Electric rails are brought to life, rings that line the tunnel
leading to the surface beginning to hum as they glow blue. The
cradle, the sabot built around it, hums as the railing begins to
energize. Three voices, its keepers in this prison, speak to him.
Of targets. Angels. Tasks. Missions.
It listens. Acknowledges. It can feel the restraints loosening as
they give their okay.
The rail line comes to power. The cradle launches, accelerated to
fifteen times the speed of sound, the vacuum around the sabot cold
and empty, only charged by the static. G-forces that would pulverize
humans hammer against it, but it does not feel pain.
Miles it travels. Hundreds, maybe, before the tunnel ends and it is
launched. The sabor peels away as it exits the shaft, the dead moon
beneath it receding into the distance. Limbs frozen by armature and
restraint, it hits the atmosphere and multiples of the speed of
sound.
Fire and friction roar past against the purple and black armor.
Deep within, beyond the brain and sensory organs and cyberization
systems, the red Core deep within the chest begins to pulse.
“Level
2 restrictions lifted.”
The screws twist out. Awareness. The pumping of liquid fire
through its veins, as the power begins to return to it.
“Authorization
received. Limited Core autonomy granted.”
It can feel the Blue Patterns. It can feel the enemy.
“Synchronization
activated. Weapons suite, online. Level A2-9 Combat Killform:
Activated.”
The beat of the Core. The hum of the S2 organ. The armor obeys it
once more.
“Evangelion,
Mark-09:”
In the deep recesses of the armored mask, three eyes glow red.
“RISE.”
In the light and the heat and the roar of the detonated Lilim
weapon, he feels his form beginning to burn. The sky turns white, a
flash that blinds anything that looks upon it. From on high, it at
first seems like a balloon, inflating outward as a solid ball of
flame.
Next comes the shockwave. It outraces the fire, shattering windows,
bending trees backwards, the clouds save for Nathanael dispersing as
it roars through the air. Around the rising cloud of dust, ash, and
flame, the soil begins to ignite. A ring of fire rises, heavy ash
and incinerated soil wafting into the air as the wall of flame
catches up to the wall of supersonic air.
The trees, bent and broken, ignite. They shatter as they burn,
their remains carried through the air by the buffeting winds. Rising
into the air, the ash and smoke form the familiar mushroom cloud, the
white light of the opening flash slowly fading over the burn,
charred, and dead landscape that surrounds the city...to reveal the
orange dome surrounding the city itself, the milky white wall
covering every building, every streets, every wall...and every life.
The cheers of the followers of Armisael, and those Lilim who were
saved by him echo through the air.
And then they realize that their protector was not within the dome
with them. They look up, to see the white ring cracked, red and
black, broken at the edges as it begins to unravel. A final gasp,
and the ring shatters, raining white light down upon the city, down
upon the earth as the apocalyptic thunderstorm that is Nathanael
reforms.
Armisael can feel his awareness straining. He can feel his own
fruit of life beginning to whither. And he can feel, as the darkness
begins to overtake his own consciousness, the First of them, half a
world away, reaching out its own consciousness to his own...and to
somewhere else.
The petals of white, the remains, sink into the ground. The
disparate remains of the awareness that was the Angel of the Unborn
recedes, withering, the blackness overtaking it as it sinks deeper
and deeper, shallower and shallower, the consciousness once more
returning to the world of the White Egg, through darkness and night
and into the great void...
And instead of emptiness and sleep, there is a white dot. A
glowering point, which expands, becoming more and more complex, more
and more alive, more and more encompassing his vision, until it
unfurls entirely into the Tree of Life.
Arise,
my child.
For
the End draws near.
In
the wilds, I have found you. In death, I have chosen you. And in
change, I revive you.
And
though this gift may be viewed as an atrocity, and though this path
the path of the other,
The
world grows barren. The enemy of everything seeks to bring about the
end.
And
you will fight it.
For
you are a Dominion.
The darkness recedes. The ground around Rio bursts, glowing white
fronds bursting from the blackened ground. Around each white fine
that rises, the soil once more becomes black and rich, green sprouts
breaking through.
The flame and light and energy released from the Lilim weapon begins
to rise, to flow, into the fronds as they reach their apex around the
city...
And form into a ring of light.
-
-
Chapter 101: Psychology of Monsters
leading to the surface beginning to hum as they glow blue. The
cradle, the sabot built around it, hums as the railing begins to
energize. Three voices, its keepers in this prison, speak to him.
Of targets. Angels. Tasks. Missions.
It listens. Acknowledges. It can feel the restraints loosening as
they give their okay.
The rail line comes to power. The cradle launches, accelerated to
fifteen times the speed of sound, the vacuum around the sabot cold
and empty, only charged by the static. G-forces that would pulverize
humans hammer against it, but it does not feel pain.
Miles it travels. Hundreds, maybe, before the tunnel ends and it is
launched. The sabor peels away as it exits the shaft, the dead moon
beneath it receding into the distance. Limbs frozen by armature and
restraint, it hits the atmosphere and multiples of the speed of
sound.
Fire and friction roar past against the purple and black armor.
Deep within, beyond the brain and sensory organs and cyberization
systems, the red Core deep within the chest begins to pulse.
“Level
2 restrictions lifted.”
The screws twist out. Awareness. The pumping of liquid fire
through its veins, as the power begins to return to it.
“Authorization
received. Limited Core autonomy granted.”
It can feel the Blue Patterns. It can feel the enemy.
“Synchronization
activated. Weapons suite, online. Level A2-9 Combat Killform:
Activated.”
The beat of the Core. The hum of the S2 organ. The armor obeys it
once more.
“Evangelion,
Mark-09:”
In the deep recesses of the armored mask, three eyes glow red.
“RISE.”
In the light and the heat and the roar of the detonated Lilim
weapon, he feels his form beginning to burn. The sky turns white, a
flash that blinds anything that looks upon it. From on high, it at
first seems like a balloon, inflating outward as a solid ball of
flame.
Next comes the shockwave. It outraces the fire, shattering windows,
bending trees backwards, the clouds save for Nathanael dispersing as
it roars through the air. Around the rising cloud of dust, ash, and
flame, the soil begins to ignite. A ring of fire rises, heavy ash
and incinerated soil wafting into the air as the wall of flame
catches up to the wall of supersonic air.
The trees, bent and broken, ignite. They shatter as they burn,
their remains carried through the air by the buffeting winds. Rising
into the air, the ash and smoke form the familiar mushroom cloud, the
white light of the opening flash slowly fading over the burn,
charred, and dead landscape that surrounds the city...to reveal the
orange dome surrounding the city itself, the milky white wall
covering every building, every streets, every wall...and every life.
The cheers of the followers of Armisael, and those Lilim who were
saved by him echo through the air.
And then they realize that their protector was not within the dome
with them. They look up, to see the white ring cracked, red and
black, broken at the edges as it begins to unravel. A final gasp,
and the ring shatters, raining white light down upon the city, down
upon the earth as the apocalyptic thunderstorm that is Nathanael
reforms.
Armisael can feel his awareness straining. He can feel his own
fruit of life beginning to whither. And he can feel, as the darkness
begins to overtake his own consciousness, the First of them, half a
world away, reaching out its own consciousness to his own...and to
somewhere else.
The petals of white, the remains, sink into the ground. The
disparate remains of the awareness that was the Angel of the Unborn
recedes, withering, the blackness overtaking it as it sinks deeper
and deeper, shallower and shallower, the consciousness once more
returning to the world of the White Egg, through darkness and night
and into the great void...
And instead of emptiness and sleep, there is a white dot. A
glowering point, which expands, becoming more and more complex, more
and more alive, more and more encompassing his vision, until it
unfurls entirely into the Tree of Life.
Arise,
my child.
For
the End draws near.
In
the wilds, I have found you. In death, I have chosen you. And in
change, I revive you.
And
though this gift may be viewed as an atrocity, and though this path
the path of the other,
The
world grows barren. The enemy of everything seeks to bring about the
end.
And
you will fight it.
For
you are a Dominion.
The darkness recedes. The ground around Rio bursts, glowing white
fronds bursting from the blackened ground. Around each white fine
that rises, the soil once more becomes black and rich, green sprouts
breaking through.
The flame and light and energy released from the Lilim weapon begins
to rise, to flow, into the fronds as they reach their apex around the
city...
And form into a ring of light.
-
-
Chapter 101: Psychology of Monsters