A scream. Ripped from the form he had inhabited, torn from the
power he commanded, the world once more becomes amber fluid and glass
walls. Awareness snaps back to the small, rough edged fragment,
preserved for its own good, in the glass cylinder deep beneath
NERV-Berlin.
He continues screaming.
Rage.
Pain.
Anger.
All conveyed through the wail coming forth through the speakers in
the sterile white lab beneath the Second Branch.
But no one is there to hear him.
Save for one, of course. One being, far below him, buried by years
and sediment, dimly aware of the anger and rage. Someone unaffected
by the great plots up above, sleeping through the aeons as it is wont
to.
And it, too, begins to stir.
He floats, aimless. He remembers, feels the impact. Rocking back
and forth inside the entry plug, casting his own AT Field with Zwei's
to save them both.
And he finds himself in the darkness, once more. Between life and
death. Between awareness and oblivion. He floats, aimless. Like in
the depths of the Core of Unit-03, near death at the hands of Raziel.
And once more, he sees it, like the faded memory in the back of his
mind.
Once more he sees the rippling across the field of his mind,
expanding outwards, lines of light becoming more and more complex
over time, going from a single line into the expanding, all consuming
Tree of Life.
And once more, not a memory but present and aware, it speaks to him.
Arise,
my child.
For
your moment has come.
In
darkness, I found you.
In
defeat, I chose you.
In
victory, I blessed you.
Though
your gifts have been muted
And
your incubation long
The
time has come to take your place.
You
are my sword and shield.
You
are my vanguard.
You
shall be the light that casts away the darkness,
For
you are a Dominion.
And the Sun rises over Tokyo-3.
A groan, and she rises off the floor. Blinking the haze out of her
eyes, she reaches up, grabbing the edge of the wood and metal desk
and using it as leverage to pull herself to her feet. Her legs creak
and her knees pop in protest, like they hadn't been used in days.
Weeks. Months.
Looking up at the glass case holding the design blueprints of
Unit-01, she sees her hair matted to the left half of her face, the
left lens of her glasses cracked.
And her cell phone, ringing.
Flipping it open, stumbling to her desk and the waiting bottle of
advil, she brings it up to her ear.
“Yes?”
“Dr.
Ikari. This is NERV-LUNA AI Durandal. Please respond.”
“Responding.”
“Confirmation
code.”
“Yee Cat Hector Aibo.”
“...checking...confirmation
code accepted. Stand by- YUI! Is that you?”
The voice changed, going from the regular melody of Durandal's voice
to the excited voice of the Director of NERV-Luna.
“Tom? What's wrong?”
“What's
wrong? Do you have any idea how long we've been trying to get in
contact with any of you? Durandal just got in contact with the Third
but he got cut off before he could confirm!”
“Yes...what? We've been out of contact? For how long?”
Muttering on the other end, arguments back and forth. A delay, the
light seconds it takes for the signal to go back and forth between
NERV-1 and Luna.
“Yui.
Get down to Central Dogma. You need to see this.”
The
light floods, washing over the blasted plane of the Angelic Overmind.
The glassed ground cracks and shatters, becoming dirt and soul as
the green sprouts burst through. It begins off the horizon, past the
mountains that speak with thunder, past the blackened sky and the
shattered giants. It begins as light, flooding red and gold like
liquid flame over the sky.
In the car, circling the plane, Israfel twists his face, as Kaji
stares out the window transfixed.
“What is that?” he asks.
A
new beginning,
Israfel says, The
kid's been sleeping. But now he's waking up. And everyone else's
waking up with him.
The Angel of Song and Poetry rubs the back of his hand over one of
the three holes, the one on the upper right of his mask like face.
As
far as entrances go, I think he's about tied with Big Z. Not on
destruction, mind you. But, I mean, in style.
Kaji blinks, turning from the rising sun.
“Okay, I missed something. What exactly is happening.”
Israfel twists his face. Holding onto Kaji's hand, Almacia perks an
eyebrow.
It's
simple, Lilim. You've been sleeping. All of you. And now it's time
to wake up.
Over Tokyo-3, the sphere rises. Not the Sun, but a Sun. A new Sun,
born of the world, born of the White Egg and nurtured in the Black
Egg. It rises over the city, bathing it in its light as it rises, a
perfect sphere of light but not of flame. If one looks past the
brilliance, one would see it is composed entirely of orange and gold,
shifting octagonal fields interlocked into a near perfect sphere.
And if one looked past that,
Past the fields of light, past the barriers of the soul, past the
imagined machinery holding it in place and past the red ichor forming
the heart of the construct,
One would see the floating form of Uriel Sohryu, eyes open and
blazing with gold light.
In
defiance of He who is called “I AM”, I have risen.
Though
I have walked this Earth for a lifetime, I have risen.
I
am the first of the Dominions.
Vanguard
of the protectors.
I
am a child of the White Egg, incarnate in a child of the Black Egg,
And
I am the Shield to them both.
I
have walked through the Fire
And
I have suffered through the Shadow.
And
I am tempered as Steel.
I
am the Sword of God.
Angel
of the Sun.
I
am Uriel.
And
I have Risen.
The green pushes through, washing over the world of the Overmind as
the golden sun rises high in the sky. It shines down, liquid light
washing over the world of the Black Egg, filling it, completing it.
The dank skies clear, the eidoleons marking the edge of the world
leaning back, basking in its glow.
“What is that?” Kaji asks.
Something
new,
Israfel responds, Something
wonderful. I don't believe it, but she did it. She actually did it.
“Did what?”
She
made the right circumstances, made the right situation for a new
Angel to appear. Well, we all knew the kid was going to be powerful,
but she got him to manifest in the best way possible.
Kaji blinks. The sunlight doesn't hurt his eyes.
“What do you mean?”
I
mean that every time you kill an Angel, you take away something
fundamental. When Shamsel bought it, our world went dark. When
Sandalphon ate lightning and shit himself with the THUNDAH, our world
went barren. The kid's given our world something we never thought
we'd have another of.
On the three hole face of the Angel, Kaji could swear, if only
momentarily, that there is a smile.
He
gave us a sunrise.
power he commanded, the world once more becomes amber fluid and glass
walls. Awareness snaps back to the small, rough edged fragment,
preserved for its own good, in the glass cylinder deep beneath
NERV-Berlin.
He continues screaming.
Rage.
Pain.
Anger.
All conveyed through the wail coming forth through the speakers in
the sterile white lab beneath the Second Branch.
But no one is there to hear him.
Save for one, of course. One being, far below him, buried by years
and sediment, dimly aware of the anger and rage. Someone unaffected
by the great plots up above, sleeping through the aeons as it is wont
to.
And it, too, begins to stir.
He floats, aimless. He remembers, feels the impact. Rocking back
and forth inside the entry plug, casting his own AT Field with Zwei's
to save them both.
And he finds himself in the darkness, once more. Between life and
death. Between awareness and oblivion. He floats, aimless. Like in
the depths of the Core of Unit-03, near death at the hands of Raziel.
And once more, he sees it, like the faded memory in the back of his
mind.
Once more he sees the rippling across the field of his mind,
expanding outwards, lines of light becoming more and more complex
over time, going from a single line into the expanding, all consuming
Tree of Life.
And once more, not a memory but present and aware, it speaks to him.
Arise,
my child.
For
your moment has come.
In
darkness, I found you.
In
defeat, I chose you.
In
victory, I blessed you.
Though
your gifts have been muted
And
your incubation long
The
time has come to take your place.
You
are my sword and shield.
You
are my vanguard.
You
shall be the light that casts away the darkness,
For
you are a Dominion.
And the Sun rises over Tokyo-3.
A groan, and she rises off the floor. Blinking the haze out of her
eyes, she reaches up, grabbing the edge of the wood and metal desk
and using it as leverage to pull herself to her feet. Her legs creak
and her knees pop in protest, like they hadn't been used in days.
Weeks. Months.
Looking up at the glass case holding the design blueprints of
Unit-01, she sees her hair matted to the left half of her face, the
left lens of her glasses cracked.
And her cell phone, ringing.
Flipping it open, stumbling to her desk and the waiting bottle of
advil, she brings it up to her ear.
“Yes?”
“Dr.
Ikari. This is NERV-LUNA AI Durandal. Please respond.”
“Responding.”
“Confirmation
code.”
“Yee Cat Hector Aibo.”
“...checking...confirmation
code accepted. Stand by- YUI! Is that you?”
The voice changed, going from the regular melody of Durandal's voice
to the excited voice of the Director of NERV-Luna.
“Tom? What's wrong?”
“What's
wrong? Do you have any idea how long we've been trying to get in
contact with any of you? Durandal just got in contact with the Third
but he got cut off before he could confirm!”
“Yes...what? We've been out of contact? For how long?”
Muttering on the other end, arguments back and forth. A delay, the
light seconds it takes for the signal to go back and forth between
NERV-1 and Luna.
“Yui.
Get down to Central Dogma. You need to see this.”
The
light floods, washing over the blasted plane of the Angelic Overmind.
The glassed ground cracks and shatters, becoming dirt and soul as
the green sprouts burst through. It begins off the horizon, past the
mountains that speak with thunder, past the blackened sky and the
shattered giants. It begins as light, flooding red and gold like
liquid flame over the sky.
In the car, circling the plane, Israfel twists his face, as Kaji
stares out the window transfixed.
“What is that?” he asks.
A
new beginning,
Israfel says, The
kid's been sleeping. But now he's waking up. And everyone else's
waking up with him.
The Angel of Song and Poetry rubs the back of his hand over one of
the three holes, the one on the upper right of his mask like face.
As
far as entrances go, I think he's about tied with Big Z. Not on
destruction, mind you. But, I mean, in style.
Kaji blinks, turning from the rising sun.
“Okay, I missed something. What exactly is happening.”
Israfel twists his face. Holding onto Kaji's hand, Almacia perks an
eyebrow.
It's
simple, Lilim. You've been sleeping. All of you. And now it's time
to wake up.
Over Tokyo-3, the sphere rises. Not the Sun, but a Sun. A new Sun,
born of the world, born of the White Egg and nurtured in the Black
Egg. It rises over the city, bathing it in its light as it rises, a
perfect sphere of light but not of flame. If one looks past the
brilliance, one would see it is composed entirely of orange and gold,
shifting octagonal fields interlocked into a near perfect sphere.
And if one looked past that,
Past the fields of light, past the barriers of the soul, past the
imagined machinery holding it in place and past the red ichor forming
the heart of the construct,
One would see the floating form of Uriel Sohryu, eyes open and
blazing with gold light.
In
defiance of He who is called “I AM”, I have risen.
Though
I have walked this Earth for a lifetime, I have risen.
I
am the first of the Dominions.
Vanguard
of the protectors.
I
am a child of the White Egg, incarnate in a child of the Black Egg,
And
I am the Shield to them both.
I
have walked through the Fire
And
I have suffered through the Shadow.
And
I am tempered as Steel.
I
am the Sword of God.
Angel
of the Sun.
I
am Uriel.
And
I have Risen.
The green pushes through, washing over the world of the Overmind as
the golden sun rises high in the sky. It shines down, liquid light
washing over the world of the Black Egg, filling it, completing it.
The dank skies clear, the eidoleons marking the edge of the world
leaning back, basking in its glow.
“What is that?” Kaji asks.
Something
new,
Israfel responds, Something
wonderful. I don't believe it, but she did it. She actually did it.
“Did what?”
She
made the right circumstances, made the right situation for a new
Angel to appear. Well, we all knew the kid was going to be powerful,
but she got him to manifest in the best way possible.
Kaji blinks. The sunlight doesn't hurt his eyes.
“What do you mean?”
I
mean that every time you kill an Angel, you take away something
fundamental. When Shamsel bought it, our world went dark. When
Sandalphon ate lightning and shit himself with the THUNDAH, our world
went barren. The kid's given our world something we never thought
we'd have another of.
On the three hole face of the Angel, Kaji could swear, if only
momentarily, that there is a smile.
He
gave us a sunrise.