Steel was turned to flakes by the power of the possessed Unit-01. Its limbs were like giant blades as they swung and its A.T. Field was like a focused nuclear blast. Alarms told everyone what they already knew, that they had to escape Central Dogma. The staff was rushing out of the building while I made my Eva break out of its cage and rush towards Shinji's. My mecha pounced on Unit-01 and pinned it to the rubble covered ground. I activated a controlled form of my A.T. Field that pressed down on the possessed machine and held it in place without seriously damaging it. It was hard to be perfectly precise so cracks started forming in the Eva's purple armor.
"Shinji, please wake up!" Asuka tried to reach Shinji through the comms, but there was no response. "Shinji, you have to fight it! Please, for me! I love you, Shinji! I don't want to lose you!"
I saw on the screen in my Entry Plug that displayed the Yui Angel that she had begun charging an attack. Her wings curved inward and their tips surrounded a slowly growing sphere of red energy. The orb dropped down the night sky towards the wasteland below. I needed to block it before it touched down and blew up both the GeoFront and the wasteland above it. I stopped using my A.T. Field on Unit-01 and instead forced it upward, materializing it right above the crater that had replaced Tokyo-3. The red red sphere hit my barrier and it exploded into a cross shaped blast that reached above the clouds. Everything was shaking so much it made me nauseous.
I felt the machine below me stand up and throw me off it. 01's arm extended beyond its normal length and wrapped around my unit's neck. The limb whipped about and took my Eva with it. My mecha had become the head of a makeshift flail the possessed Shinji was using to tear apart Central Dogma even more. I wanted to free myself, but I was focused on blocking yet another nuke from the Yui Angel. My attention was getting split so I couldn't fight at my best.
Something red tackled into Unit-01's back. Asuka and Unit-02 had come to the rescue. The arm coiled around my machine's throat loosened from the surprise impact and I was able to wrench myself free. Both Asuka and I jumped on Shinji's Eva and restrained it. Asuka used her A.T. Field to pin it down like I had before and I used my own field to defend against another red bomb before firing a shockwave up at the Angel in orbit.
The A.T. Field of the Yui Angel appeared and blocked my shot. I needed full focus if I was going to break that A.T. Field. That Angel also had crazy regenerative abilities so they'd survive my shockwave even if I had broken through the shield. In my fanfic, I had to use my A.T. Field to fly up to the Angel and hack it into mincemeat with my sword. That was going to be difficult while I was distracted with Bardiel.
Rei ran over in Unit-00. Perfect. Asuka and Rei were individually not strong enough to take down Bardiel in the anime, but Asuka was taken off guard and Rei seemed hesitant to kill Toji so maybe they could. They should have at least been able to restrain Bardiel if they worked together.
"Rei, tag in! I need to deal with the Angel in the sky!"
"Understood."
I got off Unit-01 and Rei took my place. I used my A.T. Field to make my Eva float and I flew over to the cages. I went up the catapult shaft and reached the surface right as another red nuke was descending. I deflected it with my A.T. Field to send it back to the Yui Angel. The Angel blocked with its own field again, but defending left it preoccupied while I flew up to slay it.
It was then that something wrapped around my Eva's leg and slammed me into the dirt. The land moved like water from the force of the collision. I looked and saw Zeruel who's flat limb had grabbed me. The plot wasn't satisfied with just two pains in the ass it seemed. A twinkle appeared in the Angel's eyes and I activated my A.T. Field just in time to block a blast of energy that shaped into a cross. Zeruel was shooting off energy bursts as rapidly as machine gun fire. I felt my A.T. Field shake from the strain of stopping so many high level attacks in quick succession. Zereul wasn't canonically capable of this level of power. The plot had given it a strength boost. I swung my sword and sliced through the appendage that held my leg. I ran at Zeruel while keeping my barrier up to continue defending against energy blasts while I closed the distance. I got in range and raised my oversized blade before bringing it down.
I got hit by something right before I could take out Zeruel. My Eva was washed away by a flood of water that turned the ground to a lake of mud that I started slipping around in. I floated off the ground and reassessed the situation. Another Angel appeared, one of my OC ones. It was a big ol' blob of water with a core at its center that floated in the air. I could tell by the cracks made in the armor of my unit that this Angel had also gotten a power boost. The plot was trying to overwhelm me. A series of water jets fired from the mass of liquid while Zeruel changed and fired a beam of energy that was a level above its previous blasts. My A.T. Field stopped the attacks, but the Angel's didn't relent and my shield was being strained like it never had before. The Yui Angel's bombs were more powerful, but the explosions weren't sustained like the beams these two Angels were using. My A.T. Field was being whittled away by continuous fire.
Another nuke was dropped by the Angel in orbit and I was stuck between the world's biggest rock and the hardest place ever. That sounded a bit like a sex joke, but fuck it. If I stopped the bomb, the other two Angels would bombard my Eva and I didn't know if it could withstand that. On the other hand, the nuke would definitely kill me and turn the GeoFront below into a fog of elementary particles. I shifted my A.T. Field so it was diagonal and made it as large as I possibly could without compromising its durability. It was like a slope between myself and the two Angels in front of me that also went above me. I was able to keep blocking Zeruel and the blob's attacks and when the nuke detonated it still hit my A.T. Field. The angle of my shield caused the blast to be guided in the direction of the water ball and Zeruel which they had to activate their A.T. Fields to block. They were able to endure the explosion, but they had to stop attacking which gave me a chance to turn things around.
I used the jet boosters on my Eva's feet and my A.T. Field to propel myself towards the pair of Angels. I was moving so fast that I was barely able to react in time to swing my sword when the Angel's were in reach. My blade entered the water angel first and it looked like I was going to sever its core until the liquid turned black. The water became some kind of sludge that my sword got stuck in. My blade could cut through A.T. Fields and yet this goo was somehow enough to trap my weapon. I couldn't pull it out or do anything. This wasn't a power this Angel had in my original fanfic. The plot was just handing out new powers now.
Zeruel also displayed new capabilities as it metamorphosed. Its exterior cracked and fell apart as it molted. A hollowed out protrusion extended from its torso while several spikes shot out from its bottom and stabbed into the ground to hold itself in place. The Angel transformed into a cannon while the sludge moved up my blade's handle and encased my unit's arms. I couldn't run and there was a big gun right in my face. I could see red energy charging in the barrel. I tried using my A.T. Field to blow both Angels away, but the blob stuck to me while the cannon couldn't budge because of the spikes it stabbed into the earth.
The cannon fired and the resulting flash of red blinded me. I used my A.T. Field, but I couldn't activate its full power quickly enough so the shot punched through it. The attack was weakened a bit from having to get through my barrier, but only enough that I didn't die. The blast still sent my Eva flying so far that the next thing I knew, my Eva was over the ocean.
My machine fell into the water and it had no limbs due to the blast. I had no choice but to evacuate. I activated the emergency Entry Plug eject feature and I used my A.T. Field to tear the door of my cockpit off and telekinetically push myself up through the water. I breached the surface and floated above it while my Eva sank.
I wanted to take a second to catch my breath, but I lacked that luxury. I flew at full speed back to the crater which only took a half-second. I saw a nuke was dropping so I activated my A.T. Field for what felt like the trillionth time and blocked it. The cannon was charging another blast while the blob fired jets of sludge at me while my Eva's arms and sword were still stuck within its mass.
I was starting to miss being overpowered compared to my enemies.
I continued to fight the trio of Angels, but I'd like to take a moment to shift to something that was happening concurrently. This was not something I was present for, but long afterward I got to see recordings captured by the other Evas of these events and reports written by those involved. I will recount these events while, when it comes to things I can't be sure of the exact details of, taking some liberties based on my own logical deductions. Trust me, these events were important.
While I was fighting, Asuka and Rei continued restraining Unit-01. Both girls were on top of the mad Eva and were pulling back its arms and legs. The limbs extended and became tendrils that wrapped around units 00 and 02 and began squeezing like a boa constrictor. Both girls felt their bones ache and their throats struggled to let air through.
"Shinji, please stop." Asuka could barely get the words out due to the pressure on her neck. There was still no response from Shinji. For all Asuka knew, he was dead. "Just let me know you're there. Just tell me that." Asuka was crying. Bardiel's appendages kept squeezing tighter and the same substance that had filled Shinji's Entry Plug began oozing out of the mutated limbs to take control of the other two Evas.
"Ikari, you need to take back control." Rei said with actual emotion. It was reserved by normal standards, but she was still showing genuine worry for Shinji. "You can't die now."
Still nothing. The limbs squeezed ever tighter. The appeals hadn't reached Shinji's ears. The Angel matter Bardiel was ejecting continued infesting units 00 and 02.
Rei's Eva stopped struggling. I don't know why exactly. Perhaps she just had simply given up. She lacked a meaningful sense of self-preservation so it was possible, but her surrender would mean the deaths of many beyond herself such as her beloved Commander Ikari. Maybe she wanted to be possessed by Bardiel, to stop feeling the emotions she had come to struggle with. She could finally become a doll. Maybe she wanted to be possessed by Bardiel to be one with Shinji who was already taken over. Something similar happened when Armisael infected Unit-00 and Rei subconsciously tried to fuse with Shinii due to her desire for connection. Perhaps all these explanations were partly true, or maybe none of them were. I could only speculate upon the contents of the black box that was Rei Ayanami.
"Fotze!" Asuka's roar was accompanied by her A.T. Field activating with absurd power. A shockwave spread in all directions that turned the serpentine limbs of Bardiel into paste. Asuka kept screaming at the top of her lungs and she raised a hand before slamming it down onto the back of Unit-01's neck. 02's fingers dug into the machine before yanking back out with Shinji's Entry Plug in hand. The Angel matter continued coming out of the plug and infesting Unit-02, but Asuka was focused on stomping her mecha's foot down on the head of Unit-01 and crushing it. She kept stomping on the possessed Eva until it was in mashed pieces, Bardiel infecting the red Eva further all the while. "Shinji, wake the Hell up already! You're not allowed to die!" Asuka's A.T. Field activated again and was focused on the Entry Plug, the field making the cockpit glow gold. "Wake up!"
Rei watched on with clear shock. It wasn't that Asuka was going ballistic, that was pretty on brand for her. She was surprised because the aura created around the Entry Plug by Asuka's A.T. Field kept getting brighter. The forcefield was getting exponentially stronger every time it pulsed. That was because it wasn't a single A.T. Field that Rei was viewing, but the resonance of two fields. There was Asuka's A.T. Field coming from the outside, and there was one coming from within the Entry Plug. Shinji was alive and he was fighting back. Asuka had focused her A.T. Field and made it burrow through the mass of ooze inside the cockpit to reach Shinji and rouse his consciousness. Shinji knew exactly whose A.T. Field was connecting to him and he unleashed his own. Normally he wouldn't be able to project his field without being in an Eva, but he was able to access Unit-02's ability to project A.T. Fields by connecting his field with Asuka's. Two fields overlapped and matched their frequencies. The became a synchronized field that attacked the Angel matter from outside and within. The ooze began evaporating from both the plug and from throughout Unit-02 as they were bathed in light. The couple had unleashed absurd power and yet they also had the perfect precision necessary to not hurt each other as they purged themselves of the corruption. Two souls danced together and yet they still remained separate. They were unique, but intertwined, like yin and yang.
It was in that moment where Rei watched Unit-02 stare down at the Entry Plug that held Shinji, the two haloed in gold, that the pilot of Unit-00 activated her mecha's emergency eject. Right before Bardiel could infect the Entry Plug, it shot out of the Eva. Again, I don't know why Rei regained her will to survive. It might simply have been her reevaluating the situation and realizing Bardiel hadn't won yet. Maybe seeing the willpower of Shinji and Asuka inspired her own desire to survive. It was possible that she imagined someday ending up in a relationship as powerful as Asuka and Shinji's and so she wanted to live to see that possibility become reality. I still don't know. I'm just happy she chose to live.
Asuka acted quickly and scooped Rei's Entry Plug out of the air before it could hit anything and Rei could get hurt. Bardiel finished taking over Unit-00, but Asuka and Shinji used their combined A.T. Field to create a wave of light that turned the possessed mecha into scrap. Bardiel was destroyed and Asuka stood in the ruins of Central Dogma with two Entry Plugs in her unit's hands.
The red mecha lifted the two plugs to the back of its neck while its own Entry Plug extended out.
"Get in here." Asuka said and both Rei and Shinji opened their cockpits while Asuka opened the hatch of her own. LCL started to spill out and both Asuka's fellow pilots jumped into her Entry Plug before she closed it up and it reinserted into Unit-02. There was barely enough LCL still in the cockpit, but it was enough nonetheless.
"We'll need to be careful not to let our thoughts interfere with your connecti-" Shinji was interrupted when Asuka grabbed him and started repeatedly kissing his face.
"God, what took you so long? I was so worried! I thought you were gone! I really thought you were gone!"
"I'm sorry." Shinji hugged Asuka.
"Don't apologize. Just kiss me."
The two smiled and kissed.
"I love you, Asuka."
"I love you more."
"You always have to win huh?"
"Would you want me any other way?"
"Never."
"We should probably go help Zero." Rei said with no regard for the romantic moment Shinji and Asuka were trying to have.
"You're right." Asuka sighed, but was unusually civil, especially considering she wasn't fond of Rei. "I can't connect to Unit-Ω so it's either destroyed or its comms are damaged. The cameras displaying the battlefield are busted too. Last I saw, he was fighting three Angels at once."
"The one causing the most trouble is the one in orbit." Rei said. "It's constantly bombing the area which means Zero has to split his attention. If we can eliminate it, Zero can focus on fighting the remaining two."
"Let's get the positron rifles we were gonna use. We'll snipe it." Asuka did the finger gun gesture.
"That won't work." Rei responded.
"Why not?"
"If traditional long range attacks were enough, then Zero would have been able to kill the Angel in orbit by now. It is likely that any ranged attack that actually reaches outside the atmosphere will have had its strength dissipated to the point that the Angel's A.T. Field can easily block it."
"So there's no way to hurt it?" Shinji shivered.
It is here where Rei paused and I think I know why. She knew of something that was capable of reaching and killing the Angel in orbit. It was something she used in the anime. The Spear of Longinus. It was down in Terminal Dogma, stabbed into Lilith's chest. Rei could guide Asuka to the weapon and they could use it to take out the Yui Angel in one shot. The issue was that doing so would reveal the existence of the Spear of Longinus, Terminal Dogma, and Lilith to both Shinji and Asuka. Also if Asuka threw the spear at the Yui Angel, the weapon could get stuck in Earth's orbit like it did in the anime. To do all that without permission or an order from Gendo would be to betray him. It could get her in trouble and have long lasting consequences that nobody could predict. If Rei showed Asuka and Shinji how to get to the spear, it would have to be an active choice on her part, one based on her own analysis of the situation and her own feelings as to what was the right thing to do. This was not Gendo's choice. It wasn't anyone's choice but Rei's own. It was an entirely new experience for a girl who had lived her life by the orders of others while never understanding her own feelings or desires.
"There's one thing we can use to stop that Angel."
Any records of what happened with the trio after this point were inaccessible to me.
Returning to what I was doing, I was learning that fighting Angels without an Eva was a pain in the ass. My only offensive measure was using my A.T. Field to create invisible blasts of force while I flew around like a fighter jet. I was really just zipping around to avoid attacks from the cannon and goo Angels while blocking the Yui Angel's bombs with my A.T. Field. On the rare occasion I did attack, I couldn't focus enough to penetrate my enemies' A.T. Fields. I'd have been soaked in sweat and LCL if I hadn't been flying at relativistic speeds. I barely had time to breathe. My whole body ached. I had a concussion from when my Eva got hit point blank by Zeruel's cannon shot. I was tiring out while the Angels were as energized as ever. It was also dark due to the only light source being the Moon in the sky along with the flashes of A.T. Fields and energy attacks. The only positive was that I was a smaller target now that I wasn't in a giant robot.
As I kept on flying around, I tried to think of a way I could gain an advantage or get stronger. In the original fanfic, there was one point where Zero gained a boost in power. It was during the fight against the Ritsuko Angel in the last chapter. Zero was struggling more than he ever had before(which was slightly) and so he accessed new reserves of strength. You wanna know how? You really wanna fucking know?
Zero had a limiter that sealed his full strength. SEELE feared his full potential and so they restricted his strength, but Zero revealed he was so awesome that he could break the limiter at any time. He was already strong enough to beat the Ritsuko Angel, but he might have had to actually put some effort in and we can't have that so he released his limiter and one shot Ritsuko with a big dumb kamehameha. Don't even get me started on what Zero looked like when he released his limiter and entered, sigh, Alpha-Omega God Mode. That form was the absolute zenith of cringe in my fanfic and I refused to use it. To do so would validate the stupidity of my fanfiction. Even if it would let me defeat the three Angels with a blink, I didn't care. I wouldn't embrace the cringe. It was a line I wouldn't cross after having spent so much time trying to detoxify this world of my cringe fanfic's narrative.
I was powered by only the dregs of my stamina. I was so tired. I no longer bothered attacking back, just dodging and blocking with my A.T. Field. I was barely even aware of what I was doing. I was just acting on autopilot while struggling to stay awake. I wasn't gonna last much longer.
I hand reached out from the same catapult hole I came up from. Climbing up was Unit-02 who had the Spear of Longinus in hand.
"Schiesse, this things a pain in the ass to carry!" Asuka whinged. "Woah! Zero? You're flying! Are you generating an A.T. Field without an Eva?"
"No time! Throw the spear at the Angel! The space one!"
"You know what this spear is?"
"Asuka, throw the fucking spear!" Both the cannon and goo Angels shot projectiles at Unit-02, but I created an A.T. Field to protect them.
Asuka reared the spear back and looked up. The throwing angle to hit the Yui Angel was awkward since it was directly overhead. I kept protecting the red mecha with my barrier while Asuka kept lining up the shot. The Yui Angel was charging up another bomb.
I heard later that Shinji was getting anxious again at the prospect of destroying the Angel due to its resemblance to his mother. His thoughts were impeding Asuka's synchronization with Unit-02. Asuka didn't get mad like she normally would. She just turned and looked Shinji in the eye. He calmed and Asuka's synchronization returned to its previous rate and even grew higher than ever before; nearly 100%.
The two prongs of the spear swirled and became one prong right before the javelin left Asuka's hand. It shot upward right as the red nuke dropped. The spear drilled through and destroyed the ball of energy before impacting the orbiting Angel's A.T. Field. The barrier was twisted and destroyed. The spear tore through the Yui Angel and eliminated it so thoroughly that nothing remained. The Spear of Longinus kept its course and pierced the surface of the Moon. The weapon got stuck in the planetoid and would be impossible to retrieve through normal means.
I felt my second wind hit and I focused my A.T. Field. I fired an invisible blast at Zeruel which collided with a shot of its own, the two attacks canceling each other out.
Unit-02's fist shined gold from Shinji and Asuka's combined A.T. Field. It was the first time I had seen it and it was beautiful. You could feel the love in that hand without even knowing what it was. It possessed a radiance that created a sense of comfort, like the embrace of a loving mother. The red mecha punched the ooze Angel with the golden fist which plowed right through the slime and impacted the Angel's core. The heart crumbled and the black goo pooled onto the ground. Unit-02 didn't stop there. It ran over to the transformed Zeruel and punched it too before it could do anything. The alien ended up with a large hole in it that destroyed its core.
There was a second where I waited for something to go wrong, but nothing did.
All the Angels were dead and I needed a nap.
I flew over to Unit-02 and I sat on its shoulder.
"We did it." My body was still trembling.
Everyone just took a moment to relax after the hectic battle that just ended. I didn't think about how Unit-02 used such a powerful A.T. Field or what the next challenge the plot would throw at me would be.
"Zero?" Asuka said.
"Yeah?" I spoke absentmindedly, not thinking about consequences.
"Why can you use an A.T. Filed without an Eva?"
"Because I'm part Angel."
"…"
"…"
"…"
"…"
"Oops."