Evangel Notes: Requiem for a World

A Neon Genesis Evangelion / Angel Notes Crossover

Disclaimer: In this particular universe, I do not own or in any way shape or form hold a claim to Neon Genesis Evangelion, Angel Notes, Kara no Kyoukai, any other elements of the Nasuverse, or any other modern works that I may reference in this story.

In 2000 AD, the cataclysm known as Second Impact destroyed most of the Southern Hemisphere, a global catastrophe that brought modern civilization to its knees. Fifteen years later, things have only become worse, with the mortally wounded world caught in its final throes: the continents cracking and tearing apart from massive tectonic shifts, crops refuse to grow, animal life has become all but extinct, and the very air is filled with "Grain" or "True Ether", a substance that has reduced birth rates near to nothing, on top of proving violently toxic to anyone born before Second Impact.

In the face of this, humanity clings to survival due to its tenacity, scraping away at the edge of the darkness with fire, using every ounce of its creativity and technological ingenuity to stave off the end – using medicines and supplements to help adapt to the dying world, air purification devices to filter the toxins from their dwellings, environmentally controlled geofronts for rebuilding their devastated cities and raising what crops they can.

But things are about to take a turn for the worse, as the Angels begin to awaken from their aeons-long slumber in the watery depths, and last gasps of the dying world have reached the Aristoteles, vast and alien powers drifting in the void of space—beings without rules, without minds, without the concept of death itself, who come in response to Earth's last wish—that humanity, which slew her, might follow her unto oblivion.

" " denotes speech

'italics' denotes thought

'bold' denotes location names

'bold italics' denotes skill use

Ground Zero – Second Impact, 2000 AD

Long ago, when humanity first arose upon the Earth, Gaia, the Spirit of the World, attempted to create a Type-EARTH creature as an embodiment of her will to forestall what she foresaw as inevitable destruction by her errant children. But…she failed, as the long ago trauma of First Impact had rendered it unable to form an ultimate being – forcing her to call upon her fellow worlds for aid. But as each planet had a will of its own and its own common sense, most did not respond, with only Crimson Moon Brunestud (the ultimate being of the celestial body sundered from Gaia long ago) making her an offer, while ORT (Type-Mercury) simply landed at the tip of South America and fell silent, secluding itself in a death-like state, hidden from human sight for vast millennia, waiting till the stars were right.

Out of mortal minds and out of mortal memories, the spider rested in its otherworldly lair, with those few who dared disturb its slumber dying in an instant, and so was forgotten as it sank into its torpor. Civilizations rose and fell, mortals bred and reproduced and filtered 'cross the world. Strange aeons passed, and on a night when the stars were close and the crimson moon shone overhead, in the wake of Second Impact…

…a nightmare awoke…

A blood red sea, devoid of life – a place where the air itself is heavy and oppressive, saturated with a diffuse black glow harboring deep and ancient enmity, with jagged spires of ice rising from the crimson depths akin to the broken bars of a cage for a titanic beast. Bloody waves roiled, boiled, churned and toiled, crashing against one another in the aftermath of utter devastation, as if the world itself were hemorrhaging out the True Ether that it needed to live.

And on the surface of this lifeless sea, a fierce battle raged, with Archetype Earth, a striking woman clad in white and blue, standing against a certain gargantuan crystal spider, an eldritch abomination awakened from its aeons-long slumber by the power of the Second Impact.

"Alte Schule!" she intoned imperiously, her eyes blazing golden in the corrupted gloom, long blonde hair streaming behind her like a banner as she focused her will—

WHOOSH!

—hurling an enormous vacuum wave towards her foe, an attack mighty enough to tear apart any of the normal enemies she encountered—including the most powerful of Dead Apostles or Demons Lords. In the blink of an eye, it closed the distance of hundreds of meters, slamming into the surface of the enemy—

"HNNNGGGGRRR!"

—but to no effect, as the blade of wind dissipated on contact with her enemy, as if nullified, leaving the shimmering hide of the Spider unscathed, with the creature itself seeming to focus its attention on her.

'I should have expected as much, as this foe is not my usual fare,' the White Princess of the True Ancestors thought to herself, lips set in a grim line as she moved, her body reacting instinctively at the first hint of danger, pulling back with the greatest retreat possible, twisting to the side—

Fsh! Fsh! Fsh!

—and only barely managing to avoid one-two-three swipes from whips of liquid metal moving faster than the eye could track, freezing the air in its wake, and—

Whoosh!

—causing crystalline towers wrought of some unearthly material to erupt from the churning surface of the sea at the point of impact, razor-edges jutting out in all directions like a spider web of non-Euclidian design from which emanated a dissonant cacophony, a symphony of screeching nails and rent metal that drove the True Ancestor backwards.

'Ugh…' Arcueid Brunestud winced, stumbling backwards from the sudden onslaught to her senses, eyes sharp as she raised her left hand—and with a sharp slashing motion, loosed a pulse of slicing vacuum like a thousand blades of wind—

CRASH!

— tearing apart a potion of the strange and twisted crystal growths, though as her foe reacted, surging forward in a blur of motion to strike at her, silvery serpentine whip-blades erupting from its outer hide, shooting outwards in elegant arcs as they sped towards the isolated figure of the one who opposed it, seeking to skewer her where she stood—

Whirr! Whirr! Whirr! Whirr!

—striking only air as Archetype Earth seemingly teleported, a series of sonic booms trailing in her wake. It could not be described in any other words, that was how fast her movements were, seeming to warp space itself as she evaded every blow, glaring up at the creature she faced: a towering metal arachnid over 40 meters tall covered with a iridescent outer skin harder, more flexible, more temperature resistant—and sharper—than any other substance on the surface.

'So this is ORT. The greatest of the Types in sheer physical power—no surprise that it was able to kill the Dead Apostle Ancestor which discovered it nigh instantly five thousand years ago,' reflected the cold and merciless White Princess of the True Ancestors, the single most powerful being on the face of the Earth, whose golden eyes narrowed at the challenge to Gaia's order the Spider posed. 'Just by moving, it overwrites the Supreme Reality Marble of Earth with its Crystal Valley, creating a seed of its own world that cuts off what little backup I receive from Gaia.'

And though Arcueid Brunestud had never before needed it to face down a foe, the White Princess of the True Ancestors was forced to admit she needed whatever assistance Gaia could provide, sparing though it was, given that the spirit of the world was frantically trying to staunch the grave wounds Second Impact had inflicted upon it.

'Tis a pity that I do not possess the Knight Arm of the Crimson Moon, as that would be a great equalizer,' she mused, recalling in her mind Real World, the demonic blade whose power embodied the purpose of the True Ancestors—to restore the world to its original state. A blade that, in other words, could simply negate the effect of Crystal Valley, removing her foe's terrain advantage. 'But as I do not have access to this weapon, this is an unnecessary thought, and anything unnecessary shall be removed.'

Evade.

There was no time for idle thought, no time for reflection or hesitation—

Evade.

—the longer the battle raged, the more disadvantageous her position would become, as ORT's influence would grow, cutting off the power she had available—

Evade.

—while the implacable destroyer from beyond the stars simply fulfilled its programmed objective—to eliminate all life on this dying world.

"Unacceptable,"Arcueid muttered contemptuously, even as she continued to move evasively, pushing her body to the limit to avoid being ripped apart by one of the colossal spider's ravening whipblades. "ORT must be stopped here."

But how?

As powerful as Archetype Earth assuredly was, having been created as a living weapon to hunt external threats to the order of Gaia, against this primal being summoned to bring forth the end, she was gravely outmatched. Indeed, at the moment, it was taking all she had simply to dodge the blows which came one after another without pause – downward slashes with the power of a meteor, horizontal slashes like a raging cyclone, streaks of silver against a bloody sky.

Evade.

So…

Evade.

…there was…

Evade.

…only one thing to do.

KILL.

So in the momentary opening left in the wake of the enemy's attack, Arcueid Brunestud revealed her trump card, raising a hand in a gesture of power as she focused, drawing on every ounce of power she had available to activate her greatest skill—

"Alte Nägel!" she intoned, the power of its true name shaking the very air as it was spoken.

Howling, screaming, wailing erupted from the air all around as a dislocation ran through space, an immense pillar of light and wind that sundered the heavens, drilling through space towards for the creature before her, seeking to overwhelm it with sheer power.

SCREEEEEEEEEEE!

It was an overwhelming attack, one that could not be avoided, could not be blocked—the signature attack of the Crimson Moon—shearing through everything in its path as if a tornado plowing through a garden of models—water, ground, air, and all!

WHOOOSH!

Everything, that was, save one, as Arcueid discovered to her annoyance as her body was batted aside, flung away by an overwhelming impact as ORT roared, its body somehow left without a scratch, as impossibly sharp lances of liquid silver raced forth from its form in a fierce counterattack, which—

Whirr—squelch!

—by a stroke of luck only skewered her through the gut, inflicting an agonizingly gruesome wound…but missing the chance to kill her immediately. Only a heartbeat later, she severed the weapon that had though from where she was struck, but already, it was too late, as the jagged edge left within burst into a frenzy of growth, exploding within her like fireworks as they further tore into her flesh, attempting to consume her from within.

"Ha…guh…"

The chill of rapidly approaching death—a feeling that Arcueid had never before known in the years she had existed, but one she felt now, for the first time.

A great irony, that, for it was said that True Ancestors were incapable of dying—that to kill them, one would need a conceptual weapon with the power to kill the world—a weapon which supposedly did not exist, meaning their deaths could not be caused by external factors. Yet Arcueid had been that external factor, a being created for the sole purpose of eliminating True Ancestors that had fallen…

'…and ORT is more powerful than I…'

It was only natural for it to be so, as ORT was the supreme being of another world, a creature that had eliminated all other life on its home planet through a strange instrumentality.

'And Gaia is already gravely injured…'

Though everything on Earth would instinctively turn on the Spider, time was on its side.

Evade. Evade. Evade.

Was that truly all she could do? Just painfully avoid instantly fatal blows, while getting worn down, little by little?

Slice! Cut! Slash!

Her movements were slower now, less sharp, less precise, as her body began to seize up, becoming more and more rigid from the net of crystalline filaments.

Squelch! Squick!

The sound of ripping flesh, as the silvery blades hissed through the air, nicking her limbs, grazing her flesh, as the bloody waves below were frozen, the existence of water overwritten by an alien crystalline substance, beautiful but horrifying.

'Ack…I…see…I cannot regenerate…my connection to the world is fading…I have barely enough power remaining to hold this body together…'

Eaten through from within, the world around her being consumed from without, there was no chance of survival—even less a chance of victory.

'Nevertheless, all will be concluded here, one way or another. If ORT is said to be invincible as long as the battlefield is earth – shall we test that?'

Thus, for the last time, the White Princess of the True Ancestors steadied herself, pulling at every last scrap of power she could muster—as every cell within her caught fire, nerves letting out agonizing screams, her retinas cracking and drying as her heartbeat stopped, her form fading away into a mass of seething, crackling power, concentrating her essence for one last, desperate attack.

Seeking

It seemed a repeat of the time before, as the atmosphere all about wailed and screeched and churned, a vortex of supreme power compressing and accelerating more and more and more as her dying consciousness reached out towards something hidden fat beneath the waves…

Seeking

—as the infinite vectors of the air itself, the ocean that bounded the world, screamed in protest as they were forced together like superheated plasma, with the rules of probability being strained to the limit as the very particles of matter broke apart—

Seeking…there!

—erupting in a titanic flare like a pillar that tore apart the heavens, enough to pulverize any opposition on the face of the planet, a roiling wave of destruction that spread outwards from the zero point.

It was something ORT might otherwise have shrugged off, might have simply ignored…but in the moment before that attack hit—

Crunch!

—a long red spear, one with two shafts twisting around themselves to form a helix and then becoming straight, rose from the watery depths and slammed into ORT's underbelly with incredible force, its prongs tearing through the up to now impervious outer layer of the eldritch abomination.

This was Longinus – a weapon forged entirely of the Fifth True Theoretical Element, anathema to any spirit or creature reliant on True Ether—with the Types being the most notorious example of the latter—imposing a concept of natural life upon them and removing their invulnerability.

Flash.

With a rumble that shook the world to its foundations, a flare of light brighter than a thousand suns erupted into being about ORT, as shockwaves of wind and light and plumes of unearthly heat slammed into the Spider, breaching its suddenly vulnerable shell and blasting it off the face of the earth, utterly destroying the form of Type Mercury, scattering what remained of its physical shell to the winds—all save the core, which, cushioned by the rest of the Spider's bulk, was merely ejected from the Earth's system at unthinkable speeds.

Thus ended the battle at the end of the world, a battle observed by only a solitary figure in the distance — a young girl sealed inside an escape pod, bleeding near to death from shock, saved only by the Crest scarred across her stomach, looking listlessly out a window.

How long the aftershocks rumbled, how much she was tossed by that final blow she did not know, knowing only that when all receded to darkness at last, leaving only a world of shadow pictures playing across her nigh-blinded sight, a brilliant moon was shining in the sky, illuminating the nothingness that remained in the wake of the first battle of the Aristoteles War.

Train en route to Tokyo-3, 2015 AD

Only an hour or so before dawn, an express train hurtled through the empty darkness of the night, carrying with it passengers from the island of Kyushu who sought a new life in the city of Tokyo-3, the most advanced city on the face of the Earth. They came in drips and drabs and dribbles, one by one, and two by two, each with their own motivations and aspirations—some wishing to take advantages of opportunities there for business, some to escape memories of that haunted them day and night, and some simply wanting to live in a place where their lives would not be in constant danger from the food they ate and the air they breathed.

One of these passengers was a troubled youth by the name of Shinji Ikari, a teenager in a simple white shirt and black slacks whose troubled eyes seemed fixed upon a letter in his lap—if a single sheet of paper with the word 'Come' written on it could be called a proper letter—listening to the eerie strains of Dmitri Shostakovich's 8th Symphony on his SDAT player, his mind clouded with thoughts of long ago days.

'Father abandoned me when I was three, after mother died, leaving me standing cold and alone on a train platform on a rainy day, crying. He didn't visit, didn't return my letters, cast me aside—and now he wants me to come to him? He's probably just found another use for me…'

The fact that there had been a picture of a strange woman enclosed with the letter only cemented this possibility in his mind, as it seemed that once again, Father wanted to pass him off to someone else.

"But I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away," he whispered hoarsely to himself, repeating it once for good measure. "Because if I run, I'll be just like…him. And I would have nowhere to go…"

The last Shinji added with an ironic twist, as he sat there, ruminating on why it was that he had been abandoned—and why it was that he was suddenly being called back, as he listened to a musical depiction of the horrors of the battlefield, an interlude as chilling, bleak, and astringent as the world outside.

'It can't be because of…that…can it?' he thought with a stab of fear welling up in his secret heart as he recalled a certain incident little over a year ago, one that had shaken his—

Warmth.

The shock of slender fingers on his forearm caused Shinji to bolt upright, wincing as a white-hot pain exploded in his head as he did so, as the human head was not designed to move that quickly after long periods of inactivity. Several seconds later though, it had largely dissipated, or at least enough for the brown-haired boy to turn towards the one who had interrupted his rather melancholic thoughts—only to see the one he had boarded the train with—the daughter of the distant relatives he had stayed with.

"You really should have more confidence in yourself, Shinji-kun—you're ruining the mood," the girl said, long black hair falling about her face like water as she looked up from the book she was reading, her blue eyes filled with something odd as she regarded him, almost as if seeing someone else. "Or…don't tell me you're worrying about that again."

"But—"

"That was not your fault," she continued, censuring him with a serious look, half-exasperation, half something else as she gave him an odd smile. "You need to stop blaming yourself for everything—it's actually a little arrogant to think you're responsible for all the evils in the world."

"…even though you got hurt trying to protect me, Mana?" Shinji asked quietly, swallowing as he remembered the sight and smell of her blood spilled out on the ground, remembered the—

"That was my choice—and what my family does…or at least, what my mother did," the girl remarked wryly, remembering a challenge that would have to put on hold, ever since her mother had disappeared. "And I can take care of myself, as you well know."

Her point was only accented by the air of nobility about the girl, who emphasized this with the midnight blue kimonos she had taken to wearing in the wake of her mother and father's disappearance, as well as the incredibly sharp aura about her.

"You…have a point," Shinji was forced to admit, as every time the two of them sparred with shinai, he invariably ended up losing—though he didn't have the benefit of a self-hypnosis ability that enhanced his fighting ability when holding a sword—something that many bruises and bumps over the years had taught him was a major disadvantage. "It's just…"

"Feh…you're in a foul mood again, just like you've been since you received your Father's letter," Mana Ryougi pouted, looking mildly displeased at the depths of his melancholy, turning back to her book, Tears of a Vampire.

It wasn't as though she wasn't used to Shinji's occasional displays of moodiness, since his heart was fragile, like glass, and it had already been damaged by his father long ago—hence why the words 'Shinji Ikari' and 'extremely cheerful' didn't tend to go hand in hand—except when he was in the kitchen, of course.

"Sorry," Shinji apologized then, seemingly out of force of habit, only for the girl beside him to nail him with a baleful glare.

"We've talked about this," she pointed out succinctly, before turning back to her book.

"Sorry."

"You're doing it again," the girl commented, showing some signs of irritation now, wondering if he was really paying attention.

"So…" Shinji trailed off at a dirty look from the girl, as her eyes seemed to glow with enmity for a brief moment, before changing tactics. "…how's the book?"

"Nice save," his childhood friend quipped, rolling her eyes, before glancing down at the book again. "Oh? Tears of a Vampire is a real work of art – I still say it's the best work Mitsuru-san has done, unlike the others, which are practically—"

"—a waste of resources, I know," Shinji filled in, having heard this particular rant before—several times too many for his liking. "So why do you have it now, when we're going to Tokyo-3?"

A distant expression flashed across Mana's face for the briefest of instants as she remembered a certain picture book author she used to spend time with in her childhood.

"Because I just wanted to get reacquainted with Mitsuru-san's strange quirks before seeing him in Tokyo-3," the young woman said after a few moments, her voice hard. "I'll be staying with him and Aunt Azaka there, since there's no point to me staying in Mifune with mother and papa both missing. You ca…"

But Mana cut herself off midsentence as she sensed a hint of something ominous, the air heavy with the sickly sweet stench of—

Clatter!

Her book fell to the floor as she rose to her feet in one smooth motion, a jet-black katana edged in blue light suddenly in her hand as if simply materialized from thin air, her clear blue eyes hard with resolve.

'The Dead? Here? Azaka warned me that because of Second Impact and the reduced number of humans, ghoul activity was picking up, but this is…'

A beat later, Shinji was on his feet as well, glancing warily over at his traveling companion.

"Mana, what's—"

Thump! Thump! Shuffle!

—and then he sensed it too, the hair on his nape of his neck standing on end as—

"Hyu! Hyu!"

—dozens of vampiric ghouls spilled through the doors of their otherwise deserted compartment at both ends, charging towards the two still living youths, apparently drawn in by the scent of young and supple flesh.

'No…not again…not…'

But there was no time to think, not with a number of the Dead coming at them from all directions, so Shinji did the only thing he could think of—

'I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away.'

—rising to his feet to stand back to back with Mana, his heart thudding in his chest at the sudden terror of death that swept over him. Still, there could be no escape when a train was in motion, so there was nothing to do—but fight.

Slash, Slice—thump!

Two corpses rushing towards the demon hunter girl were immediately bisected by a sweep of her ebon blade, their blood splattering across her clothes as she whirled to confront the ten ghouls immediately following the two, the twenty behind the ten.

"Hyu! Hyu!" came the snarl, as Shinji, simply stared at the oncoming Dead, as the twisted bodies of vampiric ghouls came closer, closer, closer, their hands reaching, reaching reach—

"AH!"

—but the first creature that came within a foot of Shinji Ikari was cut down by two blades wrought of a darkness deeper than black, an eerie substance that seemed to drink in light itself, edges crying out shrilly for a victim's blood, as—

Slash! Slice!

—they sang through the air, aimed to decapitate, to rend, to slice, to carve an enemy to pieces.

Fsh—thud!

The spray of fresh blood from a sliced open neck, gushing like a fountain, followed by a dried up head falling to the ground.

Tap! Tap! Vzzzzzztt!

Two steps from Shinji towards the enemy, blades sweeping out in a near trance state, as he plunged his blades through the chests of several more, shearing through muscle, skin, and bone before punching out their spines, dropping the enemies where they stood, a terrible smile overtaking his face as he charged, twin blades flashing in the dimness as he advanced…

'Blood…blood…so much blood…'

Mana, on the other hand, was not quite as reckless—instead moving with precise, deliberate movements as she countered the onslaught, each twitch, minor as it was, fraught with purpose and seemingly prepared in advance as she moved against her foes.

Squelch! Fsh! Slash!

If Shinji's was a reckless charge, Mana's attack was like a dance, her lithe figure surging forward through the train as the sounds of combat filled the air.

Slice! Thud!

A thump, as a limb was severed, then two more as a body was bisected, the individual halves falling to the ground—but not before another was skewered, and a third decapitated by a beautiful grim reaper, her katana carving jet-black arcs through the compartment as she inexorably advanced, mangled blood and viscera of her defeated foes crumbling to ashes in her wake.

Swish!

A creature seemed to come in close through her circle of control, leaping forward to rip out her throat, but the demon hunter simply ducked under the outstretched arm, her dark blade drinking in the violence of the scene to sustain itself as it carved through the undead monster from head to torso in one smooth slash—before whirling to literally rip apart a foe hiding behind the first.

Shinji's body tightened as a dried up skull appeared before his eyes, screeching out "Hyuu! Hyuu!" with the throat of this bag of bones, vibrating in accord with the ghastly voice, its fingers like needles digging into his neck, shredding the skin mercilessly, tearing—

Slash!

—but it never got the chance to finish what it started, as a brutal stoke of one of Shinji's twin blades literally disarmed the monster, while the other lopped off its head, emitting an unearthly keening all the while as it drank in the lives of its foes.

Slash!

Eviscerate, disembowel, severing the limbs one by one, decapitating—so the Ryougi moved, a perfectly-rational, perfectly-logical berserker eliminating her prey with extreme prejudice, spitting them on the edge of her terrible swift sword.

Thunk!

A hand fell to the floor, as a blade shoved into the face of another ghoul as its face literally exploded, a second slashing up from groin to upper torso. Whirling to carve one apart across the gullet, the spray of blood like a fountain as it gushed out in force.

…and then after several frenetic minutes, the explosion of violence was over, leaving the train car filled near to overflowing with the pieces of corpses dissolving into ash, ash that thankfully soaked up much of the blood that had been spilled earlier.

Two Children were left standing in the midst of this carnage, the blades in their hands quieting as they warily glanced around the enclosure, their breathing slowly returning to normal after an unexpected bout of combat, with Shinji nearly stumbling on the blood-slicked floor as he dissolved his blades, the slightly maddened expression leaving his face as he did so, his minor wounds already healing.

"Mana, are you…?"

"Stay here," the Ryougi ordered, no playfulness on her face or in her voice, her jet-black katana grasped firmly in hand as she cocked her head, catching the sound of shuffling feet in the distance. "I'm going to go forward a few cars and make sure the infestation is gone—I don't want to deal with another attack before we arrive."

Reluctantly, but knowing it wouldn't do any good to argue with her when she was like this, Shinji looked around the area where they had been sitting, noting to his relief that his SDAT was safe—though it seemed that Mana's book was not, its cover stained with the ichor of the ghouls that had attacked them.

'…somehow, this wasn't what I had in mind when I agreed to come to Tokyo-3…certainly not having to…'

His mental voice trailed off as Shinji simply stared at the place where Mana had been moments before, hoping that she would be alright.

Train Platform, Tokyo-3

It was thankfully without further consequence that the blood-splattered forms of two teenagers disembarked onto the arrival platform of Tokyo-3, wary for any sudden movements or strangeness that might signal the presence of the Dead, or things worse than the Dead, with Mana keeping watch, while Shinji went to make a phone call to contact the one assigned to meet him.

'It's quiet…too quiet…something is wrong…' the Ryougi thought, not liking the utter stillness in the air, an artificial, oppressive stillness that was an ill-fated omen of things to come. '…and my book was ruined too.'

Tap. Tap. Tap.

In the silence, her eyes darted towards the source of the sound, instantly tensing—only to relax at the sight of Shinji, apparently having returned.

"Well?" Mana asked, somewhat impatient and wanting an update on the situation. It wasn't as if she had eyes that could see the fate of all things, after all, though those would undoubtedly be convenient in this situation.

"Out of order due to a special emergency," Shinji quoted, wearing a troubled expression on his face as he looked back at the phone. "I knew it…I shouldn't have come."

A moment of silence as Mana shot him a glare, wordlessly hinting that it was meaningless to complain now that things were done and they were here.

"R—right," Shinji said after a moment, regaining his composure. "Should we head to the shelters then?"

"Oh? We don't even know what's…."

A sudden howling of the wind, and shaking of the earth, as an immense, vaguely humanoid creature emerged dripping from the sea, with bony structures emerging on its shoulders and torso, strange hands, a distinctive beaked face that struck terror into the minds of all that saw it—and a glowing orb located prominently on its chest—

Shudder. Shudder. Shudder.

—it's footsteps causing the world itself to tremble.

"Augh….!" Shinji gasped, nearly falling to his knees as a spike of pain shot through his at the sight of this creature and its unearthly cry, but barely managing to stay standing.

"Shinji-kun, are you…?"

"It's that…" he whispered, forcing himself to remain upright, watching the figure in the distance, his eyes on the edge of wildness. "It's that…"

Screech!

But Shinji was interrupted by the ear rending sound of screeching brakes, with both blood-splattered teens walking gingerly towards the street side of the platform, blinking twice at the sight of skid marks being burned into the street as a bright blue Renault Alpine A310 spun nearly out of control, then corrected itself, coming to a halt parallel to the platform. Moments later, a certain purple-haired Captain Misato Katsuragi (which they recognized from the photograph sent to Shinji), Director of NERV Operations emerged from within, her eyes immediately falling on the figures of the Children—and doing a double-take as she saw them covered in blood.

'…what exactly happened on the way here?'

"The Third Child…and another…the Fourth? Must we have these children fight our battles for us?" Misato muttered to herself, before shaking her head, putting the thought from her mind. The Third she was expecting, and…

"Captain Katsuragi, I presume?" Mana inquired in a business-like tone of voice, taking a step forward as if to shield Shinji in case it proved necessary.

"Yes, and you must be Mana, correct?" NERV's Director of Operations acknowledged, looking quickly at the colossal lifeform in the distance, one that was beginning to approach, even as the UN Military moved to intercept—an effort she knew would fail. "Quick, both of you…get in."

"What…is that thing?" Shinji asked as he moved to comply, his voice seemingly strained as his eyes tracked the progress of the giant in the distance.

"…an enemy of mankind," the sole witness to Second Impact intoned, her voice frosty as what used to be Antarctica. "We call it…an Angel."

A/N: And so...it begins. The Angel War...and the War against the Aristoteles.