“No,” Shinji sourly answered.

Misato raised her eyebrow over her can of beer as she chugged it down. “Are you two ranting about my cooking again?” Her possible intimidation was lost due to the can filtering her voice.

“More like the lack of it,” Shinji answered under his breath.

“I heard that,” Misato replied dryly as she put her empty can down on the table.

“Very sorry,” Shinji apologized in an exaggerated fashion.

The Major’s eyebrow twitched. “Well I’m glad you’ve learned to be sarcastic suddenly.”

Before anything further could be said, the doorbell rang. Misato smiled too well for Asuka, whose face turned dismal. Rolling her eyes, the red-haired girl slinked out of the kitchen and went for the door. She checked through the eyehole and her face lit up. “Kaji!!” she shouted gleefully and opened the door.

The unshaven man gave her his usual half-smile with an exaggerated bow. “My apologies for not notifying the fine Asuka of my arrival earlier.”

“That’s fine, Mr. Kaji!” Asuka replied with a dreamy expression on her face as she let him enter.

“Mind if I ask where Miss Katsuragi is?” Kaji asked lightly.

Asuka pointed into the kitchen and walked in with Kaji.

“Kaji, I wasn’t expecting you back so soon,” Misato said lightly, though a smile came over her face with an ease that told Shinji she was very relieved to see her… acquaintance.

Kaji sat down with Asuka and smiled broadly. “Yes, I got in on an early flight from Tokyo-2. My other job needed some work done.”

Shinji smiled. “It’s good to see you again, Mr. Kaji,” he said.

“And you Shinji. I meant to bring you both back some souvenirs, but I didn’t go anywhere interesting,” Kaji added with a wry smile.

“Did you go on any dangerous missions, Kaji?” Asuka asked.

“Of course!” Kaji answered.

Misato chuckled. “Now, now, Kaji, you really shouldn’t use your best tricks on such a young and naïve girl.”

Asuka’s face turned red. “I’m not that young or naïve!”

“Of course not, Asuka. Misato just doesn’t like womanly competition,” Kaji replied with an exaggerated wink.

Misato’s mouth dropped open and she mock slapped him across the shoulder. “You dirty little boy.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Kaji replied lightly.

“So are you staying long enough to unpack?” Misato asked, her tone becoming more relaxed.

“Yes, don’t worry. I’ll be here for some time now. I was hoping I’d be able to spend the night here, if it’s not too much trouble?” Kaji replied.

Asuka’s face brightened up immensely and she looked at Misato. Misato was still slightly shocked by the offer, but numbly nodded. “Yes, yes, that’s fine.”

“Ah, thank you very much, Katsuragi,” Kaji replied.

Due to the combination of it being Kaji who needed a place to sleep, and Misato’s express desire not to put Shinji on the floor in the living room, the young man wound up in the most unlikely of places. Asuka’s room. She had protested of course, but Kaji and Misato prevailed upon her in the end.

“Don’t get any ideas, Shinji,” she warned the young man with sour emphasis.

Lying on a cushioned matt, the boy waved at her groggily, managing, “I won’t, I won’t.”

Asuka settled into her bed, and pulled the covers over herself with a little sigh of relaxation as she closed her eyes. After a few minutes she was just about falling asleep.

“Asuka?”

She frowned, her eyes still closed. “What?” she asked wearily.

“Do you really hate me?” Shinji’s voice was slow and thoughtful. He sounded both sad and accepting of the idea.

Asuka’s eyebrows twisted up in an expression of sheer puzzlement. Sitting up, she turned enough to look at him. “What are you talking about?”

Shinji sat up with her and looked down at the ground. “Well… you’ve told me you hated me so often… I wanted to know if you really did or not.”

“What are you, stupid?”

He focused up on her.

“Of course I don’t hate you really,” Asuka continued, unfazed. “Yeah sure you’re an annoying, boring brat most of the time, but you’re a boy anyway.” Turning incredulous, she finished with, “Did you wake me up just to ask a stupid question like that?”

Shinji smiled. “Yes- I’m sorry, but… yes,” he repeated thoughtfully.

Asuka looked at him for a moment in the dark of her room with a raised eyebrow. She finally shook her head and lay back down. “You really are weird.”

“I know,” Shinji replied lightly as he lay down. “And Asuka?”

“Ugh… what now?”

“Thank you,” Shinji finished softly as he closed his eyes.

Asuka’s brow creased, and she sat up in her bed again, looking down at the shadowy form that was Shinji on the ground. He really thought I hated him, didn’t he?

She lay back down slowly, rather disturbed by the realization. She would never admit it of course, but she was thankful she’d been given the opportunity to fix that before it got any worse. “…Yeah, no problem,” she replied softly. Suddenly what Cirus had told her earlier that day came back to her mind. She turned over in the bed, her fiery mane of hair rolling down her shoulders, and looked down at Shinji. “Shinji?” she asked softly. No response.

Asuka nodded, he was asleep. “…I’m sorry.” And with that she turned back over and closed her eyes.

“Now he wants to activate Project 7?!” SEELE 09 asked in shock. “Who does Ikari think he is?”

“If the original plan failed Project 7 was our back-up. I see no reason not to use it,” SEELE 03 replied.

“But what is Ikari planning for it is the question,” SEELE 01 continued. “We all know he wouldn’t do this out of the ‘kindness’ of his heart. He has something to gain from this.”

“Whatever gain he could have wouldn’t last long enough to be of concern,” SEELE 03 replied.

“Do you all forget what Project 7 is?” SEELE 02 spoke up suddenly, looking at the other members. “It is far too risky. Instead of helping humanity move on, we could destroy it. It’s too much of a mix.”

“But it is our only hope now. With the Dead Sea Scrolls proven wrong we have no alternative,” SEELE 01 replied.

“But you know how dangerous it is!” SEELE 02 persisted.

“An acceptable margin of error,” SEELE 01 retorted.

“This is not a scenario, this is the fate of us as a species! We can’t risk losing it all just because it’s not in our plan,” SEELE 02 replied sharply.

“Perhaps this is what Ikari gains?” SEELE 09 spoke up again suddenly.

The other members looked to hook-nosed man with varying degrees of curiosity.

“He’s already sent us into disarray, perhaps that was his plan? Ikari is a selfish being, but he is not foolish. He is not to be underestimated. The son ruined the first plan; the father may ruin the second. He must be watched, and carefully.”

SEELE 01 nodded slowly. “So be it. Send Ikari the confirmation.”

The other members, including 02, though reluctantly, all nodded and ended the conference.

“Project Seven?” Fuyutsuki repeated curiously, but with a touch of concern in his voice. “What is that?” he asked, sitting across from Commander Ikari at the side of his desk.

Ikari sat back in his chair behind his desk, resting his gloved hands on the smooth surface. “The original back-up plan in case SEELE failed. They always were prepared for every contingency,” he answered calmly.

“I was never informed of this…” Fuyutsuki’s voice trailed off as his blood started to cool rapidly.

“No one outside of the committee is aware it exists,” Ikari responded. He then stood up and turned around, facing the back wall of his office. “Come, you will need to be informed now,” he added as he approached the wall. A door opened up in the center of it, revealing the wide window to be a visual illusion, spreading to the two sides and revealing another large window.

Fuyutsuki approached the large pane, and looked down into the absolutely massive chamber it revealed. His eyes widened. “…Is that…?”

“Yes,” Ikari answered the unfinished question as they both looked down at the massive creature contained in the room. “That is the second Angel…”

Fuyutsuki put his hand to the glass and let his eyes narrow from weariness. The creature was laid back against the far wall limply. There were no visible restraints, but its torso rose and fell rhythmically, indicating that it was at rest. It had four massive limbs that went up toward the ceiling and then bent back down at another joint, going back down to the ground; forming mighty buttresses for the beast’s body. The head was tilted down against the chest, the eyes closed. The head was elongated and disturbing. The mouth was perpetually open in a menacing grimace of sharp teeth that were easily four times the size of a man each. Tendrils coiled down from the top of the head and ran down like thick strands of hair. It had a rotund lower body, almost ball-shaped. The skin texture of the creature resembled old leather and was grayed. The being looked dead.

“You’ve had it contained here all this time?” Fuyutsuki asked.

Ikari shook his head. “No. This, and Third Impact, are the reason NERV exists in this place.”

“So, like Adam, we’ve found it,” Fuyutsuki stated with a slowly sinking head. “Is it what I think it is?”

“Yes,” Ikari answered quietly and calmly. He reached up to adjust his glasses. “…Eve.”

Blackness, she saw nothing but blackness. All around her, it was all she could see. She looked up, down, to the right, and to the left, but still nothing but blackness. She started to panic; she did not like it here. She broke into a run, her feet landing on something solid, but she couldn’t see any of it. She ran and ran, but she didn’t seem to get anywhere. Just the same blackness all around her.

“No, please. I do not wish for this,” Rei said aloud as she stopped and turned around.

“What is this?” her own voice asked back.

“This is nothing. I do not wish for nothing.”

“But you wish to become nothing?”

Rei shook her head. “No, not any longer.”

“You came from nothing, you must return to nothing.”

“Why must I?”

“What made you, you must return to. It is that way and always has been.”

Rei’s brow creased. “Why?” she asked again.

“That is the way it must be.”

“Why?” Rei repeated yet again.

“That is-“

“That is what he told me,” Rei cut her other voice off calmly. “You do not understand yourself, do you?”

“No.”

“Then why do you say this to me?”

“Because you must.”

“Why?”

“Because you believe you have no right to exist outside of his intent for you.”

“But that is not…” Rei didn’t know how to say what was in her heart. “It is not…” the words just wouldn’t come.

“Yes. It is not just.”

Rei’s head raised up with slightly widened eyes. “Yes, it is not just.”

“But you still fear that you exist for no purpose, and thus do not understand why you should exist.”

“…Can I trust Cirus?” Rei asked. His words had comforted her, made her feel… warmth. She wanted to believe them so much.

“Yes,” the other Rei replied calmly, still not taking any visible shape. “All living things are created with the right to exist for their own unique and singular purpose. It is the choice of each living thing to aid or help in others’ purposes and goals. Even if fully created by Man, Man is not G’d. Only G’d can control, and even He does not.”

“… But if my soul was made by Man, it is not of G’d. How can…” Rei again didn’t know how to ask what she wanted to.

“Mankind can not make that which is called the soul. The soul is the intangible, impermeable part of the Self. It is the Self. Your perceptions and emotions are under the domain of your Soul. They can be molded and changed by the people around you, but they are still yours, and you may choose to change them or not. Man can not control the Soul, which is why they fail in all their attempts to do so. You know this, which is how I know this. Your perception has been molded by a Man, yes, but you still have control.”

Rei looked down at her hands and then back up at the blackness. “…I… I am afraid.”

“With change comes fear. You also know this.”

The blackness started to rush away from Rei. She looked up and started to run after it, but it retreated far too quickly for her to catch up. It finally disappeared in the far distance, leaving nothing but whiteness. Rei stopped and turned around again, looking at the light all around her. This time there was warmth and softness surrounding her, not cold and hard shadow. “…Who…?” Rei asked quietly as she looked up at the dark shape forming before her.

“A memory,” the voice answered. “A memory that comforts you.” This voice was different. It was a young man’s voice.

The cloud-like shape solidified before her and Rei’s eyes widened slightly. “Cirus…?”

The shape looked up and smiled at her warmly. The gesture gently curved his lips softly so that it was faint, but still conveyed a very comforting impression. The figure nodded once in a slow fashion and Rei walked up to it. The memory of Cirus gently reached out with its right hand, letting it hang loosely in front of him, palm up. Rei slowly raised her left hand before gently resting it in the memory’s. It closed its fingers around her hand gently, not squeezing at all, but holding onto it. The figure then bowed to her, stepping back slightly and raising her hand to its lips. As the memory straightened, he smiled and tipped his head to her. “You deserve to exist on the terms you choose, Rei. Never forget that,” he said with another warm smile and then started to disappear in a growing cloud of white.

Rei smiled faintly as the remainder of the memory bowed once more before disappearing back into her mind.

Rei’s eyes suddenly shot open in her bed. A dream? She asked herself mentally, her eyes slightly widened by surprise.

She folded her blanket down enough to let her sit up in the bed, her hair clinging to her face thanks to a light sweat over her soft, pale skin. She turned her shining red eyes down as she raised her left hand up and looked at it, a faint smile crossing her lips. He was kind to her, and that comforted her a great deal. She maintained the delicate curve of her lips and looked up and out the small window near the ceiling of her bedroom, out at the stars. Pale moonlight poured in and made her shine, her skin and hair doing so lightly.

Another memory suddenly came to her mind. It was Shinji, alone with her in an elevator.

“You remind me of my mother, Ayanami,” Shinji had said with a faint smile.

She’d replied to herself, “A… mother?”

“I think you’ll make a wonderful mother some day, Ayanami,” he’d continued.

“…You’re embarrassing me,” she had finally said in response.

Rei looked down at her hands again; her eyes widened a slight amount and her cheeks blushing gently. “…I… I would… enjoy that,” she said softly to her hands. I… I could be a mother? she asked as she looked back out the window.

It was typical on Saturday, which was the next day, for NERV personnel to not be required to check in until close to noon. However, they all knew to stay near a phone or carry a cellular one with them.

At the moment it was about ten o’clock in the morning, and Cirus was slowly making his way toward NERV headquarters. He had nothing else to do really, so he took a leisurely walk instead of a train.

He came up to a crossing light with cars waiting in every direction. Finally the cars perpendicular to him were allowed to go, and so he waited, leaning against the light pole at the corner as he waited.

A sound that vaguely resembled an insect’s wings beating came from above Cirus, so he looked up. What he saw made him step away from the pole, and turn around to look up better. A strand of energy was leaping off the top of the pole, and shooting out in random directions for about two or three feet before disappearing, and then reappearing again. Just when Cirus was about to reach into his coat, and pull out his phone the energy died and didn’t come back.

A car beeping brought Cirus out of his thoughtful trance, and he looked back down at the intersection. He saw that he could cross, and so briskly did so. He gave the light pole one final look over his shoulder as he walked down the sidewalk. He suddenly stopped, and turned completely back around. He pulled his cell phone out, and quickly dialed a number from memory.

It wrung twice and then died. Cirus clenched his jaw in irritation and turned the phone off. “They never work anyway, so why does everybody use them?” he asked the air around him as he turned back around and hurried his pace toward NERV headquarters. If he came across a pay phone he would use it.

“Energy anomalies all over the city,” Hyuga reported calmly, but tensely as he turned his chair around to look up at Command Ikari.

“Is there a pattern?” Ikari asked.

Hyuga turned back around, and danced his fingers over the keys quickly. The screen’s light casting a glare across his glasses, before looked back up to the Commander. “There’s a higher concentration in the thirty-seventh district,” he reported.

“Call in all personnel. Record the thirty-first Angel,” Gendo ordered calmly.

“Yes, sir!” Hyuga confirmed firmly before doing so.

Within twenty minutes the command center was bustling with activity. Maya and Ayobi had arrived sooner and were at their stations with Misato and Dr. Akagi watching the screens above them.

“They’re getting more violent, aren’t they?” Misato asked as she intently watched the grid-screen representation of the city. The affected districts would flash red for the duration of the energy anomaly.

“Yes,” Ritsuko confirmed. “Fuses have shorted out, some machines have exploded. No injuries so far.”

“The Magi recommend emergency evacuation,” Maya reported.

“Order evacuation through district seventy,” Misato ordered in response. “Yes, ma’am,” Maya replied as she did so.

The four pilots were waiting near the back of the command center, just below Ikari. They were all watching the screen intently themselves, waiting to be asked to launch. They had all put on their Eva suits already.

Cirus watched the whole screen, trying to see if he could notice any pattern or cycle. One suddenly became readily apparent to everyone.

“The anomalies are disappearing,” Ayobi reported in mild bewilderment. “They’re still firing off in the thirty-seventh district, but everything else has stopped. Even those are slowing down.”

Hyuga looked at his screen as he switched through all the sensor spectrums. His brow creased as he cycled through them. “That’s not just electricity,” he reported curiously.

“What other wavelengths are there?” Ritsuko asked quickly.

Hyuga shook his head. “They’re unidentifiable by the computer. The energy readings are off the scale.”

Cirus stepped forward slightly. “Cut the power to that district.”

Misato looked over her shoulder briefly at him, but then decided it was a good idea. “Do it,” she confirmed, looking at Hyuga.

Hyuga nodded and input several commands into the computer. “Power flow down by fifty percent… sixty… seventy… ninety… dead,” he reported, relaxing back into his chair as he said the last word.

“All anomalies have ceased,” Ayobi confirmed calmly.

Rei looked at the screen with a slightly creased brow and narrowed eyes. “It is not gone,” she said suddenly with a brief shake her head.

Ritsuko looked from Rei back to Maya. “Do a full spectrum sweep of the thirty seventh district.”

Maya nodded and hit a few keys. She gasped slightly and her eyes widened. “Confirmed, energy anomaly still present, but dormant,” she reported calmly, but was obviously distressed.

Fuyutsuki narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “We should see if we can identify that energy,” he said quietly.

“Indeed,” Ikari replied calmly. He stood up from his seat before speaking again. “Dr. Akagi, since the Angel is dormant go to the lab and attempt to identify the energy wave-length. All other personnel not involved are to remain on stand-by,” he ordered calmly and then left for his office with Fuyutsuki.

Ritsuko looked back up at the screen from where Ikari had been standing with thoughtfully narrowed eyes. “Maya, join me,” she ordered calmly as she turned and walked toward the door. Maya stepped out of her seat and hurried off to catch up.

Misato shook her head up at the screen. “I don’t like this.”

“What’s to like?” Cirus asked her calmly as he stepped up beside her.

“How do you defeat a target you can’t even identify?” Misato asked in a dubious tone.

Cirus raised one eyebrow above his glasses before turning back around. “You wait until it identifies itself,” he answered calmly as he started to exit the command center.

“Stay in the base you four,” Misato ordered distantly.

Varying degrees of affirmative replies met her order as the pilots left to change back into normal clothes.

“Do you think the Angel will actually pop up and say ‘hello’ for us?” Hyuga asked with a wry grin on his face as he continued to run through sensor spectrums out of his own curiosity.

“Unfortunately that’s what he have to hope for unless Ritsuko can find something out,” Misato answered doubtfully.

Hyuga’s smiled faded rather promptly. “So we’re basically up the creek, aren’t we?”

Misato nodded dryly. “Yep.”

Ritsuko sighed wearily as the computer screen came up with ‘601’ again. She and Maya had tried almost every possible theory about the energy and possible countermeasures, but nothing would come up positive. She finally just shook her head, and stood up from her seat. “This isn’t helping us,” she explained, and held her hand to her forehead to try and aleave the pain of an oncoming headache.

Maya sighed and stretched her arms behind her head and up. “It’s been five hours now,” she commented with a yawn.

“Take a break, Maya, I’ll see if I can find anything else that we can try,” Ritsuko replied as she sat back down.

Maya nodded, both out of acknowledgement and thanks, and left the computer lab. She walked down the hall to the conveniently placed vending machine niche that the lab techies had requested because of their late night shifts. Maya was thankful they’d gotten it now as she got herself some instant tea.

As she sat down on the bench, warming her hands on the cup of tea, she heard footsteps coming up to the little niche from the other direction. She looked up with politely raised eyebrows, and saw Cirus coming down the hall.

“Ah, Miss Ibuki,” he greeted her with a pleasant smile. “How’s it going in there?” he asked, motioning further down the hall as he stopped and leaned against the wall.

Maya sighed and looked down at her tea. “Nowhere fast, I’m afraid. We’ve tried two hundred and twenty three different theoretical wavelengths in both directions of the spectrum, and we still can’t find even a close match.”

“How far past gamma rays did you get?” Cirus asked back calmly.

“Far… very far,” Maya answered.

Cirus hummed thoughtfully for a moment as he looked down at the ground, his brow creased slightly. Maya looked up at him. “You have an idea?”

Cirus flashed a wry half-smile at her as he looked up. “Yes, but it’s foolish.”

Maya smiled back. “At this rate I’ll listen to anything,” she replied.

Cirus chuckled for a moment before nodding. “Alright then. I was thinking that since we know Angels are almost exactly like human’s inherently, perhaps we’re looking in the wrong places?”

Maya’s brow creased with curiosity. “What do you mean exactly?”

“Maybe it’s just a different version of our normal electro-magnetic spectrum, just that it’s a shade off and we can’t see it.”

Maya thought about the idea for a moment. It did have a certain logic to it. She looked back up at him. “It’s worth a try, come back to the lab with me,” she said as she stood up, putting her tea in the trash receptacle as Cirus followed her.

She entered the lab and Cirus followed her up to her chair.

“Ah, Cirus, what brings you here?” Ritsuko asked wryly, but with a weariness in her voice that showed the young man how tired she was.

“Maya’s going to check an idea of mine since you two seem to have run out of others,” Cirus answered calmly.

Maya nodded as she busily tapped away at the keyboard in front of her. “Here, Mr. Trent. This is our electro-magnetic spectrum, what do you recommend I shift?” she asked, looking up at him as he looked down at the screen.

“Shift it point five higher,” he requested.

Maya tapped a few more keys and then ‘error’ appeared on the screen. “Point five lower?”

Maya did the same process and the same thing.

“Too big a leap maybe. Try point one higher.”

Maya did so and the error message appeared again.

Cirus nodded. “Lower?”

The screen showed a green message this time. Maya’s eyes widened slightly. “Frequency match within range!” she exclaimed suddenly.

Ritsuko’s head shot up from her screen. “What?” she asked quickly, hopping out of her chair and looking down at Maya’s screen beside Cirus.

Ritsuko mouth opened slightly as the computer calculated the exact wavelength. Maya gasped slightly and Cirus narrowed his eyes. “Well… how convenient,” he commented.

“Ninety-nine point eight nine percent match… just like the inherent wave-pattern,” Maya said slowly, slightly awe-struck.

Ritsuko nodded. “Thank you, Cirus. We can use this,” she commented.

“Don’t thank me, thank Maya. She was willing to try it out,” Cirus replied though he was still looking intently at the screen.

“Have it your way,” Ritsuko said quickly, dismissing the unimportant issue. “Maya, call Command Ikari, tell him what we’ve found then get back to the command center,” she ordered quickly before hurrying out herself.

Maya picked up a red phone beside the console she was at and quickly relayed the information to the person, presumably Fuyutsuki or Ikari himself, on the other end. She confirmed a few things before hanging up. She stood up out of her seat and was mildly surprised to see Cirus still standing there.

“Let’s go then,” he said calmly, heading for the lab door.

She followed him to the door, which he opened for her, and then they both hurried to the command center.

“So it’s basically just normal electricity?” Asuka asked doubtfully.

Misato nodded. “That’s it. However, since it is definetely Angel in origin we’re assuming it can do things we aren’t able to guess at right now,” she explained.

The pilots were in the command center again. Since there was no way an Eva could battle electricity, they were allowed to stand by at that location. “If we can run it into a high enough energy output device, we may be able to simply use the Angel up,” Ritsuko surmised.

“An Eva?” Misato asked quietly. She did not want Command Ikari to hear the question.

Ritsuko shook her head. “They don’t use enough power. In human terms, the Angel is equivalent to two-hundred and eighty thousand kilowatts,” she explained.

Misato’s eyebrows raised. “That’s quite a lot,” she replied somewhat meekly.

Ritsuko chuckled. “Yes, we could run Tokyo-3 for four years on the Angel alone.”

“Well… is there any kind of machine that’s designed to simply use up energy?” Misato asked.

“In this day and age?” Ritsuko asked back doubtfully. “I think not. I suppose we could build one though.”

“What about the Positron Rifle?” Misato suggested, leaning against the console beside Hyuga.

“The blast would do damage to the atmosphere, assuming we fired it out into space.”

“And if we used it on below the atmosphere?”

Ritsuko laughed. “It would pierce the planet core and we’d either have a new volcano or destroy the planet,” she replied.

“Assuming that much power wouldn’t destroy the rifle itself,” Maya added calmly.

Ritsuko hummed to herself negatively and Misato looked up at her. “What now?”

“We can’t even build a machine to use up that much energy. The heat discharge would melt anything we have.”

“Could we put in one of the Ashinoko lakes?” Misato asked back.

“It would evaporate most of the lake and still melt the device,” Ritsuko answered.

Maya turned her chair around and looked up at Ritsuko. “Perhaps we should reactivate the power and then open the circuit breakers. Use the Angel to power the city.”

“It could work, but using an Angel as a power source could prove risky. We have no idea how the Angel itself would react.”

“No being wants to be ‘used up’,” Cirus commented. “It would act to defend itself sooner or later.”

Ritsuko nodded. “He’s right on that. The Angel is undoubtedly intelligent enough to know it’s being used.”

“So what does that leave us?” Misato asked as she took a sip of some coffee from a mug.

Ritsuko sighed. “Nothing I can think of at the moment. The Magi don’t have enough information to make a guess aside from the evacuation we’ve already issued.”

“This is odd,” Ayobi commented quietly.

Ritsuko and Misato looked over at him. “What is?” they both asked at the same moment.

“The power in the thirty-seventh district is reactivating, but according to the logs, it’s not running at all,” Ayobi answered.

Ritsuko looked back down at Maya’s screen, who was already switching to the same view as Ayobi’s. Maya looked up with widened eyes. “It’s the Angel!”

Misato hopped off the console she was leaning on and turned around. “Hyuga, anything else going on?” she asked as she looked up at the main screen, which was a grid-map zoom-in of district thirty-seven.

“Nothing yet- wait!” Hyuga cut himself off, his eyes widening as his hands flew over the keys. “M-my G’d… the entire district… it’s…” he wasn’t sure how to word what he was seeing.

Misato looked down at his screen as he put the image on the main. She looked up and her eyes widened.

The metal of the covering was starting to break and peal up toward the center of the thirty-seventh district. Wires and light-posts were bending in also and rising up in the center. Sparks and waves of electricity flew away from the rising structure.

“It’s coming alive…” her voice died off quietly.

“The Angel’s entire form is rushing into that new structure!” Ayobi reported.

Ikari narrowed his eyes. “Go to first stage alert, prepare the Evas.”