated neck, where that tiny red core continues to shine untouched.

Its masks begin to spin faster. Faster. Faster. The clock hands that are its 'beaks' become a smear as the bone-white faces of the Angel begins to balloon outward, empty eyesockets expanding almost comically.

The masks snap apart, for the briefest moment.

And space ruptures with them, revealing nothing but a cavernous black void where once was Jehudiel's head.

It shines, emerald.

And that is when a swarm of strange, green darts BURST from that void-like rupture's depths, shadowy ribbons chasing after them like inky trails as they attempt to riddle through anything and everything in their path. There is another pulse. The hexagonal AT Fields at Jehudiel's feet expand outward.

And the entire bay flash freezes into a solid stretch of crackling, firm ice as far as the eye can see in a wash of mastery over fundamental force that threatens to slow the very molecular structure of anything in its path towards a frosty, slowing freeze as it starts to march again, its ticking mask reassembling itself slowly but surely.

KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Eight York with Void Darts - Swarm!
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Eisen Daiwel with Void Darts - Swarm!
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Kaworu Nagisa with Void Darts - Swarm!
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Asuka Shikinami Langley with Void Darts - Swarm!
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Shinji Ikari with Void Darts - Swarm!
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Ruri Hoshino with Void Darts - Swarm!
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Lilith Aiden with Void Darts - Swarm!
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Kamille Bidan with Void Darts - Swarm!
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Alma Stirner with Void Darts - Swarm!
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Rei Ayanami with Void Darts - Swarm!
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Zoia Surovy with AT Field - Cessation!
KTS: Lilith Aiden fails to Intercept Kaiju Navi's Void Darts - Swarm, taking 3960 damage!
KTS: Zoia Surovy has activated the Wall Spirit Command.
KTS: Kaiju Navi rattles Zoia Surovy, making her next maneuvers more difficult.
KTS: Zoia Surovy blocks Kaiju Navi's AT Field - Cessation, taking 2430 damage!
KTS: Ruri Hoshino successfully intercepts Kaiju Navi's Void Darts - Swarm
KTS: Kaworu Nagisa fails to react to Kaiju Navi's Void Darts - Swarm, taking 3630 damage!
KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage.
KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley fails to Evade Kaiju Navi's Void Darts - Swarm, taking 2640 damage!
KTS: Eight York fails to evade Kaiju Navi's Void Darts - Swarm, taking 3960 damage!
KTS: Shinji Ikari's Will Barrier activates, negating 500 base damage.
KTS: Shinji Ikari fails to evade Kaiju Navi's Void Darts - Swarm, taking 3600 damage!
KTS: Alma Stirner successfully intercepts Kaiju Navi's Void Darts - Swarm
KTS: Kamille Bidan fails to Evade Kaiju Navi's Void Darts - Swarm, taking 3630 damage!
KTS: Tetsuya Tsurugi has deployed in Great Mazinger.
KTS: Rei Ayanami's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage.
KTS: Rei Ayanami blocks Kaiju Navi's Void Darts - Swarm, taking 2880 damage!

<Pose Tracker> Tetsuya Tsurugi has posed.

It always comes at the worst of times.

Tetsuya Tsurugi sits in a doctor's office. This visit is not on his behalf-- despite his many injuries and the grotesque bodily harm inflicted upon him over the years, he is in perfect physical health. No, it's because the woman lying on the table next to him...

...Is getting an ultrasound.

"Looks like they're developing well," the doctor, one of the many who live in New Fuji Science Town-- but one of only a handful with an actual medical degree-- says with a smile as she scoots the little scanner around a very round belly. Tetsuya feels tension he hadn't even realized he was keeping leave his shoulders with a sigh. The woman at his side gently squeezes his hand. "There's the head, and the body there--" the doctor indicates, pointing out one feature after another.

"It's our baby," Jun says, smiling warmly, "Of course they're going to come out strong--"

Suddenly, the klaxons begin to blare. Tetsuya stares up at the ceiling with a start, then looks to his communicator. CODE BLUE, says the message on the screen. "Jun, I--" He looks to his wife, who only nods. "Go," she says, "Don't worry, I'll hold the fort while you're gone. Me and our little one."

Tetsuya's expression softens. He leans in and presses his lips to his wife's... Then to her belly. "Alright, I'll be home for dinner. Stay safe, the both of you!"

As Tetsuya runs off, Jun Tsurugi, once Jun Hono, follows her husband's vanishing shoulders with a proud, but worried gaze.

This is what it means to be married to a pilot. Though... If she wasn't pregnant, she'd be right out there with him, so she can't get too mad.

It always comes at the worst of times.

When there is a mysterious monster from the sea, it's never a bad plan to call on a mazinger.

Out of the sky, a crimson arc races across the horizon. A black giant scatters the swirling, freezing mists. Great Mazinger descends from on high at frankly ridiculous speeds, throwing itself bodily into the Angel and its AT field, its wings outstretched. In the driver's seat, Tetsuya Tsurugi loosens his collar and adjusts his visor. "Alright you damn clock," he growls, "I've got a dinner date to get to. You'd better not hold me up too long! Let's go, Great Mazinger!" His voice crescendos into a roar, as Great's eyes flash and it surges in to cleave into the Angel with one of its mighty wings! "SCRAMBLE CUTTER!"

KTS: Tetsuya Tsurugi targets Kaiju Navi with Scramble Cutter!

KTS: Eisen Daiwel's Will Barrier activates, negating 500 base damage.
KTS: Eisen Daiwel blocks Kaiju Navi's Void Darts - Swarm, taking 3600 damage!

<Pose Tracker> Zoia Surovy has posed.

The field situation makes itself clearer. Zoia presses her lips together at the sight of more machines arriving. Ships - Evangelions with them.

The purple one. So that's their Knight, huh....

It's a realization that cuts through the anxiety. She can feel her heart racing and her breaths coming more quickly. Everything until now has been scenarios. Playing the game for real has been something she's never done. Not with a real Angel. Not with real consequences.

Stop! Don't panic. You planned for this. There is always a move--

Her thought process is smashed through by something shouty, red and angry. Zoia winces when Asuka's voice belts across the radio, and she looks up at the descending Unit-02 with her teeth closing around her lower lip.

Is she mad at the Angel? Or at someone else? She doesn't have time to suss it out - not in the middle of a crisis. Not when she's basically *on* the thing the Angel is ticking towards.

Zoia releases her lower lip and runs her tongue over it reflexively. Fear and nerves give way to churning thoughts. The other ships and machines pouring into the field are more obvious now - falling into place like pieces on the board.

Like pieces of Angel.

Pieces that fly back into place. Zoia's lower lip drops a half-centimetre and her eyes grow wide before she presses her lips together and swallows hard. Things seem a lot more grim now than they did a few seconds ago.

The mask splits. Zoia sucks in a breath and tenses.

Ice rips across the bay. Unit-Z2 braces itself against the deck and throws both arms forward in a cross. The Eva's AT Field flashes into existence with a hexagonal pulse, but the force radiating off the Angel pushes through. Crackling ice ripples across the giant REA Evangelion.

The armoured frame withstands. Ducking its head behind the cross of its wrists, Unit-Z2 rolls its massive shoulder pylons forward and hunches against the attack like a linebacker getting ready to charge. Zoia squeezes her eyes closed and clenches her teeth with a groan, cringing as the impact races into her nerves.

It's cold. Her plug suit feels insufficient. She feels naked to the Angel's power and it hurts almost as much as the actual pain does.

When the worst of the assault passes, the blue unit lifts its head again - shaken, but not broken. "Thanks, Katyusha," Zoia whispers, her voice a little shaky with pain, as she pats the control hub in front of her. She takes a couple of steadying breaths and takes stock of things with a quick glance.That's when a comline clicks open. It's aimed at Shinji, Asuka and Rei.

"I'll say a proper hello later," Zoia transmits, tense and leaning forward with hands on controls. "One of you's sharpshooting from the other ships, da? I can try and feed you telemetry but I'll have my hands full. Otherwise I think one of you could get close enough to hit the target."

She says as she throws a look back to the field of ice. "Look - the destroyers. They all have back decks on them for helicopters. You can get close to it by jumping between the flight decks. You probably won't even wreck the ships doing it that way!"

She looks back towards the Angel, pushing her glasses up briefly. "In the neck... is that...? We might have to get close to properly hit it...."

Unit-Z2 maintains its defensive position at the deck edge. The rocket system reloads; in the interim, the Evangelion uses its bulk to stand at the "gate" of the carrier. An obstacle for the Seventh Angel, courtesy of the Seventh Child.

KTS: Zoia Surovy targets Shinji Ikari, Rei Ayanami, and Asuka Shikinami Langley with All-Out.
KTS: Kaiju Navi blocks Kaworu Nagisa's Pass, taking 0 damage!
KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage.
KTS: Kaiju Navi blocks Tetsuya Tsurugi's Scramble Cutter, taking 1350 damage!
KTS: Tetsuya Tsurugi has engaged Kaiju Navi
KTS: Kaiju Navi blocks Rei Ayanami's Pass, taking 0 damage!
KTS: Zoia Surovy orders an all-out attack, raising Asuka Shikinami Langley's Skill!

<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.

"Irish-class Gwennangorn, Clop-class Ra Mari, and the Nadesico-class ND-001 Nadesico have arrived to provide support fire and additional mobile suits!" Maya reports, not even batting an eyelash at that last one. "Unit 02 launching from the Ra Mari, and Unit-Zahllos launching from the Gwennangorn!"

Kaworu's smile widens, though not so much because of the report but because the call from the Nadesico saying they'll be helping in too. It will be a tough fight for most of them, he considers. Jehudiel is not outside their collective ability to defeat, but the lack of experience they have against Angels may hold them back.

First times for everything. He laughs a little to himself at the thought, and never mind the questioning glances shot his way, considering Jehudiel just flash-froze the surface of the bay as if it were a trivial effort, then incurred a not insignificant blow on the carrier with those strange green darts. At least nothing further down than the deck was punctured, but if it manages to pierce through the hull... If nothing else, perhaps Kaworu's continued unflappable calm will help reassure others who'd start sweating at such a display of power.

"Shift support Evangelions forward and allow the battleships to provide support fire for their approach," he directs. "Unit 01, now that you have a path forward, take the lead. Unit 00, provide back-up as you follow, but remain close to the carrier to help Z2 with its defense when you attack. All other Evangelions, maintain your currect trajectories."

Shinji asks if the plan is just to chip away at the AT Field. Kaworu's smile briefly warms. "That's right, Shinji," Kaworu replies, likewise disposing with formality. "I was a little concerned about footing for our units, but now that it's used its AT Field to stop the movement of the molecules beneath it and freeze the ocean, you can all move freely. Climbing it isn't a bad idea, but you should be prepared for when it disassembles."

That's a fun thing to look forward to. Shinji and everyone can at least see its disassemble-reassemble maneuvers for themselves in response to everyone's attacks. In the meantime: sheer, overwhelming, raw violence is a go! That'll probably be encouraging for *some* people.

KTS: Kaworu Nagisa targets Shinji Ikari, Asuka Shikinami Langley, and Rei Ayanami with Awe.
KTS: Kaworu Nagisa inspires awe, increasing Asuka Shikinami Langley's Morale!
KTS: Kaworu Nagisa inspires awe, increasing Rei Ayanami's Morale!
KTS: Zoia Surovy orders an all-out attack, raising Rei Ayanami's Skill!
KTS: Kaworu Nagisa inspires awe, increasing Shinji Ikari's Morale!
KTS: Zoia Surovy orders an all-out attack, raising Shinji Ikari's Skill!
KTS: Tetsuya Tsurugi has activated the Spirit Spirit Command.
KTS: Kamille Bidan has activated the Assail Spirit Command.

<Pose Tracker> Lilith Aiden has posed.

Alma is out there in the Amabilis. Lilith watches her radar and her reports, and sighs. She knows Alma has the skill and machine for it - but this is an Angel. If they weren't both lunatics, she'd have left this to the locals.

But Lilith Aiden is absolutely a lunatic, and that's why the next words to come out of her mouth are...

"Stay at distance. Use the laser turrets for focused fire, try and break that barrier long enough to get in a good hit."

Hanniber squints. He has never understood his captain's orders, despite following them. "Captain, we won't be able to hit from-"

"It's larger than our ship. Adjust for distance, and fire all turrets!" Lilith barks back, right as the darts smash into the Gwennangorn, rocking the bridge and popping up damage readouts on multiple terminals.

"Now!"

XO Ayelock gestures, and Hanniber shouts out. "Focusing turrets! Lasers, ready!"

"Firing!"

Anti-air laser turrets swivel on the angel, and begin firing in one spot. That one spot is, if successful, rapidly barraged until, hopefully, the AT Field can break just long enough for a real volley.

KTS: Lilith Aiden has activated the Assail Spirit Command.
KTS: Lilith Aiden targets Kaiju Navi with Gwennangorn Anti-Air Laser Turrets Blast!
KTS: Kaiju Navi successfully avoids Lilith Aiden's Gwennangorn Anti-Air Laser Turrets Blast

<Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.

"Did the Angel just!?" Her instruments just registered that the whole bay is frozen. Yet even as it does, the Void Darts come into range like missiles on tethers. A quick application of her AT-Field in it's rippling hexagon saves her, but the Void Darts burst through. The first strikes her crossbow away from her grasp. The second grazes the side of EVA-02's head, causing her to twist to the side abruptly. Suddenly she's grateful this will be a challenge, even as she brings EVA-02 into a twisting spiral of aerial acrobatics to try her best to avoid as many as she can, with only limited success.

What a day. Not just one but two new Evangelions to contend with Unit-04 and Unit-Z2. Two new rivals - even if one pilot hadn't shown up yet she surmises one is coming the moment they figure out the Britannian Disaster. Life is a competition for Asuka Shikinami Langley, and right now with an Angel that competition has the highest of stakes for her. However, she's grateful for the Angel giving her a target for that anger - as without that outlet she'd be fuming, lashing out against anyone unfortunate enough to cross her path. As if to demonstrate that she still had enough anger to go around Unit-02's pilot blares back over the comms at Enchantress Leader in response to her message, "What are you stupid!? You can't do anything against an Angel! The best thing you can do is stay out of my way."

Not even our way, encompassing all the Evangelions. Just hers, as if she were entirely a solo act. Maya's announcement gives her something new to be angry about, growling as her Evangelion traces the trajectory of missiles back to a zoomed in view of the ship on her screen. "It's so reassuring that the ND-001 Nadesico, laughingstock of the whole Federation is here. The last thing I'd ever need is their brand of help."

The new Child introduces herself and Asuka's focus suddenly sharpens in her aerial display, seemingly fired up just by her daring to address her, "Save your introductions - I don't care who you are. And I care even less about what you have to say. You can stuff your tactical advice. I don't take orders from you!"

Darting back around, the Evangelion twists its whole body in mid-air end over end so that both of its hands reach out and grasp her crossbow, one hand taking hold of the trigger, the other gripping to stabilize the stock. Kaworu orders the Evangelions, as the ranking officer she doesn't reject him as if were disobeying, she just tersely and petulantly announces, "I already know what to do!"

Immmediately the crossbow hums to life, twin limbs extending from either side of the barrel, visible waves of electromagnetic energy humming from either side, strings of energy forming. One of the Evangelion's four eyes stares down it... and immediately aims a shot right at the Angel's head. The modular rail gun fires, a bolt crossing the gap between it and Jehudiel instantly. She suspects it will strike the AT Field, but its aimed for its bird like head all the same as if she's acting on a theory, or some inttuition.

KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley has activated the Spirit Spirit Command.
KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley has activated the Spirit Spirit Command.
KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley targets Kaiju Navi with Super-Electromagnetic Crossbow Snipe!
KTS: Lilith Aiden has activated the Spirit Spirit Command.
KTS: Lilith Aiden has activated the Spirit Spirit Command.
KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage.
KTS: Kaiju Navi blocks Asuka Shikinami Langley's Super-Electromagnetic Crossbow Snipe, taking 2175 damage!

<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.

Rei's eyes turn upwards in the entry plug to track the visual progress of the forwards-deploying units. Eisen's distorted unit, approaching by the virtue of the ships' decks. The Second's Eva, descending. She seems to be in good spirits.

Other voices are speaking. EVA-00's entry plug designates them with the relevant signifiers. Rei doesn't reply. The attack begins... the Angel's outer frame breaks...

A faint feeling wanders down the back of Rei's back. A memory of shapes transforming in blue... but then the possibility becomes a reality, the AT Field rippling as the Gundam makes its pass. The coruscant barrage of darts begins... the Pachelbel being relatively far away has time to panic and scream on the bridge even as it attempts to reverse course, except that the zone of confinement has already expanded. The thruster-propellers can't push --

Rei, watching the incoming barrage of green objects, unlimbers a long diamond-shaped object that had been propped over EVA-00's back, bringing it forwards and tilting the rifle downwards. The barrage smashes into the outer ripples of the AT Field, some of them pervading even so - and landing deep inside of the heavy object of cast ceramide, with several others stabbing into EVA-00's thigh-backs and calves. The cramping feeling makes Rei grit her teeth.

Zoia addresses her. Rei's eyes turn towards her. "Understood," Rei replies. "Returning to firing position." The enormous ceramide object is tilted to the side, EVA-00 shifting backwards to begin drawing its focus again. "The neck..."

Kaworu makes his calls. The Pachelbel confirms -- but they're stuck -- 22 knots at best with -- and then Rei purges the umbilical cable, the enormous electrical connection sprawling out like a dropped noodle on the deck of the aircraft carrier as Rei vaults down, landing on the 'frozen' sea and advancing several bodylengths before coming down into a crouching seat to once again re-acquire the target.

"Zeeh Two," Rei enunciates. "Watch for trajectory distortion."

"Ikari," Rei says. "I will cover your approach." As she says it, the sniper rifle goes BOOM as a shell worthy of sinking an old-school battleship is fired out, spin-stabilized to atrocious levels on its way. Afterwards, Rei works the bolt action, ejecting a massive casing-structure out onto the white layer on a sea. (The shell casing bounces away, harmlessly rolling for a few moments along the curvature of the earth.)

KTS: Rei Ayanami has activated the Trust Spirit Command targeting Zoia Surovy

<Pose Tracker> Kamille Bidan has posed.

Tick tock tick tock. A demonic metronome that reforms without regard for physics, that fires off bursts from a head full of NOTHING...

Yep, this reminds Kamille of the Primevals, alright. The Angels are just as strange and eldrich as he's heard. It's one thing to hear about it, and another to see and experience it. It's that silent horror that distracts Kamille as he's unable to dodge the onslaught of void darts which leave dents in his armor.

"Great, I'm getting rusty," he mumbles as the Mark II stands ready from below Unit-03, a bulky dwarf beneath a colossus. There is nothing to do but to fight Jehudiel as if it were a thing that could exist; this is what he remembers from the briefings on Primevals.

"Just have to keep hitting that Field..."

Which is what he tries to do, firing off grenades at the Angel and just staying out of the way of the EVAs.

KTS: Rei Ayanami has activated the Trust Spirit Command targeting Shinji Ikari
KTS: Rei Ayanami targets Kaiju Navi with Sniper Rifle Sighted Shot!
KTS: Lilith Aiden has activated the Prospect Spirit Command.
Lilith Aiden uses Auxiliary Calculator - Prospect

KTS: Kamille Bidan targets Kaiju Navi with Grenade Toss!
KTS: Eisen Daiwel has launched from Lilith Aiden's combat deck!

<Pose Tracker> Eight York has posed.

Captain York doesn't bother replying to Asuka's question about her intelligence. She rolls her eyes on the bridge. "Remind me," she says, "To appreciate our pilots more," to the bridge crew and not over the radio. But they need Kamille, too--they need everything they can bring to bear against this thing.

"Nadiesco," Gwennagorn." Eight says instead. "The Ra Mari will coordinate our defense with you. Transmitting data." She nods to Astelian, who begins doing as she's ordered. But as they attack...

The Angel seems to... reassemble itself, somehow. That's a problem, and Eight figures that the others are working on it at least... but all she can do is continue to provide support. "Move us closer Chovan," Eight orders, "Keep our shield up, Fari. we don't want to be caught unawares by this thing. It-- Evasive manuevers!!"

The Ra Mari takes a nasty set of hits from the projectiles; if Eight had realized what they were, she would've ordered interception instead. She curses mentally about it, and indeed, her inexperience fighting Angels may give them trouble here. ...But she can try to learn from it.

She grits her teeth at Asuka's comment on the Nadesico, but the NERV pilots aren't her jurisdiction. Chovan, though, glances at the Captain for a moment, feeling the sudden spike of antipathy from her.

"...All right, Astelian. I think I see what we need to do here. Get me all the targeting data you can on this thing--and then let's try to box it in." Eight can't emotion her way at something like this... but she can tap at her own display, thinking as she goes--

"There! Fire cannons at these locations!" She rattles off coordinates even before her crew can tell her the ones to use, intuitive--and then she says, "Transfer data to the other ships and mobile weapons! Fari, prepare main cannons!" Eight York has moved to Shallows

KTS: Eight York targets Kaiju Navi with Designate L1!
KTS: Eight York designates Kaiju Navi, making it easier to target and opening it to indirect fire.
KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage.
KTS: Kaiju Navi blocks Kamille Bidan's Grenade Toss, taking 1400 damage!
KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage.
KTS: Kaiju Navi blocks Rei Ayanami's Sniper Rifle Sighted Shot, taking 2640 damage!

<Pose Tracker> Shinji Ikari has posed.

The darts hit Shinji right in the chest.

They feel COLD, cold like the awful cold he felt going out into the colonies, looking at a vast universe that mostly consists of matter that hates organic life. It's like being stabbed with a little bit of space, and Shinji buckles, his body shaking as he feels two pinpricks physically manifest on his chest. At least-

-CRUNCH.

Shinji looks to his left, as one of the darts has impaled the command bridge of his carrier. He can't. Remember the name of the ship, he never bothered to memorize it. Data streams across Shinji's computer even as Kaworu gives useful data about the nature of the Angel. It's fascinating, he thinks, distant as a dying star, how it can manipulate its own body like that. Is it the body? Or is it really messing with time on a localized scale, like Kaworu's implying? Could it undo what it just did? Does that make it better?

Or worse, Shinji thinks, as Unit-01 dips down to move the dart from the bridge and comes up with bloody hands. He can smell them. Smell their death. Because, what, his ATField is weak? Because he couldn't react in time? Dead, dead, how many dead because he couldn't move he can count at least ten sailors some frozen solid from the void dagger's awful alien effect they died screaming and cold and afraid.

"That's nice, Ayanami." Shinji says, as Unit-01 looks at the pulsing heart of its ENEMY. "I hope you didn't get a sunburn."

The purple beast moves as though its pilot was paying attention to all of those words, all of that pointless data, Rei's covering, Asuka's showboating, Eisen trying to make sense of it all, Kaworu knowing so damn much about these things, the new girl, Zoia, he doesn't know her yet and all of these brave people who don't need to be here trying to slow it down. Unit-01 detaches its power cable and leaps off of the boat, an ATField shimmering in the air and serving as a sort of slide to let Shinji and his monster skate across the open air and land on the frozen pieces of ocean that the Seventh Angel is balancing on.

"Hey Captain York, Coach Tsurugi." Shinji says, as Unit-01 kicks off of the ocean and just grabs the Angel by its legs, squeezing so hard it leaves indentations. "Thanks for dropping by. I think I get how this thing works now."

"I just have to rip its heart out and we're good." Unit-01 moves, with shaking hands, to RIP a section off of the Angel, possibly entirely out of spite.

KTS: Shinji Ikari has activated the Valor Spirit Command.
KTS: Shinji Ikari targets Kaiju Navi with Haymaker!
KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage.
KTS: Shinji Ikari rattles Kaiju Navi, making its next maneuvers more difficult.
KTS: Kaiju Navi blocks Shinji Ikari's Haymaker, taking 3300 damage!
KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Shinji Ikari's Find The Core activates, causing Nullify!
KTS: Shinji Ikari has engaged Kaiju Navi
KTS: Shinji Ikari begins a Formation attack!

<Pose Tracker> Eisen Daiwel has posed.

The winged Javelin impacts, hitting that A.T. field and not making that much progress lacking any progressive activated systems. Just as Eisen expected to see, but as a Scientist, one confirms hypotheses!

"That is one heck of a barrier on that one. Alright...." Eisen mumbles to himself as he touches the controls of his unit and considers a few tactical options.

<"Keep that cable connected and stay close. If you need to bail, disconnect. This unit can run for a while without direct power connected to it. I'm about to run a test on this Evangelion's flight systems!"> Eisen then calls out, remaining positioned at the tip of the Irish class. Luckily, the two-pronged ship has a convenient gap at its center. This means Eisen can more safely engage the thrusters on the Evangelion Unit-Zahlos: Carestia.

Its wings flicker, little gossamer flickers of light appearing between as Eisen shifts his shoulders and feels the pressure against his shouldblades.

"Deeper... I need to feel it..."

His eyes close, drawing the image of the Carestia over his body further.

"Show me what you see, Carestia. Let me feel what you feel. I am not afraid of the pain."

It claws its feet into the surface of the bridge for a moment, scratching all that wonderful metal it is lodged on, as that thruster begins to ramp up a bit, pulling on the entire ship as it begins to gain thrust.

Another flicker of light between its wings. That gossamer light turning brighter as the thrust finally catches, and those skeletonal wings adjust once again, as the unit releases, then suddenly jumps as it reaches its critical thrust.

"If we are going to beat this Angel, and that 'Beast' character, we need this to work, Carestia. Work with me here." The youth begins to climb deeper. The plug depth lowering and little markers starting to rise tiny little warnings. Nothing to throw the big red ones, but Eisen is clearly going deeper than he usually does.

Then, spring, the unit pushes off of the Irish-class unit of Lilith's, and its jet turns, the entire winged unit burning forwards straight for the floating enemy, and straight into the green markers as they erupt on his position, as if his entire trajectory had been lined out. The unit disappears into the void-trails taht follow they, as the darts tear into its A.T. field, ripping into arms and legs!

Eisen's expression turning quickly into one of anguish as the pain translates and rips into his body through their connection. LCL bubbling as the A.T. field isn't enough, and Eisen isn't capable enough of a 'pilot' to avoid a single one of them. The unit comes out of it at a climax of an arcing line, flaring its wings for just a moment before the jet against its back turns a bit and adjust the descent straight towards the TOP of the Angel.

The youth brings its Sonic Glaive forth from within its wings, and THROWS it down towards that angel at high speed, remaining attached to that cable from Lilith's unit, and declares;

<"THE ONE CAST OUT BY GOD, DEFILING STRIKE!"> As the Sonic Glaive rushes down, with the full intent of snapping into its A.T. field and held there, followed by the Carestia launching right after that Glaive, head down, hands ready...

And the moment it impacts the A.T. field..

<"LUCIFER'S FAAAAAALL!.">

As it grabs hold of the spear and sends a second wave of momentum after it and activates the Progressive points at the tip of the Glaive.

<Pose Tracker> Alma Stirner has posed.

"Hmmm... speed is low -- right!" Alma pushes a button. Amabilis's V-finned head tracks the most immediately present void darts as they move toward it, shooting short bursts of vulcan fire; they take down the darts that are most immediately a threat, or at least give them something to slow and feel like they did their job.

Despite the sheer enormity of the task before them... Alma's going to have to close sooner or later. Amabilis, after all, is a creature of the closest quarters. If Lilith is going to stay 'out,' then Alma is going to have to 'get in.'

She decides to just go for it, drawing both of Titania's sabers -- each of them crackling to life as the Amabilis takes them in hand. "... Right. Evangelion units, I'm going to try to take advantage of your opening," she relays, going into a controlled boost in.

Once she gets in close enough that she has a sense of where she actually is relative to the behemoth, Alma brings the Amabilis low over the water, taking it into a forward-hovering crouch. Kicking off a bit with one leg, she sends her mobile suit into a controlled spin, all blades out, before pumping the brakes and going into a reverse to avoid overcommitting directly in front of the Angel.

Then, to Lilith, about the monster on the launch catapult: "Captain, are we being assigned an Evangelion full-time!? Are we getting another launch catapult like the Ra Cailum?!" *That* sounds like it excites her.

KTS: Alma Stirner has activated the SPirit Spirit Command.
KTS: Alma Stirner targets Kaiju Navi with Amabilis Twin Beam Sabers Spin-Dash!
KTS: Eisen Daiwel targets Kaiju Navi with Violence Ensues!
KTS: Eisen Daiwel enervates Kaiju Navi, reducing its Morale significantly.
KTS: Kaiju Navi blocks Eisen Daiwel's Violence Ensues, taking 7700 damage!
KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Eisen Daiwel's Experience This Curse With Me! activates, causing Shock!
KTS: Eisen Daiwel has engaged Kaiju Navi
KTS: Eisen Daiwel completes the Formation attack!
KTS: Kaiju Navi blocks Alma Stirner's Amabilis Twin Beam Sabers Spin-Dash, taking 3430 damage!
KTS: Alma Stirner has engaged Kaiju Navi

<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.

"What a bizarre enemy," Minato remarks, as she inputs evasion orders in the wake of those spinning masks.

Ruri doesn't comment on the eldritch thing, spindle-stepping across the bay. Jehudiel's reassembly reflects across fae-gold eyes, impassive, unmoved. This is a thing which operates on no logic at all, to her mind. Its life is not something she can grasp in her small hands. But...

... clock cycles aren't unfamiliar to her, either.

Ruri opens an open channel to the Ra Mari to confirm: "Data received." There's nothing personal to the transmission, but would anyone expect it? They're in a combat situation, after all.

A communication window opens on Unit-02 -- a helpful thing sent over from the Nadesico, featuring Ruri's stoic face. It is, of course, wide-band audible. "Helping imminent."

Whether this was a message imperative to the mission or one small child sassing another is a question for scholars, not soldiers.

Space ruptures, impossibly -- and from the rupture pour darts, things which Megumi helpfully indicates as missile-like on their radar. "Please fire as many missiles as you deem appropriate," Ruri asks Omoikane, and Omoikane's answer is quite a lot of missiles, actually -- a shower of explosions which manage to destroy those strange projectiles before they reach him, and the people he's protecting.

"Units 00 and Zahllos have engaged melee," Ruri reports, presently, "alongside other units... our likelihood of friendly fire is calculated at 83%. Now transmitting defensive advice to active units."

Ruri reaches out, to the Ra Mari -- to the Amabilis. She told the pilots what she was doing, of course, but her advice for the systems of their units is much more detailed, communicating the Nadesico's calculations and giving her own advice based on what she can feel from their technological capabilities, too.

But when she tries to extend that advice to Unit-02 --

"Ah!" Ruri gasps, straightening back in her seat, eyes widening at the sheer horrific force of rejection.

"Ruri-Ruri?" Minato looks over to her -- they're beside each other in their stations, after all -- in concern.

"I... I'm fine," Ruri says. "Mobile weapons... MSN-05R Amabilis and Ra Mari advised."

Ruri Hoshino has moved to Shallows

KTS: Ruri Hoshino targets Alma Stirner, Asuka Shikinami Langley, and Eight York with Caution.
KTS: Ruri Hoshino suggests caution, raising Asuka Shikinami Langley's Intuition!
KTS: Ruri Hoshino suggests caution, raising Eight York's Intuition!
KTS: [Lucky] Alma Stirner's Queen Cutter activates, and luck goes her way!
KTS: Alma Stirner successfully accepts Ruri Hoshino's Caution

<Pose Tracker> Kaiju Navi has posed.

It's impossible.

Everything about it is impossible by any human standard. By structure along, those pointed, thin, needle-like limbs should not be able to support a thing of its size, let alone be capable of generating -forward motion-. The yawning chasm that was once its face should not exist, let alone whatever peculiar nothingness it leads to. That chasm in spacetime should not, similarly, be able to -stitch itself together- back into that dual-faced mask.

But it does all those things, as the Angel's faces snap back into place, and the clock hands that are its beaks begin the paradox of their forwards-backwards ticking.

It seems to almost tilt in its position on the ice, its entire, titanic body shifting weight towards its left leg in a way that gives off a sinewy groan as it seems to inexplicably lean. Tick tock tick tock. The empty eyes of its forward-facing mask shine a pink hue as it seems to focus on a specific point on the carrier beyond.

SCRAMBLE CUTTER!

But its trajectory swerves violently off-path as the Great Mazinger TACKLES into its sky-scraping form. The powerful cleave of its wing SCREAMS across a protesting AT Field, making the onyx shapes just beyond quake with the residual force. Its strange, slender patchwork body twists --

-- and the laser fire of the Gwennangorn creams across that AT Field, helping open it -just- long enough for the Great Mazinger's wing to CARVE through the black material of its body with a screech of friction that sounds like a strange mix between metallic and organic.

The central 'chest' of Jehudiel blows outward and then begins to collapse inward towards itself once more as its intended shot goes wide, a cross of pure frost bursting from what was once an unpleasantly close handful of meters from the carrier's front.

The Angel's response is immediate, and aggressive, like a person whose has had their knee struck with a reflex hammer.

The octagonal barriers of its AT Field suddenly gain shimmery, prismatic depth as they bloom outward like a perfectly geometric flower and -hammer- forward to ram that willful force into the Great Mazinger and attempt to knock it -away-.

The Seventh Angel's attention - for whatever that might amount to - then, again, turns towards the ship...

... only to find the Seventh Child in its path.

It pauses for a moment, clock faces rotating in opposing directions.

And its AT Field blooms again.

Wide, octagonal shapes gain depth. They radiate outwards like a seven-fingered, outstretching hand.

And then collapse in on each other, their shimmering forms attempting to catch and -drag- Unit-Z2 off the ship, and towards the Angel, in the unforgiving frozen wasteland it has fashioned for itself.

Whatever its intentions after that, they are never realized; cover fire from Unit-00's rifle and the grenades of Kamille's Full-Armor Gundam make contact with the Angel in tandem. The AT field of Jehudiel instantly collapses back into a defensive position to ward off the combined onslaught as the bullet RIPPLES across its AT Field at the same time the grenades wash heat and force across those octagonal fields, the combined force enough to translate across the barrier and send the Seventh Angel staggering back three CLINKing, quivering steps. Its masks spin into smear of bone whites and blacks.

And Rei will feel the ground quiver beneath her Eva before seven crosses of water EXPLODE from beneath the ice field's surface, one after the other, each crystal-clear crucifix pulsing with pink power before they all explode in hellacious ripples of inexplicable, other-dimensional energy.

Kamille will feel the quiver of something off and alien focused upon him seconds before the ground below ruptures similarly, spewing a single cross of water that explodes in a ripple of pink.

It's just one of several; one is aimed for he and his Gundam. The other?

For his larger, Evangelion companion, racing after it hectically as Unit-02 grasps onto its crossbow, aims, and FIRES that electromagnetic round.

The AT Fields begin to shimmer--

--and that is precisely when Eva Unit-01 seizes upon the thing's needle-like limbs.

Fingers clench upon onyx until it groans in protest and then squishes (-squishes-?), denting inward along the purple Evangelion's iron grip. There's something that feels meaty about the supposed metal beneath Shinji's touch, but maybe that is a question best saved for later

as

the Eva

RIPS

the ENTIRE bottom half of the Seventh Angel's limbs away, and -through its own AT Field-.

The octagons shatter in a spray of prismatic, ebbing shards.

Three things happen, in rapid succession after this point:

First: Asuka's crossbow bolt JAMS into the little core nestled in Jehudiel's neck, cracking it faintly and splintering away the vestiges of its AT Field.

Second: the Amabilis -spins- forward, its comparatively tiny body proving the utter fragility of this Angel without its AT Field as the Mobile Suit's blades CLEAVE through the upper chest of the Angel, blowing away its lower 'neck' to expose that fracturing core.

Third:

"THE ONE CAST OUT BY GOD, DEFILING STRIKE!"

Chuuni combines sheer power with Princess and Pajamas to create the coup de gras upon this poor Angel, as the Sonic Glaive, instead of finding an AT Field, CRASHES into that crimson core.

With the second BURST of momentum provided by the Carestia --

They, and Asuka's crossbow bolt, RIP through the exposed, red sphere in what is an oddly pitiful burst of red fluid.

The Angel seems to freeze in that moment, entirely inert. And then, its many fragments begin to fall as if falling apart in its death throes. They fall...

... and fall...

... and...

stop.

A rain of onyx simply suspend in mid-descent. Jiggsaw pieces of an Angel float in place for a few moments.

And then that giant pendulum attached to the Angel's chest begins to quiver.

Abruptly -- the Angel's entire chest components begin to ROTATE. The pendulum SWINGS upward, taking the place of those shattered masks and would-be 'core.'

And when pendulum is completely upright, its spike pointed diagonally like the beak of a drinking bird --

-- the giant sphere's onyx surface begins to flake away, revealing a massive, gelatinous crimson form beneath.

A core.

The TRUE core.

Abruptly, all those hundreds of geometric pieces SNAP back into place with the sound of a clicking lock. The viscous surface of Jehudiel's real core begins to quiver.

And as the halos at its shoulder joints begin to grow, a wave of invisible force washes across its immediate area, seizing upon the molecular composition of Unit-01, the Carestia and the Amabilis to begin to render every single thing it manages to touch upon frozen and inert.

KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Zoia Surovy with AT Field - Herding!
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Eight York with Cross Beams - Frozen Valley!
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Ruri Hoshino with Cross Beams - Frozen Valley!
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Shinji Ikari with Dominion of Celestial Motion!
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Eisen Daiwel with Dominion of Celestial Motion!
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Asuka Shikinami Langley with Cross Beam Volley!
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Alma Stirner with Dominion of Celestial Motion!
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Rei Ayanami with Cross Beam Volley!
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Tetsuya Tsurugi with AT Field - Ramming!
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Kamille Bidan with Cross Beam!
KTS: Zoia Surovy's Will Barrier activates, negating 500 base damage.
KTS: Kaiju Navi anchors Zoia Surovy, forcing her into close range.
KTS: Zoia Surovy fails to evade Kaiju Navi's AT Field - Herding, taking 2592 damage!
KTS: Kaiju Navi has engaged Zoia Surovy
KTS: Kaiju Navi begins a Formation attack!
KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley successfully Evades Kaiju Navi's Cross Beam Volley
KTS: Kaiju Navi has activated the Assail Spirit Command.
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Lilith Aiden with Cross Beams - Frozen Valley!
KTS: Rei Ayanami fails to react to Kaiju Navi's Cross Beam Volley, taking 3888 damage!
KTS: Kaiju Navi rattles Lilith Aiden, making her next maneuvers more difficult.
KTS: Lilith Aiden fails to Evade Kaiju Navi's Cross Beams - Frozen Valley, taking 3132 damage!
KTS: Kaiju Navi rattles Alma Stirner, making her next maneuvers more difficult.
KTS: Alma Stirner fails to react to Kaiju Navi's Dominion of Celestial Motion, taking 2952 damage!
KTS: Kaiju Navi rattles Eisen Daiwel, making his next maneuvers more difficult.
KTS: Eisen Daiwel fails to react to Kaiju Navi's Dominion of Celestial Motion, taking 2214 damage!
KTS: Eight York has activated the Attune Spirit Command.
KTS: Kaiju Navi rattles Eight York, making her next maneuvers more difficult.
KTS: Eight York fails to evade Kaiju Navi's Cross Beams - Frozen Valley, taking 3132 damage!
KTS: Kaiju Navi rattles Shinji Ikari, making his next maneuvers more difficult.
KTS: Shinji Ikari fails to evade Kaiju Navi's Dominion of Celestial Motion, taking 2214 damage!
KTS: Kamille Bidan has activated the Foresee Spirit Command targeting Asuka Shikinami Langley

<Pose Tracker> Kaiju Navi has posed.

And, as it rears itself upward once more in its new form, the Seventh Angel exerts whatever amounts to its will across the battlefield. Ice trembles and cracks beneath where the Ra Mari, the Nadesico and the Gwennangorn have positioned themselves.

It's scarcely a precious handful of seconds later that immense crosses of ice BURST upward, formed and sculpted by the Seventh Angel to impale each of those ships upon their jagged tips.

<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.

Thanks to Zoia directing the Z2 to stand as a wall between the Angel and the aircraft carrier, when the Angel lashes out its AT Field strike, the carrier sustains no damage. It loses its defender, but you win some, you lose some.

"Well spotted, Z2 pilot," Kaworu tells Zoia as she remarks on the thing in the Angel's 'neck.' "Once the AT Field is down, that red orb must be destroyed to move this battle to the next stage. Or, as Shinji eloquently put it," he adds, affection entering his tone, "you must 'rip its heart out.'"

Asuka meanwhile talks trash to basically all of her allies, then claims she knows what to do. "Of course," he says mildly. Since his orders to her had been essentially 'keep doing what you're doing,' he leaves it at that. The Seventh Angel is indeed an appropriate target for her unbridled hostility.

Eisen and Rei don't need to be told what else to do, either; Eisen's quite content to be fully himself to the greatest extent possible at all times, and Rei is quite content to follow her orders to a T. Tetsuya's quite motivated for this battle, too, and Kaworu's smile deepens at the sight. No, they're all fine for now. He thus instead leans forward to initiate a communication line to the three battleships on the field.

"Captains of the Gwennangorn, Ra Mari, and the Nadesico: thank you for your assistance. I recommend you coordinate your fire and your pilots' fire to follow up after our Evangelions' attacks for maximum effect," Kaworu transmits to Lilith, Eight, and Yurika (and by proxy, Ruri); Kamille and Alma might also hear if their respective ships are sharing the communication with their pilots. "Also, please feel free to treat Unit 02's pilot's remarks as empty air."

Between everyone's combined efforts, Jehudiel's seeming core is rapidly destroyed. With its loss, the Angel comes apart entirely. It would seem to be cause for celebration--such an intimidating foe, defeated so easily!

Except...

"Good work, everyone. We've forced it to show its true nature," Kaworu transmits to all the pilots as the pieces of Jehudiel fall--then freeze, then reassemble and swing around. "Be sure to ignore its feint, and prepare to renew the attack on its *true* core. If we keep up this pace, its true demise is imminent."

KTS: Kaworu Nagisa targets Alma Stirner, Eight York, and Ruri Hoshino with Awe.
KTS: Kaworu Nagisa inspires awe, increasing Ruri Hoshino's Morale!
KTS: Ruri Hoshino's EN Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage.
KTS: Kaiju Navi rattles Ruri Hoshino, making her next maneuvers more difficult.
KTS: Ruri Hoshino fails to evade Kaiju Navi's Cross Beams - Frozen Valley, taking 3132 damage!
KTS: Tetsuya Tsurugi blocks Kaiju Navi's AT Field - Ramming, taking 1410 damage!
KTS: Kaiju Navi repulses Tetsuya Tsurugi, forcing him to disengage.
KTS: Kaworu Nagisa inspires awe, increasing Eight York's Morale!
KTS: Kamille Bidan blocks Kaiju Navi's Cross Beam, taking 2232 damage!

<Pose Tracker> Kamille Bidan has posed.

Kamille has forgotten how mass death feels, how it rushes over him in waves, the sense of going somewhere, being dragged somewhere, and always those hands waiting for him. Outstretched arms...

He screams, bites it down, breathes in and out. The Ra Mari needs his support now. The EVAs need him to have a level head. He needs to be an adult, like Tetsuya there-Tetsuya! Great Mazinger! Yes, like that. He needs...!

The world sparkles and shimmers in Kamille's sight as nerves flare, heartbeat increases, SOMETHING reaches out...

"Unit-02! It's coming!" He radios Asuka, the pilot of the red goliath, moments before the ground erupts beneath him with a pink cross of water, and shoves his shield downwards to brunt the strongest of it. It's still enough to knock him asunder as he uses the thrusters to try to steady the MK II, then whips his dual beam rifle at the angel to just fire a barrage of beam shots at it.

"Just enough to break that barrier again. Just enough..."

KTS: Kamille Bidan targets Kaiju Navi with Called Shot!
KTS: Zoia Surovy has activated the Valor Spirit Command.

<Pose Tracker> Zoia Surovy has posed.

Zoia opens her mouth slightly when Asuka snaps her head off. Then she closes it and bites her lower lip, looking off to one side with a stung expression. It gives way to a faint scowl at the sound of the redhead snapping at the NERV coordinating officer, too. "Fine, you think you don't need my help, huh...!" she snaps back into the comm pickup, not so much shouting as sharpening her tone. "I'll bet you do need me! If you really do this all by yourself, I'll... I'll owe you a case of cola! And I'll call you cool, too!"

What comes next is distinctly sassy. "I'm gonna enjoy drinking my case of Baikal all by myself like a cool kid...!"

The transmission coming back from Unit-00 is less adversarial, and Zoia experiences a momentary flood of relief, snapping her eyes forward again and letting her mood come down. "Acknowledged, Double-Zero!" she returns. At least one of the Japanese Children isn't snapping at her, and the warning not only keeps her alert for trajectory distortion, it assures her, in an odd way.

'I just have to rip its heart out and we're good'

"That is... definitely a thing...!" Zoia remarks with a blink, before her eyes track towards Carestia.

She listens to Eisen screaming at the Angel.

"...Viyebnutsa," she murmurs to herself before pressing a hand to her forehead.

The Angel is not about to give her too much time to get to know the other Children. The clockwork abomination moves, and Zoia focuses forward with a huff, squaring her shoulders and planting Unit-Z2 in the Angel's path - until its AT Field goes racing outwards, then inwards. Zoia widens her eyes with a gasp. "Wh--!"

She jerks backwards, but Unit-Z2's armour works against it; it can't quite make it fast enough. The rippling AT Fields capture the big machine, and Zoia gasps and writhes in her seat involuntarily. It feels like she's being crushed in a giant, cold hand. Her knees come together and her head snaps back as she clenches her teeth as Unit-Z2 goes scraping across the carrier deck.

She cracks an eye open and steals a pained look back. The deck of the carrier is stretched out behind her. Zoia sucks in a breath - then digs her heels into the floor of her cockpit as hard as she can.

Someone has to protect the payload. They gave her the job.

I... I don't want to fail. I can't...! I'm not that stupid....

EVA-Z2's heels dig in too. So do the foldout struts on the backs of its legs. The Eva's feet slide off the edge of the deck - but the struts bite in. The huge machine dangles perilously off the deck's edge - close enough to hit, not close enough that she's given up on the mission. Its weight is still massive enough that it's left pinwheeling there and toppling forward.

Until Z2's hands swing down and grab the edge of the flight deck. Its heels hook into the deck rim as it hangs there like the world's largest and best-armed monkey.

A perfect vantage point to watch Asuka and Eisen expose the real core.

Zoia presses her lips together and smiles wanly. I hope she likes Baikal.

"Destroy the core it is," she says sharply as she leans forward, shouldering through the pain and cold with a shiver of determination as drive to achieve the goal fights its way to the top of fear. She raises her voice.

"I'm taking its barrier down! Hit it hard!"

The Angel pulled Zoia as close as it could get her. It only put her at killing distance - for either of them. At dangerously close range, EVA-Z2's rocket tubes begin to fire in waves. A massive fiery backwash blooms across the carrier's stern with each wave of rocket fire. The flurry of projectiles zeroes in on the Angel's core as Zoia attempts to just batter its AT Field down and push the rest of the projectiles through, trying to blast the TRUE core into fragments.

KTS: Zoia Surovy targets Kaiju Navi with Katyusha Rocket Armageddon!
KTS: Lilith Aiden has activated the Resupply Spirit Command targeting Eisen Daiwel
KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage.
KTS: Kamille Bidan anchors Kaiju Navi, forcing it into close range.
KTS: Kaiju Navi blocks Kamille Bidan's Called Shot, taking 1500 damage!
KTS: Kamille Bidan has engaged Kaiju Navi
KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Zoia Surovy's Katyusha Rocket Armageddon, taking 9240 damage!
KTS: Zoia Surovy roots her unit, coming to a standstill and leaving her vulnerable.

<Pose Tracker> Lilith Aiden has posed.

"I think NERV called dibs on it." Lilith radios back to Alma, as the lasers allow the Great Mazinger an opening - which is good enough for Lilith to call it a success. The horrible Angel reveals its core, as things just...become indescribable. As the Amabilis is being attacked by its awful ability, though, Lilith is dealing with her own stuff.

Like a pang from sparklespace, detecting something horrible coming.

"EVASIVE MANEUVERS! UP!"

The Gwennangorn starts to move and rise, narrowly avoiding ice impaling the bridge, instead grazing across the bottom of the ship and causing another big rattle of the bridge.

During this rocking, Lilith's eyes lock on Alma's situation. There's an emotional flash at her partner, a 'be careful' and a 'you can do this' across the emotional spectrum both.

"Lasers, once more! This time, on the core!" Lilith shouts out. It worked last time, so...

The laser barrage is fired once more straight at the AT field, in an attempt to blast through and impact the core. Lilith has clarity in this moment.

If she fails, a lot of people die. Alma dies. And so she can't allow that to happen.

"Carestia!" Lilith shouts to Eisen. "Targeting data going out!" This should give him just a bit of focus to get off his Big Attack.

KTS: Lilith Aiden has activated the Assail Spirit Command.
KTS: Lilith Aiden has activated the Valor Spirit Command.
KTS: Lilith Aiden targets Kaiju Navi with Gwennangorn Anti-Air Laser Turrets Blast!
KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Lilith Aiden's Gwennangorn Anti-Air Laser Turrets Blast, taking 5100 damage!

<Pose Tracker> Shinji Ikari has posed.

Hey that worked, Shinji thinks, as a whole second of the Angel goes flying. Maybe they can turn this around without many more people getting killed! Only no, there's a whole EXTRA Angel under the stupid clock monster and it is somehow even more nonsensical than the last. "Diving...bird?" Shinji manages before his grip slips because he was using the hunk of metal or space flesh or whatever he was tearing apart as a ladder. Shinji desperately flails out-

-Unit-01 obeys, leaping off of the hunks of gridwork and grabbing onto the new dimensions of the Angel, holding on for dear life. And then the monster reveals its newest weapon as time itself seems to calcify-

-Shinji screams in horror as he watches the veins in his hands start to grow, blocked up by time freezing his body's ability to regulate itself properly. He can feel his body siezing up, his blood flow slowing to a crawl, his breath escaping his body.

I have, he thinks, another hand, and Unit-01 pulls its hand back, pops a its prog knife, and viciously stabs through its frozen hand and into the Angel, sparks and steel flashing as Shinji literally peels himself out of the frozen time field before the warring natural forces crush his body's organs to pulp!

Now all that's left is free fall. Shinji closes his eyes, a little smile on his face. They can't say he ran away, right? He ran right at the monster. Asuka was right all along, he wasn't just dirty, mean, cruel. He was incompetent. That wasn't so bad.

Unit-01 activates the emergency electric shock in Shinji's chest. He lets out a sharp scream as his heart is agitated by forces designed to bring him back from the dead, and the survivor in Shinji sees an opportunity; Shinji wills Unit-01 to kick its legs out, changing direction to fall right at Eight York's command deck, holding its non-ruined hand out to grab onto a support cable.

"Uh." Shinji says, awkwardly, "Hello, ma'am. Nice to see you again."

KTS: Shinji Ikari has activated the Valor Spirit Command.
KTS: Shinji Ikari targets Kaiju Navi with Progressive Knife Thrust!

<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.

Rei replied to Shinji's question thus: "No," which is perhaps among the longer conversations she has had in her life. But there are bigger problems to hand, such as the Angel. Rei's eyes flick around the multiple units vectoring in for a direct physical attack, including Daiwel. Daiwel and those wings.

Her eyes rest on the purple unit, then. EVA-01. Rei's judgment parallels that of the Nadesico's computer, though she does not know it, and so she slots in the next shell and raises the weapon again, propping up the ceramide shield for partial cover as she does so. Great Mazinger, Rei thinks.

The name. She has heard it. What is the information? Corrosive and heat attacks? Is that the other Photon Power machine? Too many things in motion... Rei sees the shimmering forms. The shapes. The movement of objects within objects. The beautiful prisms of the AT Field, repelling light but incompletely. Up comes the rifle --

The ground quivers.

Rei's first thought is earthquake. Tokyo-3 is likely free of this exciting part of life in Japan, in so far as anyone can be, but there have been exercises elsewhere in Japan and in Area 11. But-- they're

LIGHT

EVA-00 is briefly highlighted in horrible stark silhouette. It had been turning away from the Angel to throw something behind itself. Back towards the Pachelbel: the shield. The shield was airborne when the blast hits. The shield itself is propelled into the bow of the Pachelbel where it deforms into a sort of horrid melted-asphalt melange that doubtless ruins the flight deck-- for aircraft or MS launching. The second-order and third-order backwash is devastation and the ship lists slightly. It does not sink. The reactor is intact. The weld-ruptures would take over 60 hours to sink the ship - and it is within sight of Tokyo-3.

Rei would feel really good about that except she was trying to do two things at once. One of them was to draw out EVA-00's AT Field. Does this work? It is impossible to say in that stark whiteness. Sensory data reveals that there was field distortion and implosion, and when the light fades the Evangelion is thrown to the side, sprawled, special-armor plating showing dozens of cracks. The eye assembly twitches, lenses spasming.

If Rei had made more than a pained sound in the chaos it hasn't been prolonged. Laying to her side, she looks at her arm - moves her leg slightly - judges it sufficient - and eases back into the seat. EVA-00 pushes itself upright. The eye stops trembling... so much.

"... barrel assembly intact. Resuming fire," Rei says aloud, pulling the sniper rifle out of the sea and letting the ocean pour out of it. It is brought up again, held at the shoulder, and EVA-00's trembling eye flicks over the unfortunately absent scope-optics assembly. (Rei breathes out in faint consternation.)

The Eva strides forwards - staggering every half-dozen steps or so, but upright. At three hundred meters nearer to the Angel and 180 meters to the side, Rei seems satisfied and stops. (One of these things is true; it's the stopping part. It comes at the exact point when Rei sees EVA-01 kick its legs and move with purpose.) The shot is fired again - nearer - against the true core.

The true core, Rei thinks. The true...

She cycles the bolt action again. It's harder; part of the handle melted, and the assistive motors have died from the blast and seawater.

KTS: Rei Ayanami has activated the Attune Spirit Command.
KTS: Rei Ayanami targets Kaiju Navi with Sniper Rifle Aimed Shot!

<Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.

Asuka listens to Rei immediately respond well to what the newest Child has to say. Of course she does. Her passivity in light of her seniority to everyone and perceived lack of ability always infuriates her. "Oh sure - leave it to the Commander's Pet to kowtow to the new girl like she's some kind of big shot." Shinji's comment though causes her eyebrow to twitch way harder, "What are you stupid? The Angel is freezing the entire bay and Daddy's Boy is concerned about whether her skin didn't get a little burnt during her leave!"

Zoia's challenge is the first thing that really gets her to notice her as more than a source of angry annoyance. Asuka's face appears on the side of her entry plug, as if taking a single glance and - "Challenge accepted but let's get one thing straight. I don't need anyone's help to get this done and I don't need a gold star from you for doing it. Your approval? It's less than meaningless to me."

Ruri's face appears on the side of her entry plug showing her a view of Asuka's focused expression as she pilots, and Asuka's anger seems to sharpen into a razor thin needle, features spasming even as she tries her best not to look directly at her. Kaworu's statement of what she has to say being empty air stoking that anger even further - because it's not empty air to this one. "A failure like you doesn't have anything to offer." With a quick gesture across the entry plug's console, Ruri's view of Asuka's face goes blank.

Asuka watches the core detonate, and the angel seem to unravel. At first she feels a surge of triumph. Until the onyx rain just stops. A feeling of dread - an intuition that that was too easy takes her mind in that split second. The idea that she needs to stay on her guard just in case, or she'll fail, like Ruri failed, like so many Shikinami before her failed. Failure MUST BE impossible for her. Even if she'd never admit it though, her heightened focus in that second isn't what saves her, but the warning from Kamille.

As it reforms the water explodes as crosses bloom across the sky like flowers. The Evangelion twists at the last split second as the seven crystals of otherworldly energy detonate in the air, it's whole turning JUST barely out of the way before the energy would crucify her in mid-air, careening under controlled for a moment as the force buoys her out of the way before ultimately correcting herself.

Does she thank Kamille though? The young pilot's face suddenly appears in his Gundam's screens. "Tch. I knew it was just a feint. You don't need to tell me something obvious!" Yet, despite her snappish demeanor, mild at best. Like she can't offer him gratitude, only results.

This time Evangelion Unit-02 finishes her full somersault in mid-air, shifting it's center of gravity backwards as the hips drop down so that it's straight up in mid-air. Her trigger finger gets itchy, and she resolves that by hitting the trigger rapid fire. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. The bolts fire towards the core from a sheer vertical drop overhead jutting out at only a slight angle. She suspects that the A.T. Field will stop them.

Her plan though, depending on whether her aim is true is for the first bolt to strike, and the second to stack behind it and so on until all five connect. As if she were some legendary marksman like William Tell trying to split an arrow with the other. The durable alloy of the bolts however would not split on impact and just stack against each other like a column of metal, extending outwards in a straight line from the core momentum preserving against whatever defenses are at play.

KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley targets Kaiju Navi with Super-Electromagnetic Crossbow Barrage!

<Pose Tracker> Eight York has posed.

"Happy to help," the Ra Mari transmits back to Shinji. Then she pauses. Because he says he just has to rip its heart out. On the bridge, she tilts her head to the side a little. "Is that how it works?" she asks Rezza, her first officer, but not over the radio this time.

But the ice comes up from the ocean, and the Ra Mari is more than close enough to suffer the effect at this strange monstrosity's bidding. "Move--" Chovan does her best to maneuver the Ra Mari out of the way, but can only partly evade the cross of ice that comes up to batter at the ship, and it hammers into the hull with enough force that the whole of the cruiser shakes. From the bridge, Eight is jostled and held in place only by safety belts that prevent her from tumbling out of her chair. "Damn. Status report!"

"Significant damage to the lower hull, Captain. We're still in fighting form, but a few more hits like that..."

"Okay. It seems at least we're getting somewhere. We..." Kaworu is transmitting, and Eight cuts off her own remarks to listen as Astelian puts it on comms.

'Treat Unit 02 pilot's remarks as empty air'... Well, Eight will attempt to do that. It's heartening that Kaworu is working with them, at least. And its 'true nature'...

"Acknowledged," the Ra Mari transmits back to Kaworu.

She tries to keep an eye on the displays on Kamille. It's... weird that their doctor is fighting. On the other hand, he's Kamille Bidan, so... She feels a little strange, but she counts on him.

And suddenly, there is a scream, and Eight feels it more than hears it. As Shinji starts to fall towards them, Eight says, "Chovan! Catch him!"

When Unit-01 grabs the support cable, the Ra Mari orients itself to give it a more stable perch, and Eight realizes what happened a moment later, as Shinji awkwardly greets her.

"Hello there, pilot," Captain York replies wryly. "Need a ride?"

KTS: Eight York targets Shinji Ikari with Load!
KTS: Shinji Ikari loads onto Eight York's combat deck!

<Pose Tracker> Eisen Daiwel has posed.

<"Go right ahead, Big Ruf pilot!"> Eisen doesn't have time to read to IFF, so he's going off of visual recognition alone as Alma commentates on taking advantage of the openings being left. <"Hold nothing back!">

This...

This feels more natural. That feeling against his back. This ability to be free to move as he wishes. Yet... that thruster. It doesn't quite feel right. But those wings. That gossamer light between them keeps flaring up each time they beat, as if wishing to catch the air in natural way. Its tail swaying around, adjusting its angle, its momentum!

But none of it is as natural as the movements come to that Angel. To the human eye, weird and unusual. But to Eisen's eyes for aesthetic, there's a creepy amount of beauty to it. The youth almost feeling inspired by the alienness of it. The beautiful mathematically perfect A.T. fields. That beautiful reaction pattern.

Around him, everywhere on the battlefield, crosses shine and erupt, devastating the landscape!

Then, a tearing sensation. As Asuka's Crossbow bolt rips into that sphere, at the same time that the Sonic Glaive hits home!

<"I'm calling this one mine!"> He calls out to Asuka as a challenge, believing victory to be had... and probably trying to annoy the redhead.

Only for a little bit of red fluid to drip out.

That doesn't seem at all as final of a moment. The Carestia's wings flare, and its booster hits, slowing its descent immediately, as the Angel begins to freeze and starts to shatter.

Victory...

They did it! Yet what is this feeling in the pit of his stomach?

Only for the Angel to begin to shift. The pendulum swings. And upright it comes as the crimson form shifts, and the core - the true core - comes visible.

FUCK.

He braces immediately as the Halos grow, and taht force erupts across the Evangelion and its closest combat mates. The unit starting to freeze, controls slowing as the Evangelion ROARS in defiance of the Angel's warping of physics! A.T. field shattering, then re-arranging itself, as it slowly brings its arms to its chest. Though it's hard to tell if it's doing that to 'protect itself from the cold', as a flickering breath escapes the Evangelion for a moment. Its jaw open.

Then flares its wings out, its arms open, as shards of metal begin to fall off of its body, eroded by the Angel's blow, suffering. Its body looking like it's having trouble 'breathing'. Within the cockpit, Eisen feels cold. Like his body is shivering uncontrollably. The LCL feels thick around him, making it harder to breathe. Each breath is labored. His cybernetic over-eye is making his eye tremble a bit as its signals are not matching up right.

Fear trembles within him, as this thing defies physics. Gravity. Logic. Yet it excites him. His eyes wide, his pupils dilating.

Someone calls out the name of his Evangelion. Not Eisen. Not Daiwel. No, Carestia. Which, in that moment, brings this fierce smirk to the youth's face as the data begins to stream in, giving him flight paths towards that core.

<"Got it!"> Eisen calls back to Lilith's machine, as he grabs at the right side of his face and pulls that cybernetic eyepatch off, so he can properly look with both his eyes, without interference from that device!

His body is still shivering. His entire body aches with the molecular slowing.

<"Got it!">

As the Carestia dives once more. The Sonic Glaive has fallen towards the waters and will need retrieval later, which means it's up to its natural weapons now! It tries to dive for those shoulders and grab one with one of its claws, as it ignites the Progressive weapons, aresting the use of the Jetpack for a moment and letting its full weight try to pull on the giant as it adjusts its swing and tries to reach for the exact opposite side from which Asuka is shooting.

He could see her aiming!

<"BURNING PLAINS OF ASPHODEL!">

He could see exactly where Asuka is about to shoot, and Eisen doesn't even consider for a moment that the redhead will miss. Reaching forward, reaching!

Grabbing for its A.T. field. Grabbing to tear through with its jaws and get to that Core in an attempt to just start tearing into it like a beast. Swinging its tail around to arest any motions from its clockface and just TEAR....

<"DEVOURING CERBERUS!!">

KTS: Eisen Daiwel has activated the Valor Spirit Command.
KTS: Eisen Daiwel targets Kaiju Navi with Code: Annihilation!

<Pose Tracker> Alma Stirner has posed.

"H-haah...?" Alma starts to feel her body temperature just *plummet*, as the wave of force from the Angel just washes over her. The internals of the Amabilis grind to a halt -- and they're *really* not meant to do that. "I d-did-didn't think it was *that* cold," she chatters, though it's partially her desperately trying not to acknowledge the real reason things have just turned sideways. It's at that moment that two things happen:

Alma acknowledges Lilith, and Amabilis acknowledges Ruri.

The Amabilis... is very attentive indeed, to Ruri. It's a little bit attention-starved, in the way that dumb technology left for a long time can get; Alma is Amabilis's first non-test pilot. It remembers something that it didn't remember, in testing.

And Lilith... that care is hard-won and hard-built, on the back of sixteen years of trying. From both of them. The shape of Lilith's repair has been deeply moving -- which is all the more reason to embrace that psychic ping, that little bit of reaching out, and turn it into light.

Amabilis's legs shift their panels slightly, moving them outward from the joints to allow for a fuller range of motion. In the cockpit, Alma's eyes snap open, and her body seems to catch up with itself all at once, as if the cold wasn't settling in. "Amabilis... is this why we're together?" she asks, as she locks in targeting data for the Angel. "... I'm not going to lose here! These people need me -- and Mia, Helena, Killy, Barbara...!" A broad smile splits her face.

"I'm going to see you again!"

She boosts in toward the Angel's revealed true core, taking the leg thrusters into overdrive to get more height. The shoulder-mounted bazookas swing down, and she wild-fires them without bothering to stabilize; it sends the machine into what looks like a horrifying, uncontrolled spin through the air.

Then it becomes obvious what Alma's doing. "Captain! When I get back," she says -- it's not a question of if at all in her mind -- "I'm going to go for #303! It's not gonna be perfect -- but you're gonna love it!" The Amabilis's whole body reorients fully forward, both sabers extended ahead. She aims herself like a bullet as the Evangelion team works on neutralizing the AT Field. The worst that happens is she crashes off of the AT Field, but if she's picked her spot right, she'll dive straight across the side of the core, dragging her saber along it the whole way and then *ripping* out at the other side.

KTS: Alma Stirner has activated the Valor Spirit Command.
KTS: Alma Stirner has activated the Alert Spirit Command.
KTS: Alma Stirner has activated the Valor Spirit Command.
KTS: Alma Stirner targets Kaiju Navi with Code Fairy!
KTS: [Spirit Defense] Kaiju Navi's Spiritual Adjustment activates, and its spirit is adjusted.
KTS: Eisen Daiwel enervates Kaiju Navi, reducing its Morale significantly.
KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Eisen Daiwel's Code: Annihilation, taking 9360 damage!
KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Eisen Daiwel's Experience This Curse With Me! activates, causing Shock!
KTS: Eisen Daiwel has engaged Kaiju Navi
KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage.
KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Asuka Shikinami Langley's Super-Electromagnetic Crossbow Barrage, taking 4680 damage!
KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Asuka Shikinami Langley's Sole Shikinami activates, causing Insight L1!
KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Shinji Ikari's Progressive Knife Thrust, taking 6120 damage!
KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Shinji Ikari's Find The Core activates, causing Nullify!
KTS: Shinji Ikari has engaged Kaiju Navi
KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Alma Stirner's Code Fairy, taking 8760 damage!
KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Alma Stirner's Guard Shift activates, causing Sparkle!
KTS: Alma Stirner has engaged Kaiju Navi
KTS: Alma Stirner roots her unit, coming to a standstill and leaving her vulnerable.
KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Rei Ayanami's Sniper Rifle Aimed Shot, taking 4050 damage!

<Pose Tracker> Tetsuya Tsurugi has posed.

That machine... For a brief instant, Great Mazinger's gaze fixes on the Gundam Mk. II, "Is that... Kamille Bidan?"

Suddenly, he hits a wall. It's always an odd sensation, hurtling face-first into an AT field. The feeling of being held fast not by armor or by raw strength, but by the very fundamental fabric of reality itself. Tetsuya grits his teeth as the AT field and Great Mazinger's incredible momentum war against each other for just a few moments too long for his tastes...

Before a set of naval-grade lasers carve open a path for him to carve through, the Hero of The Skies scything through the narrow window available to it, wings carving deep into the Angel's spindly form. It slides to a halt on the opposite side, skidding into a three point landing. Powerful servos drag its body upright, eyes aglow amidst the frozen wasteland that used to be Tokyo-3's harbor...

Just in time to see Shinji rip through the thing's lower half.

"That's the way, Shinji! Look for your enemy's heart and tear through it! With an enemy like this, the swifter and more decisive the victory, the less collateral damage it can inflict! That's the trick to fighting Kaiju if you don't have a Dividing Driver conveniently on hand!" Of course, they actually do have several of those, now... But none of which are deployed on this battlefield in particular. Hence the battleships now frozen solid.

More attacks pour in. The angel seems to be on the ropes even before the battle could truly begin. It falls apart, tumbling to pieces, but...

No. It's not a Newtype Flash that tells Tetsuya that the fight is only beginning. Just the well-honed instincts of a man who has been in this business for far too long.

"Watch yourselves," Tetsuya grunts, "It's not done-- hnn!?"

A wave of force hammers into Great Mazinger as the angel's AT field suddenly and abruptly reasserts itself. The mighty Majin is launched back, tumbling across the ice-field before it can steady itself. The Angel's true core is revealed...

As is the full scope of its world-arresting power.

"Heh, Kouji would get a kick out of you, Angel. As for me, I know a thing or two about dealing with freezing types!" Great Mazinger breaks into a sprint, blades launching into its hands. It passes by several ships, some ruptured, others barely intact. It scythes its weapons into what hulls remain solid-- friendly fire? No... Not quite. The swords come away, fuel and oil slick on their blades.

Rei considered briefly that this Majin was equipped with both thermal and corrosive weaponry, but when Great Mazinger turns back toward the Angel, it's not a rust hurricane that screams its way into the world.

No. There is simply wind. Enough wind that you could call what emerges a 'Great Typhoon' in fact, which also happens to be what Tetsuya roars as it spirals towards the angel. A wall of wind, carrying shrapnel and chunks of ice and globules of atomizing fuel from a half-dozen different battleships batters into the alien monstrosity...!

Can AT Fields reject the forces of nature themselves? Is that within their power...?

KTS: Tetsuya Tsurugi targets Kaiju Navi with Great Typhoon!
You have not deployed a robot. (see +deploy)

KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage.
KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Tetsuya Tsurugi's Great Typhoon, taking 2760 damage!
KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Tetsuya Tsurugi's For My Child's Future! activates, causing Sparkle!
KTS: Tetsuya Tsurugi begins a Formation attack!

<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.

Who are you?, Ruri asks, inside herself, that secret she can't keep as she bars it from her eyes and hands. Why can't I reach you?

It's easy to think her brain is trying to process the myriad impossibilities of the Seventh Angel, forming-reforming in horrible mosaic.

It's easy, and it's wrong.

The answer to Asuka's statement is long-belated, channel flicking open, for a moment. "Correct," Ruri confirms, to 02's pilot. "I can offer you nothing." No: she is not WILLING to offer her anything.

Being rejected like that, so immediately, so violently...

Asuka must have a Unit very much like her, Ruri decides.

She is shocked from her horror by Omoikane's warnings, feeding into her heart by way of her hands. It is a good second before the helmswoman, Minato, snaps: "Evading protrusions!"

But the mobile battleship, Nadesico, has a lot of things to think about when it's this close to the shore. Ruri cycles the reactor to get her power for her movement, shifts the tenor of the Distortion Field to avoid damage to anything nearby, and --

Crucified the ice crashes into the Distortion Field, all grown in too sharp an instant. It LIFTS the side of the Nadesico, where it could not finish escaping, dragging long against the rear half of the ship. The landing gears of the Nadesico are twisted up, twisted out, left half-hanging from the open hull.

A wound across its side, the Nadesico bleeds metal scrap onto the frozen sea.

"Those attacks won't be enough to make us withdraw," Ruri reports, stoic, even as there are some much more animated reactions on the bridge.

From somewhere, a transmission --

"We hear you, NERV Administrator," the Captain, Yurika, replies to Kaworu's transmission, as the Nadesico reorients itself. Hers are much more cheerful than Ruri's. "ND-001 Nadesico, following up! Let's go!"

The communications officer helpfully adds a transmission to friendly units: "Gravity Blast Cannon, firing at the following heading," Megumi warns everyone, helpfully. (She transmits the data, of course. She is very good at communicating.)

Ruri looks down, to the console. "It might be a lot to ask," she acknowledges the difficulties of the atmosphere, "but I'm counting on you, Omoikane. Firing Gravity Blast."

It's something of a demand, outside of the vacuum of space, for reasons she's explained to Asuka before. But Ruri aligns the phase transition engines to cycle through their reserve power, and the forward prongs of the Nadesico open, to emit a blast of pure gravitational energy right into the Angel's core.

Of course, she has to cycle up the nuclear pulse engines after the strike -- because the Gravity Blast Cannon isn't designed to be used in this environment.

But they're improvising.

KTS: Ruri Hoshino has activated the Attune Spirit Command.
KTS: Ruri Hoshino has activated the Enable Spirit Command.
KTS: Ruri Hoshino targets Kaiju Navi with Gravity Blast - Atmospheric!
KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage.
KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Ruri Hoshino's Gravity Blast - Atmospheric, taking 6000 damage!
KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Ruri Hoshino's Scan activates, causing Designate L1!
KTS: Ruri Hoshino roots her unit, coming to a standstill and leaving her vulnerable.
KTS: Ruri Hoshino completes the Formation attack!

<Pose Tracker> Kaiju Navi has posed.

The new neck of the Angel wobbles back and forth as if straining briefly under the weight of its new head. The new, spike 'beak' dips with the descent, gelatinous crimson quivering beneath it and the four circular 'eyes' that frame it.

Thusly revealed, Jehudiel...

... stays completely inert where it stands, as if its perpetual motion has stalled with the revelation of itself, with the loss of those contradicting facemasks.

The bulbous core hangs backward, tilting its beak proudly skywards. Its AT Field reasserts itself.

And the forces of those gathered hammer against the absolute defense of reality.

A shield, separating and giving shape to the corporeal. That is what an AT Field truly is. And at the command of an Angel, it blossoms into something so much more... but it still remains a boundary. Interposing. But breakable.

A fact the Third Child sees fit to prove conclusively. The wall that separates the Seventh Angel from the rest of life asserts itself -just- as Shinji Ikari plunges his Evangelion's Progressive Knife into its own hand. The vicious YANK of the progressive knife does not just free himself from the grip of stilling motion and time -- it also TEARS a giant chunk of that AT Field free as it goes, leaving a glaring opening for both Rei and Alma to exploit.

The shot from Unit-00 SCREAMS across the side of that core at the same time that the Amabilis -tears- across the opposite side. Viscous chunks of core fly free from the dual assault threatening to compromise its integrity in two simultaneous blows at range and directly within its defenses --

--but it manages to maintain itself, just barely, the sheer size of the thing making the way its shimmery crimson surface undulates somehow offputting and wrong on some fundamentally human level in those seconds before the AT Field -violently- reasserts itself.

The bulbous core dips downward, its cone-like spike pointed directly downward. Toward the carrier.

Its AT Field begins to refract and blossom, expanding outward into a multitude of beautifully crystalline arrays.

It seems to be trying to... reach out.

To the carrier?

To Unit-04?

Or...

... They might well never know. Asuka and Eisen once more attack in tandem from above, assaulting opposite sides of the Angel. Crossbolts LODGE into the field at the same time jaws SNAP into it. The tear through so many, many layers of defense even as the Angel spontaneously spawns more and more to meet the every bolt and every tear of the dual Evangelions.

But they're not alone.

Ship lasers from the Gwennangorn ripple past to hammer into the side of the Angel, forcing it to immediately reassert its AT Field to create an octagonal shield between itself and its assailant. At the same time, beam fire from the Gundam Mark-II join the fray, forcing another cropping bloom of defensive fields.

Winds whip, -pounding- the back of Jehudiel with a wall of pure, natural force - and ice - and shrapnel - and splatterings of fuel - and mostly nature, causing another to AT Field to bloom at its back.

Those fields begin to tremor...

... and it is then the gravitic beam of the Nadesico FIRES into the Angel's front. Aimed for its massive core, the AT Field of the Angel strains visibly. It cracks. Layer after layer after layer shatters, baring remnants of shimmering, quivering, multifaceted defenses...

... and the skies light on fire as Zoia and her Unit-Z2 unload their rocket tubes directly upon Jehudiel at what might as well be point blank range.

Fire billows outward, warping and twisting with the churn of Nadesico's weaponized gravity. Smoke belches thick.

The first sight is the jagged piece of a partially melted ship's cannon, embedded in the Angel's torso. Not in its AT Field. Its torso.

It joins the rest of the scrap that clutters its frame, several of them impaled into that quivering core, smoke billowing -directly- off the Angel's body.

The AT Field is nowhere to be found.

It is exposed --

-- a fact it seems to try desperately to defend against, if desperation were an attribute Angels could have, as the drinking bird beak of its core swings down, -smashes- space open --

--and spews an unholy swarm of bright green darts downward from the hole its has made in space, billowing out literal clouds of inky trails and sharpened, emerald projectiles that threaten to blot out the sky and RIP through anything in its path as it attempts -- ATTEMPTS -- to hide one plainly obvious fact:

The Angel is completely and utterly vulnerable.

And if they can push past this--

KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Tetsuya Tsurugi with Void Darts - Tempest!
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Ruri Hoshino with Void Darts - Tempest!
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Alma Stirner with Void Darts - Tempest!
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Eisen Daiwel with Void Darts - Tempest!
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Eight York with Void Darts - Tempest!
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Asuka Shikinami Langley with Void Darts - Tempest!
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Rei Ayanami with Void Darts - Swarm!
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Shinji Ikari with Void Darts - Tempest!
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Lilith Aiden with Void Darts - Swarm!
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Zoia Surovy with Void Darts - Tempest!
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Kamille Bidan with Void Darts - Swarm!
KTS: Zoia Surovy has activated the Wall Spirit Command.
KTS: Zoia Surovy's Will Barrier activates, negating 500 base damage.
KTS: Zoia Surovy blocks Kaiju Navi's Void Darts - Tempest, taking 3654 damage!
KTS: Kaiju Navi completes the Formation attack!
KTS: Ruri Hoshino's EN Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage.
KTS: Ruri Hoshino fails to intercept Kaiju Navi's Void Darts - Tempest, taking 3888 damage!
KTS: Eisen Daiwel's Will Barrier activates, negating 500 base damage.
KTS: Eisen Daiwel blocks Kaiju Navi's Void Darts - Tempest, taking 2772 damage!
KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage.
KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley fails to Intercept Kaiju Navi's Void Darts - Tempest, taking 4824 damage!
KTS: Eight York has activated the Attune Spirit Command.
KTS: Eight York fails to intercept Kaiju Navi's Void Darts - Tempest, taking 5904 damage!
KTS: Rei Ayanami fails to react to Kaiju Navi's Void Darts - Swarm, taking 3135 damage!
KTS: Lilith Aiden fails to Intercept Kaiju Navi's Void Darts - Swarm, taking 3135 damage!
KTS: Kamille Bidan has activated the Foresee Spirit Command.
KTS: Tetsuya Tsurugi fails to intercept Kaiju Navi's Void Darts - Tempest, taking 4428 damage!
KTS: Lilith Aiden has activated the Trick Spirit Command.
KTS: Kamille Bidan fails to Intercept Kaiju Navi's Void Darts - Swarm, taking 3135 damage!
KTS: Rei Ayanami has activated the Resupply Spirit Command targeting Lilith Aiden
KTS: Kaworu Nagisa inspires awe, increasing Alma Stirner's Morale!
KTS: Alma Stirner blocks Kaiju Navi's Void Darts - Tempest, taking 3690 damage!
KTS: Zoia Surovy has activated the Valor Spirit Command.
KTS: Zoia Surovy has activated the Strike Spirit Command.

<Pose Tracker> Zoia Surovy has posed.

The comm window goes both ways. Zoia's window winks open to one side of Asuka. The redhead will get a look at a girl with boyishly short blonde hair gelled into a neat part, a couple of locks out of place in the sheet violence of the encounter, in a mostly powder-blue plugsuit with some accents in grays and deeper blues. "Then lap me for your own sake," she returns tartly, her smile pained but with a hint of fire behind it. "And because you can't get Baikal in Japan, da?"

The crowd around the massive Angel is only growing, between four more Evas on the field and battleships firing their heavy weapons into the space she's occupying. Zoia clenches her teeth and hunches her shoulders, focusing and keeping track as best she can. She can't lose sight of where the others are moving. They're as much part of the tactical calculus as anything she does herself. So long as one of them defeats the target - so long as the precious cargo inside the carrier survives - it doesn't matter who gets the gold star.

The Baikal is inconsequential. An angry Asuka pouring her emotions into her Evangelion and out at the Angel is a much better asset to Zoia and the goal.

It works out. The Katyusha rockets do their work. The Angel's AT Field crumbles under the combined assault, the close-range artillery finishing the job.

Almost. The Angel still stands - and the green darts fly.

Shards smash into EVA-Z2, so close is the huge machine. Zoia snaps back in her seat as fragments punch through the Eva's AT Field and rip into the heavy Kontakt-2000 armour. Chunks of plating buckle. One of the shards embeds itself in the Eva's flank before cutting through and slamming into the carrier deck, coated in fluid.

Zoia bucks as fiery pain explodes from her side and through her body. She sags in her chair. EVA-Z2 staggers under more impacts, lurching sickeningly backward. For just a second, it twists to one side -- and with a snap and a spark, an emerald shard goes ripping through the cable connecting EVA-Z2 to the carrier. The cord tears loose just behind the input. The torn end flops helplessly on the deck. Instantly, a timer winks to life.

00:05:00

EVA-Z2 is left on one knee at the deck's edge, slumped and battered. It is motionless for several seconds, dripping fluid from impact scars that seem more like wounds than battle damage.

Zoia's breathing is laboured and laced with pain. Her head hangs a moment, hands clawed in a death grip on her control handles. Her heart hammers against her ribs like an army drum. She doesn't say anything.

She doesn't need to. The monitors aboard ship can see it. The graphs tracking her synchro rate begin to steadily climb.

EVA-Z2 raises its head and left hand - and its eyes flare with a sudden, intense white.

The unit clambers upwards with a single massive leap. For all that it has to weigh twice as much as any of the other Evangelions on the field, its jump is unnaturally high. Its left hand snaps out. The Angel's AT Field is nowhere to be found. Climbing it is... if not trivial, then doable. An obstacle in the path to the goal. EVA-Z2 does it astonishingly quickly for something so massive.

Zoia's eyes are wide and her body is tensed and angled forward. She can hear the rush of her breathing. She glances back for just a moment, at the carrier deck. The ship is still there. Behind her.

Back-rank mate.

EVA-Z2 locks both hands together and starts pounding on the exposed core as hard and as fast as it can. It swings again and again. Axehandle blows give way to a back-and-forth pattern of driving, animalistic punches and open-handed blows. It swings again and again.

If it's connecting, the blows are hard enough that EVA-Z2's knuckles start to crack. Purplish fluid oozes between its fingers. Inside the entry plug, Zoia's hands ache.

EVA-Z2 keeps punching. Then it uncurls a hand and tries to jam its fingers into the core and start tearing.

EVA-Z2 keeps tearing. Then it starts slamming its forehead violently into whatever is between it and destroying the core.

Again, it's hard enough that even the massive armour covering its forehead develops a few cracks. A trickle of violet seeps into its left eye. Zoia squeezes hers closed as a throbbing pain pulses through her forehead.

She ignores it. She keeps pounding. Hammerblows, tearing gestures, violent headbutts. It feels like it goes on entirely too long. It will go on as long as she needs it to. Until the core is dealt with.

KTS: Zoia Surovy targets Kaiju Navi with Zvjer!

<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.

As Unit 01 (Shinji) wrests her(him)self from Jehudiel's form and falls, Kaworu's spine locks, running tension along the cross of his shoulders; that tension seeps out along with a faint sigh when the Ra Mari catches them. He smiles, both at this and at Eight's straightforward acknowledgement. This one has his favor, certainly. The Nadesico's captain is as bright a flower as he's heard, too.

This part was the most dangerous. While they might not have all passed this trial without injury, they've nonetheless made it through. Indeed, it's only stoked the flames of their hearts to blazing heights. Jehudiel reaches out, with crystalline fingers beyond the physical, to the carrier. To what it holds within. Kaworu's eyes narrow a hair, but he doesn't move.

No need. At this point, Kaworu might not need to do anything further but watch. The wheels of their spirits are fully in motion, and not even the light of Jehudiel's heart will be able to arrest their celestial movement.

There is still some *terrestrial* drama, granted, but Ruri defends herself against Asuka's barb just fine.

"How pitiable," he murmurs, though he isn't talking about Asuka (this time). His attention is instead wholly reserved for the Seventh Angel as it lashes out, violent and desperate, to hide its vulnerability. But it's a futile effort. Kaworu is resigned to victory.

"Everyone... the end is in sight," he announces. Despite this, his tone oddly subdued: "Please make it quick."

KTS: Kaworu Nagisa has activated the Enable Spirit Command targeting Asuka Shikinami Langley
KTS: Kaworu Nagisa has activated the Enable Spirit Command targeting Lilith Aiden

<Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.

Eisen calling the Angel as his kill causes Asuka's blood to boil instantly. Yet even through gritted teeth she doesn't respond until after she's in the clear. "Called it prematurely, you Chuutwo phony. Here - I'll show you how it's done!" The communications officer of the Nadesico though announces it's firing it's cannon and Asuka abruptly shifts her A.T. Field BEHIND her Evangelion rather than in front of her at the Angel. She certainly has heard about the incident about the Nadesico's return from the Chulip, and expects them to mess up and strike all of them.

She needn't have bothered. Yet in her eyes, she absolutely can't rely on others to do as they're supposed to. Not outsiders, not Evangelion pilots.

As the new girl shows by telling her to lap her for her own sake, and because she can't get Baikal in Japan. That causes her eyes to narrow. "You never need to tell me that."

She expects everyone but herself to fail. It's inevitable. Every battle is a competition - and every competitor in them but her is transient. What pisses her off today will be gone tomorrow, once she's proven that she's the only one required. Just like before, just like always.

The anger though? That'll remain, more refulgent than ever until it finds something or someone else to consume.

With the A.T. field gone, Asuka doesn't even acknowledge the team effort responsible for that. She just sees an opportunity created solely by herself. A field of green darts blot out the sky, as she fires her crossbow bolts wildly to no avail, the darts crashing into the front of the Red Giant and spinning it around from the impact against it's Red Armor so that it contacts its back the barrier preventing her from being skewered from so many directions, instead batting her around in the sky like a dandelion seed buffeted by so many winds.

The girl inside tries to bite down to prevent herself from screaming as her synchronization punishes her, feeling so many impacts against her back. As she focuses, and starts to bring Unit-02 to curl into a ball. "Oh I'll make it quick Fifth String."

With the bolts stacked against one another and now with A.T. Field wavering her gambit is ready, Asuka bids Evangelion Unit-02 to rotate faster and faster in its curl forcing it to revolve end over end as she picks up greater and greater momentum, before unfurling; a singular foot from the red Evangelion extending as she lets out a loud battle cry. "DORYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

The air itself ripples and distorts around the Evangelion's foot from the giant's momentum passing through the air. A foot aimed for...

... the back of her bolt column. The full weight and power of Evangelion Unit-02 collides with the back of the bolt, heel of Unit-02 driving in. The rear fifth bolt drives through the fourth with a metallic clank, splitting it down the center into two metal shards, then the third gives as if in sequence. The second it ploughs through as it picks up greater momentum, then the last one.

As if she were trying to break through any final defenses with a stiletto heel that has the appearance of simply being attached to Evangelion-02. Both foot and Evangelion aimed to drive through it's red core beneath, her Evangelion a demon-visaged missile having nothing to offer Jehudiel of the angelic hosts but its earthly wrath.

<Pose Tracker> Lilith Aiden has posed.

Alma acknowledges. Lilith feels a boost of strength, as they begin tearing apart the vulnerable Angel. But the void darts come, slashing across the hull of the Gwennangorn. Lilith should stick to her plan, but instead...

"Particle beam cannons, full power! Focused assault!" "Aye, captain!"

"And charge straight in!" "What?!"

Lilith's tone is imperious, however, and they charge straight in, through the shred of darts. As the cannons power up...

"Fire!"

Lilith waits to make sure no one else will get swallowed in the blast, and then has the Gwennangorn offload its twin beam cannons, hoping to erase that core with the others.

As Kaworu announces, so does Lilith. "NERV! Londo Bell! Let us bring victory! For Tokyo-3!"

KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley has activated the Valor Spirit Command.
KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley has activated the Valor Spirit Command.
KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley has activated the Valor Spirit Command.
KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley has activated the Valor Spirit Command.
KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley has activated the Valor Spirit Command.
KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley has activated the Valor Spirit Command.
KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley targets Kaiju Navi with Super-Electromagnetic Crossbow Drive!
KTS: Lilith Aiden targets Kaiju Navi with Gwennangorn Mega Particle Guns Focused Assault!
KTS: Kaworu Nagisa has activated the Enable Spirit Command targeting Eight York
KTS: Eisen Daiwel has activated the Valor Spirit Command.

<Pose Tracker> Kamille Bidan has posed.

Kamille scowls at Asuka's sour response. Is this what he used to be like? But he lets it go for the moment, because it isn't Asuka's job to be nice to him, she's there to fight the Angel. Just like 01 does as it tears bodily into the enemy, earning a gawk from Kamille.

"They really are something, these Evas," he mumbles to himself. He shifts as 01 lands on the Ra Mari and gives it a little salute with the Gundam, though he doesn't say anything to keep from distracting those pilots further. The 00, the Z2, they're all incredible. And something feels odd about them...

Forget it. It's probably feedback from the Angel. Which is falling apart, and attakcing out of desperation

"Just one more push! We can't let something like that keep going! It's...!" His attempt to shoot down the emerald darts with the grenade launcher fails, leaving the Gundam to take the full brunt of the damage. He curses, checks the readouts. Still okay. Should be enough. Should have enough power.

<Pose Tracker> Tetsuya Tsurugi has posed.

Space itself fragments and breaks, falling as shards like reality-severing glass into the black iron giant. Tetsuya clicks his teeth as those terrible darts tear through super alloy like butter, carving into Great Mazinger's body like far too many things have managed in recent days. It used to be that giant monsters would pay more respect to things like 'armor,' but these days they seem to be all about esoterica.

But then, that's what makes life interesting. More importantly...

A haze of oily vapor hangs in the air, the stench of gasoline impossible to ignore, clinging to the space around the Angel like a miasma of industrial waste. Even in the wake of the Nadesico's incredible firepower, that smog still lingers.

It's time.

"Incoming explosion," Tetsuya warns, transmitting across the broadband radio as the crimson crest on Great Mazinger's chest begins to glow. Its stance shifts as the ice underfoot flash-boils, thermal signatures spiking to absurd levels as the entirety of the Majin's photonic reactor output is shunted toward its primary heat-sink.

All that Photonic Power, the light that was intended to illuminate a path into the future, is debased and reduced, becoming little more than a wave of heat-- an impossibly powerful flame. A tool rendered into man's most basic weapon.

Tetsuya's voice snarls as he roars, as a wave of crimson energy erupts from Great Mazinger's chest, "BREAST... BUUUUURN!"

But it doesn't stop there.

Those fuel particles suspended in the air, hanging in the mist... When that wave of heat slams into the Angel, it also ignites the fog, transforming the space surrounding the monster into the inferno of a fuel-air explosion...!

One... powered by the combined fuel reserves of a half-dozen scuttled ships and the baleful red star that is Great Mazinger's chest.

KTS: Tetsuya Tsurugi has activated the Valor Spirit Command.
KTS: Tetsuya Tsurugi has activated the Valor Spirit Command.
KTS: Tetsuya Tsurugi has activated the Valor Spirit Command.
KTS: Tetsuya Tsurugi targets Kaiju Navi with Breast Burn!
KTS: Kamille Bidan targets Kaiju Navi with Volley of Fury!

<Pose Tracker> Eisen Daiwel has posed.

More and more of those bolts open up, spearing and flashing out to his position. Each tearing into the Carestia's A.T. shield. Some of them just tearing through, as the Angel proves that it knows perfectly well how to tear through such fields! The blooming light keeps coming back to life as Eisen grits his teeth in pain. Daggers biting into his legs, his arms, his chest. Yet he grits through it all as tears fill the LCL thanks to his biological body refusing to cooperate!

By all means, he should be going into shock. But those green eyes of his betray something.

<"Damnit, fine, you lead the way, Asuka!"> Eisen calls out as the redhead declares she'll show him how it's done! <"But I am coming with! I won't let you show me up!">

The Carestia sails around Lilith's twin beam cannon assault, finding a weakpoint, and keeps going for that core with almost ravenous hunger!

<"Huryaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!">

He joins in with the Z2. Any time it looks like Zoia might even remotely slip, the Carestia gets nearby and provides its Tail to aid.

<"Use Carestia to get in there if you need to!"> He calls out to the yet-unknown-pilot!

As the Carestia brings both hands back...

<"FIERCE DEMON TECHNIQUE...!">

Stolen technique, more like it, as he brings both those claws forward and then drops all of the Carestia's weight on it!

<"BEELZEBUUUUUB!">

KTS: Eisen Daiwel targets Kaiju Navi with Violence Ensues!

<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.

Shocked out of her Evangelion-related fugue, Ruri turns her attention back to the Amabilis, where she did feel a reply. Entirely outside of the horror she can feel and the horror she can see, there is someone here who is all new.

It deserves to know the world is a fundamentally kind place, with help available to it.

The help she extends is the same optimisation she shared with Omoikane, moments ago: advice on how to compensate for the erratic movements of the enemy they're facing, encouragement on where to push its reactor in the most effective moments.

Or, in a phrase: You can do it.

There's still horror on the field, though. It's all spilled out, like toys strewn carelessly from a chest. The AT Field spills out, too, reaching, grasping, searching...

But there are too many forces on this field to let it find what it's looking for.

(She noticed Asuka's field, and where it was pointing. She makes no comment, but she understands, anyway.)

"Enemy field neutralised," Ruri reports, still-lake even, as she looks over the agony of Jehudiel. (Does it feel pain? Questions she cannot address, disquiet buried down beneath neutrality.) She looks with her eyes and with Omoikane's sensors; she sees the vulnerabilities, all laid out in radar and pingback.

It doesn't escape her, the way the Seventh Angel lashes out into open space, more angry and more exposed than it has ever been. This time, when the Nadesico launches missiles, those green darts overwhelm the firepower, push through it to embed themselves in the Distortion Field with a dozen-dozen explosions.

"Foolish," Ruri says, a distant cast to her gaze.

Her finger twitches; bid by her heart through her hands, a window opens.

She dismisses it before it can initiate communication to the Ra Mari.

... that isn't important, right now.

"Phase transition engines cycling," she reports, instead. It is as much a reminder to Yurika that they can't fire the Gravity Blast Cannon again as it is a standard announcement of her actions for the record. "Accounting for friendly fire... firing precision missiles."

The seeker missiles fire from the Nadesico's forward prongs, wending through the air, threatening to crash explosively into an open wound.

Kaworu asked them to make it quick, and Ruri can at least do that much, for him.

KTS: Ruri Hoshino has activated the Enable Spirit Command targeting Alma Stirner
KTS: Ruri Hoshino has activated the Attune Spirit Command targeting Alma Stirner
KTS: Ruri Hoshino targets Kaiju Navi with Seeker Missile!

<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.

The shot is good. The action cycles. Rei watches the enemy for a sign. If there is a warning it will be brief. She has been ordered to defend the carrier; and there are others there, closer...

The wave is coming. She is still far enough. The shotfall range - yes, Rei thinks a moment before the green reaches her: Yes; the shot will fall short of

There is a titanic shimmer -- space itself repelling, all but screaming (in fact, if you had a microphone outside, it WOULD be screaming, though it would be hard to distinguish this voice from the cacophony of a battle) as the darts are braced against. EVA-00 pitches backwards, falling back on where the earlier wounds had already torn through the outer layers. The pain hisses upwards; a feeling like hot metal pressing against the backs of her thighs.

The Evangelion leans forwards and rises.

Celebration. They speak the name of a city. Strangers. They are fighting for it. They fight for it. They have fought for it.

Rei forces a breath out through her teeth, face drawn.

The Commander's voice does not carry this feeling. Nor the Administrator. Captain Katsuragi... 00:02:02.842 An enemy. An enemy must be destroyed. A pack. No. Humans are not pack animals. A band. Through band, platoon. Organized...

Rei raises the sniper rifle.

I wonder. I wonder. I wonder. Why do I wonder? Is it this body's pain? Perhaps I am only afraid for how badly the surprise hurt. A memory of pain, commanding the seat of the soul.

Rei pulls the trigger.

Nothing happens. Rei's eyes turn towards the weapon for a moment, and seeing the mangling of the trigger-action in its vast mechanical simplicity. The firing hammer sheared off; probably a ton of brass in Hakone Bay now, if Hakone Bay is beneath them still.

"Weapon fault," Rei says, dropping the sniper rifle as if it had just completed its third season, letting it slam against the frozen space. "Shifting to CR." The less damaged hip produces a progressive knife. Rei grips it, shifting it round.

They will not need me. Is that...?

KTS: Rei Ayanami targets Kaiju Navi with Pass!

<Pose Tracker> Eight York has posed.

The Gravity Blast is always astounding to see in action. Its sheer power is a wonder--and a terror.

But so is the Angel's power. In the wake of all that fire, of that terrible barrier coming down... The Ra Mari smokes with the impact, tentacles of energy crashing all along its hull, buckling pieces here and there. The attempts the Ra Mari's CIWS systems make against it are as nothing, machine guns rattling towards energy that pushes right past them. Great spaces of black burned gray remain in the wake of the attack; the ship is sparking in places, and the bridge is rocked by the impacts, crew members jostled badly in their seats and held in place. Elsewhere on the ship, damage klaxons sound readily; there are people injured inside by that last set of attacks.

"...Status report!" Captain York demands of her crew in the moment, and as they read off the damaged sections of the ship, she looks grip. "...Fari," she says. "You got that cannon ready?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Then we're going in. It's vulnerable--and if we try to back out now, we'll only give it an opening to finish the job. Get ready."

"Astelian, take the Nadesico's targeting data and feed it into Fari's inputs. Rezza, handle the breaches. Chovan... keep us steady."

The Ra Mari's main cannons slowly turn towards the core of the Angel, its beating heart, angling for their shots and beginning to gather up energy. Kaworu asks them to make it quick.

Eight wonders why she feels a little sad, at that.

"Fire all cannons."

The Ra Mari's cannons light up pink-red and start hammering the Angel's core with a terrific pulse, beams rocketing downward as quick as anything.

"Right, Doctor," Eight calls over the comms to Kamille. "We can do this."

KTS: Eight York has activated the Attune Spirit Command.
KTS: Eight York has activated the Attune Spirit Command.
KTS: Eight York has activated the Attune Spirit Command.
KTS: Eight York targets Kaiju Navi with Twin Barrel Mega-Particle Cannons Focused Assault!

<Pose Tracker> Alma Stirner has posed.

Kaworu offers remarkably familiar flavors of support. It's not the *same* as back in the day, but there's a familiar shape of it to the communication situation. Alma can appreciate the work of a good administrator. It makes her miss... a few people, honestly.

As the darts of the void rain down on everyone, Alma brings up her shield. She has a big brain think: if they 'stop' things, or 'freeze' them... a shield is already mostly just an inert hunk of nothing! So she uses her shield as a shield. It's not the *greatest* idea -- it definitely does a number on the arm behind that shield -- but it's still better than taking a problem like that somewhere worse.

The Amabilis continues to respond to Ruri. Through it -- through the Psychoframe -- Ruri gets a little of Amabilis, and of Alma, back: There's nothing we can't do!

Alma hangs back a *little*, this time; she's overextended Amabilis a bit, and needs to hang back. Still -- that's what the bazookas are for, right? "Amabilis, providing bombardment!" she transmits, putting the sabers away and putting the unit's hands on the bazookas this time. It's not the best offensive posture Alma's got, and if she were still inclined to try to do everything, she'd... probably close into the scrum yet again.

... but it's better if she knows when to stick to playing support.

KTS: Alma Stirner targets Kaiju Navi with Twin Shoulder Bazooka Stagger!
KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Eight York's Twin Barrel Mega-Particle Cannons Focused Assault, taking 7320 damage!
KTS: [Spirit Defense] Kaiju Navi's Spiritual Adjustment activates, and its spirit is adjusted.
KTS: Eisen Daiwel enervates Kaiju Navi, reducing its Morale significantly.
KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Eisen Daiwel's Violence Ensues, taking 7440 damage!
KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Eisen Daiwel's Experience This Curse With Me! activates, causing Shock!
KTS: Eisen Daiwel has engaged Kaiju Navi
KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Asuka Shikinami Langley's Super-Electromagnetic Crossbow Drive, taking 8040 damage!
KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Asuka Shikinami Langley's Sole Shikinami activates, causing Insight L1!
KTS: Kaiju Navi's The Seventh Angel ~ Jehudiel has been disabled.

<Pose Tracker> Kaiju Navi has posed.

The very last dart escapes that hole in space like the very last sentiment escaping Pandora's emptied box. The fabric of reality stitches itself together.

Jehudiel remains completely inert, its core hanging down.

In those moments, it looks like it might be a statue, a bizarre monument nestled in the frozen expanse of Hakone Bay. But it's only a matter of time. Little octogonal patterns are already chasing the blossoming beginnings of life in the air around it.

And that is exactly when the Gwennangorn flies -straight- into its defenses to unload its twin cannons at point blank range.

There is a blinding flashbang of particles lighting up the clear, bright skies of Tokyo-3. The churning scream of cannons firing.

The addition to its chorus, as the Ra Mari joins in perfect harmony.

Particle cannons from the Clop-class puncture into the Core of the Seventh Angel, amplifying the output already being provided by Lilith's ship. The missile salvos of the Nadesico create an obscuring bloom of fireballs across that quaking core of gelatinous, scarcely contained fluid, aided by the more targeted, pinpoint power of Kamille Bidan's beam rifle fire piercing hole after hole through it, and Alma Stirner's bazooka fire working in eerily perfect time to impact into those holes and WIDEN them substantially.

And when the Breast Burn of the Great Mazinger joins this orchestra of violence, it creates violent tempest of combusting fuel, crackling beams, blistering particles and rippling kinetic force, stretching towards the heavens in a boiling column that melts the very ice surrounding Jehudiel at unbelievable speeds.

The Angel sinks, until its needle legs impale the sea floor, leaving it half-submerged in water. The flames and lights fade...

... and that core is smoking, dented, and undulating like the surface of a pool had been struck with a boulder. Unstable, and at its limit. And the very second it threatens to MAYBE calm --

The Evangelions are upon it, like predators swooping upon prey.

Zoia and the Z2 are upon its weighty core first, punching, gripping, literally TEARING chunks of it free. Core separated from its main body quickly bursts into so many crimson globules. With every blow, every headbutt, every rampage, it loses more and more mass...

... until the Carestia rears back and -plunges- claws into the depths of the core. There is a sickening -=schlup!=- sound. The core begins to tremble

And the final blow comes as Unit-02 all but turns itself into a living(??) missile to kick-slam its egregious amounts of crossbolt ammunition through, punching through the Core from one side and exploding out the other end.

The tremors of the core stop, for seven seconds.

And then the living onyx geometry that makes up Jehudiel's body begin to bubble up like boils blistering forth from the epicenter of its core.

Those seemingly metallic limbs and puzzle pieces warp. Distort. Distend.

And then the entire Angel simply

BURSTS.

The massive thing just ceases to be in an instant as the components that make it up disaggregate violently, bursting in a rain of blood-red fluids one piece after the other. Core fluid flies high into the sky...

... and then falls down in a torrential flood that crashes upon the shores of Hakone Bay and literally sweeps the carrier transporting Unit-04 forward until it nearly - NEARLY - crashes into the port.

A blazing cross ascends the sky for a few, brilliant seconds.

And after it fades, all that remains to mark the passing of the Seventh Angel is the bloom of a rainbow, and the bloody red fluids that dye the seas of the bay a vibrant crimson.

...

For the most part, the crew and people aboard the carrier are safe. Unit-04, unharmed and apparently not about to go into any sort of critical collapse. The people are ushered off one by one in an orderly fashion as the Evangelion is lifted off towards Geofront.

Among the crew's number, a scruffy man carrying a perfectly square, large green case with a BIOHAZARD symbol discretely stamped upon it talks with members of Geofront's staff.

Ushered off to speak with their commanding officer personally.

<Pose Tracker> Mari Makinami Illustrious has posed.

E l s e w h e r e ~

"Aaa~aaah. What a nostalgic smell."

On a rooftop nestled in the heart of Tokyo-3, a girl with reddish brown hair and red-rimmed glasses shrugs off the collapsed crumple of an opened parachute. Her nostrils flare as she takes in the scent in the air, a fond smile dancing across her lips as she looks back over her shoulder to see the bloom of rainbows in the distance, the rain of core fluid.

"I missed the fun. Aw." She sighs longsufferingly, pinching the bridge of her nose between forefinger and thumb. "And with so many interesting people, too... Oh well. The wages we must pay for behaving responsibly! Now where did they stash it... ah!"

The girl's eyes alight as she spots a long, rectangular black case nestled against the opposite corner of the roof. Kicking free the last vestiges of parachute straps clinging a feeble, tangled grip upon her be-shoed heel, she trots towards that case, collapsing nonchalantly into a kneel before it so that she may unlatch and open it to take a peek at what lies within.

She inspects the contents. And what is inside inspires her expression to glow with amused delight.

"Oho~. 'A good cause finds weapons to defend it,' eh?"

*click*

"Guess I better get to work, then!"

And, with a little "yohp!," she hops back up onto her feet, hefts the large case over her shoulder with a flourish, and begins to leisurely stroll away.

Mari Makinami Illustrious' joyful smile never once leaves her lips or her heart as she enters the building, singing as she goes.

♪ "Please, I'm begging you, don't turn around~ Let's always look forward, arm in arm~ And let's catch happiness, I bet you we could~! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah..." ♪

---

Within Geofront, MAGI scrolls out a new update for their recent acquisition:

Evangelion Unit-04: Secured Status: Testing required Designated Child: ... ... ... Decided

<Pose Tracker> Lilith Aiden has posed.

As the cannons fire, and the angel dies, the Gwennangorn sends down a rappel for the Amabilis and moves to retreat before the torrent of blood hits it. There's a short wave band to two pilots.

For Alma: <"Good work. I'll help you bake that cake, this time. Maybe what it needed the whole time was teamwork?"> For Eisen: <"You ever want to work with Londo Bell, ask for Captain Lilith Aiden, Irish-class Gwennangorn. You did pretty damn well out there, despite your age. Reminds me of a certain redhaired pilot on my ship.">

The latter is focused on maybe getting this kid away from fighting exploding horrors and into 'a safer, if still dangerous job', should he want. Or at least, giving him a connection if he ever needs help.

<Pose Tracker> Zoia Surovy has posed.

There is absolutely nothing graceful or spectacular about the way Unit Z2 lays into the Seventh Angel. Where Carestia's asttacks are shouted with a flourish, Zoia just... acts. Savage, yet utterly deliberate and methodical. The violence of a wild creature tearing parts out of its prey.

It's not fun. It's not pretty. She breathes heavily and does not relish it. The viscerality of it sickens her enough that her gorge begins to rise.

It's necessary. The Angel is laid bare. There is only one move for the intelligent player.

Checkmate.

Asuka drives her crossbow into the core. Eisen swoops in to lend her a tail to perch on. The other ships and mobile suits strike. It goes perfectly. Everyone acts towards the goal. Eisen and Asuka join her in the final predation.

The core is torn to shreds. Oblivious to the goings-on aboard ship, unknowing of what has happened back in the city, EVA-Z2 is simply consumed within the bloody rain and the eruption of light.

The rainbow shines overhead. Its light casts upon EVA-Z2. The Full Armour Evangelion has alighted back at the stern of the aircraft carrier holding EVA-04, and it sinks back into the crouched, almost canine posture it assumed when launching the Katyusha rockets - squatting with hands together on the deck and calf struts bracing it. The hulking Eva is drenched in the aftermath of the blood rain, riddled with battle scars and armour cracks that seep what ought to be coolant.

Please, God, let it be coolant.

Dizzy with pain that pulses through her entire body with every heartbeat, the Seventh Children just breathes for a moment. There are still a couple minutes on Unit-Z2's battery timer, but that's not much of an issue anymore save for communication. She tilts her head wearily to the side and checks up on a small tactical readout before lifting a shaking hand. Taps a button.

"...I'll tell you what," Zoia transmits to Asuka, her voice tired, but satisfied. "Let's split the Baikal."

A second later, she lurches forward in her seat as her stomach leaps. She buckles, gags, before coughing and vomiting off to one side of her control grip as the viscerality of the battle finally catches up to her.

"...Blyat...."

<Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.

Still splattered in core fluid during it's descent, the Red Evangelion has only one place to go. And that's to the ground. Unit-02 has thrusters on its back but even with them, Evangelions are meant to fall more than fly.

The thrusters attached to Unit-02 briefly fire right before it would hit the ground, slowing but not stopping the impact of the massive giant. The impact causing a shockwave, that bowls over an already battered vehicle. The blue compact car suddenly rotates end over end as a familiar woman screams from the unexpected sudden rollover motor vehicle accident. Ending up upside down, the tires still rotating - windows shattered.

Lieutenant Colonel Katsuragi, still upside down herself, just hangs there for a moment. At first assessing her situation. 'Fine.' Then the Angel Situation. 'Neutralized' Before carefully releasing her seatbelt with a hand out and assessing her car situation. 'Not totaled but -=Redacted for the Children=-'

"I only had thirty-three months of payments left." The NERV Lt. Colonel sighs, as she slumps on the roof of her car for a while before finally crawling out. Holding up the phone she'd had pressed to her ear for the whole crisis again as she puts back on her professional face in the space of a split second, "Good work handling matters in my absence, Administrator Nagisa."

Within her entry plug, Asuka flips the comms off and slumps backwards and closes her eyes, allowing herself to come down from the adrenaline rush. Allowing the LCL fluid to fill her lungs with oxygen in its comforting warm embrace.

She could crow out her triumph to the other pilots but...

... right now, she just, needs a moment for herself. The Angel's death just makes Baraawe feel so much more distant. Any failure absolved. She won't be discarded for a battle with no stakes, because in this one with the highest stakes she'd made herself worthy of her purpose. 'Just like you said.' She thinks to herself as if she had the doll here with her, 'You did it all by yourself.'

It is a delusion that it was truly all by herself, but it is one she needs. It's the only way she knows how to live.

Rearing up, Evangelion Unit-02 puts a hand to its hip but she's only able to hold that pose for a few seconds before the timer hits: 00:00 ... and it's green eyes grow cold and inert, the whole giant unmoving like a figure on a shelf.

That doesn't stop her from flipping the comms back on, as she says through her headset towards Eisen with her Entry Plug's residual power primarily at Eisen, but also at the new girl, seemingly rejecting her offer as well in a single statement. "Get used to it, amateurs, I'm going to be showing all of you up for as long as you're still here."

<Pose Tracker> Shinji Ikari has posed.

Unit-01 splashes out of the ocean, a weird hunk of spindily nightmare scaffolding-leg in its jaw like it were the world's worst dog.

Shinji rubs his head, assuming the world isn't over because hell can't hurt this much. "Everyone alive?" Shinji says over the coms. "Just swimming in blood again."

<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.

For as long as we are still here.

In the aftermath of the Angel's demise, the waters return to -- fluid, at least; it may well be in substantial part the remnants of Jehudiel for the moment. Even the ocean can't dilute things instantly.

The Pachelbel remains afloat, and immediately hits right rudder to turn the hell back around and return to anchorage. This may be a world record for shortest carrier sortie out of Japan.

EVA-00 is completely submerged, albeit marginally. The Pachelbel's cable mount drops the umbilical into the ocean.

EVA-00 walks towards shore.

"Mm," she answers Shinji. It's a vaguely affirmative 'mm.

<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.

It is quick. But it is not in any way merciful.

That's... all right. There could be no mercy allowed. Kaworu knows that.

He watches, unflinching, unwavering, unsmiling, as the collected pilots rend Jehudiel asunder with claws and fangs and missiles and bolts, to name only a few. In the end, its core *bursts*, spraying the air and the sea alike with red fluid. A rainbow shines in its wake. A happy ending, surely.

"..."

Misato patches in and tells him he did good work. Kaworu smiles reflexively. "You're too kind, Lt. Colonel Katsuragi," he replies. "Well then, shall we collect everyone and return to base? There's still much left to do."

For now, time continues to move forward. They can all only continue to follow its celestial movement.

<Pose Tracker> Eisen Daiwel has posed.

There is something oddly satisfying about the sound it makes when those claws dig into that core, and the trembling sensation against his fingers. Eisen can feel it. Like his hands are sunken in that strange material. His eyes lighting up.

Then, Asuka performs the most awesome dive-kick he's ever seen. Stabbing not into one, but multiple of those arrows she's shot with unerring precision. He has to give it to her, she's god damned effective and a dead-eye shot!

But then there's that detonation. The Carestia backs off, carrying the Z2 with it to a safer distance, right before that heated cross burns into the skies, and Eisen's eyes widen.

It's beautiful.

That is all the Chuuni can think in that moment. The death. The destruction. Everything this thing did - including its very own death... as the blooming red fluid bursts from its 'soul', its 'heart', it all washes over the Carestia, and the boy's eyes remain dilated with excitement.

His heart still beating.

More.

The Carestia lets out a roar of victory, as Eisen yells out within the cockpit. Like a feral beast declaring the defeat of its prey. Red liquid slooping and drooling off of its body. Bathed in it.

<"You better keep improving then, Asuka. Because I am following right after you."> Eisen answers the redhead without even a moment's of regret of hesitation.

The Carestia eventually begins to lower itself, retreating itself to Lilith's ship, coming down rather hard on its deck as it finally runs out of fuel and ends up kneeling up it, its head still turned towards the sea of red.

Recognition.

Be cool about this, Eisen.

<"I don't know that Londo Bell, with its already troubling economic situation, can afford this Evangelion and the fees for my Mad Scientist Lab. But I'll be glad to aid in future operations if you need work done against Kaiju."> The youth answers Lilith.

The gaze of the Carestia then lowers onto Unit-00, and Z2. The two unknowns for the time being. He hasn't really considered the unit on the carrier yet - as it has been pilot-less.

"I wonder what they're like in person."

<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.

If the Evangelions are predators to Angels, what sort of ecosystem is Tokyo-3, anyway?

After the Nadesico's missile salvo, there's little for the ship to do but watch, as the Evangelions set upon the wounded and exposed Jehudiel. It is given no peace, no time to collect itself.

The angel explodes.

"Oh my God," gasps the communications officer, Megumi, clapping a hand to her mouth. It's the most audible expression of horror, as something like blood rains from the core, bathes the bay in red, lifts a cross to mark its grave. It is hardly the only horrified expression, on the Nadesico.

Theirs is not a ship that bathes in blood.

Ruri's brow arcs upwards. Her own melancholy is a more subtle touch, to the people around her. Her voice remains stoic, as she reports: "Enemy neutralised."

Those words, all business, mission-focused and joyless in victory, echo across the silence of the shaken bridge. Nothing interrupts it, until --

"WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA?! YOU TOTALLED THE LANDING GEAR! DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH OF A HEADACHE THIS IS?!"

-- a communication window from Engineering pops up, featuring the furious expression of one Seiya Uribatake, chief engineer.

They're safe from the Seventh Angel, but it seems the Nadesico's plight is just beginning.

<Pose Tracker> Zoia Surovy has posed.

Zoia is too busy disgorging the contents of her lunch to even muster a round of sassback for Asuka. (It was borsht. She's from Zaftra. Some things are predictable.)

She doesn't particularly want to return the sass. If Asuka wants to take the credit, there's no harm in conceding it. As she wipes her mouth with the back of a glove, Zoia looks up with a faint, haggard smile even as the vomit spray diffuses into the LCL and sinks to the bottom of the entry plug.

The goal was accomplished. The first live Angel I've ever encountered, and I didn't die, and we accomplished the goal.

I'd celebrate if my everything didn't hurt.

Her battery's ticking down, but she has just enough juice left that she gets to see Carestia dropping onto the deck of Lilith's ship, and EVA-00 plodding towards shore, and EVA-01 wading to land along with it.

"...Can I say a proper Seventh Child hello later," she asks as she flops back against her chair with a ripple of LCL. "When I'm more alive."

The batteries will eventually run out. The carrier crew are polite enough to retrieve EVA-Z2 once it's been rendered powerless and unable to meet them.