The Angel's initial form came from a dialogue exchange in the movie 'Sphere'. "What happens when Jerry gets mad?" is basically the heart of the Sphere movie, and I enjoyed the ominous mood is set so much that I simply had to use it. (It also dates when I was writing this scene pretty bluntly.) Kaworu, of course, is a huge exception to the 'emotionless being' statement. Within Kenosis, however, the Angels 'revert' to blank, emotionless threats for the most part, making an emotional Angel an aberration to the norm.

The 'pitying' look Asuka gets from the Angel makes her angry enough to attack, which of course causes an 'angry' reaction from Camael, and starts the fight. The aberration with its AT field is foreshadowing for what happens during the real core of the battle, which is the face-off between Unit 14 and Camael inside the AT-field dome arena. From the start, Camael is not one of the common 'swing lazily and hope to hit the enemy' variety of Angel. Its deadly, precise, and knows how to fight. Effectively, this one was designed to take on Unit 14 (the use of the word 'design' is abstract. I don't really touch on where Angels come from in Kenosis. It's moot.)

The reason I wrote this battle at all was the scene where Ayanami-sama touches the console, seeing Cirus in the battle, where he swears to never leave her alone. Thus, I have to explain why Rei is in the command center instead of her Eva. Thus, Unit 00 gets hit, hard, and has to retreat. Hopefully the lack of response of Cirus is lost in the rushed feeling of the scene, as it is for Misato herself, but if not, the tension only builds more for the reader. Is Cirus alive? I just love pulling on heart-strings like that, *chuckles*. (But I always relieve them.)

Once its established that Rei is in the commander center and Cirus is alone with the Angel inside the arena, I just have to get him to the point of looking like he's going to die. When it comes to Cirus, I enjoy torturing him through battle a little too much. As a result, this is one of the most gruesome fights in all of Kenosis, save the last one, which is exhaustively violent.

First, the Angel's ability to recover like a starfish on crack (yes, I just said that) makes it easy to despair, creating emotional exhaustion almost immediately. Then I start beating the stuffing out of Unit 14 (and thus Cirus himself). My own worst, physical fear is having a limb broken or hyper extended... thus, to make a battle harrowing, someone always gets their limbs mangled. Usually its the self-insert character. This is especially true when I have ways to fully heal a character after a battle. My name-sake (Cyrex) is liquid-metal, so you can just imagine the hell I put him through. Starting with a broken arm, I take it to the next level by snapping the leg in two places with a single twist that's so powerful it spins the entire Eva around after the break.

Drawing inspiration from within Evangelion itself, one of the clearest visuals in the battle, for me, is when Unit 14 hits the hill-side, and its mangled limbs flail around at unnatural angles. I got this view from seeing Unit 01 hit the building with its broken arm smashing into the neighboring one during the battle with the Third Angel. Then I drew on the horrifying imagery of the death of Bardiel (Unit 03) by having the Angels beat Unit 14 until blood starts coming away. At this point, I'm setting up Rei's tearful sorrow for the console-scene as well, so I'm using her newly-developed affection for Cirus in particular to that end.

To approach the emotional climax of the battle with Camael, I used a bit of a 'calm before the storm' technique with the first transmission through the dome. The idea that Cirus could die is explicity dictated in the narration, hopefully heightening the tension rather than annoying the reader. Having Unit 14 attacked with its own already injured limbs was the most effective way I can imagine to make the beating empathically difficult for the reader. If you're cringing while reading, I did my job as intended. The scene I want is set the moment Unit 14 is slammed back while gripping the Angel's hands in a power struggle.

With some dialogue build up (I especially like Misato's "because he knows he's going to die" line), I start the big scene. Rei requests the use of the comm, and approaches the little console. This is not only one of my favorite scenes, but also very important to the Rei/Cirus plot. Romance is officially established here, however subtle. The two as a couple is no longer just an idea, but fairly accurate from this moment forward in Kenosis. Of course, my absolute favorite part is Rei sinking down, crying, and caressing the screen with her fingers where Cirus' face is visible. So tragically sweet, and I know it works out well, so I can enjoy it! *evil laugh*

The 200 point synch ratio is a combination of showing Cirus unleashing his true power, and respecting the original importance of Shinji and Unit 01 as 'the most pwoerful Evanegelion'. Cirus will never hit 400 synch unless I have Shinji hit something even higher. I always wanted to keep Kenosis authentic to Evangelion enough to where it would really satisfy as an alteration rather than just a crazy change that leaves it unrecognizable as the series. I had decided that Unit 14's AT field would make it invisible for a while by this point, and so it was another 'mystery' I was happy to reveal so late in the original story. The visual of the blood being the only thing that allows Unit 14 to be seen is just plain cool, to my view, so I had to use it.

Here's how the cloak works. Effectively, since an AT-field phases a block between one side and the other, making penetration impossible without overwhelming or degrading it, I simply took the idea and extended it to light and sound. Light and sound simply don't pass through the AT field, making it impossible to reflect off the Eva's body, and thus the Eva is inaudible and invisible.

The idea that Camael is adapted against Unit 14 especially is made fairly blunt when the last form rises out of the blood of the group of bodies just defeated by Unit 14. It is this doppleganger aspect of the battle that makes it near impossible for Cirus to win on his own, at least with the combination of the entire fight added together. To explain the dual-AT-Field phenomenon, the fallen bodies are still generating the dome, and the new body can generate its own, but the new body is the core for the whole thing.

I cut the chapter in as fitting a place as I could find, letting Unit 14 show off its renewed power and fighting strength to toss the Angel off and into the ground.