With the final Angel defeated, NERV HQ and the Eva pilots think their task is done. But it is soon revealed that all they've been fighting for is a lie: SEELE, the secret parent corporation of NERV, wanted to eliminate the Angels so it would be free to carry out the Human Instrumentality Project, ushering in a new level of human existence. However, SEELE discovers that NERV Director Gendou Ikari has betrayed them, as he plans to initiate his own altered version of the Project for his own plans. SEELE engineers a massive leave-no-survivors assault on Tokyo-3 by the conventional Japanese army, as well as deploying the 9 new mass-production model Eva units. With NERV being overwhelmed, the pilots of their 2 remaining Eva units mentally in no condition to fight, 9 horrifying new Eva's bearing down on the base, and Gendou descending into the bowels of NERV HQ to attempt the bring about Third Impact with Rei, the future of humanity lies in 14 year old Shinji's hands.