ReIgn of the Tabri

For Best Results: Listen to Megadeth's 'Elysian Fields' while reading. Listen to the lyrics, they can explain some thought patterns. (Including mine when I wrote this)

Chapter 20: Human (ReFlections)

Touji lowered the entrance ramp for them and scrambled out. "What the hell is that!" he shouted, pointing at the modified body of Tabris standing guard over the VTOL.

Asuka, being the first out of the tunnel, laughed at him. "Idiot," she said, pointing it out as something he should've known, "That's the new Evangelion unit. You get to pilot it!" She smirked and watched all the blood drain from his face.

Rei turned to see Logani closing the tunnel completely. "What is it to be called?" she asked softly.

"Just call it sixteen," he said calmly, "that's what the next one would've been."

Rei launched another question almost before the first had impacted. "How will we get it to Tokyo-3?" she asked.

Logani gestured to Touji. "Ready for a reintroduction to piloting?" he asked. The blood drained from Touji's face again. Now he was almost as pale as Rei.

Logani used his AT-field as an elevator in order to lift himself, and Touji, to the back of the recently named Unit 16. What they found was an entry plug of sorts. It didn't as much eject from the Evangelion as much as open up. It was an entirely organic system. It gave Touji the creeps.

"Why do I have to get the one that looks like it'll eat me?" he asked.

"You'd rather have Rei's?" Logani asked as they climbed in. Touji shook his head violently. "Good. Look, we've got a lot to cover so listen closely. The controls are just like a normal Evas but some of the subsystems are different. First off there's an s2 organ installed in here," Logani said, pointing at a blinking light. Touji nodded calmly, his eyes narrowed in thought. "It'll give you an unlimited power supply. Second, this Evangelion has no armor. This'll increase your mobility but decrease your armor strength, got it?" Logani said. Touji nodded again and looked over the view screen. Logani finished with, "Finally this Eva has no built in weapons. That means no prog knife, ok?"

Touji nodded again, slightly lost at even the weakest techno-jargon. 'I'll figure it out,' he thought. He slipped on the neural plugs he'd found in his plug suit when he put it on. The seat was similar to what Unit 03s had been, but with a slightly more organic feel. Touji could've sworn that it conformed perfectly to his body, making it utterly comfortably.

Logani walked him through a shortened start up and soon Touji was making awkward steps towards Japan.

Practice makes perfect though and soon Touji had the hang of it. Soon the Eva was marching at a solid pace. Eventually Touji mastered walking enough that he was able to become more aware of his surroundings. He turned two of the Evas six eyes upwards to notice the VTOL flying above him. It was traveling at its slowest pace, but it was still managing to stay relatively near to him. 'Come on Touji, give them a show,' he thought. He began pushing himself harder, soon he was running.

Logani smiled. Even if Touji couldn't seem to understand a word he was saying it was still working. Unconsciously Touji was locking onto every word Logani was saying and learning from them. 'Either that,' thought Logani, 'or Touji doesn't have a lot of secrets to keep from himself.'

Logani decided it almost had to be the second one. He decided to shut up and let Touji take him back to Tokyo-3.

Asuka decided it was time for a nap. She plopped down in the pilot's seat and soon was fast asleep.

Shinji sat in the copilot's seat and eyed her wearily. He knew she could fake sleeping easy as day. It was only a matter of time until she caught him looking at her and whooped his ass for it. Yet, if he faced away she'd have the element of surprise for sure. What to do?

Rei sat in the back of the VTOL considering the coming battle and plans. She was going to be ready to save any lives that needed it. Her skills would be put to the test soon and she would not let them fail.

It was only a matter of time until they reached Tokyo-3.

It was time until they reached Tokyo-3.

Touji had pushed himself to his limits and had managed to make it across the ocean, holding his AT-field around him in order to breathe, as Logani had recommended. Finally he broke free of the ocean's grasp and managed the last few miles to Tokyo-3.

Logani directed him to one of the lifts in the city, obviously out in the open. Touji entered the lift and began descending. In only a few seconds he was in Central Dogma.

Unit 04 had the immediate drop on them. It put its rifle straight into Touji's face. One shot and it would all be over.

With a rifle end smashed squarely into his face Touji very nearly panicked. Only Logani's shout over the radio system stopped him from going into a roll and then…doing some stuff.

"It's us Robertus," Logani said. Touji relaxed as the rifle was lowered.

((u couldve died))

Logani grinned and replied, "When? I've lost count of all the times."

((:p))

Touji lowered Unit 16 down onto a one knee position. Then he ejected the plug. Logani lowered the both of them back to ground level and into an opening in the partially destroyed forest of Central Dogma.

Shinji, Asuka, and Rei lowered the VTOL into the clearing and got out. "Now what?" asked a sleep stained Asuka.

"Final preparations," Logani said before turning to look at the looming form of Unit 04 and Robertus, "Did you find it?"

((its broken but salvageable at least part of it is I found some new parts for as well))

Logani nodded. "About what I expected it to be like," he said before turning back to look at the kids, "I'll go work on it with Robertus. You all should do anything you want to get ready for this. You know, pick weapons to carry and such."

Asuka nodded enthusiastically and Logani turned to follow Unit 04 to where it had placed the Custom Positron Rifle.

Asuka, Shinji, and Touji headed to the pyramid command center of NERV in order to decide on what to bring. Rei had decided to remain at the VTOL, citing that she did not need to pick weapons. The others had just shrugged and left her. She'd simply sat down in a cross-legged position and waited to be needed.

Asuka ran through the hallway to get to the control chamber. Once there she began climbing upwards, grin nearly splitting her face.

Touji and Shinji followed Asuka at a much slower price. "Like a little kid sometimes isn't she?" Shinji said absent mindedly. Touji agreed with a smirk.

"I heard that Third Child!" Asuka shouted as they entered the command room. Touji and Shinji turned up to see her sitting in Commander Ikari's chair, hands bridged in front of her face. The only thing ruining the impersonation was the shouting.

"Father never would…would have shouted," Shinji said gloomily.

Asuka slumped in her seat. That was definitely not what she had been trying to do. However a moping Shinji was not exactly a target one has to aim high to hit. Rather it is easier then dropping whatever you're aiming with.

She climbed down and looked around at the dust laden computers. The Magi had suffered deeply from the Tabri occupation. Already they were growing to the point of considering ruling the world. With their processing power and tri-powered intellect they just might be able to pull it off…

Shinji also looked around the nearly empty control room. "Father…" he said weakly.

"And Aoba, Makato, and Maya," Asuka extended the list of the dead.

"Don't forget Misato," Touji added his two cents to the conversation.

"How could we?" asked Shinji with a smile for all their good times.

"And Ritsuku, and-" Asuka was cut off by Shinji.

"Don't," he said coldly, "we don't need to stand here and name them all off."

Asuka paused, slightly surprised by Shinji interrupting her, and then agreed. "Yeah, we should remember them though," she said solemnly.

Shinji and Touji both nodded. What followed was a moment of mutually agreed upon silence.

All three of them looked at the hallowed seats that had once been filled with NERVs finest.

Nothing was specifically said to break the silence. They just finished their thoughts and drifted around. Eventually Asuka made it to a station. She looked at the seat and reluctantly took it. "Maya's station," she whispered. She pulled the station up and accessed the Magi.

They had been nearly dormant long enough to have switched off the alarms set off by the original Tabri attack. They had become smart enough to not even bat an eyebrow when a little girl accessed them.

Asuka pulled up a weapons information page as Shinji and Touji found seats. Without a spoken word to one another they picked what they would be bringing with them to the battlefield.

Asuka decided on an Eva-grade shotgun. She hadn't tried it yet but figured it would be as good as anything else. The battles always seemed to turn into close range brawls quickly enough that a shotgun would be useful. Counting on Unit 02s stronger progressive knife she picked no other weapon.

Shinji eyed the weapons list with both disdain and a practiced eye. He'd been trained by Dr. Akagi in nearly every weapon. Memories on how to use them surfaced in his head as he looked them over. He picked a slightly amplified Palette Rifle with a small scope for distance shots. On impulse he also picked one of the pistols NERV had produced for the Evangelions. It would do in a pinch.

Touji had barely mastered running, let alone even activating his AT-field. The weapons list seemed overly complicated. 'What the hell is a M14-SG8?' he thought. He briefly considered asking Shinji what some of the weapons were but decided against it. Asuka would just laugh at him again. He finally found something understandable, an RPG gun with a spearhead attachment. That made sense to him, after all an RPG was sort of shaped like a spear. He added it to his list, along with a battle axe. Oh, and maybe some more ammo. Just a pistol as well…maybe. The grenades looked promising.

Asuka and Shinji stood, having picked their weapons already. Touji decided on the RPG gun/spear, the axe, and a napalm grenade as well.

Touji stood and joined Asuka and Shinji near the exit. Shinji was looking the room over slowly, as if to never be able to forget it. "I don't think I'll ever be back here," he said with a slight happiness in his voice.

"Speak for yourself," Asuka said in a prideful way, "I think I'll definitely come back to NERV after this."

They set off, Shinji and Asuka walking next to each other and Touji trailing behind slightly. "Why would you want to come back here? After this there won't be any more Angels to fight," asked Shinji.

"So?" responded Asuka, "I'm sure their will be another reason for NERV to exist. Wars? Research? They'll think of something."

Shinji scrunched up his nose in retaliation. "You'd want to fight in another war?" he said in a demanding tone.

"Of course," she said, striking a scholarly pose as she walked, "wars are what keep us united as a people. Without them national pride will alleviate and people will drift apart."

"But what about all the innocent deaths?"

"What, civilians? In this day and age anyone who doesn't want to or can't fight will be evacuated in no time. Or didn't you notice that Tokyo-3 was almost always evacuated before a battle, even when we were caught by surprise. Only the combat elite will meet in the war-zone. And what with the Evangelions being created the wars of tomorrow are going to have an entirely different turn."

"How can you say that? Don't you know that with over half of humanity dead in second impact we need to stop and repopulate? We should enter a golden age of peace after this!"

"Don't argue with me on this Third Child! I'm a college graduate and know more about it then you'll ever know. What we need now is unity! A unity that can only be achieved through unifying war."

"That's a load of bullshit!" Shinji was fully caught up in the arguing now, "If there's a global war again we'll be wiped out!"

"As my professor in Germany said, 'A laying down of arms is like a cancer to our bones!'"

"That's the kind of bullshit I'd expect from some testosterone slaved German!"

"He was American dummkopf! And don't insult Germans like that ever again!" she shouted in his ear.

Touji watched from the back and said nothing. His thought traveled to Unit 16 and the coming battle where they should've been. Ahead of him the argument continued.

"You're only proving me right by fighting about this with me!" Asuka was saying.

Shinji opened his mouth to say something further but stopped. 'We've been fighting about whether or not to fight,' he thought, 'that's like forced pacifism.' He clammed up and turned away from Asuka as they left the pyramid structure.

They headed back to the VTOL, where Rei still waited.

Logani climbed out of the Custom Positron Rifle and looked over towards the VTOL. Shinji, Asuka, and Touji were returning from the pyramid. 'Uh-oh,' he thought, noticing Asuka and Shinji's body posture, 'looks like we have an argument on our hands.'

Robertus looked down at him and jerked his head towards the rifle. Logani nodded and sealed the compartment he had just climbed out of. Robertus picked it up and took aim at a piece of the geo-dome. He fired.

Nothing materialized from the gun. Something was wrong with it and Logani could not quite put his finger on it. He swore and cleaned his hands on his pants. It was getting late in the day. Soon the Messengers would begin their resurrection.

Robertus put the gun back down and Logani shook his head. Robertus agreed with a shrug. Logani headed towards the kids while Robertus considered the weapon.

Rei sat on a boulder that was poking out of the ground about thirty feet from the VTOL. Asuka and Shinji were separated by several feet, were sitting, and were facing away from each other. Touji yawned from his position leaning on the VTOL.

"All right bring it in," Logani said. Rei stood and came closer. The others turned to look at him. Asuka and Shinji looked a little more then half ticked off.

"Who put you in charge?" Asuka demanded.

"No one," Logani said, "It was by default. Now pay attention."

Everyone grudgingly agreed. "The Custom Positron Rifle still needs some tweaking. Robertus is going to work on that while we plan strategy. Got it?"

There was not a whole lot of response.

'Teenagers,' Logani thought with a huff. "How'd the weapons choosing go?" he said out loud.

"Fine," was the collective answer, spoken in multiple tones by the three members of that specific party.

"Good," he turned to Rei, "I see you've figured out you'll be using the Custom Positron Rifle?"

Rei nodded. "I would prefer it," she said quietly.

Logani was satisfied with the answer. "Asuka," he said.

"What?" she hissed.

"We have no way to get battery power to Antarctica and yours is the only unit without an s2 organ," he said.

Asuka froze. Unit 01 had eaten an s2 organ, Unit 04 had been designed with one, and Unit 16 had been an angel and therefore had a built in one. Unit 02 didn't. She stood up and shook her fist at Logani, "If you think that means I'll be staying here you're crazy!" she shouted.

Logani snorted. "I wouldn't dream of it," he said sarcastically, "I've already procured you one."

"What? Where!" she demanded.

Logani said, "In a pinch I can use my AT-field, along with my body, for power. But that'll remove me from being able to help the rest of you. Agreed?"

Asuka lit up a little bit when she realized she would be taking place in the battle but the others, with the exception of Rei, didn't really seem to care. It was like they were already facing down the Messengers in Antarctica.

"One more thing," Logani said, "We're kind of on a deadline. The Messengers will begin resurrection of Adam at any moment. We need faster transportation then walking. Any ideas?"

It was quiet for a moment. "How long will Adam's resurrection take?" asked Shinji.

Logani sighed. He'd wanted them to miss that part, but they needed to hear it at the same time. His ultimate goal had been transportation without this specific question. "I don't know," he said gravely, "But I can guess at least an hour. Needless to say we need to head down their ASAP. Like I said before, any ideas?"

As it had been before it was again. The graveness of the silence would've buried a tombstone. Finally, Rei spoke up. "Commander Ikari had transportation ships for all the Evangelions created. We can use them," she whispered.

Logani shook his head. "The F-type equipment won't work. It's too slow and needs pilots we don't have," he said.

"Not the F-type," Rei said. Everyone looked at her and she shrunk back slightly before speaking, "He had fast delivery planes produced towards the last of the Messengers attacks. He said they were for an emergency. For something like this…"

Everyone considered that Gendo might have planned for all of this. In the end everyone discarded the idea. Gendo Ikari was not a man to plan his own death.

Logani spoke, "Where are they?"

"They are located in the sublevels. I can find them and have them brought here by the catapults if you wish," she replied.

Logani nodded and Rei took off for one of the entrances to the lower levels. She moved at a pace that would've made a Tabri proud.

"What is Rei?" asked Asuka.

"She's human," Logani said after a slight pause, "if that's what you're asking. She's just…more thoroughly breed, if you will. Her connections to our common ancestor are more direct."

Shinji frowned. He knew Rei wasn't human; she'd been produced in a tank. "Common ancestor?" he asked.

"Lilith," Logani said, "the mother of humanity. The Second Messenger and your great grandmother about a million times removed. She's also related to me through my mother. That's what determined a Tabri's true strength. We were all very strong from being related to Tabris, but the addition of being closer to Lilith would make us all different."

"Oh," Shinji said. Asuka and Touji just looked at one another in confusion. Then they nearly jumped a foot each when they realized they'd just looked at each other. It scared them both a lot.

It only took that long for the catapults to start. Soon four giant blimp-like ships were ready for what looked like a launch. Rei returned in a flash. No one paid her a second glance and she liked it that way.

Suddenly an explosion rocked the geo-front. Everyone whipped around at the sound of several heavy footfalls. What they saw definitely turned Rei's face paler, if possible.

Unit 04 had gotten the Custom Positron Rifle to work and was dancing. The metal wire going from the rifle into its shoulder twisted slightly.

"It needed power," Logani whispered to himself, annoyed at his imperception.

Logani helped each of them into their Evangelions with his AT-field. Their plugs inserted, he went to Unit 02. He sat himself on its shoulder and turned his body into an emergency battery. Soon Asuka had the Evangelion humming with an infinity sign in place of the countdown timer.

Shinji tested Unit 01s reflexes and found that, if anything, they were better then before. 'No armor to slow me down now,' he thought. That was good.

Touji took a few relaxing breaths and then started up Unit 16. Colors swirled and finally connected. He was ready.

Rei closed her eyes and ground her teeth together. Finally she assumed command of Unit 16. Finally she managed to stop the dancing.

((you're no fun))

Rei flipped the Custom Positron Rifle over her back and put it into the weapons bay of her transport. Shinji, Asuka, and Touji checked their ships and found their selected weapons already stored. Apparently the Magi had been busy.

They climbed aboard their transports and set in their coordinates. The catapults launched them to the surface with a groan. Evangelions and transports were pushing the limits of the catapults systems.

They reached the surface and the catapults stopped, their mission done. Engines fired up on the transports, putting the Evangelions into the air in a matter of seconds.

Logani stopped his energy output; Unit 02 would not need him again until they landed. He allowed himself to enjoy the feeling of flying one last time.

In each of the cockpits the pilots prepared for their probable last mission. There was no com-chatter now, not when it was this close to the end.

Facing down fourteen Angels. Not one of the pilots expected to be able to survive it. They could only hope that their friends would make it. It was a grim hope.

Prepare for the big battle, its next chapter. Fourteen Angels versus four Evangelions. I haven't even started writing it yet and I'm afraid to start. It will probable be long. Look for it, unfortunately, in a week at most.

Do I really need to keep bitching about reviews?

See what I mean about Elysian Fields?