Neon Echo Evangelion

Episode 4: Boys and their Toys

	Brian got up and wandered into the kitchen. It was a Friday, the last day, excluding the weekend, and the Monday off, before he had to go back to school from his half-term holiday. As such he was looking forward to a day of relaxing, he didn’t have school, and he definitely wasn’t going to SIN. He quickly poured out a bowl of cereal and sat down on the couch, he quietly celebrated this victory, of getting the remote control first, and thus control of the TV for the day. He switched on the TV and flicked through the music channels until he found a song he liked, and flicked through the TV guide whilst listening to the balladic soft rock. The phone rang, Brian looked at his watch, it was 7:30am, must be Art, he thought dejectedly. Brian liked Art, in fact Brian hadn’t found anybody yet who didn’t like Art, there was something about the young American’s fun loving, I’ll-do-what-I-want-and-consequences-be-damned attitude that seemed to appeal to everyone, In essence Art was the cool kid everyone wished they were. However what Brian didn’t like about Art was the fact that he had a habit of ringing people at the most unearthly hours. Brian clearly remembered last Friday night when he was woken at 1:00am by a phone call from Art, who had managed to get some alcohol from an off-license, and found a large sports field. So he had the brilliant Idea of getting as many people as he could to play “Drunken Midnight Soccer.” 
	“It’s Football,” Brian had corrected him, “And the last thing I would want to do is play football right now, do you have any idea how cold it is just in this apartment?”
	“Don’t worry,” Art had enthused, “The whiskey’ll warm you up!” At which point Brian hung up, realising that Art was already very drunk and would probably keep arguing with him all night if he tried to reason with him.
	“Hello?” Brian answered the phone conservatively, knowing fine well that it would be Art on the other end of the phone, but not wanting to risk it.
	“Hi Brian!” Art’s North American accent could clearly be heard to say on the other end of the phone. “Did I wake you?”
	“Amazingly Art for once you didn’t,” Brian sighed, “Why are you calling?”
	“Well Me, Dmitri, Rebecca and Alice are going to go bowling, I just thought you might wanna go?” He prompted enthusiastically.
	“Not today Art, thanks, I’m feeling pretty stressed so I’m just going to spend today relaxing,” Brian said. For the past two weeks since the party he had divided his time between school and SIN, training hard at improving his combat skills.
	“You know bowling is very relaxing,” Art said, and was treated to a response of silence, “Hmm… guess not, anyway, Is Tony up?” Brian looked round into Tony’s room, all he could see was Tony’s leg sticking out from under his bed covers.
	“I’m afraid not Art, but when he wakes up I’ll tell him about the bowling,” Brian replied, if he could get Tony out of the apartment that would make his day.
	“Thanks a lot Brian, see you later,” Art hung up, Brian turned to sit back down on the	couch,
	“Hey!” Brian shouted.
“Who was that?” Tony said, from his new position on the couch.
“It was Art, he wanted to know if you wanted to go bowling with him,” Brian said, “And I thought you were asleep.”
“Nah, I was just pretending until you finished on the phone.”
“Why?”
“Because it might have been SIN after me, and if I pretend to be asleep then I won’t need to do anything.”
“Cunning,” Brian said sarcastically.
“Anyway, I’ll probably go out bowling, so you can have the remote control when I leave.” Brian groaned.

	When Tony finally left, Brian resumed watching TV. Oh no, Brian thought as he spied an ominous piece of paper on the floor, I thought I had finished it all, oh well better get that homework out of the way, he thought. Unfortunately due to Brian and Jacques “Incident” on the first day the teachers have been giving them both extra homework, to make sure they pulled their weight. He grabbed a piece of Homework, History, eh? He thought, Hitler again, oh great, he rolled his eyes in despair. Brian had never really thought that the standardisation of the education system, based on the UK education system, throughout Europe would actually affect him. However here he was, in France, doing the same work as he started in England the previous academic year. The phone rang again.
	“Hello?” 
	“Hi Brian,” He heard Lily’s voice and brightened up. Ever since Lily’s party Brian had tried to talk to her more, he realised she would never even consider going out with him, but he liked being around her, and her personality had slowly grown on him.
	“Hi Lily,” he replied.
	“Is Tony there?” she asked.
	“I’m afraid not, he’s went out bowling with Art.”
	“That’s Okay I was going to ring Art next anyway, I figured he’d want to see this.”
	“See what?” Brian was suddenly extremely intrigued.
	“That’s a surprise, but you’d better get down here ASAP. It’s a big surprise, and when I say big I mean BIG!”

	“Whoa,” Brian managed to say as he stared up at the towering giant, it’s the only word he’d managed since the first time he saw it 2 minutes ago. “And this is mine?” he turned to Ana.
	“It certainly is,” the Russian mechanic said.
	“Wow, this is so cool!” He swept his eyes over the huge fighting machine again, taking in the Eva’s form. It was red in colour, and very similar to the test Eva’s, except on the shins and forearms of the Eva it had bright red plates of extra armour added onto it. The Eva’s chest was much bulkier, again due to extra armour. And it’s head unit was completely different to the dull box-like one eyed heads of the test Eva’s. This Eva had its face tapering down to a narrow chin, with a rounded top on the head. It had fins sweeping directly back from the head, making it look like it a Valkyrie from Norse mythology. And it had two eye slits, both with two lenses in. It looked far more human, and far more intimidating, than the test Eva’s.
	“This was made especially for use in a shield position, as such it’s called…” Ana pointed to the Eva’s left arm, Brian could see something written on the forearm.
	“…EVA-SHIELD,” he read out.
	“Yep, you’re the proud owner of EVA-SHIELD now, congratulations,” Ana hugged Brian, usually he would blush or complain but he was to distracted by the massive fighting machine, so he didn’t mind. “I had some fun looking over this baby I can tell you,” Ana gushed, she stopped hugging him and slapped him on the back.
	“This is just…” Brian struggled for words, “just awesome,” they both stared a while longer at the Eva, observing it like it was a piece of Art. “When do I get to test it out?” Brian finally said.
	“Later today some time,” Ana said, not taking her eyes off the Eva, “Jan wants to test out all the new Eva’s individually, and then test you all out together working as a team.”
	“You mean there’s more new Eva’s!” Brian asked shocked.
	“There certainly is, each of Alpha team has gotten a new Eva, each one specially designed for use by them.”
	“So is somebody testing one out now?”
	“You know, let’s go find out.”
	
	“You ready Jacques?” Lily asked.
	“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Jacques replied.
	“Okay, we start in 5.” Jacques looked across at the display in the corner of the Entry Plug as it began counting from 5 downwards. He tensed his hands around the joysticks and the Eva copied this nervous action by rolling its hands into tight fists. The display was nearly to Zero.
	3… 2… 1… 0.
	Suddenly the display changed to a counter with 01:00 on it. 60 seconds, he thought, I can do that. The Eva took off at a sprint down the large road lined with tall buildings. Jacques looked around, he drew the pistols from the Eva’s shoulder units, it hadn’t changed in that respect. As he passed through a junction he looked to his left, a target shaped like Sachiel, the first angel encountered in Tokyo 3, popped up. Jacques quickly swung both arms to his left and loosed a volley of bullets at the target, nearly obliterating it in a hail of bullets the size of cars. To the right! He thought. He swung his arms to the right at the next junction, and fired off more shots at the Sachiel target. It was hard to keep the Eva’s arms still enough to get an accurate shot while he was still sprinting down the street so he usually fired off a few bullets at the targets to make sure one shot hit the targets centre. At the next Junction he saw a target pop up to his left, but also saw one target appearing to his right out of the corner of his eye. Sneaky, he thought, well I’ll show them. He put both arms out straight on either side of him and fired his pistols wildly, peppering the targets, and the building nearby with bullets. He quickly reloaded while sprinting to the next junction.
	“Wow, he’s progressing really well,” Lily remarked, “he didn’t even need to stop at that last junction to hit both targets.”
	“And his synch ratio seems to be increasing by the minute,” Josh remarked, “It looks like he has a natural talent for piloting an Eva.”
	“Whoa! Who’s that!” Brian rushed into the control room and pressed himself up against the glass window facing down into the training ground below. He could see an Eva running down a large street lined with buildings, a pistol in each hand. As the Eva reached a Junction two targets popped up on either side of the Eva, the Eva crossed its arms, so its left arm was pointing to the right, and its right arm to the left, it fired off a burst of bullets and then span round to run backwards and fired off another volley at the targets. “Whoa!” Brian exclaimed.
	“He certainly likes showing off,” Lily said.
	“Is that Tony in there?” Brian asked Lily.
	“No it’s Jacques,” Lily replied and took a sip from the cup of coffee she had in her hand.
	“Jacques?” He asked, and moaned, “How come he gets such a cool Eva?” Brian looked at the Eva, It was a very dark green colour all over. Again the Eva’s body was very similar to the test Eva’s, its chest however made it look like a bodybuilder, with two great armour plates shaped like chest muscles on its chest. The head unit just looked, well vicious, that’s the only word that came to Brian’s head when he looked at it. It had a large area, which looked like a mouth, with a long chin, similar to EVA-SHIELD’s, stretching out under it. The top section of the head looked like a helmet with two white eyes shining out from inside it, and crowning this was a large horn like a triangular prism on the Eva’s forehead.
	“You see that is EVA-ASSAULT,” Ana explained, she had brought him up to the control room, “Like EVA-SHEILD it was designed especially for its role. EVA-SHEILD is heavily armoured, but with very little weaponry. However EVA-ASSAULT is fast and has a lot of close range weaponry, at the expense of armour.”
	Brian peered out at the Training ground again, by now it was littered with bullet ridden targets. Jacques was nearly at the end of the course, as he nearly reached the finishing line a target appeared right in front of him.
	Okay, Jacques thought, it’s time to go into close combat. He dropped the two pistols and, in a motion he had been practicing, jerked his arms forward. The automatic weapon dispensers built into the arm units obediently shot two thin rectangular shapes into the Eva’s palms. Jacques instinctively adjusted his grip on them so that the end of the rectangle with the hole in was pointing up and flicked a switch on the side of the rectangles, suddenly two glowing purple blades shot out of the rectangles. As he reached the target he brought his left arm round in an upward arc, slicing through the Angel’s shoulder and shoulder and neck, severing its right arm and head. He then quickly brought his right hand round in a horizontal arc, the prog knife slicing clean through the targets waist, cutting it in two. Jacques then charged straight through the targets legs to finish the course.
	“He’s really got the hang of close combat,” Lily remarked.
	“He’s becoming quite vicious with those prog knives,” Josh said. Brian stared dumbfounded at the remains of the final target.
	“It… has knives?” he asked meekly.
	“Yes, we’ve only been able to complete them recently,” Ana said, “Unlike the Eva’s, the weaponry for them is made here. It took a while for my technicians to make working prog knives.”
	“What are prog knives?” Brian asked, staring puzzled at Ana.
	“They are blades that vibrate at a high frequency, this loosens the molecular structure of anything near them, essentially it softens anything up making it much easier to cut.”
	“Whoa,” Brian said again. “Do I get one?”
	“Yes, but just one,” Ana said, “EVA-SHEILD wasn’t intended to be a close combat Eva so only use it when you desperately need to.”
	“How did I do?” He heard Jacques voice over the intercom.
	“53 seconds, very good Jacques. However your accuracy has dropped quite a bit,” Lily told him.
	“Hey I got it done in the time allowed, you have to expect some mistakes,” Jacques said.
	“He seems to be improving quite a lot,” Josh said. “Every time we lower the time limit he still manages to beat it.”
	“Okay,” Lily said, “let’s try 40 seconds this time.”

	Brian felt the DOF, direct oxygenation fluid, fill the entry plug. He opened his eyes to see the colourful swirls of the optical relay system setting itself up, followed by the view of the training ground around him. He felt the power of the Eva infiltrate him, making him feel like a god.
	“All pilots, are you ready?” he heard Lily say.
	“Yep,” Brian said.
	“Sure,” said Tony.
	“Of Course,” Jacques replied.
	“As I’ll ever be,” Emma said.
	“Okay, this will be a team operation, so work closely, Okay? First you will proceed up the main street ahead of you, then you will clear all targets in the square ahead, after that you will split up and find your own respective flags, then rendezvous back in the square, with your flags. After that proceed to the other side of the city and plant your flags in their respective slots, if all the flags aren’t planted then the mission is a failure. Okay, flag colours, Jacques you’re red, Brian you’re orange, Emma, you’re blue, and Tony you’re green. Got that?”
	“Roger,” The pilots said in unison.
	“Okay Alpha Team,” Jacques announced, “Let’s go!”

	The target popped up straight in front of Brian, he fired a burst of machine gun fire at the target before it had a chance to shoot. He liked his new weapon better than the previous shotgun, it was a machine gun, with a grenade launcher strapped underneath. He had decided not to use the Grenade Launcher any more after he took the top off a building with it.
	“Oh yes, kiss my face!” He shouted in triumph at the decimated target. Suddenly a target popped up to his left, the paintball gun attached to it aimed at EVA-SHIELD. Crap! He thought, I’ll never be able to take it out before it shoots! Suddenly the target splintered under a hail of bullets. Brian looked to see ASSAULT standing with both pistols aimed at the remains of the target, there barrels smoking.
	“Don’t get too carried away,” Jacques said. “You nearly got nailed, we would have failed if you did.”
	“Sorry,” he said cheekily, feeling foolish inside for being caught with his guard down.
	“Looks like all the targets in the square are gone,” Tony said. His Eva was very similar to Brian’s, having extra armour strapped on in the same places as Brian’s. The dark red EVA-ARTILLERY had two large cannons strapped to its arms. It’s head unit was the most uninspiring of the Eva’s, being just a large box shape with a rounded downward sloping face, which had two lenses on either side of its head.
	“We did pretty good,” Emma said. Her Eva was very dynamic looking, being all white with black patches on its arms and legs. It’s head, however, disturbed Brian immensely, it was rather boxy with a triangular lump protruding from the forehead, it had two eye’s, just like EVA-ASSAULT, however a red stripe stretched from the eyes straight down to the bottom of the Eva’s face, which made it look like its eyes were bleeding. EVA-SNIPER was obviously armed with a Sniper rifle, but at the minute Emma was using a carbine, that was her secondary weapon, as it was easier to handle than her Sniper rifle in close quarters.
	“Pretty good?” Tony asked rhetorically, “You were amazing! You destroyed more targets than anybody else.”
	“Your embarrassing me,” Emma said, Brian could see her blushing in the little holographic projection in his entry plug. He laughed.
	“Okay people,” Jacques said, “We better find those flags.”
	The pilots split up, searching the city for their flags. Brian recognised the area he was in. This is where I crashed into Jacques that time, he thought, the buildings around were still lying in rubble on the floor. He spied his flag, those cheeky… he thought, they’re trying to tell me something by putting the flag here. He reached down to pick up the flag when suddenly he heard a heavy thudding sound to his left.
	“Huh?” he said out loud, suddenly Jacques’ Eva came crashing into his, Jacques had run down the street and shoulder barged Brian. Brian looked up, he was lying flat, sprawled on the floor. “You Jerk!” He shouted.
	“This is my flag moron,” Jacques said.
	“No it isn’t that’s mine! And that hurt you asshole!”
	“What are you going to do about it?” Jacques laughed. Brian saw Jacques’ Eva throw its head back in a mimic of laughter, it had the flag curled up under its arm. Suddenly Brian realised that EVA_ASSAULT was standing with its legs apart over his feet. He kicked upwards. Hard.

Episode 4: A Touch of Humility

	Jacques, groaned in agony as he was stretchered off the training ground, he was still doubled up with pain.
	“Ooh, that must hurt,” Tony remarked, “Being kicked in the nuts by an Eva.”
	“I thought the sensory feedback thing would dissipate most of the blow,” Brian tried to make an excuse.
	“What did you do that for!” Emma bawled at him, she slapped him hard in the face, “You’re a complete Jerk.”
	“Well he started it,” he tried to say to her, but she had already marched off after Jacques. Brian clutched the side of his face, which had went bright red.
	“Brian, what exactly was that?” Lily stormed over to him, and grabbed him by the collar.
	“Well, he started…” he tried to say, but was struggling with his collar digging into his neck from the upward force of Lily on it.
	“We talked about this before,” Lily said, “You are not to fight with Jacques ever again. And I guarantee that I can think up something far nastier to do to you than what you just did to him.”
	“Okay,” Brian whimpered in the face of Lily’s rage. She released his collar.
	“Thankfully he should be all right in about an hour. A tactical meeting has been scheduled in an hour and a half, I suggest you go and apologise to him between now and then, Okay?”
	“Do I have…” he stopped when he saw an angry look appear on Lily’s face again. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, sounding defeated.

	“What are you doing here?” Jacques asked. He was lying on a bed in the base hospital.
	“I came to apologise,” Brian managed to say.	
	“Well…” Jacques looked at him expectantly.
	“I’m sorry,” Brian said quickly turning his head away from Jacques.
	“That didn’t sound awfully convincing,” Jacques criticized him.
	“I’m sorry,” Brian said sounding deflated. God I hate this, he thought.
	“So, I expect Lily sent you to apologise, right?”
	“No, I, er, I came of my own choice,” Brian stammered, Jacques made a dismissive “Pff,” sound.
	“Like hell you did, if you came here by your own free will then I’ll eat my hat,” Jacques said, waving his arms theatrically. “Mind you, I did deserve it,” he admitted.
	“Thank you,” Brian said, thinking his comment to be an apology for his behaviour.
	“Yeah, I was so stupid too leave myself wide open,” Jacques said.
	“What!” Brian exclaimed, “Don’t you mean you were so stupid to knock me to the ground and steal my flag?”
	“No that was my flag,” Jacques replied confidently.
	“No way was that your flag!” Brian raised his fist.
	“You wouldn’t hit a hospitalised guy would you?” Jacques asked, a calm expression on his face. Brian gave him a steely stare and put his hand in his pocket.
	“We have to go to a tactical meeting in 10 minutes anyway, you may as well come with me,” Brian said turning his face away from Jacques.
	“I can find my own way there,” Jacques said, he crossed his arm in defiance.
	“Fine, I’ll go on my own then,” Brian shot back.
	“Okay then,” Jacques said, as Brian marched out of the room.

	“Now then pilots,” Jan announced to the collected people, all of Alpha, Bravo, and the current members of Charlie team. “I’m guessing most of you will have heard of the new delivery of combat Eva’s, Alpha team has been trying them out today, and I have here several print-outs to give to them regarding there performance.” Jan passed an envelope to each of the pilots, glaring at Jacques and Brian as he did. Brian eagerly tore open his. “Now, to explain to all you new pilots in detail what SIN actually does…”
	“Pilot of EVA-SHEILD: Brian Robertson,” Brian read under his breath, “Performance: Satisfactory.” Well, it could be worse, he thought. “Average Synchronisation Ratio: 28%.” Hmm, is that good? He thought, he looked over at Tony, who was sitting next to him, he scanned his eyes over his sheet. “39%!” he gasped.
	“Shut up, Brian,” Tony whispered at him. Jan shot him an icy stare, which quickly shut up Brian, as well as Tony.
	“Hey, Brian,” He heard a voice say, he looked round to see Jacques leaning back past Emma, who was seated between the two rivals, “What’s your Synch Rate?” He asked.
	“28%,” Brian whispered back to Jacques, who had to restrain himself from bursting out laughing. 
“Is that it?” Jacques whispered.
	“Yeah,” Brian said defensively.
	“Hey look,” Jacques held up his sheet and pointed at his score, “44%.” He gloated. Brian sat back feeling thoroughly depressed. He looked at Emma, who was reading through her sheet. Performance: Excellent, he read off the sheet, Average Synchronisation Ratio:…
	“Hey,” Emma said angrily, holding the piece of paper against her chest to stop Brian reading it, “Stop peeking.”
	“What’s your Synch Rate Emma?” he asked.
	“None of your business,” she said. Well maybe she got a really bad synch rate, and that’s why she doesn’t want to show me, Brian thought, optimistic at the thought of him not being the worst pilot, deep down though he knew that she couldn’t of got an Excellent grade without having a good Synch Ratio. Jan coughed loudly, annoyed that Alpha Team wasn’t paying any attention o what he was saying. They all quickly shut up and stared attentively at him.
	“…As I was saying,” he continued, “NERV was created to counter the threat of the Angels. To do this they created the synthetic fighting machine Evangelion.” Jan clicked a button on the remote in his hand, and a picture of an Eva appeared, it wasn’t a test Eva, or indeed any of the newly delivered Eva’s, it was purple and looked very similar to EVA-ASSAULT. “This is Eva Unit-01,” he said.
	“Hey that looks like yours,” Brian whispered to Jacques.
	“I know,” he replied.
	“Unit-01, out of the three Eva’s currently under control of NERV, has been in the most Sorties so far. Including battles against the Angel Sachiel,” A picture of the familiar Angel facing off against the purple Eva in a street appeared, “Shamshel,” A video appeared of Unit-01 charging down a hill and being pierced by tentacles from a large Insect-like Angel, before plunging a knife into it’s Core. “Unit-01 also took part in a joint operation with Unit-00 to defeat the powerful Angel Ramiel,” A video appeared showing an Orange Eva, holding a shield, and being struck by a large energy beam. Unit-01 could be seen by the Orange Eva’s side, it fired off a shot from the large Energy rifle in its hand and destroyed the large diamond shaped Angel. “Unit-01 has also recently fought in a joint operation with Unit-02, against the Angel Israfel,” A new video played out, showing Unit-01 and a red Eva both doing a flying kick into a large Grey Angel. “Unit-02 is the most recent acquisition of NERV, having only taken part in three sorties. The previously mentioned sortie with Unit-01, an underwater fight with the Angel Gaghiel,” A video showed the same red Eva as in the last video standing on the deck of an aircraft carrier, a large fish like creature leapt out of the sea and landed on the aircraft carriers deck. “And an as yet unconfirmed encounter with an Angel in a volcano.” Jan paused to look around at the pilots, “Now you have all seen what NERV does to help us. However,” he said menacingly, “There have been several nasty rumours circulating concerning NERV, Including their alleged association with an unnamed shadowy organisation, and most recently the murder of Staff. Unfortunately, despite the fact that SIN now has a full squad of Eva’s, and will be receiving another Squad in a few months, the UN can not close down NERV. NERV still keeps its information secret, making sure that it is invaluable to the UN. SIN therefore serves primarily as a failsafe, should NERV attempt a coup using its Eva’s, and also as a back up, should NERV be destroyed in an Angel attack.” Jan looked round at all the pilots again, he could see they were all still struggling to take this in, he sighed, cursing that their collective futures relied on Children such as these in Japan. “Now you know everything about SIN and NERV, I hope you put more effort into your training from now on. That is all, dismissed.” The pilots all got up and filed out of the room.
	“Wow, this is all pretty tricky political stuff, eh?” Tony said.
	“Yeah, it makes you feel different knowing that the future of the world lies in the hand of a group of conspirators and murderers, doesn’t it?” Art remarked.
	“Yeah,” Brian looked back at his test sheet, “You guys go on ahead,” he said, “I want to get something sorted out.” Brian turned round and walked back into the Briefing room.
	“See you later,” Tony said.
	“Excuse me,” Brian said, Jan looked up from his notes that had been laid out on a lectern during his talk.
	“Yes?” he asked.
	“I’m sorry to question this, but are you sure these results are right, I mean Tony got 39% synch rate, and I’d say I did as well as him,” Brian proffered him the sheet.
	“Hmm…” Jan studied it, “It looks correct, If anything I’d say you got off lightly, after that stunt with Jacques I’m surprised you even managed to get a satisfactory.” Brian tried to hide his shock. Jan looked up seeing that Brian was looking very upset, I’d better try and cheer him up, he thought. “Look, it’s not that your bad at piloting an Eva it’s just that the other members of your team seem to be exceptionally good at it. Take Emma for example, she has an Average Synch ratio of 63%,” Brian gawked at Jan in shock of what he had just heard, “that’s an exceptional score, even compared to NERV’s pilots, who were picked especially for their suitability to pilot an Eva.” Brian continued staring in shock at Jan as he handed back Brian’s test sheet. “Was there anything else?” Jan asked impatiently.
	“No,” Brian said weakly, feeling thoroughly crushed. He clutched at his test sheet and wandered out of the room, he was looking down at the floor, and so nearly walked into Lily as she came into the room.
	“Hi there Brian, thanks for going to apologise to Jacques,” Lily said cheerfully. “Look I’m sorry for being so harsh on you before, but I didn’t realise that Jacques was the one who started the fight. Friends?” She asked, an apologetic look on her face.
	“Yeah, Friends,” Not even hearing Lily say that she was his friend could cheer him up.
	“Well you just go out and enjoy yourself,” Lily said, “You’ve earned it.”
	“Thanks,” Brian managed a smile as he walked out. He was about to head down the corridor to the elevators to exit the base, when he heard Lily say something.
	“Why didn’t you show the fight with Sachiel?” Lily asked angrily.
	“I did,” Jan replied calmly. Brian shuffled back to the door to hear better.
	“You showed a photo from the beginning of the fight, don’t you think the pilots should know about what happened to the Eva?”
	“No, and neither does Eve. And besides not even we know what all that means.”
	“I think the pilots should be able to know about it, I mean what if one of our Eva’s goes berserk like that?”
	“There is no evidence that any of our Eva’s will go berserk, and besides no incident such as that has happened since.” Brian heard Lily grumble.
	“I don’t like this one bit,” She said defiantly.
	“Well if you value your job you’ll keep quiet about it, don’t tell any of the pilots, not even Tony. We don’t want to unnecessarily worry them.” Did I just hear right? Brian thought, did Jan just threaten Lily?
	“All right,” Lily said, sounding defeated, “But if anything like that ever happens, I’m telling the pilots.”
	“We’ll see,” Jan said. Lily grunted in annoyance and Brian heard her walking towards the door. He quickly took off down the Corridor. Suddenly alarms went off all around him. Crap! He thought, did somebody see me eavesdropping?
	“All Pilots please report to the Eva hangar,” A voice said over the bases Intercom, “I repeat all Pilots please report to the Eva hangar, an Angel has been spotted on the outskirts of the city.”

	“Okay pilots, try expanding your AT fields. We were going to wait a bit longer before getting you to do this, but I guess we don’t have much choice.” Lily said. 
Sitting in his Entry plug Brian closed his eyes and focused, he felt an odd feeling, like a surge of electricity, pass around his body. A small holographic window opened in his entry plug with “AT field fully developed,” written in it.
“Okay, good work, all AT fields are active. The Angel hasn’t reached Nouveau Verdun yet, make sure it doesn’t reach it, we still haven’t finished evacuating the city. Don’t worry with your new Eva’s you should easily be able to defeat it.”
“Easy for her to say,” Brian said. Their Eva’s were currently moving slowly up to the surface on a large service elevator, specially designed to carry their Eva’s into and out of the base. He looked across at Emma’s Eva, and remembered his talk with Jan. “Hey Emma,” he said.
“Yeah, what is it?” She asked, she sounded very nervous, it was obvious she wasn’t used to the pressures of battle. Hell, none of us are, Brian thought.
“Is it true that you got an Average Synch Ratio of 63% on the test?” Brian asked.
“63%!” Tony exclaimed.
“Who told you?” Emma asked defensively.
“It’s true!?” Tony said, his mouth fell wide open with shock.
“Hey, don’t act so shocked,” Emma said, “I hate when people are Jealous of me so I didn’t want any of you to know. Thanks a lot Brian.”
“Sorry,” he managed weakly. The pilots stood in silence.
“Hey who’d have thought that we’d be fighting another Angel,” Tony said.
“Yeah, I hoped we wouldn’t have to fight another,” Brian said.
“Don’t worry, I guess It’s gonna be down to me and Emma again,” Jacques said with mock annoyance. “You may as well take a break Brian, I doubt you’ll do any good.”
“Hey!” Brian raged at him.
“Break it up you two,” Lily said, “You’ve nearly reached the top of the shaft.”
	The World unfolded around them as the elevator emerged from the shaft. The top of the elevator shaft opened, it had been covered with grass to conceal it in the grassy plains outside the city. Brian immediately saw the Angel in front of them. It was a huge human shaped thing, its armoured skin glinting in the sun, and it looked like it had a skull for ahead. Brian saw that the thing was travelling very slowly, it didn’t seem to have any knees, or elbows for that matter, and as such was making slow progress across the grassy plains towards the city. A few attack helicopters were harassing it but it paid no heed to them, it seemed to be heading blindly towards Nouveau Verdun. Brian looked behind at the city, people were running terrified through the streets, away from the huge beast. When Brian looked back he could see the Angel seemed to have noticed the 4 Eva’s standing on the Elevator, probably because they were standing directly between the Angel and the City.
	“Okay guys, here’s the plan,” Jacques announced, “I’ll go to the right, Brian you go to the left, try and draw it’s fire, that’s all you seem to be good for.” Jacques was expecting Brian to grumble back at him for this remark. What Jacques didn’t expect him to say was…
	“Holy Shit! Get out of the way quick!” Brian yelled. The X shaped plates in the middle of the Angels chest had opened up and the skin beneath began glowing red. Suddenly the Angel released a massive X shaped beam from its chest, Brian saw the attack helicopters around it get instantly destroyed when the beam was unleashed. Brian and the other pilots dived out of the way, apart from Tony. Tony had been standing at the back of the Elevator and as such only saw the Angel when the other pilots dived out of the way and by then it was too late. Tony cried out in pain as the beam struck his Eva’s arm, shearing it off at the shoulder and cauterising the wound instantly from the heat of the blast. The beam passed straight though his arm and demolished a row of buildings in the city behind.
	“Oh my God!” Brian heard Lily shout. Tony’s Eva dropped down onto one Knee, clutching the stump of his arm. Brian heard Tony cry out in pain again. Suddenly Brian saw that the Angel was powering up another shot.
	“For Gods sakes Tony move!” Brian shouted at him. His Eva, and all the others, had managed to roll quite a long distance away from Tony’s Eva, trying to avoid the blast.
	“I can’t.” Tony said, gritting his teeth against the pain.
	“For God’s sake,” Brian shouted, “Somebody cut the nerve links to that arm. Move Brian, Quickly!”
	“I can’t move,” Tony said, “The pain…”
	The Angel fired.

Ending Theme: Supergrass - Alright