Chapter 8: No Easy Way Out
"Rei, You know what is happening," Shinji asked. The blue haired woman in question is always kept in the loop, by either the commander, or in this case, Dr. Akagi.
"The MAGI have detected several MP-EVAs off the coast of Tokyo and is heading this way," Rei replied dead tone, to the fear of Shinji.
"Rei, before we go into NERV, can I ask you something?" Rei's lack of response gave him permission to continue, "Since my father is dead, and SEELE is on the run, are you going to help start Third Impact?"
Rei stopped. He had guessed her battle plans for the upcoming battle. She turned her head to look at the gaze that Shinji was giving her. She quickly closed her eyes and turned away, giving him her answer. "Why," those three little letters that Shinji said formed the hardest question in the world for her to answer, and yet she knew the answer.
"The answer is all around you, Shinji. People not caring, genes going stale, and most of all, it is predicted in the Dead Sea Scrolls."
Shinji took the moment to cut her off, "So there is good in the world, there is no such thing as stale genes, and most of all there is such a thing as false prophets."
That did it; he took away the three pillars that his father drilled into her for the reason why Third Impact must happen. Has the scrolls been proven wrong? Has everything SEELE and Commander Ikari told her been a lie? Is Shinji telling the truth? She busted into tears. Shinji reached over and hugged her. "Why are you doing this?"
"Because you are my sister, Rei, and I have to look over you to make sure you are not a dummy." Rei laughed at the small unintential joke that he made. They stayed close for a while getting to know each other better.
A few minutes have passed before they remembered what it was they are supposed to do. "Brother, the only way to destroy those EVAs is to go after their core and destroy it. After we defeat them, then SEELE is powerless to start Third Impact forever."
The siblings flashed each other a smile as they made the trek up to NERV, a smile also crossing the face of an unnoticed observer. 'I'll help too, my husband to be,' she thought before she left to finish what the world started.
The voyage to the plugs was uneventful, but Rei had a burning thought in her head, "Brother?"
The red haired pilot of unit 2 cut her off, "Shinji isn't your brother, Wondergirl."
Shinji decided to answer both questions at the same time, "Rei, Dr. Akagi told me in the experiments that resulted in you. She told me that half of your genes came from my mother, and the other half came from the second angel, Lilith."
Asuka then decided to shut up before she developed a case of foot-in-mouth and got in her entry plug, ready for the fight of her life. Rei walked over to where Shinji is and gave him a small peck on the cheek, "good luck, brother," was all she said before she finished her start up procedures. Shinji was the last to get ready for the fight ahead, and opened a channel to talk to the other pilots.
"Remember to go after the cores of the EVAs. If we do that, then SEELE is finished forever," he said getting the cheers of everyone of the command bridge, except the commander who remained as calm as ever with a small button at his side. "And after this battle, I QUIT," he told the command staff. The other expectant mothers also had their letters of resignation piled up in a pile ready to be given to the commander after the battle.
Soon, the EVAs were launched as the MP-EVAs came closer for the final showdown. Deciding the tactics, Shinji told Rei to flank the left while Asuka took the right while he took on the leader. The enemy sent an EVA to counter Rei and Asuka, leaving Shinji to fight three EVAs by himself.
At last the window of chance was open as the commander pressed the button that would allow the dummy plug system to take over and turned himself over to the MP-EVAs to start Third Impact.
Shinji couldn't believe what was going on as his interface shut down. He feared this was going to happen, as two of the MP-EVAs carried him over to the red cross that was behind the leader, and set him down on it.
The rest of the command staff couldn't believe it either, and they are working to bypass the lock that the commander put on Unit-01 as if humanity depended on it, and it did. The commander had enough as he stood up, and as he stood, Section 2 guards swarmed Terminal Dogma with guns pointed at the rest of the command staff. "What are you people thinking," the commander asked the rest of the crew. No one answered for fear of being shot. The commander wanted an answer, so he shot a random tech.
Dr. Akagi answered, "We are fixing a problem in Unit-01."
"Did I give such order?" That was enough to put fear in God himself if he were here. No response, so another tech was shot.
"No Sir."
"You will not fix Unit-01's problem."
"But, Sir," another tech said, so he was shot.
"Now if Shinji can't fight out of this, then he doesn't deserve to live, and if any of you try to help him, not only will you be shot, but he will die as well."
"How," Misato asked.
"There is a bomb in the lining of the plug suit, one press of the button and boom."
The room was dead as no activity was going on, being held at gun point by an insane commander that is determined to start Third Impact, and Shinji heard every word as the MP-EVAs was trying to position him on the cross to crucify him. He started to cry for help as his external speakers were still on, but Rei and Asuka couldn't help seeing as they were miles away.
Lilly saw what was going on, and projected a strong AT field over Shinji's EVA. "Relax, my husband," she projected into his head, "soon it will be all over," she continued as she put him to sleep. Her mission clear, she synched with the EVA and brought it to its feet. The EVA thrusted its hand into the yellow MP-EVA as it was still trying to get up, and brought out the core and crushed it in its bloody hand. Not bothering to shake the mess off, it dashed off to find the gray MP-EVA and did the same thing, lifting up the EVA, causing it to slide up Unit-01's arm, as the devilish core was crushed. It was then the rest of the MP-EVAs knew that they can't win this fight, and gathered themselves together to fight in a last ditch effort, but Unit-01 anticipated this as it put out the most powerful AT field, and destroyed the MP-EVAs in one fell swoop.
The commander, defeated, dropped the trigger and allowed himself to be arrested, and with that, SEELE was no more, crushed by the very thing that the EVAs were originally designed to fight. Ironic, isn't it.
And as Shinji left his entry plug, everyone that cared for him, his family, embraced him.
Author's Ramblings and Statistics:
- I needed that break, and I feel great now that I got my thoughts in order. I do hope that it showed in this chapter.
- I now have a second non-one shot Eva work in progress, check my profile for details.
- And to answer the question already, yes, I did have Robert Tepper's title song playing in the background while I wrote this.
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