Ritsuko looked back at the tank and the dead clone. There was something wrong with it, but she couldn't quite place what. She stepped closer for a better look and realized that its head and part of its torso had been crushed. It looked like it had been pushed up against the glass and then pressed to death. Ritsuko stepped backward, feeling a surge of worry. The clones were supposed to have no volition of their own. If they had started to develop fratricidal tendencies then the entire group would have to be disposed of, and the whole process began again. Except that there was no time to begin again. If this batch was lost, then she had failed.

Something skidded beneath Ritsuko's foot and she found herself tumbling back. She swore violently, clutching a twisted ankle as she looked for what had tripped her.

Lying several feet away was a small book, several of its pages half-torn out. Ritsuko picked it up, wondering where it had come from. As she turned it over in her hands, she realized that it was a girl's diary, a tear on the covers where the lock had been attached.

Ritsuko frowned in puzzlement, peering closer at the powdery brown spots freckling the front cover, pausing upon realizing that they were blood. She flipped through the first few pages, her eyes scanning rapidly before realizing what exactly it was that she was reading. She then went back to the first page and began to read more slowly, the stack of files forgotten.

Terry paced across the living room: seven steps. He then went through the kitchen: another five. Down the hall, glancing left out of the corner of his eye into the bathroom, then right into his room, left into the empty bedroom, right into the room that Shinji used to occupy, then ahead to the wall, stopping with his nose only a few inches away: twelve steps. He turned abruptly on heel, walking back down the hall and into the kitchen, where he stopped, his face suddenly twisting in anger.

His hand flashed out, scooping a mug from the counter and hurling it against the far wall. His shoulders slumped as his anger fled just as quickly as it had arrived. He'd been confined to his apartment for less than twenty-four hours and he already felt like the walls were about to close in on him. He desperately wished that he'd gotten around to acquiring more than the small handful of music discs that he'd brought with him from Australia. Or had gotten around to buying a video player, or at least bought some books printed in English, since he needed to use two separate dictionaries in order to read anything but the simplest written Japanese. He'd even tried calling home, only to discover that his phone privileges had been revoked as well.

He kicked the biggest remnant of the mug back into the wall, shattering it into even smaller pieces. What irked him the most was how unfair this all was. House arrest just for getting in a little dust up, especially since Asuka had been the one who'd started it. He didn't know what Misato's problem was, but he resented that she was taking it out on him.

He sighed again as he stooped down and began picking up the pieces of porcelain. If he kept this up he'd be out of mugs pretty soon, and then where would he be? Still stuck in here, drinking tea out of a plastic cup. Terry was actually finding himself looking forward to the start of school.

There was a sharp knock at the front door and Terry looked up in surprise, simultaneously hoping and dreading that he knew whom it would be. If it was Misato, then there a few things about the current situation that he wanted to make her explicitly aware of.

He dropped the pieces of the mug into the trash and opened the door to find Misato standing outside, holding Asuka by the wrist with one hand like a small child. He noticed that Asuka looked exactly like he felt, and instead of his intended tirade he cautiously asked, "What is it?"

"We're going to the Geofront," Misato said, grabbing Terry's hand and barely giving him time to close the door, although she wasn't hauling him along quite as hard as she was Asuka. Yet.

Touji shivered in the growing chill, feeling the warmth fade as the long rays of the sun sank below the horizon. He shifted slightly, trying to stretch stiff muscles without disturbing Hikari. She sat across his legs, her head pillowed against his chest. She'd been crying again, although her tears had long since dried from his shirt.

He carefully secured his hands against her back, squinting as he looked over her head at the setting sun. He really should wake her and go back inside before his father got back home. It wasn't that his father was particularly retentive about the fact that his son had a girlfriend, it was just that he felt that there was a certain sense of propriety that anyone under the age of thirty was naturally lacking.

Touji looked down at Hikari's face. Over the past few days the only time her expression came even close to relaxed was when she was asleep. She tried so hard to exemplify her image of the perfect class leader, to be so responsible, so grown up, that she'd forgotten she was still young enough to allow herself to be vulnerable.

He thought back to what the Commander had said, and as he looked at Hikari he tried to imagine her in the plug suit. He smiled slightly; the image wasn't without appeal. Then he transposed her over himself in the entry plug of Unit-03, imagined her in his place against Unit-01. He'd been telling the truth when he'd told the Commander that it was no choice for him at all.

"You've made up your mind, haven't you? You're going to pilot again." Hikari said without opening her eyes.

"Yeah," Touji said softly.

"You could say 'no' and wash your hands of it, but you won't. You're going to do the 'right' thing, aren't you?"

"Yeah."

"I wish that you weren't. And I wish I could be like you sometimes Touji, so responsible and mature."

He hugged her with his left arm. "No, you shouldn't. You're better off the way you are."

"I love you Touji" Hikari said, and then lay completely still.

"I know," he said, then, "thank you." He knew that those weren't the right words to say, but so very little was right these days. Hikari shivered in his arms, but said nothing more. Touji held her a little more tightly and watched the sun disappear through her hair.

Maya's eyes moved back and forth over the steady influx of information from the test plugs. She overlaid the incoming data over the combined information recovered from both the test and entry plug cores and was pleased to see at how quickly a working set of core files were being assembled. Asuka and Terry's synch data was coming out in the best condition. Rei's wasn't going quite as smoothly as she'd expected, and Shinji's... "Shinji, could you please try and relax?" She didn't quite look at the monitor displaying the interior of his test plug. He'd been staring straight at the camera for the entire three hours the test had been running, and she didn't think that he'd blinked once the entire time. She found it quite unnerving. Worse, judging by the reading she was getting out of his plug, his mental state was so altered that even if she had the original set of synch ratios, they'd still be useless.

"I am relaxed," Shinji replied, and since Maya wasn't going to call him a liar to his face, she didn't say anything in response.

When Maya finally ended the test, she was satisfied with the results that she'd gotten from the 1^st, 2^nd, and 6^th Children. The 3^rd however; "I'm sorry Shinji, but the attempt to rebuild your core data was unsuccessful. We'll need to start over from scratch, so you'll have to stay." Maya was alarmed as Shinji's mental readings spiked. "It that all right with you?"

"Yes ma'am," Shinji said, and she couldn't tell if his tone was resignation, unhappiness, or something else. His reading began to slide back down to their earlier levels, although they were still far removed from normal. "How much longer will I have to stay?"

"I think that you should plan on sleeping here tonight, and probably tomorrow as well," Maya said after a moment's hesitation.

Shinji's expression grew even less defined. "I have school tomorrow."

Maya tried to sound upbeat. "Well, you'll just have a slightly longer vacation than you originally expected." Maya immediately regretted her works, recalling just why he'd been away from school in the first place.

Shinji pressed his palm against his forehead, and for the first time in three hours, closed his eyes. When he opened them again and looked back at the camera, Maya found the set of his eyes a little frightening. "Yes Ma'am."

"Rei,"

The 1^st Child stopped as Ritsuko came up behind her, half turning in order to see the other woman. She gestured for the girl to go into the waiting elevator, then activated the override so that it would go to the surface without stopping. As the doors closed behind Ritsuko, Rei noticed that she had something held in one hand, mostly hidden by her lab coat, while she twirled a pen idly in the other. "What is it that you need, Dr. Akagi?"

For a moment only Ritsuko's eyes moved, examining Rei in an unsettlingly analytical manner and then she held out Rei's diary.

Rei stared at it, then up at Ritsuko, uncertainly trembling her gaze. Finally she reached out and, almost hesitantly, took it.

Ritsuko didn't let go of the book right away. "So you return some of Terry's feelings?" she asked, her fingers finally opening.

Rei didn't seem openly surprised by the question but she glanced away so that she wouldn't have to meet Ritsuko's eyes. "That is my business."

"For now I suppose," Ritsuko said in a careless tone, "but not if your business begins to interfere with the Commander's plans."

"It is none of his business either," Rei said, and her voice gained a defensive edge.

"You are his business, as is everything that affects you. If Terry, if your relationship with him starts to become a nuisance, what do you think the Commander will do? You know what happens to anything that has even the slightest potential to become an obstacle."

"He wouldn't dare do anything to one of the pilots," Rei responded, and both she and Ritsuko were surprised by the slight hitch in her voice.

"Don't be foolish. You know that anything that threatens his scenario is crushed without mercy. You and Shinji are his only two vital elements, and you've seen how he treats Shinji. Terry is worth even less to him than the breath that it would take to kill him, and it would trouble his conscious even less than if he had swatted a fly."

Rei was seized by a sensation akin to vertigo and the world blurred briefly before her eyes as she crossed a threshold that she knew she could never go back to again. "Then I would never forgive him."

Even after reading the diary, Ritsuko had never imagined that Rei had gone this far. "Then, since you too had become an obstacle, you'd be crushed."

"He couldn't do that, not to me."

"Why not? The dummy cores are nearly complete. If you become too much trouble to him, he'll just trot the next one out and get a doll that doesn't cause him as many problems."

"No," Rei said fimrly, "he is not capable of inhumanity on that level. He-."

"How can you say that?" Ritsuko shouted. She grabbed Rei by the collar and pushed her back against the wall, the pen dropping to the floor. "After all that he's done, how can you tell me that there isn't anything he won't do? How can you say that there is any act so depraved that it's beyond his capability? Look me in the eye and tell me that you truly believe there is still an ounce of humanity left in him! Damn it Rei, look me in the eye!"

Rei finally did look up, and when she did her gaze was so piercing that Ritsuko found herself held in place by it. "He has never slept with me. He loves me, but not like that. He loves his wife, and is bound by her memory. He still loves you."

Ritsuko let go of Rei and stumbled back. "No," she said, "he can't. You're wrong!"

"No," Rei replied, unfazed. "I know that he feels remorse for what he has done to you, that he still feels love for you."

Ritsuko slammed her palm in the control panel, stopping the elevator and forcing the doors open. "How could you know anything about love?" She careened into the half open doors and nearly fell out into the corridor beyond. "What could you possibly know about love?" Ritsuko demanded, rounding on Rei as the elevator doors began to close, but she was unable to see the girl through the tears streaming down her face.

Rei stared back impassively until the doors fully closed, then reached up to wipe away the single tear that slid down her cheek. She rocked slightly as the elevator resumed it motion, looking down as something rolled into her foot. She reached down and picked up Ritsuko's pen, then carefully opened her diary and began to write.

It no longer took quite as much effort for Shinji to keep his eyes open. He was actually beginning to find the touch of the LCL against his eyes almost pleasant, and it made it easy for him to fight off the urge to blink. He wondered when it was that he'd begun hating to blink. He felt so detached from his recent memories, dissociated in a way that made detailed examination impossible. All that he knew was that he was terrified by even the infinitesimal moment of darkness when his eyelids shut. He'd been desperately afraid of the moment when the hatch to the test plug had closed, the second of complete darkness when everything vanished into the void, before the test systems started up.

How long had he held this nameless dread for the dark? He tried to remember, but again there was something separating him from his memories. He quickly ceased the effort. Trying to force his way through tightened the knot between his eyes.

The LCL was repulsively warm against his skin, but the test plug was at least tolerable. In the test plug there was no sensation that he had been swallowed whole and lay waiting in the belly of the beast, its heartbeat pounding in his ears.

Still, he began to feel tension creep up his spine as the hours stretched on, the warm LCL flowing endlessly around him. He could feel the tension crawling up his back like a thousand spiders, and he knew that when they reached the knot in his head, he was going to start screaming. Trying to hold the spiders back made the knot in his head worse, trying to fight against the twist between his eyes hurried the spiders up.

"All right Shinji, that's enough for today," Maya said, and Shinji's perception snapped back to the outside world. He panted from the shock, his chest straining against the LCL. It felt like he was choking. As the test plug disengaged Shinji blew out as hard as he could, purging his lungs of LCL. He held his breath as the fluid drained out of the plug, and he waited until the hatch opened and fresh air flooded into the plug, silvery spots dancing before his eyes when he finally opened his mouth.

He practically threw himself out of the hatch, and stumbled up against the gantry railing. With the LCL gone, the urge to blink returned a thousand-fold. He tried to force his eyes to remain open, gripping the railing hard enough that his knuckles creaked from the pressure. His eyes began to burn and he could feel the LCL drying in his eyelashes. Despite his best efforts, his eyelids slipped down, and Shinji gave a small whimper as they finally shut, and didn't open again.

Maya headed down for the test plugs. They'd been able to rebuild a significant portion of the 3^rd Child's pilot data, but they'd need to incorporate the results of a harmonics test before they'd know if they had a working data set. She'd decided to tell the pilot in person; Maya decided that what he needed to bring himself out of his funk was a comforting word and a steady shoulder.

She found him leaning against the railing outside his test plug. His back was to her, and his head was bowed, but she thought she heard the sound of grinding teeth.

"Shinji," Maya said, stopping a few feet behind him.

He didn't look up. "What is it?"

Maya stepped forward. "I just wanted to say," she put her hand on his shoulder and Shinji's entire body went rigid. She resisted the impulse to take a step backward, instead giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze. "You did well. We just need to do a harmonics test tomorrow and we'll be finished."

If anything, his body tensed even more. "Does that sound okay?" she asked.

Shinji straightened and turned around. Of course it didn't sound okay, but what could he say that would make them believe him? Nothing; no matter what he said, they would believe what they wanted.

A tremor ran up his body. The gantry was gone. He was standing on an old, rain soaked bridge, and off to one side-.

The next thing Shinji knew, Maya's arms were around him and she was gently lowering him to the floor. "Shinji," she said with restrained urgency, "Shinji, are you all right?"

The entire world was pushed behind the invisible wall now, and Shinji knew that he should recognize where he was, who the woman in front of him was, but the barrier was impossible to breach. He felt like his entire body was being twisted around the point of tension in the middle of his head and he pushed weakly against the woman. "It was thrown away. I didn't steal it. I didn't do it to get attention. I don't want attention. Auntie, auntie, listen to me!" His body finally relaxed as the wall holding the world back faded away. "What happened?"

Maya tried to keep her voice level. "You had a really long day and it finally caught up with you. I arranged for you to get one of the VIP quarters for the night, but we can take you back to Misato's if you want."

"I don't care," Shinji said. His head hurt and Maya's face started going double before him.

Maya helped Shinji to his feet. "You'll feel better after you get some sleep; getting you out of that plug suit would probably be a good start to."

Shinji didn't answer but he did start walking back towards the pilots' changing room.

Maya leaned against the row of lockers outside the pilot's shower, waiting for Shinji to finish cleaning off the LCL. She'd decided to remain with him in case he suffered another fainting spell. He really did need a rest badly, a break from all the stress that he'd been under lately. All the Children had suffered lately, but Shinji seemed affected the most of all. She hoped that a good night's sleep and two days of doing nothing more stressful than sitting in an entry plug would help bring him back to normal.

He'd been in the showers a long while and Maya was just considering calling after him to see if he was all right when he emerged. Shinji hadn't bothered to dry his hair and his shirt buttons were in the wrong holes. Maya resisted the urge to straighten them; her oft-neglected maternal side trying to make an appearance. She sent a bemused prayer to her mother as she escorted Shinji to one of the many unoccupied VIP rooms. She noticed that he didn't blink much, but attributed the fact to exhaustion.

"Get a good night's sleep," she said, stopping at the door. "Don't worry about when you have to get up; the harmonics test will go much better if you're fully rested."

Shinji went into the room and looked around. There was a bed, and a bathroom, and a window that looked out over the geofront. He turned on the lights, and then sat down in front of the window.

He stayed there the entire night and as morning broke he watched the light level increase, the pale walls of the structures within the geofront gaining the color of diluted blood. He'd dozed on and off, and his eyes felt gritty. There seemed to be an unnatural silence over the geofront. He stood and the chair made no sound as its legs slid back across the floor. As he raised his head upright, the room began to spin around him, the walls no longer blood colored but blood covered. The next thing he knew, he was outside, his chest heaving and heart pounding as if he'd just been running hard. The world still seemed inclined to tilt unexpectedly and he felt dizzy.

The sun above him had started to take on a golden hue and he calmed, walking slowly among the damp and shadowed greenery. His mind felt blank and he calmed, his feet taking him where they willed. Damp grass soaked the cuffs of his pants as he left the walkways behind. He was searching for something and although his mind could not recall what it was, his legs seemed sure of their destination.

He found it, eventually. It was nearly impossible to separate from the surrounding terrain at a distance. Weeds and grass had crept into the rows of upturned soil. The plants that had originally inhabited it were shriveled, wrinkled, and soft. Kaji's melon patch was dead.

The world began to tilt again. Why had he come here? What solace had he thought would be awaiting him? Kaji was gone. Shinji sank to his knees, his head suddenly feeling much too tight. There was no help here. There wasn't anywhere. He was alone, completely and utterly-.

"So Shinji, what's on your mind?"

There was someone standing by his side. Something glittered in the morning sun as the figure lifted his arm, and a soft spray of water fell across the shriveled melons. "Help me Kaji," Shinji whispered hoarsely, slowly tilting forward until his face rested in the soil.

"I'd love too but first you'd have to tell me exactly what the problem is.

Shinji closed his eyes, but this time the dark held little fear for him. The scent of wet, and earth filled his nostrils and the tension behind his eyes eased slightly. "Everything. They all want, all take, too much. I can't keep paying, I can't keep giving."

The figure lifted a hand to his face. "I suppose we all have to judge whether or not the price is worth it. Say you refuse to give them anymore. You decide that the cost isn't worth it, what then?"

"I don't know. I just want it all to go away. I want it all to end."

"That is your choice to make, I suppose. A lot is asked, demanded of you. I'm sure it'd be understandable if you chose to refuse, but that wouldn't make the cost go away. The rest of us would have to pay it. Do you think that humanity could afford to pay that cost in your stead?"

"I don't know. I'm not even sure if I know what everything is anymore."

His statement received no response and after several seconds he looked up. The figure was gone, but a watering can rested in the grass beside him and water droplet sparkled like diamonds on the wrinkled skin of the melons.

It moved carefully, keeping itself below the treetops, thinning itself to tenuous strands when it had to cross open spaces, sliding through the shadows of grass and scrub. It no longer absorbed the biomass it encountered. It had obtained enough for self-sufficiency before leaving the cradle of the ocean.

It was almost across a kilometer wide field, an effort that had taken it more than a day. Each time it exerted itself forward every shadow in the field seemed to shift. Part of its mass had already reached the tree line on the other side.

Night had fallen and then faded into dawn by the time it began moving through the trees again. Patience was its ally, and time only aided it. Caution filled every portion of its being on the instinctual level, still it had to fight to restrain itself with each step, the call growing stronger in its mind with each passing moment.

It'd come so close that the call felt almost like a vibration within each of its cells and it stopped, lifting itself above the trees, deforming its head into a shape better able to receive the sound.

It was running forward before it realized what it was doing, body deforming with each step, straining forward. It was rushing along flat, hard ground, heedless of anything else around it. There was a sudden flash of light at the level of its knee, a shrill screeching, and its right legs were torn from beneath it.

It's body distorted as it struck the hard surface, globules tearing off as more objects screeched, smashing into it. It quivered furiously, calling back the separated portions of its being, ignoring the bright lights and cacophony of horns surrounding it.

Again thrusting limbs from its central mass, it leapt over the dissaray on the highway, running full tilt towards Tokyo-03.

Shigeru almost gave a sigh of relief as the alarm sounded in his earpiece, and he held up a hand, signaling Suiko for silence. She'd been talking nonstop about the impending wedding for the past two days, and no one had had the heart to burst her bubble and make her stop.

At first she frowned in consternation at being so abruptly cut off, but then seeing the intent look on Shigeru's face, turned and poised her hands above her own console.

"Repeat," Shigeru requested, pressing the piece tighter against his ear.

Maya noted the onset of silence and stepped over, a quip ready, but when she saw Shigeru's expression she closed her mouth and waited for his report.

"A Yawakama Highway transport reported striking an unidentified object five kilometers from the Higashi suburb. The object, which was larger than the transport, not only survived multiple vehicle impacts, but was last reported moving down the highway in the direction of Tokyo-03." He stopped and listened to the earpiece again. "Further sightings along the Yawakama Highway confirm object's presence. Speed estimated at excess of 75 kph."

Maya turned towards Makoto. "Do we have any surveillance satellites in the area? Did anything catch the object's appearance?"

"Checking," Makoto said, his fingers flying across his console. "Two satellites, one thermal image, one visual."

"Visual feed first, start playback at the object's appearance."

Makoto's fingers became a blur. "Accessing time frame, enlarging image, enhancing, displaying feed on main screen."

The highway appeared as a snaking line cutting across the countryside, small, glinting objects scurrying along its length. The rise of mountains were visible at the very edge of the screen, forests covering its slopes and extending almost to the highway's edge. Suddenly, something large burst from the trees. It was humanoid, but grossly elongated, its skin a dull shade of black. It stopped right in front of a transport pulling two cargo containers behind it. The impact splattered the object across the highway, vehicles in all lanes slamming into the remnants. Despite the collisions, the scattered pieces pulled themselves back together, reformed itself into a vaguely quadrapedal shape, and dashed down the highway.

Suiko had gone pale. "That's not-..."

"Target has entered Tokyo-03,' Shigeru reported.

"We've lost acquisition of the target! " Makoto shouted.

Maya found that her mouth had gone suddenly dry. "Get the Commander."

Maya had Makoto's headset in her hand and was shouting into the microphone as the lift arrived carrying Gendo and Fuyutsuki. "What the hell do you mean you can't find it? It's the size of a god damned Eva! Get more VTOLs into the air and look by eye!" She snapped upright when Fuyutsuki cleared his throat behind her.

"Have there been any further developments?" he asked mildly.

"The target has completely eluded all detection since entering Tokyo-03. If it shares all the same properties as the primordial soup recovered from the Harbinger, then it can distort itself to fit almost anywhere. I'm afraid that the reason we've lost track of it is because it's entered the sewer system."

"The Children?" Gendo demanded his voice much harsher than Fuyutsuki's.

"Section 2 is confirming their and Major Katsuragi's safety. I've refrained from having Section 2 bring them in until we've confirmed the target's position."

Shigeru blanched at something he heard over his headset. "What?"

Maya turned on him. "What is it?" she demanded.

"The 3^rd Child was not in his room. Section 2 doesn't know when he left or where he is now."

"Well then tell them that they'd better damn well find him!" Maya shouted in Shigeru's face.

Fuyutsuki hid a chuckle by coughing into his fist. "I believe we can take control of the situation now Doctor."

Maya opened her mouth and then blinked, drawing a deep breath. "Y-yes sir."

"Section 2 has reacquired the 3^rd Child," Shigeru said, almost timidly.

"Have him prepare to pilot Unit-01 immediately," Gendo ordered. "Where are the other Children?"

"School sir."

"Have Section 2 send heavy transports to collect them and Major Katsuragi."

"Yes sir."

"Target has been reacquired," Makoto said suddenly. "It's trying to break through the hatch from one of the topside vents on lift 03!"

"But those vents are less than three meters across!" Maya shouted.

"Surface video feed of lift 03," Gendo ordered. "Seal all interior outlets, and reroute the generator dissipation flow through the duct."

At first nothing happened, and then the air above the vent began to shimmer with heat. The pavement around the vent suddenly cracked, and boiling black ooze spurted from the vent. It fell back to earth, collecting in a quivering ball, parts of its outer surface cracking and flaking off from the heat. It suddenly distorted its form, assuming a shape almost like that of an Eva. It crouched on oddly elongated limbs, opening its mouth in a silent hiss and staring at the blast doors with white, triangular eyes.

It reared back, its fingers sharpening to claws and began tearing at the hatch, leaving deep rents in the metal surface.

"How long until the other Children arrive?"

"Twenty minutes," Makoto reported. "Thirty-five minimum until all other Evas are ready to launch."

"Launch Unit-01 immediately. Send it a pallet rifle firing high explosive ammunition."

"Yes sir."

Shinji stared at Unit-01. It stared back at him, grinning ferociously. It knew that he would have to let it consume him eventually. It knew that sooner or later he would have to climb back it and then it would have him.

"Sir?" one of techs asked him. "The loading arm is ready. You need to get into the entry plug now."

Shinji didn't seem to hear him. Unit-01's smile seemed to grow and it nodded knowingly to him. He couldn't save himself from it. Robotically he climbed into the entry plug, feeling it shiver as the arm moved. In his mind he could see the neck plate sliding back, revealing the gaping maw of the plug socket, waiting to swallow him. His hands started to shake and he held the butterfly grips so tightly that his knuckles protruded through the material. He knew when the entry plug was seated within the Eva, even before the plug filled with LCL. He could feel the Eva's malicious glee as it closed around him. There was no escape now.

It tore away at the hatch with single-minded ambition. It could hear Her calling to him, Her song tearing insistently at every particle of its being. Another voice abruptly impinged upon it, one maddening in its dissonance. It raised its head in the direction of the new voice. It had started out far below, but was rising rapidly. Teeth formed long and sharp in its mouth and its eyes narrowed as it crouched, waiting for the dissonance to surface.

Shinji sluggishly raised his head as the lift snapped to a stop. Then his eyes shot to their widest. The darkness was there, waiting for him. The Eva stumbled backwards, tripping over the lift lip, dropping out of the way of the darkness' leap. Its talons flashed an inch from the Eva's head and it reformed itself mid leap, so that it landed already facing towards him.

"Grab the rifle Shinji!" Maya shouted and the Eva rolled towards the weapon tower, yanking the weapon free. He fired wildly, most of the shells going wide and exploding against the street and surrounding buildings. A few struck the darkness, most tearing straight through and out the back, only one detonating. Globes of darkness spattered outward, and Unit-01 pushed itself to its feet. "Maintain fire!" Maya shouted again, and Shinji looked up in time to see the bits of darkness pull back together, and the beast rose again.

Unit-01 backpedaled frantically, spraying fire indiscriminately. The darkness ducked under the shots, flattening itself against the street and gliding forward in a pool. It leapt up, claws flashing out, tearing apart the pallet rifle and raking the Eva's torso armor. The darkness opened it mouth in a fearful snarl, and Shinji suddenly knew exactly what had been stalking him in the dark, waiting for each time he closed his eyes.

The force of the blows knocked Unit-01 off its feet, and it twisted, as it fell landing on its stomach. Shinji scrabbled, trying to get back to his feet, trying to get away. Razors laid open his back, and darkness lashed around his face, tearing his head so far back that he could see the darkness behind him. In the dark form, he saw his Eva's face, and its mouth opened wide, its teeth reaching for his throat. Then the sunlight was torn away and all that there was, was Darkness.

"Power to the entry plug has been severed," Suiko reported, her voice shaking. On the screen she could see the dark thing perched on Unit-01's back, its claws dripping red, rising and falling, tearing chunks of flesh from the Eva's back. "All contact with plug has been disrupted. Attempting to restore."

"Don't attempt," Maya shouted, her face white, "do it!" Spit sprayed with the last shout.

Suiko looked up at her with wide eyes. "Communication has been restored. Hard-line transmission only."

The command center echoed with the sound of Shinji's screams.