Neon Echo Evangelion

Episode 10: Thicker than Water

	Emma opened her eyes and looked around her, the world was moving very oddly. Bouncing up and down quite a lot. Around her she could hear people screaming and crying and shouting for help. She would usually be scared in this situation, but she could feel the familiar form of her mother close to her, holding her close to her chest, she took comfort in her proximity. She could feel her mother running. From what, and where to, she didn’t know. Looking over her shoulder she could see streets disappearing into the background. Her young mind could vaguely remember this place, confused slightly by the difference between how it used to look and how it looked now. She couldn’t think of the right word to describe how the streets looked now, the only word she could think of was ‘broken.’ Yes, to her the streets looked broken. An odd colour began taking over the sky. In the distance she could see white shapes rising up from the ground, far, far away, they looked similar to wings. A red glow began washing over the sky, like wet paint flowing down a canvas. A huge monstrous shape lumbered into view, rising over the buildings in the background. A huge grey shape, headless, with great tentacles replacing its arms, and large blocky shapes, a mockery of wings, sprouting from its back. It began moving towards her, she clutched tighter to her mother and started to cry, frightened by this monster coming to get her. As the tears welled up in her eyes, blurring her vision, she saw a bright light erupt from the wings far, far away.

	Emma woke up in a cold sweat, it had been that dream again. It wasn’t like she was surprised by it, it had came to her every night for the past several months without fail. But every time she had it, it scared her like it was the first time she had ever saw it. She got up, got washed and dressed, and tried to put it from her mind. She had taken nearly every kind of sleeping pill available, but none had rid her of the dream, in fact it usually meant that she stayed asleep for longer, exposing her to the dream over and over. She had stopped taking any now, which meant that she got less and less sleep, as she looked across at the clock it read 2:00am, she had tried to get some sleep at about 10:00pm, which meant she had only got 4 hours of sleep. She didn’t want to go back to sleep, she knew the dream would return, and so she sat down on her sofa and switched her TV on. Brian had recently bought her the TV after he had been round to her apartment.
	“You don’t have a TV?” he gawped around the room in shock.
	“Well I usually read books,” Emma pointed over to the small bookcase in her apartment, “Or listen to some music,” she pointed to the silver hi-fi in her bedroom, which had been a present from Jacques, along with a few CD’s he had recommended.
	“That’s all you do?” he asked, “I don’t know how you can stand it!”
	“Well people made do without TV’s in the middle ages,” she argued.
	“That’s only because they were too busy waging war on each other to think up decent programmes,” Brian stated, as if it was a proven fact, “I’ll buy you a TV.” He announced.
	“You don’t have to,” Emma said, feeling embarrassed.
	“Nonsense, I’ve got plenty of spare money, and I hear there’s a sale on at the big electrical store in the centre of the city.”
	Other things had happened since the party a few weeks back, she had tried to get to know Michael more, she didn’t know why but there seemed to be some kind of connection between her and Michael, like they were kindred spirits. She had taken him out shopping a few times, to see a few movies, just to try and get to know him better. She asked Brian to come with her a few times, but it was his opinion, along with nearly every other person she knew, that Michael was a jerk. Michael did seem oddly aloof all the time, hardly ever listening to what people said, and rarely getting involved in conversations. He did hardly say anything when he was with her, she was beginning to think he didn’t like her, but she still believed that it was just due to the shock from what happened at St. Julien. Today she was going to take him to SIN HQ, and show him around, he had expressed an interest in the Eva’s, and so she thought this might be the breakthrough she needed to crack his tough exterior. She flicked through the channels idly, and then switched off the TV, she walked over to her bookshelf, grabbed a book and began reading.

	About 6 hours later Brian stirred in his bed. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, swung his legs out of his bed, and marched over to the kitchen area to get some breakfast. If there was one thing he had learned from Tony, in the time he spent with him, is that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. He had been to visit Tony less and less over the past few weeks, for some reason his recovery had made him feel even more depressed. Once his infection had cleared up Brian had thought Tony would wake up and be just like he used to be. But no such thing had happened. And Brian felt like there was nothing that could help him, there was no obvious problem to fix that would make him better. The Doctors had told him on several occasions that all Tony needed was time, how much time they never said, but Brian knew that he might never wake up. He sat down in front of the TV and flicked through the channels while eating a bowl of cereal.
	Well today’s the day, he thought, as his eyes fell on the clock atop the TV. The date said it was currently the 23rd, thankfully it was a Saturday, so he could probably sneak away for the day without being noticed. Emma had told him that she was taking Michael to SIN HQ today, so it was unlikely that she would discover his absence. Until it was time he could just relax, and try to put any anxiety from his mind. He had a shower and changed into some clean clothes. Crap! He thought, realising a flaw in his plan. What the hell do people in Saints wear to these meetings? The only members of Saints he could remember were Ana. She wore dark red robes. And his mother in the picture was wearing white robes, with gold stripes down each side of the robe’s front. What was everyone else in that picture wearing? He thought. He could remember seeing people’s hands up in the air, thrusting their arms up in triumph. If I show up in casual clothes I might stick out like a sore thumb, he reasoned, what the hell were those other people wearing? Then he remembered, they were just wearing casual clothes as well, he breathed a sigh of relief. I suppose you can’t be a very effective terrorist organisation if you wear a recognisable uniform all the time, he thought. Ana only wore those robes after she had completed her task of sabotaging Tony’s Eva, it must be ritualistic, he thought. It looks like I’m going to have to wing it when it comes to getting in there, he thought. I’ll have to try and get my mother alone, to see if it really is her. I should think up some kind of religious question to ask her, that might allow me to get close to her. 
“Yes,” he said aloud, his face set in a determined expression. “That’s what I will do.”

	“I don’t know Josh,” Jan said to the American data analyst, “I’m getting worried about Eve’s actions.”
	“Hell, she’s always been a bit weird Jan,” Josh said, not taking his eyes from the screen in front of him. The destruction of St. Julien played itself out in slow motion in front of his eyes. Occasionally Josh would pause the recording and zoom in to an area. Unfortunately the satellite that had captured the incident was a weather satellite, meaning that the recording began to pixelate badly as soon as Josh focused on an area.
	“I know, but just recently it looks like she has been getting… stranger.” The brown-haired German took a sip from his cup of coffee.
	“How do you mean?” Josh asked, sounding puzzled.
	“Well she sent the Eva’s into combat while they we’re still damaged, look what happened to Tony because of it.” Josh nodded in consent, he had spent a long while consoling a tearful Lily after that incident. “And she has him stuck in SIN’s hospital receiving mediocre treatment to preserve security, it was a miracle that the infection cleared up.”
	“I thought that Tony was kept in SIN’s hospital because they were better equipped to deal with Tony,” Josh said, tearing himself away from the playback.
	“That was just a front, I thought it would have been obvious that our hospital was ill-equipped to deal with a case as serious as Tony’s. Our hospital is less than a tenth the size of the City General, and it was only set up to treat wounds, not infections of that scale.”
	“What about Jacques, surely he’s receiving proper treatment?” Josh asked, a hopeful look on his face. Jan shook his head gravely.
	“Eve did hire a well respected therapist for him. But he said himself that without knowledge of what caused Jacques’ present condition he can do little to help him.”
	“And Eve won’t divulge that information, for ‘security reasons’ I expect.” Jan nodded again. “That is worrying.”
	“As I said, her actions have become more and more extreme. I suspect she has also been hiding information from the UN Council as well. I doubt that the Council would put up with Eve’s current actions.”
	“So tell the council,” Josh said, his voice sounded deadly serious. This worried Jan, as Josh usually sounded happy and cheerful when he spoke, but there was no trace of those previous emotions in his voice now.
	“I can’t do that to her,” Jan said.
	“Why not? I don’t recall her cutting you any slack, ever.”
	“She’s just too absorbed in her work Josh. I’ll talk to her, to see if I can get anything done about Tony and Jacques. But I think that all she needs is some time to calm down, we’re all under a lot of stress.” Josh paused thoughtfully, resting his head in one of his hands.
	“I guess your right,” he said after a while, “I don’t think there has been a single let-up since that first Angel attack.” He tried to think back to that time, it seemed so far away.
	“I expect we’re all wishing this ordeal could be over soon,” Jan remarked. He set his, now empty, cup of coffee on the empty desk next to Josh’s. “I had better get back to my office, I have quite a workload to get through.”
	“Okay, I’ll see you around some time,” Josh gave a short wave to Jan as he strode out of the room. He turned back to the playback. “Hmm…” he stared intently at the screen. At the moment he had paused it at, to speak to Jan, he could see a black figure, visible through the clouds of dust from the collapsing buildings, standing very near the epicentre of the destruction. He zoomed the image in as far as he could, but the picture was blurred beyond recognition by the time it was magnified to the size of the screen. “Damn it!” he pounded the desk in frustration, it could take a long time to restore the pictures quality. The phone on his desk began to ring. “Hello?”
	“Hello, Mr. Richards?” A voice on the other end asked.
	“That’s me,” he replied, squinting at the image in a vain effort to make it clearer.
	“Hi, this is Alphonse Simmons, from the SIN labs,” the voice with the French accent said.
	“Hi Al, what can I do for you?” Josh was feeling slightly annoyed that he had been interrupted at this crucial moment.
	“It’s about that sphere you wanted us to analyse.”
	“Sphere? What sphe- Oh, right, go on,” Josh blurted out, feeling sheepish for interrupting the other man unnecessarily.
	“Yes, well, we’ve finished doing some extensive tests on it. I was wondering if you would like to come down and look at the results?”
	“Hmm…” Josh paused for a minute. He was torn between two curiosities, but perhaps it was the fact that it had been a long time since he had last seen that sphere that influenced his decision. “Okay I’ll be down there soon.”
	“Very well then, bye.”
	“Bye.” Josh put the phone down, and quickly highlighted the image on the screen and selected a program that would improve the resolution. I’ll just let this run, and when I get back it should be finished, he thought. He checked the map in the corridor outside the computer room he had been working in. He located the SIN labs, it had been a long while since he was last there, and set off to solve another mystery.

	Brian stepped off the bus and looked around him. Washington Rue was located in the eastern section of the city, which, although nearly fully repaired, still bore the marks from the assault of the second Angel. Brian realised why this area had been chosen as a meeting place. Most of the buildings looked derelict. It seemed obvious that most of the owners of the numerous warehouses in this area thought that it wasn’t worth their time or money to repair them. So the remains of many large warehouses were all that the street consisted of now. Some of the buildings looked to have been untouched by the devastation, but they looked equally as deserted. Brian thought it made sense, after all who would want to run a business from an area that looked like this?
	Brian strode purposefully up the street, hearing the bus pull away behind him. The day had passed very slowly. Despite his best efforts to keep calm, no matter what he did, watch TV, play computer games, listen to music, his thoughts were always dominated by the impending meeting. Now, as he strode down the street towards that very meeting, he tried as hard as he could to keep his resolve and his cool. The sun had already set, the darkness and the eerie silence of this deserted street weren’t helping his confidence. He glanced at another number on the front of the warehouse, ‘364’ was emblazoned in peeling paint over the door. He looked across the road to the other side, he was just able to make out ‘365’ over the large double doors of the warehouse opposite.
	“Well,” he said quietly to himself, “Looks like this is the place.” He quickly checked the road, which was empty, and walked slowly and calmly across to the other side of the street. As he drew closer to the building doubts began to surface in his mind. Is this the place? He thought. Nobody was standing outside the building, and it didn’t sound like there was anybody inside. He checked his watch hurriedly, ‘6:50pm’ the digital display informed him. This is near to when the meeting should begin, and this is the place… What’s going on? He looked around the building’s front, it seemed to be made of plates of some cheap alloy, which had badly rusted at the corners of nearly every sheet. The large double doors seemed like they hadn’t been used for a long time, with an old padlock securing a chain woven through the handles on both doors. Then he noticed a door to the left of him, a heavy looking metal door with a square shaped slot in it, about head height. He quietly crept over to the door, finding it hard to stay quiet when the place was so strangely silent, there wasn’t even any wind. As he reached the door he could hear voices talking behind the door. He froze. Is this really the best thing to be doing? He thought, I don’t know anything about what’s going on here, they could shoot me for just being here! He was nearly overcome by panic, but a mixture of fear and determination kept him standing in front of the door. He slowly reached out his hand, his breathing becoming faster, and knocked on the door. The voices behind the door ceased. Again panic nearly overcame him. The shutter covering the slot in the door slid open with a bang, nearly making Brian jump out of his skin. Brian saw some eyes peering out of the slot. He stared back for a long while.
	“What do you want?” The eyes asked, “Don’t you know we closed the warehouse down a few months ago?”
	“I- I’m here for the meeting,” he said weakly. The calm and determination he had tried to preserve were very quickly deserting him.
	“What meeting? There isn’t any meeting here.” The eyes stated, “Now go home kid.”
	“Please I need to speak to my-” he stopped himself. He had nearly said, I need to speak to my mom. He swallowed nervously, hoping he hadn’t said too much.
	“Hurry up kid, spit it out, I haven’t got all day.”
	“I need to speak to Lucy.” He said trying to regain some of his confidence.
	“There isn’t anyone here called Lucy.” The eyes said, but Brian noticed that the person behind the door had hesitated for a second before answering. “Get lost.” The shutter started to close. Brian quickly jammed his hand in the slot, stifling a cry of pain as the metal shutter slammed on his hand. “Clear off!” The voice shouted.
	“Please!” Brian replied, “I’ve seen an Angel! I have to talk to your leader!” Brian didn’t know where that had came from, but he realised that it seemed to have worked. Behind the door he could hear two voices in heated conversation. Brian removed his hand from the slot and tried to peer through the small hole. The door opened as he desperately tried to see inside.
	“Okay kid, who told you about this place?” a menacing voice said. It was the same voice as before, Brian looked at the tall burly looking Frenchman.
	“I overheard someone, they were talking about Angels saying they had attacked the city, I realised that they we’re talking about that big monster. They said people who knew about it we’re coming here tonight.” Brian quickly lied. The man stared at him for a moment, Brian noticed another man looking over his shoulder, he was just as tall as the first man but not as well built.
	“Alright kid, go on in, we’ll get you a private audience with our leader later on,” the man sneered at him, he moved out of the way, allowing Brian through.
	“Thanks a lot,” Brian said to him as he walked through the door into a small room.
	“Go through there,” the second man told him, pointing to another door, “And try to stay quiet.” Brian nodded and walked through the door that the man had indicated. He walked into a very large space, the main storage area of the warehouse. He noticed, however, that there were no boxes or crates in this room, instead there were rows and rows of people. All the people in the room were staring forward, looks of admiration on their faces. He quietly walked to the large group and joined in the back row, nobody seemed to notice his arrival. He tried to see what everybody was looking at, but the people in front of him were too tall. He could hear a voice though, too quiet to really be giving a public speech, but it had a strength to it, an unwavering determination underlying the words, he had never heard that quality in that voice before. Apart from the new strength in the voice it was exactly as he remembered it. It was his mother’s voice.
	“…For why else would these divine beings cause so much destruction? Because God sees us as unworthy, and now he has decided to cleanse us through fire and destruction. The Lost Scriptures tell us that those who aid Gods messengers will be rewarded with eternal bliss in heaven. And once all Gods work is done all those souls languishing in hell will rise to heaven, they will be absolved of their sins and welcomed with open arms. And so, brothers and sisters, is that not a cause worth fighting for, and dying for?”
	As Brian listened in horror, the crowd drank in her words in revered silence.

	“Well where we are now is the lobby,” Lily stated, pointing to the location on the map. “This is where the three elevators that are the main entrance and exit to SIN are located. You saw up above that there is a small block of government offices that serve as a front for SIN.”
	Michael nodded politely, showing he was listening to her. He looked around the long and narrow room. Behind him were the three elevators, and to his left and right were large steel doors that led to the maze of corridors that stretched through the complex. Right now he and Emma were staring at the large map on the wall opposite the elevators, while Lily explained where everything was.
	“SIN HQ was originally a large bomb shelter, but due to budget cuts, and a general consensus in the redevelopment program that these bomb shelters were unnecessary, it was never completed. So SIN was able to use it as a base, and all the entrances that were meant to allow the whole city access have been converted into emergency exits.” Lily explained. The two teenagers nodded again to signal their acknowledgement. “The bomb shelter was radically redesigned for use by SIN however. The complex is split into three main areas, the training ground,” she pointed at the large rectangular area in the centre of the complex. “The Eva Hangars,” she pointed at the outer area of the complex, which encircled the rest of the complex. “And the offices,” she pointed at the thin strip sandwiched between the other two areas. “Most of the work at SIN takes place in the offices, where the hospital, labs, and computer rooms are located. Sorry, that reminds me, I have to deliver some paperwork to the data department for archiving.”
	“That’s okay, I’m sure I can show Michael round myself.” Emma smiled at Lily, to show her there was no resentment.
	“Thanks a lot, try not to get lost,” Lily gave them both a short wave as she headed off to fetch the paperwork.
	“I’ll have to introduce you better to the people around here, they’re all very friendly,” Emma said enthusiastically.
	“I met most of them at that party last month,” Michael stated.
	“Well you obviously didn’t talk to them enough,” Emma said cheerily. “Anyway, where do you want to look at first?”
	“I’m not bothered,” he said absently. His demeanour made it feel like he didn’t really want to be shown round.
	“Well,” Emma continued, trying to ignore his attitude, “We can just go on a round trip round the complex. We can head to the control room first, and take a look at the training ground, and on the way we can look at the Eva Hangars.”
	“Sounds good,” he said unenthusiastically.
	“Okay, just follow me, I know my way around here,” Emma said as she started marching off towards the door on the right.
	“Is there no heating on down here or something?” Michael asked, as he followed her out of the lobby.
	“No, why, are you feeling cold?” She asked him.
	“I don’t know, I just feel kinda… weird.”

	“…So remember, brothers and sisters, always have faith.”
	As his mothers speech ended the crowd broke into riotous applause, Brian stood dumbstruck as her words replayed themselves over and over in his mind. He tried to convince himself that it wasn’t her saying those words, he had never seen her throughout the whole speech. But he had recognised that voice the moment he had heard it, and no matter how hard he tried to deny it, he knew that it was her. As the cheering died down another voice spoke over the noise.
	“There will now be a short break followed by prayer,” it announced. The large group began to break up, people wandered off to talk to each other and discuss the speech they had all just heard. Brian stood rooted to the spot for a long while, trying to comprehend all that had been said, trying to figure out why his mother would say those things.
	“Are you new here?” a voice asked. Brian turned his head about, looking for the source of the voice. “Hi there,” a woman standing next to him said, she had long blonde hair and looked to be in her early twenties, she smiled warmly at him.
	“Oh, er, hi,” he managed to reply.
	“So are you new?” She asked inquisitively.
	“Yeah, this is my first time,” he replied, feeling uncomfortable talking to a member of Saints.
	“I expect you think were all a bunch of nuts, huh?”
	“You could say that,” he smiled nervously.
	“Don’t worry, were not all intent on destroying the world,” she laughed. “We all agree that the world has become too sinful recently, but only a few of us are actually dedicated enough to want to kill everybody.”
	“Really?” He asked, intrigued. He had assumed that everyone in Saints would have been bloodthirsty murderers, but this woman seemed intelligent, and quite pleasant as well.
	“Yep, so what got you interested in Saints? You look a little young,” she looked him over curiously.
	“I, er, I saw an Angel, and I wanted to find out more about them.”
	“Wow, you actually saw one? A lot of the group are still sceptical as to whether those things are really Angels,” she said conspiratorially, leaning in close. “But since we’re all here because of them I expect we all want to believe that Angels have finally come back.”
	“Who are you talking to?” another woman asked as she walked over to the woman.
	“I was just talking to…” she paused and turned back to look at Brian, “I’m sorry I never got your name.” She said apologetically.
	“Brian,” he replied.
	“I was just talking to Brian here, he’s new you know?”
	“Oh, fresh blood,” the woman laughed as she reached them and stood by the other woman. She looked about the same age as her friend, and about the same height as well, she had short ginger hair, and a slim figure. “You’re quite young to be here,” she remarked, “what are you doing here?”
	“I was just talking to him about that,” the woman said, “He says that he has seen an Angel.”
	“Really?” The second woman asked him, intrigued.
	“Yes, it was a few months ago, and I wanted to find out more about it.”
	“Are you a religious man then Brian?” The second woman asked.
	“Er, not really,” he said tentatively, wondering if it was the right thing to say. He realised that his mother had never really been interested in Religion, which made him try to think why she would suddenly become so fanatical.
	“It doesn’t matter,” the first woman said, “You’re never too old to find God,” she said, “Or too young in your case.” She laughed again. “Oh I’m sorry, I’ve never told you my name.”
	“What, you never told him your name?” The other woman said, “Shame on you,” she laughed.
	“Oh shut up you,” she quipped, “I’m Josephine,” the woman said, “And this is Jacqueline.”
	“Hi there,” the ginger haired woman said.
	“Nice to meet you,” he replied politely.
	“There he is,” he heard somebody say. Brian looked round to see the man who was guarding the door marching towards him, followed by a man in long light blue robes. “You,” the man reached him, “You said you wanted to talk to our leader?” he asked suspiciously.
	“Yes, I did,” he replied nervously, the big Frenchman intimidated him enormously.
	“Well, you got lucky kid,” the big man grumbled, “Mikhail here will take you to talk to her,” he motioned to the man in blue robes. “You’ll only be able to talk to her for a short while though, so don’t waste any time,” he glared down at Brian, “Now get going.”
	“Wow, you get to talk to Joan,” Josephine said, “And on your first night here, you certainly are lucky.”
	“Will you be coming to the next meeting?” Jacqueline asked.
	“Erm, I suppose so,” he said.
	“Hurry up kid, you ain’t got all day,” the man who was guarding the door said.
	“Okay,” he walked over to the man in the blue robes, aware that the big Frenchman was glaring at him and grumbling under his breath.
	“Your name is?” Mikhail asked.
	“Brian,” he stated.
	“Very well Brian, follow me.” The man had a weak Russian accent, and as Brian followed him through the crowd to a small office at the far end of the warehouse, he couldn’t help thinking there was something familiar about his face.
	“Joan is inside,” Mikhail said. “She is interested in hearing your story, but as Phillipe pointed out she is also very busy. Please try not to delay her.”
	“Okay,” he nodded and followed the man into the small office. This is the moment, he thought, when I find out if it really is my mother or not.
	“Joan,” the man announced, “This is the boy who said he had seen an Angel, his name is-”
	“Brian!” She shouted, cutting off Mikhail mid sentence. Brian looked at her as she sat at an old desk in the middle of the office, make up and a jug of water resting on the top of the desk. Despite all that time since he had last seen her, she looked exactly as he remembered her. She sat there in shock for a long while, staring at Brian, as he stared back at her. Mikhail looked between them both frantically trying to make sense of the situation.
	“Hello mother,” Brian said in a low growl, his teeth gritted together. He expected to feel elated when he saw her, the realisation that she was alive, after all these years, should have been enough to have him riding cloud nine for the next week. But something odd stirred inside him, resentment, and even hatred maybe. After all that time spent trying to solve the mystery of her death he had discovered that she had been alive and well. But worst of all she had made no attempt to contact him or his father, instead she had been travelling the world peddling her apocalyptic mumbo jumbo to anyone who would listen.
	“What are you doing here Brian?” she asked, her voice was shaking slightly, she was still visibly shocked.
	“No!” he shouted defiantly, “What are you doing here? You should be dead! Do you have any idea of the torture you have put dad and me through, and for what? To tell people that everyone has to die?”
	“Look, Brian, I didn’t mean for all this to happen, really,” she said compassionately. Mikhail backed out of the room looking worried.
	“Oh yeah of course not, you just accidentally formed a terrorist group that has torn apart my life!” He roared.
	“What are you talking about?” She asked, “I would never do anything to hurt you.”
	“Yeah, well what about Tony, Was he just an accident?”
	“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, “Look Brian, calm down please, you’re scaring me.” She did look scared, and for a moment Brian felt guilty for doing this to his mother, but then he remembered all the things she had done.
	“I’m scaring you?” he asked, becoming angrier and angrier, “Do you want to know what’s really scary?” He asked, a menacing tone in his voice, “Scary is seeing your friend torn apart by one of your precious Angels. Scary is seeing one of your friends go insane, because one of your precious Angels killed his family!”
	“Brian, please, just hear-”
	“Shut up!” He shouted, clenching his fists. “Why would you do this, why? Did you not like us, was all those years spent with us a charade? I had to live with the pain of your death for seven long years, while you went off globetrotting trying to sell this evangelical crap.” He through his arms out to his side to indicate the building around them. He felt two powerful hands grab each of his arms. “Get the hell off me!” He shouted trying to wriggle free.
	“I knew we shouldn’t have let him in,” the big Frenchman Mikhail had referred to as Phillipe said, keeping an iron grip on Brian’s right arm.
	“Mikhail told us to watch out for trouble tonight, you should’ve been more careful,” the thin man who was guarding the door said.
	“Get off me!” Brian shouted again. Lucy Robertson looked on in shock as her son, seemingly consumed by rage, thrashed about in his captor’s arms.
	“I’ve had enough of this, it’s lights out for you!”

	“And this is the Eva hangars,” Emma announced as they stepped out of the corridors through a heavy metal door. They were standing in a large corridor, tall enough and wide enough to allow an Eva passage through from the Eva hangars, on their right, to the training ground, on their left.
	“Wow,” Michael seemed to actually get excited about this. He looked up at the huge form of Eva-Shield on the back wall of the Eva-Hangar, facing towards the training ground. “Those things are huge! I never got a good look at them before.”
	“Feel free to look about,” Emma offered, not realising that he had already set off towards the towering fighting machine. “Wait for me!” she called after him.
	“So you actually pilot that thing?” Michael asked, staring up at the red Eva.
	“Actually I pilot that one,” she pointed to Eva-Sniper, standing in the maintenance bay to Eva-Shield's left. Michael switched his attention to the white Eva, his eyes scanned over the writing on the Eva’s arm.
	“So you’re the sniper in the team?” he asked, still staring up in awe at Emma’s Eva.
	“I certainly am,” she said proudly, her ego bolstered by his continued fascination in her Eva. “I was hand picked for this due to my high accuracy.”
	“Really,” he remarked, although he seemed more interested in her Eva than what she was saying.
	“Yes,” she continued unabated, “I won last years UK National marksmanship award and World marksmanship award.”
	“I guess your pretty good then,” he said, his attention still focused on the Eva.
	“Best in the military cadets,” she said happily.
	“Wow, doesn’t it just put you in awe?” He asked, turning back round to look at her.
	“Well, I try not to let it go to my head,” she replied.
	“No, I mean these Evangelion,” he looked back up at the two massive machines. “They just seem to resonate power, can’t you feel it?”
	“Not really,” she said, eyeing him suspiciously. Michael sighed wistfully. “Okay, lets move on. We can go to the control room, you can get a good view of the training ground from there.”
	“I guess so,” he said sadly. He looked at the Eva’s once more, and then turned and followed Emma through another large metal door, back into more corridors.

	“Please don’t hurt him,” Lucy cried. Phillipe looked at her dumbstruck, his fist raised ready to strike Brian, who had turned his face away to try and avoid getting hurt. “Don’t hurt him,” Lucy repeated. Phillipe looked back at the boy.
	“Don’t do anything stupid kid, or you know what you’ll get,” he shook his fist at him, and glared. He pushed him roughly, Brian staggered back and fell into a chair at the side of the room. “I’ll be outside if you need me Joan.” Phillipe said, he glared menacingly at Brian as he and his thin friend walked out of the room.
	“Are you ready to listen to me now?” Lucy asked quietly. Brian kept his eyes to the floor. “I didn’t mean for any of this. I found out too much about what NERV was trying to do, I had no choice.” She looked imploringly at Brian, but he kept his eyes looking down. “I faked my own death, it was the only way to guarantee your safety as well as mine. I blew up the lab I was working in and escaped with as much information as I could. I couldn’t tell you, or your father, it might have made you targets for NERV.”
	“Is that the truth?” Brian asked, he looked up. His eyes looked pained, the anger that had fuelled him before had drained away, leaving a deep sadness, and a longing to understand.
	“Of course it is,” Lucy said, she walked over and kneeled down in front of him. “Do you know what the hardest part about being away all those years was?” She looked straight into his eyes. Brian thought her eyes were different, they seemed… sadder somehow. There was still love in her eyes, just like he remembered, but it was less prominent. “The hardest thing wasn’t the fear of NERV, or the hardships of life on the road. It was never seeing you or your father, for seven years.” She stroked his cheek. He shook his head, dislodging her hand.
	“So why did you do all this?” he asked, some of the anger returning. “All this religious cult thing, saying we all need to be cleansed for our sins.”
	“It might sound crazy, Brian, but it’s the truth,” she tried to sound as sincere as she could. “My research at Gehirn involved translating some scrolls that were discovered at a dig site. The scrolls said that Angels would come to cleanse the world of its sins if humanity hadn’t atoned. They were predicted to appear at this time, Brian. Don’t you see, God does exist, and he is unhappy with how things are going. Obviously the ruling classes wouldn’t be happy with this, so Gehirn was set up by some mystery organisation. Gehirn was able to create the Evangelion, vessels for holding the souls of fallen angels, devils. The Evangelion have been used to fight the Angels, to preserve the world as it is.”
	“So you’re telling me that SIN and NERV have made pacts with the Devil? That’s why you sabotaged Tony’s Eva?” he asked, a mixture of shock and anger in his voice.
	“What do you mean, Tony’s Eva?”
	“My best friend Tony, his Eva was sabotaged and an Angel nearly killed him. I managed to save him, but he-”
	“Brian, are you saying that you pilot an Evangelion?” She asked, she sounded very worried.
	“Well, yeah,” he said nervously, seeing genuine concern in her eyes.
	“Brian, you have to stop as soon as you can. You will go to hell for conspiring with devils.”
	“Devils? You call the Eva’s devils?” He asked incredulously.
	“You have to trust me Brian, only bad things will come from being associated with them,” she looked at him, pleadingly. He turned his head away from her. “I’m sorry Brian, I didn’t mean for you to get involved like this,” she said apologetically.
	“I don’t want apologies.” He said, anger returning again. “Your stupid Saints have ruined my life. You have ruined my life! If you had never got involved with Gehirn none of this would have happened. I don’t want apologies, I want revenge.” He gripped the arms of the chair tightly, his knuckles turning white. Trying to restrain himself.
	“I understand,” she said sincerely, this seemed to sate his anger somewhat. “I have felt the need for revenge before. Revenge is one of the strongest emotions we can have, because it is not one emotion, it is many. Its is Anger at what has happened. It is Hatred at the person responsible. And it is Love, for the one who fell victim.” Brian blinked at her, everything she said made sense.
	She does understand, he thought.
	“You have to understand that when I started Saints I wanted to do it for the good of humanity. I didn’t know I would cause so much pain. I am sorry.” Brian stared into her eyes, seeing the sincerity in her words.
	She is telling the truth, he thought, with a pang of guilt. “I’m sorry,” he said after a very long pause. “I… didn’t know about any of this. But you have to stop it.” He leaned forward and held her hand in his. “You are causing people a lot of pain, including me. And anyhow, how do you hope to aid these Angels?”
	“We do help them,” she said, “The scrolls weren’t the only thing discovered at the dig site. We also discovered what we call Relics, we can use them to help the Angels in their quest.”
	“You mustn’t help them,” Brian begged, “They’re dangerous enough as it is.”
	“We already-”
	“Joan, its nearly time for prayer,” Mikhail informed her as he opened the door into the room.
	“I had better go,” she said, “Just wait around, we can talk more later.” She smiled at him, a twinge of sadness showing on her face. Brian smiled back. Lucy got up, followed by Brian.
	“Why do you call yourself Joan?” he asked, he sounded more relaxed now.
	“I had to think of some alias to avoid NERV’s secret police, and I thought I’d name myself after another holy crusader.” She walked out of the room. Brian tried to follow but as he drew near to the door it slammed shut. He ran up to it as he heard the sound of a key turning in the lock, he tried the door handle in vain.
	“Hey, let me out!” he cried.
	“Sorry kid,” he heard Phillipe say on the other side of the door, “But we can’t have you causing any more trouble.”
	“Hey, let me out!” he cried again, kicking the door viciously.
	“Joan,” he heard someone say. He barely heard it, the speaker was on the other side of the door, and far away it sounded. He quickly shut up and pressed his ear to the door, trying to listen to the conversation.
	“What is it?” he heard his mothers voice over the noise of people chattering.
	“I have news,” this was Mikhail’s voice, he recognised.
	“Yes?”
	“The fifth has been relocated.” The fifth what? He thought.
	“We were unprepared for its presence in St. Julien, it has caused a considerable delay to the plan.” His mother’s voice had none of the emotion in it that it previously did. It made Brian wonder if it was her voice he was hearing.
	“SIN has it. It seems to still be in a dormant state, suffering the after-effects of exposure. There has been some tests done on it, but as far as we know they still do not know of its true nature.”
	“Hmm… if we are able to re-activate it, then maybe…” Brian listened as the conversation continued, his eyes growing wider in surprise at what was said.

	“Hi there!” Josh said cheerfully as he walked into the SIN Labs, struggling to pull a white lab coat on.
	“Mr. Richards,” a scientist said, offering his hand, “We spoke on the phone.”
	“Nice to meet you Dr. Simmons,” Josh replied, shaking the scientists hands vigorously. “Now I hear you have found out more about this mystery sphere?”
	“I certainly have,” the Doctor said, “We still know very little about what it does, but we understand more about it now. If you follow me I could show you it.” The Doctor turned and began to walk towards the back of the labs. Josh followed the quite thin, brown haired, bespectacled man, looking at the work being done around him. Many of the workstations in the all-white laboratory were not in use, due to either lack of staff or lack of work. Most of the work going on involved running chemicals through complex pieces of equipment, or checking substances under microscopes. Exactly what Josh would have expected to be going on in a laboratory. He reached the end of the long laboratory where a partition, the top half of which was a row of windows, separated the last section of the laboratory. “We are studying the object in this clean room. I’m afraid you’ll have to go through decontamination before you can enter, it will only take a few minutes.”
	“So this is it, huh?” Josh said, a few minutes later. He looked at the green sphere, lying in a glass box on the large table at the back of the room. It had been several months since he had last seen it.
	“Yes, as I said we have ran several tests on it and have found out more about it.”
	“How come it took you so long?” Josh asked, idly wondering.
	“Well we have never seen anything like this before. And we are also trying to work on a fast acting cure for the virus Eva-Artillery has been infected with, this has been taking up most of our time. Eve has been riding out backs trying to get that Eva fixed, but we’ve nearly finished the cure so we should be able to study this more.” Josh nodded, sympathising with the man’s predicament.
	“So what exactly have you found out,” Josh asked, realising he was sweating a lot in the biohazard suit.
	“Well as far as we know it is not harmful to humans,” the doctor informed him.
	“So why exactly are we wearing these?” he indicated the bulky biohazard suit.
	“I said, as far as we know it is not harmful, but as I said we know very little about it. The biohazard suits are simply a precaution.” The doctor assured him. “Tests on the object have revealed that it emits no radiation, and carries no form of infection. We were worried that it had picked up some infection from Eva-Artillery. And thankfully it is undamaged from the Angels attack on the entry plug.”
	“How do you know it is undamaged if you have never seen anything like this?” Josh wondered.
	“Because it is perfectly spherical.” The doctor informed him.
	“What?”
	“There is no imperfections in the sphere, its surface is completely smooth, and nowhere on it is there any dents or lumps.”
	“How is that?”
	“Again, we don’t know, we are yet to ascertain whether it is manmade or some kind of natural rock formation. It appears to be too perfect to be either. We know little about the Eva’s or how they work, but we have discovered that is not part of the Eva’s or some kind of by-product.”
	“So what is it?”
	“I can’ t really tell you that, but I can tell you what it does.”
	“Go on then,” Josh asked, he was incredibly interested in this thing now.
	“It seems to emit,” the doctor said, sounding unsure on the last word.
	“Emit what?”
	“Lots of things, it seems to emit some kind of electrical pulse, as well as a high pitched noise.”
	“A noise?”
	“Yes, far too high pitched for us, or even any animals, to hear. There are also various other strange readings we received from the object, we’ll have to do further tests on it in order to properly identify them.”
	“Have you figured out what it’s purpose is yet?”
	“No, not yet. We have no idea how it got into the entry plug, or why it was put there, but we are confident that we’ll be able to find out all its secrets in time.” He smiled confidently.
	“Well, keep up the good work,” Josh congratulated the doctor, giving him a friendly slap on the back.
	“Well, I’d like to thank you for allowing us to work on such an oddity,” the doctor replied.
	“Anytime. Listen, I have to be going, but if you discover anything more about this, then call me, okay?”
	“Of course.”
	“And these are the labs,” Josh heard a voice say. He turned to look for the source. He spotted Emma standing at the door to the Labs, she was with Michael, the survivor from St. Julien.
	“Hey, Emma!” he shouted. She wasn’t actually that far away from him, but he knew that the partition wall would muffle his voice. She looked around for the speaker before finally realising that it was Josh in the biohazard suit.
	“Hi Josh!” she shouted back.
	“Come over here, I want to show you something,” he knew she was an intelligent girl and would probably be fascinated by the bizarre sphere.
	“Okay then,” she started walking over towards Josh, signalling for Michael to follow.
	“Look at this,” he said, “We found this on Tony’s Eva, we’re currently studying it to find out what it really is.”
	“They should really have lab coats on in the lab,” the doctor said, sounding worried. Nobody listened to him.
	“Really, you know I think I’ve seen something like that before,” Emma said, her thoughts wandered back to the second engagement with an Angel.
	“Really,” Josh asked, “When was… is he alright?” he pointed to Michael. Emma looked round to see Michael clutching at the side of his head, his face contorted in pain.
	“Are you okay?” she asked. He grunted in pain, and dropped to his knees. “Oh God, somebody call for help!” She shouted, panic showing in her voice. Some of the scientists ran to Michael’s aid, others ran to the phone in the lab, to call the base hospital for help.
	“What’s happening doctor?” Josh asked.
	“I don’t know, I’m not a medical doctor.”
	“Could this be the sphere causing…” his voice trailed off as he spotted the sphere out of the corner of his eye. “It’s glowing.” He said quietly. The doctor quickly spun round to look at the sphere.
	“Dear God it is!” he leant down, so his face was level with the Sphere, studying it intently. A faint glow was emanating from deep inside the sphere.
	“What’s going on?” Josh asked.
	“I don’t know.” The doctor replied, sounding completely ignorant. Josh suddenly felt very, very worried.

Episode 10: Masquerade

	Lily walked into one of SIN’s computer rooms.
	Hmm, Josh said he was going to be working in here today, she thought. She looked around, there were three analysts working on computers around the room.
	“Excuse me, but does anybody know where Joshua Richards is?”
	“He was working here earlier,” one of the Analysts answered. “He should be back soon, he left a program running. What do you need him for?”
	“I was just going to leave him these files to archive.”
	“Just leave them on his desk, I’ll tell him when he comes back, and if he isn’t back soon I’ll archive them for you.”
	“Thanks a lot,” she said. The analyst indicated where Josh had been working. Lily walked over to the desk and put the files down on it. As she was about to leave her eyes fell on the computer screen. She froze. She recognised where the footage was from, it was the destruction of St. Julien, Josh had been working practically non-stop on it for a long while now. A picture was in the middle of being enhanced so it could be viewed better. The figure in the image she instantly recognised.

	Brian had spent the last fifteen minutes listening to the voices of the Saints members singing hymns, while considering what he had just overheard. It was a very odd situation, he could never really imagine a group which was so feared singing hymns. But he could hear their voices singing clearly. And the odd thing was they were good at singing too. Many times he had felt deeply moved by their singing, despite his largely atheist stance on life. But recently the whole situation had totally changed. About a minute ago there was the sound of many panes of glass smashing, accompanied by the abrupt halt of the singing which had previously echoed around the old warehouse, which was replaced by a lot of frightened screams. Since then he had been watching what had developed through the window in the office.
	He saw several soldiers, all dressed in black clothes and gas masks, absail through the shattered skylights on the warehouse roof. A rain of grenades from on top of the roof joined them, Brian ducked down behind the window huddling close to the wall. He waited, but instead of the expected multiple explosions there were several weak puffs. He looked back over the window to see clouds of yellowish gas expanding from the grenades.
	Gas! He thought, he hoped like hell it wasn’t poisonous. He saw the soldiers touch the ground and three immediately ran towards the stage, out of his line of sight. Oh no, there going after mum! He thought. He focused on the other soldiers. The remaining five went about knocking people to the ground with their rifle butts and handcuffing them. The majority of the people there had been caught in the initial gas attack, and so where staggering around coughing violently, providing little resistance. Brian saw Phillipe run in front of the office from over to his right.
	“He’s got a gun!” he heard one of the soldiers shout. Two soldiers levelled their rifles on the large man.
	Oh no! Brian thought and quickly threw himself to the ground. He threw his hands over the back of his head as broken glass rained down on him. The deafening sound of machine gun fire filled his ears. After a few seconds the shooting stopped, and more screams were heard. Brian tentatively looked out over the window frame of the, now shattered, office window. He could see Phillipe lying on the floor, a pool of blood forming around his body, he was almost certainly dead, a pistol was still gripped in his hand.
	“Help me! Help!” he shouted at the soldiers, who by now had apprehended nearly everyone in the room. He waved his arms around to get their attention. One of the soldiers quickly ran over to Brian, and took him completely by surprise when he grabbed him by his collar and pulled him out of the office, through the window, and slammed him down on the ground. “Hey, I’m not one of Saints!” he cried, he felt the soldier wrench his arms behind his back, and he felt the cold metal bracelets of handcuffs wrap round his wrists.
	“Sure, that’s what they all say,” the soldier said. He pulled him up by the back of his collar and prodded him in the small of his back with his rifle. “Move! Get outside and line up with the rest of you murderers.” Brian could see other soldiers come into the warehouse from outside, and begin marching the prisoners outside. He noticed one of the soldiers had a UN armband on.
	“Your from the UN regiment at SIN headquarters right?” he asked, desperate to get out of the situation.
	“What if I am?” the soldier asked, his voice muffled slightly by the gas mask. Brian noted that it must have been some kind of quick dissipating gas that was used, as he could only see thin wisps of the yellowish gas lying near the floor now.
	“I’m from SIN, I’m one of the Eva pilots,” he said.
	“Yeah, right.” The soldier dismissed his claim. He pushed him roughly and Brian staggered out into the streets, where another soldier pushed him up against the wall.
	“Don’t move, alright?” he told him, and then stepped back, sweeping his rifle over the long line of people up against the wall. Brian sighed. 
It’s gonna take a long while to get out of this, he thought. But unfortunately time was one thing he didn’t have much of at the minute.
	“How did everything go?” he heard a soldier ask another soldier.
	“Well sir we have managed to apprehend nearly every member of Saints that were present in the warehouse. There was resistance, and we were forced to use lethal force against one person who had a gun.”
	“And the leaders?”
	“Unfortunately they appear to have got away, we have sent out squads to search for them, but were doubtful we’ll be able to catch them, its like a maze around here, sir.”
	“Hmm, that is unfortunate, but hopefully we will be able to use these captives to follow them. So overall I believe this went smoothly.”
	“Yes sir, apart from one soldiers managed to hit me with a gas grenade.”
	“Sorry, that was my fault,” a soldier said. Brian looked around for the last speaker, as another captive was shoved into the wall next to him. He spotted the man and recognised him as the clumsy soldier who had originally informed Brian of his mother’s role in Saints, by accident.
	“Hey!” Brian shouted. “You there!”
	“Shut up!” a soldier said menacingly, pointing his rifle at him. Brian ignored him, he didn’t have enough time.
	“Me?” the clumsy soldier asked.
	“Yes you!” He shouted desperately. “I’m from SIN, you remember me right?”
	“Oh yes, the Eva pilot.” The soldier said, remembering their brief meeting.
	“Yes, listen you’ve got to get me out of here, I need to get back to SIN as soon as I can!”
	“Good lord, these Saints have spies within SIN, and their Eva Pilots?” the soldier who seemed to be in charge of the operation exclaimed.
	“No, I can explain. I was captured, that was why I was locked in that room.” He lied quickly.
	“Was he locked in the room?” The commander asked.
	“He was, sir” One of the gas mask wearing soldiers said, “And he said he was an Eva pilot.”
	“Get those handcuffs off him then, he seems desperate to get back to SIN.”
	“You have to send a message ahead,” Brian said, “You have to warn them.”
	“Warn them about what?” The commander asked. Brian remembered what he had overheard his mother and Mikhail talking about.
	“Warn them about Michael,” Brian said still trying to get to grips with what had been said. “He’s the next Angel.”

	“That ain’t normal!” Josh declared. He was pressed up against the partition wall staring at the scene on the other side.
	“Michael? Michael? Can you hear me?” Emma called; she was crouched next to him. She shook him, trying to get him to listen. He stayed kneeling on the ground, clutching at his head. His face was contorted into a grimace from the pain he was going through.
	“Stand back, give him some air!” One of the scientists called.
	“Put him in the recovery position!” Another scientist offered.
	“Amazing,” Doctor Simmons commented, his voice hushed in awe. “Look at it, it seems to be producing a lot of energy.”
	“That’s great Doctor, but we have a more pressing problems,” Josh told him testily. “Do you have any idea what’s causing this?”
	“Speak to me Michael!” Emma shouted, becoming frantic. He doubled over suddenly, crying out in pain. “Michael!”
	“Leave him, you might be making it worse,” one of the scientists said, placing a hand on her shoulder to try and gently pull her away.
	“Get away from me!” Michael suddenly screamed. His skin seemed to ripple, and then his shirt tore apart in rags. Emma felt like she had been punched in the gut by a giant. She was flung across the room. She hit the ground and skidded into the corner of the room. She gasped heavily; trying to fill her lungs with air again, after all the air had been knocked out of her. Each breath sent ripples of pain through her body, and the left side of her chest was burning, she suspected she had broken some ribs. She pushed herself up to rest on her elbows and looked around trying to find out what had happened. The other scientists were scattered about the room; they had obviously fell victim to the same thing Emma had. The room seemed to have been decimated by some kind of bomb. Circular craters were on the wall, floor and ceilings, making it look like a large invisible sphere was taking up the centre of the room, pushing up against the walls.
	What could have caused this? Emma thought.
	“Angel!” she heard somebody shout. She scanned the room again; she gasped in disbelief as her eyes fell on Michael. She barely recognised him at first, despite that his size and appearance were nearly the same. There was one noticeable difference though; his skin was now jet black. And he was hovering a foot off the ground. Emma stared at him trying to make sense of what had happened, and failing badly. Michael stayed floating in the same place for a long while, he had his back to Emma, but she could still see part of face, his eyes were closed but she knew it had to be him. “Damn you!” she heard the person shout again, she recognised it as Josh’s voice as she saw him pull himself out of a pile of debris at the other end of the room. She could see him clearly through the circular hole in the partition wall, which had been caused by whatever had caused the rest of the destruction. She saw Josh raise a hand, a pistol gripped in it, and point it at Michael.
	“No!” She shouted, quickly scrambling to her feet. She didn’t know if she shouted that to stop Michael or Josh getting hurt, but she knew she had to try and do something.
	“What?” Josh asked, staring at Emma with a puzzled look on his face. Suddenly Michael opened his eyes. Emma gasped in fear. His eyes were red, emitting an eerie glow.
	“Michael!” she cried, trying to ascertain whether it really was him.
	“Damn you to hell!” Josh shouted, he pointed the gun at Michael’s head and pulled the trigger. An orange hexagonal shape briefly flashed into existence in front of Michael’s face. The bullet embedded itself in this shape, and when the shape disappeared the bullet fell harmlessly to the floor. Josh growled in anger, and fired more shots at Michael, all of which caused the same response, and dropped, useless, onto the floor. Josh was continuing to shoot at Michael when the Angel swept his hand to the side, causing Josh’s gun to fly out of his hand.
	“You fool, you expect to beat me with that?” Michael asked. His voice had changed as well, it sounded exactly the same, except that it sounded like he had more than one voice. This made his voice sound more melodic, which only seemed to intensify Emma’s fear of him. Michael slowly raised his arm, pointing it at Josh, his hand then flicked out, to face palm out towards Josh. Josh was flung backwards and impacted against the wall behind him with a thud, as if hit by some invisible battering ram. Michael started slowly floating through the circular hole in the partition wall, towards the green sphere glowing brightly inside its glass box.
	“Stay away from that,” Emma heard a scientist beg. It was the scientist who had been standing with Josh when they came in. Michael continued towards the sphere, paying no attention to the frightened scientist. He stopped a few inches from the sphere, raising his right arm again to face the palm of his hand towards the glass box. The glass box shattered nearly instantaneously, the shards flying back against the wall, as if blown by a strong wind. Michael raised his arm up, the sphere floating up in line with his arm.
	“You have caused me a lot of trouble,” he said, looking at the sphere, “But now I shall be free of you.” He closed his hand, balling it up into a fist. The floating sphere cracked and then shattered, the shards falling to bounce slightly on the ground below. He turned round to face the door leading out of the labs, and began to float towards the exit.
	“Michael!” Emma shouted, staggering into the middle of the room to block his path. “Michael, where are you going?” she asked, she hoped she could reason with him somehow.
	“I am going to find Adam,” he announced, “Now get out of my way.” He swept his arm to the side, Emma was flung to the side of the room again, crying out in pain as she hit the wall. “You stupid Lillum never learn do you?” Michael said, a tone of disgust in his voice. Emma looked up at him, seeing him in full clearly now. His skin was indeed all jet black, darker than his hair, and his eyes burned into her with an unearthly relentlessness. The strange, half-cheery, half-wicked smile on his face unnerved Emma deeply. The fact that he looked so innocent also seemed to add to the disturbing image. He floated in front of her, his hands in his Jean pockets, his white T-shirt seemed to have been torn off him during that first attack, exposing more jet-black skin. “I don’t really need to kill you,” he said calmly, “But I’ll enjoy it a lot.” He let out a short laugh and raised his hand to point at Emma. She looked about desperately for help, but nearly everyone appeared to have been knocked unconscious from the first attack, or seemed to be trying to keep a low profile to avoid attention from the Angel.
	It’s not like they could have done anything anyway, she sighed inwardly. Emma knew that her death was just seconds away, but for some reason she felt calm. She didn’t know whether it was because she was feeling depressed, and death didn’t look so bad, or it might have been because she realised there was no way out of it. Emma closed her eyes, and hoped her death would be quick.
	“You!” She heard Michael say in shock. Emma opened her eyes and looked at Michael. Despite his unreadable eyes she could see from his expression that he was very worried. “It-It can’t be!” He stammered. “You have to die now!” He shouted. Suddenly the wall to Emma’s left seemed to explode inwards, she saw a huge fist flying through the air through the hole created in the wall. The fist slammed down into the ground, just narrowly missing Michael, and only then because he had quickly dodged out of the way.
	“Emma!” He heard a voice bellow, it sounded impossibly loud. “Emma, are you okay?” She followed the arm attached to the fist to see that it belonged to Eva-Shield. 
	“Brian is that you?” she asked.
	“You got it,” she heard his cheery voice say. “You’ve got to get to your Eva, I don’t know if I can handle Michael by myself.”
	“You know he’s an Angel?” She asked, puzzled by this turn of events.
	“It’s a long story, just get out of here for now, your Eva’s all prepped and-” his voice was cut off as Michael shot up his arm and seemed to collide full on with the Eva’s head. Brian’s Eva reeled backwards to collapse on the floor in the training ground.
	“Brian!” she shouted, she clambered to her feet. Her body felt like it was hurting all over. She climbed up to the top of the pile of debris that was once the entrance to the room. She could see that Brian’s Eva had punched a hole through the training ground wall into the labs. She looked out onto the training ground, seeing Eva-Shield trying to get upright again in the training ground. “Brian!” she shouted again.
	“I’m fine,” she heard him reply, “Now get going, I can handle myself.” Emma didn’t want to run off and leave him to face Michael on his own, but she knew she couldn’t help him as she was. She turned towards the Eva-Hangars, and ran as fast as her battered body could take her.

	Brian pulled his Eva back onto its feet, just in time to see a black blur come streaking towards him, it struck him in the shoulder, making the Eva stagger backwards. Brian pushed forwards on the controls in his hands, he breathed a sigh of relief as the Eva regained its balance. He spun the Eva round, cursing its relative sluggishness compared to Michael. As he was turning he caught sight of Michael out of the corner of his eye, speeding off to his left. He turned the Eva’s torso as much as he could and pulled his machinegun round to face in Michael’s direction. He pulled the trigger, firing off a wild volley at Michael’s speeding form. He grunted in frustration as he saw the bullets impact the mock-up buildings inside the training ground, missing Michael completely. He continued turning the Eva as fast as he could, struggling to keep Michael in sight. He saw Michael turn and speed towards him through the air. Brian quickly pulled the trigger for the grenade launcher, attached to the underside of his machinegun.
	Got you! He rejoiced inside his head as he saw the grenade, which was over twice the size of the human-sized Angel, impact with him in mid-air, sending the Angel flying back into one of the buildings in the training ground. An explosion tore through the building as the grenade penetrated through the outer wall and exploded inside. Brian quickly aimed his machinegun at the point where the explosion had originated and pulled the trigger, sending a hail of bullets into the already heavily damaged building. “Die! Die! Die!” he screamed in rage. Brian felt like something deep inside of him had been set loose, all his anger and hatred towards Angels had been freed now he had a chance to realise his revenge. The fact that he never really liked Michael meant that he had no qualms with shooting at such a defenceless looking being. He spotted a black blur fly out of the maelstrom of flying bullets and debris, heading right for him. He tried to block the Angels assault by using the shield attached to the barrel of his gun, but the Angel was too fast and easily avoided his clumsy attempt at self-preservation before flying straight into the Eva’s stomach. The powerful fighting machine lurched backwards, doubling up slightly as Brian reacted to the painful feedback from the assault. Michael took the opportunity to strike at the Eva again, flying straight up to collide with the Eva’s chin, snapping its head back and throwing it off balance. Brian struggled to regain the Eva’s balance, trying to ignore the pain resonating through his body. Michael launched himself at the Eva again, hitting the Eva square in the chest. Brian lost all control of the Eva and began to panic as he saw the roof of the training ground swing into view as the Eva toppled onto its back. He hit the ground with an exceptionally loud thud, and immediately tried to push himself up into some kind of position where he would be able to defend himself. As the Eva pushed itself up onto its elbows Michael flew over the struggling machine and shot vertically down at the Eva’s head, colliding with it and sending the Eva crashing back down onto the ground. “Damn you!” Brian cursed. He looked up to see Michael floating over the Eva’s head. Michael looked down into the Eva’s eyes and laughed.
	“I must say you are brave,” he said, a sadistic smile on his face, “If very stupid.” He laughed again. Brian growled at him in frustration. “Surely you can tell that I’m just playing with you? You may have power in this mockery,” he swept his arm to indicate the prone Evangelion, “But you are too slow, and you have no real talent in piloting it. Now why don’t you be a good little boy and just roll over and die for me?” he laughed again. Brian took his chance, reaching his left arm over to his right shoulder and grabbed the prog knife he had deployed from his shoulder unit. In a smooth movement he brought his arm back along the same path, holding the knife blade towards the Eva’s head. 
If he doesn’t notice I can slice him in two with this, Brian secretly hoped. As the blade drew nearer to its target Michael suddenly stopped laughing and leapt forward, just narrowly avoiding the prog knife. “Damn you!” He shouted again, he took a wild swing at Michael, but again the Angel saw the attack coming and moved out of the way.
	“Stop this foolishness!” Michael roared, obviously infuriated by Brian’s stubbornness.
	“Only when you’re dead!” Brian roared back. He took another swing at the Angel, who had now moved away from hovering over the Eva to behind its head. The Angel dodged his attack again, but Brian didn’t mind. He used the momentum from the swing to roll his Evangelion over, and quickly pushed the Eva up onto its feet while the Angel recovered from Brian’s failed attack. Staggering backwards from the unbalance caused by the speed of the manoeuvre, Brian was able to pull his machinegun up and opened fire on the Angel. He saw the familiar black blur of the Angel travelling at high speeds fly away to take refuge in the buildings in the training ground. “Damn you, you coward, get back here and fight!” Brian shouted in a challenge. His anger and frustration was steadily mounting, and he was finding it incredibly hard to stay calm. He then set about untangling the power cable that had become wrapped round his Eva during that complex manoeuvre.

	“What the hell’s going on?” Lily asked as she raced into the control room. The loud sounds of gunfire from the heated fight in the training ground were deafeningly loud.
	“We’ve confirmed that the survivor of St. Julien is actually an Angel. It appears he has transformed and is currently engaged in combat with Eva-Shield,” an Analyst reported. Lily remembered the image on the computer screen. Michael standing at the epicentre of the destruction, roaring in anger, despite the fact that he had jet black skin, and his eyes glowed red, she knew it was him.
	“Casualty report.” She demanded, trying to keep a cool head during all this chaos. I’ve got to stay calm, she told herself, If I go to pieces now the whole situation could fall apart.
	“Most of the scientists were injured to some degree when Michael transformed, no fatalities but Mr. Richards the chief analyst was badly injured trying to stand up to the Angel.”
	“Josh?” she said in shock, quickly shutting up after realising she had said that aloud without meaning to. She shook her head to try and clear it. I’ve got to focus, she thought. “What of Emma Harwood?”
	“She was injured in the incident, but she has requested to be sortied in Eva-Sniper. The doctor is unsure whether she is well enough to, but she has expressly requested it, and Director Cardinal has backed her up.”
	“Director Cardinal?” She asked.
	“Yes,” Lily heard a voice say. She looked to her left, where she could see the woman standing in front of the observation windows, looking into the training ground. She was wearing her crimson business suit, as ever. It had been a long while since she had seen the woman, and she had never seen her in the control room for an even longer stretch of time.
	So this is how serious the situation has become, Lily thought. A part of her felt relieved that she wouldn’t be in charge of the operation, that all the decisions wouldn’t be placed on her. Another part of her felt very, very worried that things had become so drastic that Eve Cardinal, the shadowy head of SIN, had got involved personally.
	“What’s the situation, ma’am?” Lily asked, putting on her more formal voice.
	“Michael has been confirmed as an Angel, we have one Eva engaged with the Angel and another currently being prepped for launch. Our plan for the moment is to keep the Angel busy while minimising damage to Eva-Shield, which we are finding difficult to do. Once Eva-Sniper has been launched we should have the advantage, and more tactics will be available to us. Any suggestions for current tactics Commander Alvara?” Eve asked. Lily found it amazing how the woman was able to stay calm even though all the odds seemed to be stacked against her.
	“W-What is the Angels method of attack?” She asked, her voice shaking from nerves.
	“We have identified that it is using its AT field as a weapon, an unusual trait as yet not encountered in any Angel so far. It has an exceptionally strong AT field to accompany this, making this Angel strong both offensively and defensively. It seems to use the AT field to propel itself, like a missile, at targets. Alternatively it seems to be able to expand its AT field in a single direction, using it to hammer at adversaries. Currently it is using the former to attack Eva-Shield.”
	“How is Bria- The pilot of Eva-Shield coping?” Lily asked, trying not to sound as emotionally attached to the pilots.
	“The Angel is obviously a far superior combatant than Eva-Shield’s pilot, however he does seem to be matching up to the Angel in combat quite well. The Angel appears to be very arrogant, and Eva-Shield’s pilot seems to be exploiting this to his advantage.”
	“What is the current situation?” Lily asked.
	“The Angel has retreated into the buildings in the training ground ma’am.” An analyst informed Eve.
	“Very good, open a line to the pilot.” The Analyst hastily typed commands into his console.
	“Line connected.”
	“Pilot, this is Director Cardinal, can you hear me?”
	“Yes,” Brian replied testily, “What is it?”
	“Pursue the target, you must keep the Angel pinned down, we cannot allow it to escape.”
	“You don’t need to tell me twice,” Brian said happily. Lily saw his Eva head off into the buildings at high speed. Eve sighed, it was obvious she wasn’t impressed by the way Brian had talked to her.
	“So long as he keeps the Angel busy until Eva-Sniper can launch we should gain the upper hand in this confrontation,” Eve stated.
	“Come on Brian, don’t lose your head, you can do this,” Lily whispered to herself.

	“You damn coward! Show yourself!” Brian shouted, hoping to taunt Michael out of hiding. He scanned the area, sweeping the barrel of his machinegun over the buildings, looking for signs of movement. He swallowed nervously, the adrenaline that had been coursing through his body had began to dry up, being replaced by fear. He tightened his grip on the controls, for comfort, his Eva responded by tightening its grip on the handle of the prog knife held in its left hand.
	“Aw, did you miss me?” Brian heard a voice say. He turned sharply to see Michael standing on the roof of a building to his left. He quickly took aim and fired at him. The grenade exploded, destroying the top floor of the building entirely. “You really are a very bad shot,” the voice chirped up again, accompanied by an annoying laugh. Brian spun round again, and located the source of the voice. Michael was standing on the roof of the building opposite the one he had previously been on.
	“Why don’t you die, damn it!” Brian growled at him. He fired on Michael with his machinegun, and was very annoyed when the bullets passed through the space that had been occupied by Michael a few seconds before and hit nothing. Brian traced Michael’s path as he leapt from roof to roof evading his bullets. Brian continued to shoot at Michael as he rapidly moved from building to building, growing more and more frustrated at his inability to land any hits on the Angel.
	“Is that the best you can do?” Michael asked him, laughing again.
	“Stay still you bastard, then I’ll show you what I can do.” Brian shouted back, squeezing the trigger of the machinegun harder, as if it would make his shooting more accurate.
	“Stay still? Why, I couldn’t be going any slower boy,” Michael laughed again. Suddenly Michael shot off at an even faster speed. Brian lost sight of him, and searched round desperately to relocate him.
	Did he get away? He thought, I can’t let him get away! He continued searching, turning round to scan the area. Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of a black blur streaking across the landscape towards him. Oh crap! He cursed inwardly, realising that Michael was trying to finish him off with this attack. Suddenly his panic stricken mind kicked into some kind of primitive defence mechanism, he struck out at the speeding object with the heaviest object he had. Which just happened to be his gun. A scream of pain was heard as the massive gun connected with the diminutive Angel. Brian’s clumsy club-like swing had managed to catch Michael on his back, as he flew towards him at high speeds, the blow catapulted him into a nearby building, which demolished around the screaming Angel. The screams came to a halt. Brian breathed a sigh of relief. He had went from dead-meat one minute, to victor the next. He looked at his machine gun, which now had a large bend in it from where it had struck the Angel. Brian laughed to himself as he remembered how in cartoons the imprints of people who had been hit were left in frying pans and such like. “Well, guess I’m going to be needing a new gun,” he said to himself.”
	“Good work pilot,” He heard Eve say over the intercom.
	“Well I never really liked the guy any-” Brian felt the wind get knocked out of him as something struck him in the stomach. His Eva staggered backward under the blow and collided with a building behind him, leaving a large Evangelion-shaped dent in the building front. The Eva copied Brian’s movements as he clutched his stomach in pain.
	“I’m through toying with you!” He heard a voice shout. Brian looked up to see Michael floating not too far from the Eva’s face. A gaping wound on his forehead was gushing red blood down his face and chest. His teeth were gritted together, his hands balled up into fists, his breathing was heavy. One thought immediately came to Brian’s mind as he looked on the bloodied Angel:
	Man does he look pissed. “Caught you pretty bad there didn’t I?” Brian said, laughing at him to cover up his fear.
	“How dare you even dare to injure someone as powerful as me? Your punishment for this impudence will be death!” Brian felt slightly contented that he had pushed Michael over the edge. No longer was the Angel laughing at him and flaunting his superiority.
	“Oh yeah, little man, and what are you going to do to-” Brian’s insult was cut off as he felt a blow strike his right cheek. His head was knocked over to the left, twisting his neck sharply. “I’ll get you, you-” Brian tried to raise his prog knife, to strike at Michael, but another blow, this time to his left cheek, flung him back against the building.
	“I shall take great pleasure in destroying you, and then destroying this worthless city.” Michael swung his hand, as if slapping some imaginary object. Brian felt another blow on his face. And another, and another, and another.
	What am I supposed to do? Brian thought, He’s too strong!
	“Brian! Michael! Stop it!” Suddenly the beating stopped. Brian looked up, his face feeling bruised and battered. Eva-Sniper was standing in front of him, clutched in its hand was the small form of Michael.
	“Kill him!” Brian shouted, as soon as he had taken stock of the situation.
	“Michael, why are you doing this?” Emma asked, a pained tone in her voice.
	“Why not?” He replied. “You Lillum are inferior, what is there to stop me?”
	“I will stop you!” Emma shouted, her voice wavering.
	“What can you do to me? You should have killed me when you had the chance, now it’s too late.” Michael flexed his muscles, and Eva-Snipers hand exploded. Emma screamed, and Michael laughed. Eva-Sniper staggered backwards, clutching at the stump of its right wrist. Michael propelled himself at Eva-Sniper, striking it in the face. Emma cried out in pain again as her Eva toppled over backwards. “The stupidity of you Lillum never ceases to amaze me,” Michael stated, “Even one such as you.” The Angel gestured towards Eva-Sniper lying on the floor. “You are too dangerous to be left alive, but you tried to reach out to me, for that I shall wait until I have killed your useless friend here before I kill you.” Michael turned to face Eva-Shield, and evil grin on his bloodstained face.
	“Bring- Bring it on, you bastard,” Brian coughed. His whole body ached, and he knew that he stood an incredibly slim chance of actually coming out of this alive. But he’s arrogant, Brian thought, Even now he thinks he’s won, If only I can use that against him. “You think I’m done for?”
	“I think your already dead,” Michael replied. He shot towards Brian at full speed, aiming to puncture the Eva’s chest and obliterate the entry plug inside. Brian mustered up all his strength and quickly raised his prog knife to point at the incoming blur that was Michael. Michael realised that Brian was trying to trap him, to make him overconfident so when he came to attack he would fly straight onto the prog knife. Unfortunately Michael had been too overconfident, and was travelling at a very fast speed. He concentrated, forming his AT field into a shape that would increase his rate of deceleration, and tried the hardest he could to bring himself to a halt. He stopped.
	Got you, Brian thought. He smiled to himself.
	Michael looked down in horror. The tip of the prog knife had pierced right through his stomach. Michael looked back at Eva-Shield, looking at the lenses that served as its eyes. He searched the lenses for some kind of feeling of satisfaction, pity even, but there was nothing. He felt blood well up in his throat and spill out through his mouth. He floated backwards, his body, still in shock, not registering the pain and other wounds caused by pulling himself off the blade. He jammed his hand over the massive wound in his stomach, trying to stem the blood flowing freely out of him. He looked round at Eva-Sniper, his body moving in stiff jerky movements, as the fighting machine began to stir and pull itself back up. He looked back at the one that had caused his fatal wound. The red Eva looked back, still frozen in its position, arm outstretched, bloodied prog knife clutched in its hand. Brian stared back at Michael, a feeling of guilt seemed to be growing inside him as he slowly realised that the Angel was dying. He was surprised, however, when Michael suddenly smiled.
	“I guess… you’re a better-” his voice died as he passed out and fell to the floor like a stone. Brain exhaled, releasing a breath he didn’t even realise he had been holding. He let his body sag, his Eva slumped up against the building behind. He opened his hand, letting the prog knife drop and stick into the ground.

	“Good work everybody,” Eve said, with little enthusiasm. “Open a line to the pilots. And inform the research division that they should recover the Angel as soon as possible, it appears to still be alive. If we can capture it we will be able to find out a lot more about these Angels.”
	“Ma’am we have an anomalous situation,” an analyst called out.
	“What?” Lily and Eve both exclaimed.
	“The Pilot of Eva-Sniper’s synch ratio has just spiked uncontrollably. Currently 180% and rising.”
	“180%!” Lily cried out.
	“What is causing this?” Eve asked, with a look of mild disgust at Lily’s outburst.
	“Unknown ma’am.” The analyst reported.
	“Synch Ratio now 230%,” another analyst added.
	“Disconnect Eva-Snipers power supply immediately.” Eve ordered, she saw the generator truck retract its power cable and drive off to safety through the observation window. “Current situation?”
	“No change, synch ratio is now 270%.”
	“Open a line to the pilot.”
	“Line open.”
	“Pilot, can you hear me? I order you to power down your Evangelion and disembark immediately, do you understand?” Eve barked through the intercom.
	“Pilot is not responding,” an analyst informed her. Eve pondered her next move.
	“Eva-Sniper is moving,” another analyst announced. Everyone in the room turned to look at the monitors arrayed in front of the analysts. Eva-Sniper was moving slowly towards the fallen form of Michael.
	“Pilot, what are you doing, stop where you are immediately.” Eve shouted over the intercom.
	“What is she doing?” Lily said to herself. This isn’t what the Emma I know would do, Lily thought, she would never disobey an order. The room’s occupants continued to watch as the drama unfolded. As Eva-Sniper reached Michael it stopped and stared down at the Angel.
	“Pilot, are you deliberately disobeying my orders? Power down and disembark immediately,” Eve ordered Emma. Her efforts were in vain as it was quite obvious that Emma wasn’t listening to her.
	“Synch Ratio now 350%.”
	“What the hells going on?” Lily shouted. On the monitors Eva-Sniper raised its foot, and stamped down hard, completely crushing Michael’s frail body.

	“Emma!” Brian shouted in shock. He watched in horror as Eva-Sniper raised its foot to reveal the grisly fruits of its labour. “Emma, what have you done?” Brian asked, staring dumbstruck at the gruesome scene before him. Eva-Sniper slowly turned to look at Eva-Shield. “Emma?” Brian asked, suddenly becoming very worried. What is going on here? He thought. Eva-Sniper’s eyes seemed to flash white for a brief moment. Then it leapt at him, slamming him up against the building, like Michael had done mere minutes before. The fighting machine wrapped its hands round Eva-Shield’s neck, and started to squeeze. “Emma… what are… you doing?” He squeezed out the sentence between tight breaths. “Emma?” Eva-Snipers hands closed even tighter.

Ending Theme: Ministry – Reload 12”