The shield had almost completely melted, and Unit-01's body was beginning to take damage.
"Damage level at 30%!"
"It looks like the operation has failed. Eject Unit-01's Entry Plug! Saving the pilot comes first!"
Inside the cockpit, Shinji felt his surroundings growing hotter and hotter.
"Aaaaaah!!"
"Transform, Shinji! Use my power!"
Shinji took out the Zero Glasses.
"Let's go, Shinji!"
"Yeah!" Shinji put on the glasses and pressed the button on them.
Light surrounded Shinji, and then his body began to change.
"It won't eject? Try again! Ah, my eyes!" A brilliant flash dazzled Misato as she stared at the screen.
A blue-and-red, cross-shaped light appeared between Unit-01 and Ramiel's beam, stopping the beam dead.
Then the light gradually coalesced.
A giant emerged from within it.
His body was red, blue, and silver. He wore an enormous blue cape and armor over his upper body. His eyes and the corners of his mouth exuded an imposing air, and two blades sat atop his head.
Inside Unit-00, Rei Ayanami looked up at the giant before her. Sure enough, he was the Zero she had seen yesterday.
"Thank you, Zero." With that, she passed out.
After transforming, Shinji looked down at the ground. I'm so high up!
Zero stood upon the earth, nearly fifty meters tall.
Headquarters descended into chaos. Something completely outside their plans had happened.
"Is this an Angel?!"
"No! Its identification pattern isn't blue, but the energy readings coming from his body are identical to those of the Red Sphere that appeared a few days ago!" a technician reported.
"Could it be... this guy is going to take out the Angel?!"
Shock appeared on Fuyutsuki's face.
"But... why would he do that?!"
They had previously searched the entire planet for that Red Sphere, only to find nothing.
Now a giant had appeared with exactly the same energy signature.
"Now the entire scenario is in shambles..." Gendo Ikari muttered bitterly. With the giant's appearance, many of his plans would have to start over from scratch.
Both times, this giant had appeared when they were helpless against an Angel.
"Then let me see what you're capable of... The Fifth Angel isn't something you can casually ram to death..."
So far, he had only seen the giant use a charging attack. That didn't mean the giant was stronger than Unit-01.
He wanted to see what other moves the giant had.
A Giant of Light? Fear rose in Misato's heart, tied to a terrifying experience from her childhood.
"Are you an enemy or a friend, or neither?"
"What does he want?"
Misato prayed silently, hoping the giant wouldn't attack them.
Zero told Shinji, "Learn from what I do. I'll demonstrate this time."
Ramiel sensed fear and fired another beam at Zero.
Zero didn't dodge. He could tell that this beam couldn't do much damage to his body.
The beam blasted into Zero's chest armor, and he walked straight forward.
The beam that could destroy an Eva struck Zero without so much as pushing him back.
"Is that all you've got? Where's all that power you used against Shinji?" Zero taunted.
Then Zero swept off his cape with an imposing flourish and charged toward Ramiel. Dust billowed in his wake, but he carefully avoided the surrounding buildings.
Ramiel fired another instantaneous beam at Zero, who knocked it aside with a punch.
Flames blazed around Zero's leg as he kicked at Ramiel.
Ramiel deployed an AT Field to block him, but the moment it touched his leg, it shattered as though it were made of paper.
Ramiel hurriedly switched to a defensive form and took Zero's kick head-on.
Bang!
Ramiel's drill, which had been embedded in the ground, snapped clean off. Ramiel went tumbling through the air in an arc, slammed into a mountain, and became embedded in it.
The impact left Ramiel dazed. Just moments earlier, Ramiel had been arrogantly overwhelming humanity's armed forces, but now the giant before Ramiel was doing the same in return.
Enraged, Ramiel transformed into a five-pointed star again, determined to kill this giant no matter what.
"Get out of the way!" Shinji didn't believe Zero could withstand Ramiel's all-out attack unscathed.
"That move again? Since you love turning into a five-pointed star so much, I'll make sure you don't stay in one piece."
With a sweep of Zero's hand, the two blades atop his head flew toward Ramiel.
The moment Ramiel's beam touched the head blades, it was sliced apart. The beam shot off to either side of the blades, and the buildings it struck suffered for it, exploding one after another.
Before Ramiel could deploy an AT Field, the green-glowing head blades were already upon their target.
"Slice!" Zero gestured with his hand.
Three of the five points were severed in an instant, and three blue structures crashed to the ground.
"Ooooooh!!!!!!" Ramiel let out a howl of agony, spraying great quantities of blood across the mountain.
The head blades flew back onto Zero's head.
"Now for the finishing blow! Shinji, follow my lead!"
"Right!"
Zero swept his left hand across his chest...
Gendo Ikari, already shocked by Zero's head blades, had no idea what this meant.
"What is he going to do?!"
"An extremely high-energy reaction is occurring inside the giant! The temperature around his body is rising rapidly!"
"Energy is gathering in the giant's arms!"
Zero abruptly raised his right arm and braced his left hand beneath its elbow, forming a perfect L.
"Zero Cluster Beam!"
Boom!
An orange-yellow beam shot from Zero's right forearm, producing a tremendous sonic boom as it streaked through the air.
"It's a thermal light-wave beam! Its energy is beyond measurement! Preliminary estimates put its temperature at around six hundred thousand degrees!" the technician reported dutifully.
"It's striking the Angel's body continuously! Even MAGI can't calculate its power!"
Seeing the incoming beam, Ramiel barely managed to shift into a defensive form and deploy an AT Field.
But less than a tenth of a second after the Cluster Beam touched the AT Field, the field shattered, and the beam continued toward Ramiel.
"The AT Field has been completely breached!"
The Cluster Beam blasted into Ramiel. Ramiel held out for only a few seconds before being engulfed by the beam and utterly annihilated.
The Cluster Beam continued onward, effortlessly leveling the mountain behind the Angel.
"We'll have to redraw the maps again..."
"The Angel's life signs have vanished completely, and apart from the pieces the giant cut off, no remains are left!"
Zero rubbed his nose, then raised his hand with two fingers extended.
"You're twenty thousand years too early to beat me!"
Everything fell quiet, and the giant stood in the darkness.
He glanced back toward the camera.
His eyes, filled with divinity, gazed at the people on the other end, giving them an inexplicable sense of reassurance.
Everyone except Gendo Ikari. All he saw in those eyes was a threat-a threat to his plans.
"I need to devise a new strategy as soon as possible... Nothing must stand in the way of the plan!"
Meanwhile, somewhere no one had noticed, a pair of red eyes watched Zero with sinister intent.
Their owner said coldly, "Hmph. That meddlesome Ultra Warrior has come to this world too."
"I'll have to draw up a new plan."
Before you continue