Author's Note: Hi, folks, Weebee here. Jonak and my schedules have been as uncooperative as ever, and we've both been embarking on some of our own projects that we didn't want to interrupt, but my muse kept shoving this fic at me half the time I tried to prep for writing something, so we're trying something different.

This chapter was written entirely by me. I apologize for any drop in quality that may have caused, but am hopeful that it works. In future we might try this sort of thing if this works out. Staggered scene writing, plotting sessions followed by one author writing the chapter, etc.

Well, with that out of the way, here's the chapter.

Chapter 16: Pilots, I.

Misato rubbed at her forehead as she walked down the corridor, still looking over the reports she'd brought back from the volcano observatory. There had definitely been a blue pattern there, they'd even briefly seen it, but instead of working on courses of action to deal with it she was headed down to the holding cells because Shinji had gotten himself arrested.

Turning, she slid a card through a reader, a thick metallic door sliding aside to reveal a dark cell, the Third Child huddled inside. "So," she said, the boy's head rising so that he could meet her eyes. "Breaking the commander's nose?"

The boy nodded sullenly, shifting slightly. As he did, Misato noticed a small wooden box clutched in his hands, the knuckles almost white on its surface. "Well?" she asked, as he seemed to just keep staring at the thing's lid. "Are you going to explain yourself?"

"He had it coming," Shinji muttered under his breath.

That was unexpected. Not that some members of the Geofront's staff didn't think the same thing, but Shinji didn't seem the type to say it. "How about you explain why?"

"You'll listen?" he asked, blinking in surprise.

She nodded. "I'm guessing it has something to do with that?" She gestured at the box.

The Third Child nodded again. "You remember I found it in the garbage this morning…"

HR.

Shinji walked into the kitchen, flicking on the light as he went and trying to restrain a yawn. He was apparently the house's permanent chef, now, and wanted to get the breakfast started before anyone else woke up. Noting that the little mini-fridge next to the main refrigerator was open, he realized that he'd already been beaten by one, though Penpen seemed perfectly content with the fish he'd gotten out of the freezer and was busily nibbling on. "Morning, Penpen," he mumbled, his eye catching on something as he looked away from the bird.

Walking over to the trash can, he was about to either push down the box that was propping it open or start emptying the can, when he noticed that the thing was made of wood rather than cardboard. Curious, he gingerly pulled it free, the lid sliding closed now that it was free of its obstruction. "To Rei?" he asked, blinking at the untidy scrawl on the top of the box that was clearly Ranma's horrific handwriting. "Why was this…" He flipped it open, noting a collection of neatly stacked and wrapped scrolls, as well as one computer disk.

Shrugging, he set the box on the counter to bring up later and began preparing breakfast.

HR.

"This is fairly good," Asuka said, slurping at the bowl in front of her with gusto before setting it down. "What is it?"

"It's just Miso," Shinji returned, trying his best to ignore the slirp. "You've never had it before?"

"It wasn't exactly easy to get traditional Japanese food in Germany," Misato explained, setting her beer can down on the table and leaning back in her chair. "Ah, I've missed it." She let off a small belch.

"Could you be any more disgusting?" Asuka asked, grimacing.

"Hey," Misato waved her off. "I've gotta go check out some strange readings at a volcano observation station today, let me relax while I can."

"An angel?" Shinji asked, concerned.

"Could be," Misato replied, leaning forward, her expression turning serious. "If it is, it could be a problem."

"...Oh," Shinji said nervously, his mind conjuring a bunch of scenarios involving an angel and a volcano, none of them good. Trying to distract himself, he stood with his empty bowl and moved to the sink. Catching a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye, he turned. "Hey, Rei?"

The First Child didn't reply, though she did turn her gaze away from her bowl to look at him.

"Did you mean to throw this out?" Shinji asked, holding up the box. "It looks kinda important."

The girl looked the box over, and then nodded. "Commander Ikari informed me that it didn't matter and that I should dispose of it."

"I see," Shinji said. Had that been what he'd seen them talking about the previous day? "Can I have it?" The request honestly even surprised him.

"It doesn't matter," Rei said softly, turning back to her food.

"I think that was a 'yes,'" Asuka added.

"I guess so," Shinji nodded, putting the box down for the moment so that he could clean his dish.

"Well, I'm off," Misato said, standing from her place and leaving her dishes. "See you guys after school."

"Yeah, see ya," Asuka waved casually, grabbing the older woman's dishes as well as her own and bringing them over to Shinji. "We have to get going soon, too."

"Yeah, I'll just get these cleaned up, you can go ahead if I take too long," he replied, continuing to clean.

Asuka grunted irritably and grabbed a towel. "Make me feel guilty, why don't you?"

HR.

Shinji watched the rest of the class exit as the echoes of the lunch bell faded, but stayed in his seat, reaching for his backpack. Pulling the small box out of it, he withdrew the disk from inside and slid it into the computer in front of him.

The reader clicked for a moment, before a dialogue appeared on screen. "Connecting to MAGI, please wait."

"The MAGI?" He mumbled, recalling that Ritsuko had mentioned them as the supercomputers that ran the city.

"Connection complete, keys matched. Awaiting verification…" This message appeared after only about ten seconds, but remained on the screen for another forty-five. Shinji was just wondering if he should kill the process when it changed. "Verification accepted, Admin_Ritsuko_Akagi. Commencing Decryption."

A moment later, a folder popped up on his desktop, and a media player window opened. When Ranma's face appeared on it, he almost jumped. "Hey, Rei," the pigtailed man said, smiling. "If Ritsuko's security holds up, I'm talkin' to you, and I trust Ritsuko's security. As cliche and stupid as this is to say, if you're watching this, I'm dead."

Shinji reached out, preparing to turn the video off, but something stopped him. It was supposed to be for Rei, true, but… He was cut off as Ranma continued. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry. But at least you're around to watch this, so we haven't lost yet. Whatever happened, I'm sure you can keep fighting. You know what's at stake."

The pigtailed man sighed. "That's kinda the problem, ain't it? The situation's so serious that all of us have dropped some fairly important things so we could dive straight into it. We have to make you pilot an EVA, no matter how much we don't want to, because if we don't the world dies. Rei, I'm truly sorry I ain't gonna be there to help you anymore. And I'm sorry that I might be putting even more weight on your shoulders with this… but I'm beatin' around the bush."

He cleared his throat. "Rei, the folder on your desktop currently contains video, text, and pictorial demonstrations of every Kata, technique and training method that I feel is valuable in the Saotome school of Anything Goes Martial Arts. Before I joined NERV, before I found out how important our mission was, that school was my life. I'd spent over ten years training in and perfecting it, even since before Second Impact. It's the most important thing I own."

He chuckled. "Guess I should say owned. Rei, this knowledge is yours now." He leaned forward, giving the camera a very serious look. "Now don't misunderstand me, I ain't just declaring you my heir, I mean it's yours. You should be able to do whatever you want with your life when this damned angel thing is finished, and if that don't include the art, then it don't…" He leaned back. "If you want to use this stuff to become the next Master of the Anything Goes, I know you can do it. If you don't, I'm sure you'll find a good use for it. Whatever you decide, I know it's the right decision. Goodbye Rei, good luck, and I love you."

Shinji sat back, his hands shaking as he closed the blank media player. "Commander Ikari informed me that it didn't matter and that I should dispose of it." His right hand clenched into a fist.

HR.

The rest of the school day was a blur to Shinji. He might have been asked questions, or been given tests, but he couldn't really remember. His mind just kept running in circles. He would have just jumped up and left at lunch, but knew that he didn't really have a legitimate excuse to give. "So, you gonna go?" He blinked rapidly as Toji snapped a finger in front of his face. "Come on, man, speak to me. You and Kensuke've both been zoning out hard."

"I… what?" Shinji asked, looking around to see that the classroom was emptying slowly.

"The school trip!" Toji slumped down on the chair in front of Shinji's desk. "Okinawa, y'know?" It's tomorrow? Please tell me you've got your slip in, I don't wanna have to deal with Kensuke by myself."

"I… uh, I guess we must've missed that announcement," the Third Child said, lamely. "I didn't even know it was happening, but I've got to go, I need to be at the Geofront."

"Aw man, come on!" Toji exclaimed, though Shinji ignored him and left the classroom hurriedly.

HR.

It hadn't taken long to get a tram to the Geofront. The city was built to make accessing it as quick as possible, after all. Finding his destination, however, was another thing entirely. It was kind of odd that he had never needed to know where his father's office was. Still, he got there after asking a few directions and reading a couple maps, and stood before the entrance. Slowly, he raised one hand and knocked. Nothing happened for about thirty seconds, and he was about to knock again when the doors made a soft clicking sound and swung open.

Stepping through, he blinked at the dark room beyond, but was only distracted by that for a moment as his eyes fell on the man sitting at the desk in the center, his hands clasped in front of his mouth and gleaming orange glasses reflecting the light from the doorway. "Pilot Ikari," the commander said. "I wasn't expecting you."

"I know, father," Shinji said, stepping forward. "But I needed to speak to you." The dark haired man merely nodded, waiting for Shinji to speak. "Did… did you tell Rei to throw this out?" he asked, stretching the box out in front of him.

A flash of annoyance came over the commander's face. "Yes, is that all?"

"Did you know what was in it?" Shinji returned.

"It appeared to be some scrolls and a disk," the black haired man snapped. "Probably some of Captain Saotome's martial arts techniques."

Shinji shook his head. "It was all of them," he started, quietly. "He said they were the most valuable thing he owned, and that he wanted Rei to have them because he could trust them with her, and you told her to throw them out?"

"Does this conversation have a point?" Commander Ikari demanded, standing and leaning forward with his hands braced on his desk and his glass covered eyes on his son.

Shinji's hands began to shake and his voice was unsteady as he replied. "Rei loved Ranma, and Ritsuko-san. If she still remembered, she would never throw anything from them away, especially something this important. She'd be horrified!"

"Pilot Ikari," Gendo said in a much calmer seeming voice, "Get out of my office."

Shinji lowered his head. "You… you don't care at all, how much it'd hurt Rei if she remembered."

"Third Child, get out before I-"

Shinji screamed. The sound was high pitched, his still maturing voice cracking, but somehow still managed to convey a deep sense of rage as he crossed the distance between the door and the commander's desk. He barely slowed as he vaulted onto it, the commander only avoiding a vicious kick by millimeters as he leaned back, his glasses being torn from his face and thrown into a wall by the action.

Shinji's next attack, lunging forward with an elbow outstretched, was much harder to avoid and the older man took it across the face, the impact jerking his nose out of joint on its way past. The retaliation was swift, a punch to the chest sending Shinji falling off of the other side of the desk, but the commander cradled his nose with one hand. "Security!" he bellowed, the word barely recognizable as he drew a pistol with his free hand and aimed it across the desk. "Stay there, Third Child," he snarled, his face twisted in an ugly mesh of pain and rage.

Shinji didn't move, his hands dropping to his side as two bulky section two agents entered the room. "Take him to the holding cells," Commander Ikari barked. The two men saluted, and one grabbed Shinji's arms to cuff them behind his back. Even as he did, the Third Child kept ahold of the box in his hand.

"You know," Shinji said, glaring at the older dark haired man. "Ranma said that no one liked you. I never really understood why until now, Commander Ikari." He was turned around as the cuffs were properly secured, and marched out of the room.

HR.

"I guess he did have it coming," Misato sighed, leaning against the holding cell wall. "Unfortunately, you did still assault a superior officer. The only reason you don't have a chance of being kicked out of NERV is because, as a pilot, you're too valuable to lose."

"So what's going to happen, then?" Shinji asked, fidgeting with the box in his hands.

Misato frowned. "Five days confinement in this cell."

"I… I understand," Shinji nodded.

"I'll be back to see you again tomorrow," Misato said, turning and stepping out of the dimly lit room.

HR.

Gendo Ikari leaned against his desk, trying his best not to touch the large bandage that covered his nose. "So, why did you just stand there when you interfered with Akagi?" he asked, looking to the figure of Kozo Fuyutsuki, who stood looking out the window at the back of the room.

"Dr. Akagi was reacting over-emotionally to something that made sense, even if put a little cruelly," the older man said, turning towards the younger. "Pilot Ikari was right."

"Excuse me?" Commander Ikari asked, his eyebrows narrowing.

Fuyutsuki stepped closer to the desk, looking down on him. "You ordered her to desecrate the memory of someone you knew she once cared about," he said, his tone as even as if he were talking about the weather. "And you did it because you didn't like Saotome."

"Desecrate the memory?" the commander of NERV asked, eyebrow raised.

Fuyutsuki shook his head, as if disappointed. "You knew those scrolls had to have some value, if he went to such an extent to give them to her," he started. "All you would have had to do was tell her what you knew. Given her current mental state there was a good chance she would have thrown them out, regardless, and even if she didn't, they wouldn't have done much, but you decided that it'd be funny to have her destroy Major Saotome's last gift to her."

"You talk as if this is some major crime," the commander tried to snort, and then winced in pain.

Fuyutsuki turned away from him, his arms still clasped behind his back. "In comparison to some of the things we've done for the plan, it isn't," he nodded. "But those had some purpose other than petty revenge." Stepping away, he headed for the door.

HR.

"I'm home," Misato called, kicking off her shoes as she stumbled into her new apartment. She still wasn't quite used to how big and empty the place was, though Penpen warking cheerfully at her from his mini fridge was a comforting presence.

"Welcome back!" Asuka called, poking her head out from her bedroom. "You seen Shinji? He should be back by now, but he took off after school. I'm getting hungry."

"Right… Shinji," Misato muttered, rubbing her temples. "He's in the holding cells."

"Oh, okay," Asuka said, retreating into her room. Thirty seconds later, she shot back out into the hallway, glaring at her caretaker. "He's where?!"

"He's serving five days for assaulting a superior," Misato explained. "Though to be fair, he had it coming."

"Shinji is?" Asuka said incredulously. "That Shinji?"

"No, the other Shinji," Misato growled, grabbing a beer out of the fridge and flopping down on the couch to enjoy it. "You've got a sortie tomorrow, too."

"To do what?" Asuka asked, blinking. "Unit 02's missing an arm."

"To lower you into a volcano so that we can kill an angel," Misato explained, passing a folder over the couch back to the red haired pilot.

Asuka blinked at the images before her, shuffling through the paperwork. "I don't mind getting a chance to finally do something on my own, but is there a reason they're sending the unit without an arm on this mission?" she asked, uneasily.

"According to Ritsuko, the test types can't be fitted with the equipment because we need to remove the shoulder pylons, and theirs don't come off."

"And Unit 03's worse off than I am…" Asuka muttered, now glaring at the images. "Any reason we can't drop an N2 mine on this thing?"

"Volcanic eruption, could cause fault-line activity," Misato yawned, stretching out on the couch.

"Could you try and pay more attention when you're talking about lowering my Unit 02 into a volcano?!" Asuka yelled, glaring at the older woman with her hands on her hips.

"You'll be fine," Misato said, casually. "Besides, you're lucky. They thought about capturing it, but Dr. Akagi says we've got enough data that we don't need to take the risk."

"Great, so it's only kinda suicidal," Asuka grumbled, her stomach grumbling. "Wait… if Shinji's in holding, who's going to cook?"

"Oh right," Misato laughed nervously. "Guess I've gotta do it again, huh?"

"...Damn you, Shinji…" Asuka muttered under her breath.

HR.

Right foot forward, left arm back and down, right arm forward, sweep in, turn, push off back foot… Shinji Ikari paused in a somewhat awkward position as his head went blank. Sighing, he settled back to a neutral stance, picking up the half-rolled scroll from the bench at the back of the cell and squinting at it. There had only been so long he could stare at the walls, and he supposed that was part of the punishment. He hadn't really wanted to look at the contents of the box again, but his resolve had only lasted a few more minutes after he started thinking about it.

His mind had been wandering far too much, most disconcertingly on why he'd gotten so angry at his fa- Commander Ikari. Even thinking about it, he could feel his free hand clenching.

He'd found that the scrolls laid out the earliest and simplest portions of Ranma's school. One, which laid out the philosophy and basic methodology, was impossible to read due to the darkness and Ranma's usual chicken-scratch handwriting, but the others were fairly simple to figure out… in theory. In practice, he'd been trying to get the motions of this starting kata down off and on since the previous night.

As he was about to start again, the door swung open and he shielded his eyes from the flood of light. Peeking through his fingers, he saw Misato standing there looking at him levelly. "Third Child," she started, stretching out a folder. "You're needed to assist Asuka with an operation." Her level look broke into a slight smile. "Let's get you out of here for a bit."

"Guh?" Shinji asked, taking the report and looking it over. "An angel in a volcano?"

Misato nodded, turning to leave the room, and he followed.

HR.

"This isn't cool at all," Asuka grumbled, slumped inside of Unit 02, trying to ignore the ring of white armor at the corners of her vision. Admittedly, an EVA scale pressure suit was an impressive bit of engineering, but… "This isn't how an armor upgrade's supposed to go," she grumbled. "Where's my hyper-bazooka launcher?"

"What's a…" Lt. Ibuki started, before Misato interrupted behind her.

"Trust me, don't ask. Asuka, just prepare for loading."

"Yes, Ma'am," the Second Child replied, regaining some of her professionalism as she marched Unit 02 into place, slowly leaning forward in preparation for transport. "This thing's so awkward, though."

As she settled in for the long wait, she tried to glance over at where Unit 01 was prepping for takeoff under its own transport, but the side of the suit prevented that. Irritably, she just punched the command for the direct line. Shinji eventually appeared, the Third Child sullenly gazing ahead, perhaps not even noticing the communications window.

"So you assaulted a superior officer?" the Second Child asked, bluntly as the aircraft slowly began to move. Her brain still returned a fatal error every time she tried to figure out how that actually happened.

The boy looked up, obviously surprised by the question. "Commander Ikari," he returned, flatly.

"I was wondering where that bandage came from," the red haired girl mused, before the whole thought processed. "Wait, what?! Why?"

"I don't…" The Third Child sighed. "He did something… really bad to Rei," he said, eventually.

"Something really bad?" Asuka asked. For a moment, the obvious thought occured and she wondered if the commander had been responsible for Rei's memory loss, but then she realized that, if he had been, she was fairly sure Misato would have had more to say about it the previous night than 'he had it coming.' Then again, Misato HAD said that he had it coming. "What did he do?"

"I don't want to talk about it," Shinji said, and looked away.

Asuka thought about pressing it, but eventually decided not to. The line fell into an uncomfortable silence, before Shinji closed it. Sighing and slumping back in her seat, Asuka watched the world go by underneath Unit 02 until a chime went off and she prepared to drop.

HR.

"All right, Asuka," Lt. Hyuga said, as the bulky white EVA stood in front of a truck, next to the bubbling lip of a volcano's mouth. "Do you see the white thing on the truck there?"

She glanced at it, something that almost looked like a pill with a protruding, angled handle on one side.

"That's a weapon we worked up last night. In effect, it's an extremely powerful speargun. The firing mechanism is slaved to the button on the top of your right control handle."

"Well, it's something," the Second Child said, slowly bending down and picking the device up with her machine's one working arm.

"You'll need to strike the core precisely, but it has a targeting reticle like any other weapon, and the angel is sitting still," Hyuga continued. "The one warning I have is that you can't be holding it in front of Unit 02. The extreme recoil will send most of the casing back at you when the projectile launches."

"This thing isn't all that well designed, is it?" the red haired girl asked, dubiously. "Hey wait, is that white plating from the arm you removed from this suit?!"

"It's kinda what you get when you have one night to put it together," the tech replied, almost apologetically. "We're giving you your Prog Knife as well, but we aren't sure it'll make a dent given the pressure this thing is living at."

"Got it," the Second Child said, as another comm window opened next to Hyuga's.

"The engineers report the coolant and hoist lines are secure," Aoba said.

"Are you ready, Asuka?" Misato asked, as Unit 01 took up its support position nearby. Asuka understood that position was more in case the angel somehow managed to escape than to help her, given the purple and green EVA didn't have a suit, but she was at least glad that Shinji was getting some time out of isolation.

"Ready as I'll ever be," she said, taking a deep breath. A depth indicator flickered to life on one side of her vision as the hoists gently lifted Unit 02 into the air and moved it forward, ground quickly dropping away to reveal gently bubbling molten rock beneath her feet.

"Beginning descent," Aoba's voice rang into her ear, and she began to drop.

HR.

Tension was fairly high in Central Dogma as Misato watched the depth numbers on the main screen steadily tick up. Looking away for a moment, she glanced past the diligently working technicians. Subcommander Fuyutsuki was present, standing next to commander Ikari's chair, though the latter had only come in for a few minutes to ask about the progress of the operation before leaving, still nursing his nose.

"Unit 02's on projected course," Aoba reported, "Intercept in 15 seconds."

"Right," Asuka said, her face on one of the side monitors streaked with sweat. "Are you guys sure the coolant's working in here?"

"If it weren't, you'd be burning to death," the black haired man said, bluntly. "Just a little bit longer."

"There!" Maya announced, followed by a confirmation beep.

"I'm… not seeing anything," Asuka said, Unit 02 turning its head despite the fact that the sensor projection that showed her what was outside didn't move with it.

"It's… not here," Maya said, puzzled.

"Then where is it?" Misato demanded.

"I… I don't…" The computer technician tapped at her keyboard for a moment, staring intently at the screen before turning back. "It's possible that the magma's current's drawn it out of position since we saw it last. If it did, it'll be fairly close, below Unit 02."

"We're already pushing the tolerance on that suit as it is," Hyuga said, worriedly.

"Asuka, did you hear that?" Misato asked, looking up at her charge's face.

"Yeah," the red haired pilot said, brushing a sweat-soaked strand out of her eyes. "I can do it."

Misato was about to give the order, when it caught in her throat. "Asuka, a-are you sure?"

"Trust me," She smirked confidently. "I've got this."

Misato nodded. "Continue descent."

HR.

The Second Child winced as the depth numbers continued to rise, ominous groaning audible through the body of Unit 02 as the armor that surrounded it pressed very slightly inward. She was about to suggest that maybe they should stop when a black shape appeared on the screen in front of her. "Is that it?!" she asked, hopefully.

"Blue pattern confirmed," Lt. Ibuki reported.

The German girl sighed in relief, bringing up the object that was clutched in her hand, the targeting reticule popping into existence and drawing itself on the sensor image, where another indicator that showed the core also sprang up. All she had to do now was pull the trigger, and… "Um, nothing's happening," she complained, depressing the button on top of her right control handle repeatedly.

"You're too deep, the safety's preventing it from firing," Hyuga explained, his voice strained.

"You cobbled it together in one night and it's got a safety?!" Asuka asked, incredulously.

"Given that if fired at surface level it'd punch straight through both sides of the Geofront and keep right on going?" the man asked, splitting his attention between her and his console.

"Well fix it!" she growled back, her composure starting to break down. To make this worse, the black form before her seemed to be slowly unfolding. "Um, guys?" she said, panic starting to crawl up her throat. "It's waking up."

"How?" Ibuki asked, "It's nowhere near mature yet."

"I don't think it cares," Asuka retorted, trying to quash her panic.

"Now, it's fixed, fire now!" Hyuga yelled, as the angel finished unfolding itself. Asuka brought the weapon back up as quickly as she could and depressed the trigger. As predicted, the device in her hand pretty much disintegrated and the angel bucked violently… but it was still moving.

"I missed?" Asuka gasped, the strange, tadpole-like creature flexing several tendrils and vanishing beyond Unit 02's detection range.

"You hit its body, but the core wasn't penetrated," Lt. Ibuki reported.

Asuka cursed, reaching for the progressive knife tied to her machine's side, when the angel swam back into view. One of its propulsive tendrils seemed to be going slower than the other, probably slowing it down a great deal, which was a frightening thought given it still closed the distance between them in less than three seconds. She brought up her knife, but it just scraped down the thing's side, a fin knocking it out of her hand so hard that the vibration ran along the rest of her arm.

"The hide's too thick!" Hyuga yelled.

"Just like the armor, it's built for down here..." Asuka mumbled, an idea starting to form in the back of her mind.

"What was that?" Lt. Ibuki asked.

Asuka didn't respond, ignoring all of the sounds from Central Dogma as they tried to figure out what to do and watching the sonar image of her surroundings carefully. When the angel re-entered range, she turned to meet it, stretching out her good arm. Smashing into the side of it, she redirected the thing's course so that it was aimed more squarely at Unit 02's chest, then brought the arm down around it. "Pull us up, fast as you can, now!" she yelled, wincing as she felt the angel battering the suit.

"Captain, the angel's got her, we-" Aoba started.

"Misato, just trust me!" Asuka cut him off.

"Do it," the purple haired woman ordered, without hesitation. Asuka felt Unit 02 suddenly jerk upwards, the sensation a lot different than the gentle lifting at the start of the descent, though the angel desperately trying to get out of her grasp was a bit too distracting to think about that for very long. When the thing suddenly revealed a mouth full of sharp teeth somewhere in the middle of its body and tried to tear a chunk out of her, she wondered if this was such a good idea, trying to push it slightly away without letting go.

"Cleared first target point," Aoba announced, though she barely heard it, trying to fend off attacks from the angel that was still desperately trying to get free.

"Asuka, what are you doing?!" Misato demanded.

"Just… a little more," the Second Child panted, Unit 02 shaking again as one of the angel's fins, which on closer inspection almost looked like an arm with a hand on the end, latched onto her arm and began squeezing, even as the thrashing of the rest of it got more intense.

The depth indicator continued to tick upwards, though Asuka winced as a lunge by the thing's head managed to tear into and leave a couple of deep gashes in the armor on her chest. If the pressure didn't decrease enough in time and that gave, she was dead.

And then, it happened. The angel attached to her seemed to shrivel backwards, a loud, keening wail vibrating through Unit 02's structure that she wasn't sure was from its mouth or its body, and sections of its flesh seeming to bulge out grotesquely. One desperate clawing motion towards Unit 02's faceplate was the last thing the creature did before beginning to disintegrate, leaving the pilot panting in the entry plug, her arms shaking.

"Blue pattern disappeared," Ibuki reported. "What… happened?"

Hyuga actually laughed. "She killed it with the bends."

"What?" Misato demanded.

Asuka laughed like an idiot, the pressure seeming to fall from her shoulders, the heat of the entry plug barely noticable. "It was built to survive down here," she explained, after a moment. "I thought that, since it wasn't fully developed, whatever it planned on using to survive on the surface wasn't in place yet, and anything from this far down isn't going to be able to survive at much lower pressure for very long."

"That was a serious risk," Misato opined, frowning.

"Not really," Asuka disagreed. "If it hadn't worked like that and you'd tried to haul me up, it would've just followed me and kept attacking."

"You've got a point, I suppose," the strategic operations officer admitted grudgingly.

Inside of Unit 01, which had stepped a few feet closer to the lava pool, Shinji sighed in relief. He hadn't dared speak up during all that had happened, having no suggestions and unable to help from where he was. "That was pretty cool," he decided to add, now that the situation seemed to have calmed down.

"Heh, thanks, Shinji," Asuka said, leaning back in her seat as the hoists continued to pull her the rest of the way to the surface.

END.

So... yeah. That was a thing. Hope you enjoyed, don't forget to tell us how you thought it was, and happy reading!