Angel of Man

Chapter I
The Second Coming of Light

Gendo Ikari was uncharacteristically happy, things were moving along quickly for once. The forth Eva unit was about to be tested, the fifth had been successfully tested with its S^2 core in America and would be sent to them in the next couple of weeks and one of his side projects had been completed ahead of schedule and was now safe with him. As he sat in the command centre, waiting for news on Unit-03’s activation test, his thoughts, for the first time in weeks, drifted back onto the boy who had appeared shortly after 11th Angel.

He had been unable to find out any information on the boy, who had never woken up and now lay in a secure room in Terminal Dogma under armed guard. According to all medical reports the boy was human and his brain waves those of an ordinary boy, however, even the Magi could not find a single piece of information on him, he simply did not exist. There was also the problem of the small S^2 organ around his neck, which had been slightly smaller than a chickens egg.

Where did he get it and why did he have it? The worst part was that he was unable to study the damn thing because it couldn’t be removed; every time an attempt was made to remove the necklace from around the boys neck the S^2 organ refused to move an inch, seemingly stuck to the boys skin by some unmovable force.

The blaring of the alarms brought him from his musings; something had gone wrong with the new units test. As reports came flooding in to the techs below it became clear what had happened, Unit-03 had been captured by an Angel, it was the 13th. Issuing commands to engage and destroy he watched on as the Angel easily despatched Unit-02, then as it tried to corrupt Unit-00 forcing him to eject the Eva’s left arm.

A small pang of guilt shot through him at the thought of the pain he had just caused Rei. However, it was soon forgotten when his own son refused to fight the angel, his own son! Discovering the reason why, his sons fear of potentially killing the pilot, he ordered that the unit be handed over to the Dummy Plug system. With little reservation he watched the system came to life, finally an opportunity to test the system.

Everything was going according to plan that was until.

“Massive energy reading detected!” screamed the female lieutenant below.

“What?” yelled the deputy commander, “It can’t be another Angel? Not now.”

“No,” clarified a second tech, “Pattern is not blue, pattern is…white? What? I’ve never seen readings like this before! Source of energy is…NERV HQ? What that’s impossible…”

As everyone began to franticly analyse the signals there were reserving the whole facility began to shake, violently throwing many unprepared technicians to the floor, and an echoing distant roar was heard from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. The ground stopping shaking and the scream lessened into nothingness, leaving an undefined ringing in the ear.

As people got to their feet and quickly returned to their stations, intent on discovering the reason behind the mysterious energy reading, something on the main monitor, which showed the battle between Eva-01 and 03, started to get peoples attention. Everyone stared up dumbfounded at the main view screen trying to comprehend what they were seeing.

He couldn’t fight, he wouldn’t, how could he when it was someone like him in that thing? There was a human being in that damn thing for Gods sake! Even if he died he would never kill a human, never! Unlike his father he would not kill a child. As he laid there, the life being crushed out of his neck, he heard his father activate something called the Dummy Plug system.

All systems in the entry plug shut down; the feeling of hands crushing his throat vanished. Then all the systems reactivated with a red hue to the lighting in the entry plug. As he yelled at his father, desperately asking what he had done, the earth shook and the enemy Eva let go of him and jumped back, flipping backwards in midair to land about 100 meters away.

The black Eva began looking around, like it was scared, franticly searching its surroundings for the thing Shinji could not see but knew was coming. As the ground stopped shacking Shinji looked, amazed, at the space between him and the black Eva, where a giant pool of light had formed. Starting as the smallest speck, the light had spread out in a circle, looking much like a white version of the Dirac Sea.

The light spread till it reached right from the feet of his Eva to those of the black one, which backed away with a roar. The light then pulsed and rapidly shrank back in on itself, vanishing at the same point it had first appeared. Moments passed in anxious uncertainty, what the hell had that been? However, before thing could be determined something happened that completely eclipsed the white Dirac Sea.

Fingers, shortly followed by hands, made completely of light pushed their way up through the ground. The hands pushed down on the ground, not even causing the leaves to move, and pulled a body up through the earth. The figure pulled itself up, stretching and turning as it did so, and as it finally pulled the tips of its right foot out of the ground it stood up, glowing brighter than the sun but with less physical presence than air, never disturbing the ground in walked on.

The being stood as tall as an Eva with a similar build only missing the characteristic fins on the shoulders, but it glowed so brightly that no definite idea of its true appearance could be made out. It stood, tall and proud, apparently casually looking at its surroundings, studying the world it found itself in.

Then his Eva moved of its own accord; attacking the light giant with full force. Rushing forwards his Eva made to grab the figure round the neck, but the thing turned suddenly and with a fluidity and grace of something Shinji had never seen the thing simply glided forwards and touched his Eva on the chest, over where the entry plug lay imbedded into the machine.

All of Unit-01’s systems shut down save for the visuals and communications, and his Eva fell to its knees. As his Eva hit the ground he saw the black one lung forwards like an animal, growling and roaring its bestial war cry. The light figure, as if it was folding in on itself then flipping out again the other side, turned and faced the new threat.

With a drawn out high pitch tenuous shriek the being stretched out its arms; wings of light opening on its back, coming from nowhere, as it did so. The being glided forwards, a slowly dissipating trail of light being left in its wake, towards the black Eva and, in mid-air, the being embraced the machine in a hug like it was greeting a long lost friend.

As its wings came round and folded over the two, completely encased them in a glowing egg of light, Shinji watched wide eyed as the light shrank into the Eva unit so that it glowed brightly as it was suspended in mid air by an unknown force. Then he saw a black light sliding into the white, like vines or roots being pulled from the ground the black light seemed to be sucked out from the tainted Eva.

The black light was soon consumed by the white and then, with one final disembodied echoing roar, the light exploded and vanished in a shower of continuously shrinking balls of energy which vanished into nothingness before hitting the ground.

Gendo watched as Unit-03 fell to the ground seemingly unharmed and lifeless, its entry plug ejecting and landing some distance away. What had just happened? It couldn’t have been Adam, he was safe now, and it didn’t seem to be an Angel, for one it had save the Unit-01 and had apparently purified Unit-03 of the Angel infestation. Those were not the actions a being bent of eradicating mankind.

“All wave patterns have gone, Sir.” Reported one of the technicians

“The Angel has been destroyed, Unit-03 is lifeless.”

“Life support from the Units indicate that the pilots are unharmed, Sir.”

“Recovery crews have been dispatched to retrieve the Units-01 and 03 as well as the pilots, estimated recovery time, ten minutes...”

Gendo tuned out the reports of the techs; he had more important matters on his mind right now. As his thoughts pondered the mystery of this second ‘Giant of Light’ his private phone rang. Picking it up he listened to the report of the head guard he had placed in charge of watching over the lifeless boy, who no longer seemed to be lifeless.

“I see I shall be there shortly,”

Hanging up he pushed a button in the floor with his foot and he and the second commander, sank into the ground.

“Where are we going?”

“Terminal Dogma, that boy is awake.”

“He’s awake?” asked the deputy commander taken aback, “When?”

“Just now.” Clarified the commander mutely.

“You don’t think that he was…” Fuyutsuki couldn’t finish the thought, it was too outrageous.

Gendo said nothing but his mind was racing; there was no such thing as a coincidence.