Chapter 42:
Armaros

 

SHINJI CHASED AFTER the black giant with the Asuka/Eva synthesis over his shoulder. He couldn’t let Armaros have the bow—he knew all too well what it was capable of. But as he gave chase, a crackling noise buzzed in his ear. It was a form of feedback he’d started hearing after Armaros had spoken to him in his own voice.

<<I am…>>

It didn’t sound like the words of a prophecy. There was something personal this time.

<<Why are you talking in Shinji’s voice?!>> Six complained.

Shinji had always supposed that Armaros didn’t have a voice and that he transmitted his thoughts directly into the people he possessed. But now Six was hearing Armaros in Shinji’s voice, too.

“Don’t be fooled. He’s not me.”

<<I know that, but…!>>

<<Kzzt…command…respond…>>

Is he sampling voices now?

Was the giant confused? No, he couldn’t be. He didn’t see humans as individuals. He shouldn’t, anyway.

Super Eva circled in front of the giant as it sped toward the abandoned Azumaterasu. He backflipped to kick the great bow away and stopped Armaros’ hand with the Magorox.

I can’t cut through him!

Armaros swung the halberd in his left hand at Super Eva. Six laid down suppressing fire and asked, <<Do you want me to get the bow?>>

“Don’t touch it. We don’t know what’s going to happen if you do!”

Shinji heard the giant’s voice again as he responded to Six.

<<Kzzt…currently engaging Eva-like target…subjects are armed…the appearance of Units One and Zero in their phyllosoma state…>>

Is he talking about us?

Six offered her analysis. <<He’s speaking through different frequencies, and he’s changing them every time he talks. The A.I. guesses that the frequencies he’s running are at base twenty.>>

<<Sssh…what’s going on…I can see Terra and Luna! Misato-san, please respond!>>

Upon hearing the last transmission, Six whispered to herself, <<This ‘Shinji’ doesn’t know where he is.>>

 

Armaros stood up after Six’s high-speed railgun ionized his field. He lifted his halberd overhead and spun it. The tip of his spear glowed, leaving afterimages in the void, thirty-six in total.

<<What’s he doing now?>>

Halberd heads flew out in all directions, with Armaros at their epicenter. They broke the boulders surrounding him, kicking up a dust cloud big enough to cover the giant.

“Six, are you okay?!”

<<One of them grazed my left hind leg! It was shielded, too! Second volley incoming!>>

Six’s voice broke through the feedback before another wave of shining spears rained down on them. Super Eva could only block the spear tips with his sword. He spoke to the still-motionless Asuka/Eva synthesis on his back. “Stay down, Asuka! Watch for stray bullets!”

Shinji was checking to make sure that she was in position when he noticed a menacing shadow fall over her. Fangs sank into her long neck. Claws bit into her shoulders.

“…!”

Wolfpack, now only an upper torso, attacked. They’d all been distracted by Armaros’ omnidirectional assault. Six had had no time to use her special senses, and Shinji hadn’t detected any anomalies until it was too late. Time felt like it had slowed to a crawl as Asuka’s body fell forward into the exploding debris.

“Ah… Aaah!”

Shinji could barely scream. His throat was a desert.

Red life particles dispersed around him. If the excess organic data left Asuka’s body, she had a chance of returning to her normal self. But she’d been in this state for too long. Wolfpack had disrupted her stabilized form, and now her balance came crashing down like a tower that tried to reach heaven.

The Asuka/Eva synthesis fell to the ground, but it was no longer a solitary unit, having lost all boundaries within itself. It broke into tiny particles, but the particles themselves remained suspended in the air, as if being held there by something.

“Aaaaah!!!”

Super Eva desperately tried to gather every last bit of it into his arms.

<<Mari!>>

Six finally noticed the ambush when she heard Shinji scream. Asuka had broken to pieces. Now, Wolfpack’s upper torso seemed to suffer the same fate. It couldn’t contain all of that massive organic data, probably because only half of it was left to digest it.

Perhaps this was the culmination of Mari’s ambition. She seemed to stare at Six one last time before the silhouette of the wolf dissolved into a million particles.

<<You really ate Asuka, Mari. You’re like a moth covered in flames.>>

“Ugh… Aaah… Waaaaaargh!”

The scream seemed to shake the ground itself. Super Eva turned around and spread his flaming wings of light.

<<Whoa!>>

Six and Eva-00 Type-F Allegorica were blown away by that single motion, and it seemed as if the island in outer space began to wobble. His wings extended around Yomotsu Hirasaka until they blew away the mountain line in the far distance.

“Aaaargh! Aaaaaaah!”

Shinji’s screaming echoed across the entire moon slab.

<<Shinji! Ikari-kun! Come on, can’t you hear me? What should I do?! Trois! Quatre! Anybody! Help!>>

Little Ayanami Rei Six knew she was in trouble.

 

Back on Hakone, Toji and Maya had heard a voice when the Q.R. Signum suddenly began to resonate at high frequencies.

“It’s at max potential!”

“Shinji!”

 

From the command center, Misato watched his wings grow around the landscape through the lens in the sky.

“Shinji-kun!” She clutched the cross that was her parents’ keepsake. The curtains to the Third Impact had opened.

“Anomaly on Yomotsu Hirasaka!”

“Yes, we can see that!”

Fuyutsuki snapped at Hyuga, but the operator continued.

“No, Yomotsu Hirasaka is disappearing…starting from the side facing the lens!”

“It’s what?!”

 

“Damn it, it’s already begun!”

Kaji clicked his tongue as the plug rattled around him. Quatre’s mutant Eva-0.0 had lost sight of Six’s unit, and with it, the replica Lance of Longinus. Quatre looked for its silhouette as the wings of light circled them. Another pair of wings had sprouted from Super Eva, and it seemed like they were about to be caught in the blast as it pierced the boulders around them.

Waves tore through the landscape like a storm. Quatre ducked into the shadow of a mountain and caught a glimpse of Armaros amid the calamity. He picked up Azumaterasu and set it upright. The great bow fit perfectly in his hand.

And still the giant remained distressed.

<<Kzzt…Nerv command…respond…>>

He spoke in Shinji’s voice, sounding as if he were lost.

“Am I supposed to call the black giant Ikari-kun now?” asked Quatre.

“Only until the stabilizers return.”

“Stabilizers…?”

A pair of shoots suddenly sprouted out of Armaros’ back. They looked like the obsidian plates he’d had before, and they plunged into the ground. Then, two black cranes emerged from the ground in front of Armaros. They looked like they’d been wrapped in black tape, and it began to unravel, starting from their beaks. Soon, two suits of black armor stood in their place.

“Are those Torwächters?!”

Was this how they were made? Were the Torwächters the stabilizers Kaji had spoken of? They stood in front of him, but Armaros didn’t look the least bit stabilized. He reached over to one of the Torwächters with his right hand and started strangling it. The Torwächter didn’t resist. It let him do as he pleased. The black messenger spoke in a voice that sounded like a deteriorated recording.

<<Become one with me…>>

Quatre recognized the voice. “Why…?!”

“Why? Because it is your voice, puppet.” The Kaji-vessel mercilessly answered her question.

“Why am I hearing it?!”

“Keep watching.”

The other Torwächter took a step toward Armaros. This one spoke in Asuka’s voice.

<<Become one with me…>>

The voice was almost lost in the static, but there was no doubt about who it belonged to.

“Now do you understand?” asked Kaji.

“No.”

Kaji scoffed and shrugged. “I really hoped you would. This is what a man’s mind is like. Give him tens of thousands of years in between, and he would still prefer to hear your voices over all the rest.”

For a moment, she saw him smile as Kaji instead of Seele.

“The Valley of Human Bodies belonged to a world where countless Evas fought each other. You and Asuka died before the battle took place. Those messengers are mere shadows of your souls, but the black giant is still soothed by your voices.”

Which meant…what?

“Armaros was the last man standing.”

He’s the Ikari-kun of that world…

And yet there was an inconsistency. As a conspirator, was Seele unable to go to the next world himself?

With the two Torwächters supporting Armaros on either side, the three giants began sinking into the ground, escaping the floating island as it was being incinerated.

“With that, the personality of the other Shinji will return to his long slumber, allowing him to faithfully carry out his duty.”

Quatre hit the comms button. “Six, wherever you are, throw the replica lance toward Earth when things start going bad.”

“What do you think you’re—” the Kaji-vessel began.

“We can’t afford to lose the center of the impact, can we?” Quatre said. “We need to make plans to retrieve it. We should still be able to calculate the tide right now…”

The images on her virtual display were the beginnings of Shinji’s Third Impact. Yomotsu Hirasaka was being pummeled by a myriad of waves—electromagnetic, radiational, gravitational.

“Besides…” Quatre continued.

As the mountains of Yomotsu Hirasaka continued to be decimated, the lens beyond became more visible. The Kaji-vessel furrowed his eyebrows as he got a better look at their surroundings.

“Hmph… I suppose.”

Seele, inside him, conceded. The mutant Eva chased after Armaros, latching on to the tip of his halberd as he disappeared into the ground and warped away from the storm-stricken landmass.