I dodged a beam of light so narrowly that the heat of it made my skin inflamed. I zigged and zagged around the GeoFront while the NERV staff evacuated to the surface. The monstrosity that Ritsuko had became fired lasers from the eyes of its Evangelion body while its arms whipped around and sliced up the landscape. The skyscrapers hanging from the ceiling fell to the ground as the cavern gradually collapsed. I flew towards the Angel and did a barrel roll around more lasers. My A.T. Field deflected the lashing limbs and when I got right in the Eva's face, I used my barrier again to release an invisible wave of force point blank in the monster's eyes. The Angel's own A.T. Field activated and octagonal ripples spread out and made the GeoFront shake violently enough that the fallen buildings jumped dozens of meters off the ground. I put my all into breaking down the Angel's A.T. Field, but I failed to make the tiniest hole in it. More rays of light came from the mecha's eyes and my A.T. Field was pierced as if it wasn't even there. I managed to avoid getting killed, but my right arm got hit and turned to vapor. I matched Gendo now.
Losing my arm didn't actually hurt too badly since it happened so fast and the wound instantly cauterized from the heat, but I still screamed as I flew away from Ritsuko. I continued dodging around the flailing arms and beams of light as I increased the distance between myself and the Angel. The monster was focusing on attacking me rather than continuing to rip apart the GeoFront which was a good thing. I was struggling to keep up with the increasingly fervent assault, but it made it easier for the NERV staff to evacuate without needing to worry about getting hit by a swinging limb.
The problem was that, even if everyone evacuated and I could fight all out without needing to worry about collateral damage, I still didn't have enough raw power to penetrate the A.T. Field of this amped Ritsuko Angel. I had no way to actually finish this fight, well, actually I did. I had my transformation, Alpha-Omega God Mode. Even this super version of the Ritsuko Angel would be nothing if I released my limiters, but to do so would be to embrace the peak of the cringey nonsense that my fanfic hexed this world with. I couldn't do it, I just couldn't. I'd do almost anything to save everyone's lives, but I couldn't do that.
From out of the remains of Central Dogma arose Unit-02. The mecha released a golden light, the combined A.T. Field of Asuka and Shinji. They were both inside the Eva, firing off a stream of power that met the A.T. Field of the Ritsuko Angel. A conflagration of light blew me away and when I regained my sense of equilibrium, I saw the barrier of the Ritsuko Angel slowly closing a hole that had formed in it. Unit-02's attack failed to stab through and damage the Angel, but it still damaged the A.T. Field which meant Asuka and Shinji had a shot at taking out this Angel. If we worked together then this would be a definite win for us as long as we didn't fuck up.
Unfortunately a double helix ring popped into existence above the red Eva. Armisael. The two strands that made up the Angel became one and thrust towards Unit-02. It planted right into the mecha's head and what looked like veins bulged all over the machine. Armisael was trying to fuse with Unit-02, Asuka, and Shinji. This wasn't that different from when Bardiel tried and failed to subsume Shinji and since Bardiel was defeated by the combined power of Asuka and Shinji, this should have been easy for them to deal with. That made it disappointing when Shinji and Asuka unleashed their golden light and it didn't kill the Angel immediately. It had been powered up like Ritsuko, though it still writhed around in clear suffering from the A.T. Field attack. Its body flicked in different directions, taking the mecha with it every which way it went. Asuka and Shinji would have to endure Armisael's physical assault and mental infestation while trying to gradually destroy the Angel with their combined A.T. Field.
There went Asuka and Shinji helping me deal with Ritsuko. Speaking of Ritsuko, her weird brain wings unraveled into hundreds of tentacles that joined her whip arms in trying to swat me out of the sky. There were tentacles coming from every direction so I had to strategically use my A.T. Field to block and push away certain whips to create openings I could fly through to safety. Every time I did, however, I'd find myself surrounded again and would have to repeat the process. More eye lasers getting thrown in only made things even worse. My heart was beating so quickly it hurt. Every time I barely avoided getting evaporated by a laser or turned to pulp by a tendril, my blood would run cold and I'd feel time slow down as I wondered if this really would be my last moment, if the destroyed GeoFront would be the last thing I'd ever see, if my last thoughts would be of surprise and regret. The desire to resign myself and just die, to stop stressing myself out and just let death take me scraped at the back of my skull at all times. I had to push those thoughts back by thinking of the consequences of my failure, of all the other people who would suffer and die if I indulged in my wish to just give in.
Though my mind was strong, my body could not say the same as it was becoming ever more drained. I never had a chance to rest as the tendrils, arms, and lasers just kept on coming without remorse or intent to relent. My limbs spasmed. I was definitely going into shock. I was only moving thanks to my Angel biology. I had infinite energy thanks to my S² Engine, but my body was relatively human and thus it could still break down over time. My brain was pulsing and it was difficult to focus on anything but the pain. This wasn't sustainable. I couldn't beat Ritsuko like this. My only shot was removing my limiters, but I still didn't want to embrace the cringe. I still couldn't do it. It was the one thing that I just couldn't accept no matter the consequences. Why? The strangest part was that I stopped being sure a good while ago. Logic had died and it was only emotion that guided my actions and my repulsion at transforming. It was as if there was something telling me, screaming at me and yet whispering, that I wouldn't be able to turn back if I embraced the cringe. Was it just my pride, my selfish desire not to give any credence to the cringe of my old fanfiction? Was I truly that petty? Would I sacrifice all the lives in this world for the sake of not letting myself be embarrassed? Was I really so shallow and selfish?
I wasn't breathing anymore. I was just fighting, or really just defending. I was stagnating. It was only a matter of time until I screwed up. Things couldn't get any worse.
Things got worse as an Angel appeared in the form of a winged silhouette that hung just below the ceiling of the GeoFront. It was Arael and it shined a spotlight upon me. I felt myself recoil into my mind from its mental offensive.
I saw them. I once again was faced with images of my cringey past despite my attempts to ignore them. I saw the time in second grade when I tried to punch a wood board in half to impress a girl I thought was cute, but I just hurt my hand and started crying. I saw the time in first grade when I got lightly smacked by someone on the shoulder and I started crying. I saw the time I farted when visiting my grandpa at the hospital and I started crying. So much crying. Crying McCryington, am I right? Fuck. The cringe just don't stop. Every age, every day, every second, I did something cringe. Cringe is more than an adjective that describes a specific moment or action, it is a state of being. To be cringe is to embrace all that makes people uncomfortable. Cringe is a brand that is burned onto your very soul and no matter what you do, it can never go away and you can never ignore it. You can't change your past mistakes. They can only fester.
The coup de grâce of the mental attack was displaying for me the events of my fanfiction as they were intended by my young self. It was what it would have been like if I had embraced the cringe and went along with the plot's path. Stupid fanservice. A harem of women. Thoughtless action with no tension. Incomprehensible twists. Then finally it appeared. The zenith beyond zeniths of cringe that my adolescent mind regurgitated onto paper. It was the one thing I wanted to never see again, the one thing I would never use to my advantage no matter the circumstance. Zero in Alpha-Omega God Mode. My OC had grown twelve black angel wings and his body aged up to be that of an adult. He was muscular and his plugsuit had torn apart to reveal a body covered in black tattoos in the form of dragons. His hair turned white and was long enough to nearly touch the ground. He grew a third eye on his forehead that was serpentine and blazing. A black halo perched above Zero's head and in his hand was a sword made of blood, its blade being as wide as a person and as long as a skyscraper. His free arm was covered in black material like igneous rock with cracks in it revealing magma within. The hand of the rocky arm was glowing orange and dressed in fire. On Zero's chest was black spherical core with a rainbow colored infinity symbol on it. It was the edgiest, most stereotypically 'anime,' most overdesigned, most derivative, most embarrassing super form ever designed.
I cried out in horror at the atrocity I had dared to curse this world with. Tears wet my face as I couldn't look away at the dumb character design. It was just so fucking dumb and bad. I couldn't take it. I couldn't fight anymore. I had finally been broken.
The images disappeared and I could see the world outside my mind again. I was still in the GeoFront, but I was splayed out in the dirt. The Ritsuko Angel just floated in the air doing nothing, as did Arael. Unit-02 was still wrestling with Armisael.
The sound of footfalls caught my attention. I turned my head to see a boy standing over me. His hair was silver and his eyes were red like Rei's. It was Kaworu.
"Why are you here?" I was legit confused.
"Kaworu isn't here." The smiling boy said as crouched down, his face hanging above my own. "I'm just using his appearance for this. It felt appropriate."
"You're the plot."
"You got it."
"What do you want? What's the point of this stupid test!" I clenched my teeth. "Why any of this!"
"To teach you a lesson."
"What lesson? Just tell me already!"
"Settle down." The plot poked my forehead. "You need to figure this out on your own."
"Fuck you." I closed my eyes to focus solely on thinking this through. What possible lesson could all this serve to teach me? I needed to take a step back. The plot chose my fanfiction as the setting of the test for a reason. Something about my fanfiction would allow me to learn something. What are the traits of my fanfiction? It's poorly written, self-indulgent, and cringey. If the poor writing aspect was the focus of the test, then perhaps this test was about teaching me to not be so judgmental about the quality of media or something. That seemed far-fetched. If the self-indulgence aspect of the fanfic was the focal point, then the lesson could be on why hedonism or fantasizing about your perfect world was bad. That didn't track given the fact that I was getting actively punished for not indulging in my fanfic's opportunities for wish fulfillment. That left the cringiness of my fanfiction. If the cringe was the aspect that mattered, then I was getting punished for not embracing the cringe. Why would I be punished for not embracing the cringe? What were the unique aspects of the cringiness of my fanfiction? It was self-indulgent, but we just ruled that out as irrelevant. That was it though. Nothing else about how my fanfiction was cringey was unique. It was like a million other cringey fanfictions. The only thing that separated it was that it was written by me.
The light bulb flickered on.
The fact that this cringe was cringe of my creation was the point. I was getting punished by the plot for not just rejecting any old cringe, but for rejecting my cringe. I was rejecting something I created for being something embarrassing, It was the same with the images of my life that Arael showed me. They were moments from my own life, moments that defined me which I was ignoring and pretending didn't happen out of cringe.
"I need to learn to accept myself, my past, and my mistakes."
"Finally!" The plot stood up and stretched out Kaworu's arms. "Hallelujah! Took you long enough!"
"I feel like there was a better way to teach this lesson."
"Shut up and transform already. Embrace the cringe, defeat the Angels, and rise to heaven."
"But everyone here will disappear along with this world."
"They aren't real! Why is this so hard for you to get!" The plot stomped. "Besides, if you don't do something now, everyone's gonna get killed by the Angels anyway! Stop whining and just transform! Embrace the cringe!"
"You have a point." I sat up. "This is the end huh? After everyone I met and everything I did, this world's still doomed to die." I looked at my hand. "I never really had a choice about anything. I was just delaying the inevitable."
"That should have been clear from the beginning. If you wanna talk about cringe, I'd say ignoring blatantly obvious is about as cringe as it gets."
"You're right. I've been cringe all this time. I kept ignoring it, but the cringe was always right there within me." I stood up. "No more looking away. I'll look the abyss of cringe dead in the eye and it'll stare back into me."
I put a hand on my chest and I began to remove my limiters. Said limiters manifested as a series of seven red rings of different sizes floating around me like the ring system of Saturn. Each was covered in black text in an unknown language. These were the Seven Seals. Cracks started forming in the outermost ring as the limiter degraded from my will alone. Once the first inhibitor was destroyed, the metamorphosis would begin and there would be no turning back. The cringe would overtake me and this story would end.
"Stop!"
The power of an A.T. Field blew the plot away from me. I ceased the destruction of the first seal as Rei appeared before me. She was floating in the air. I could feel the power of an A.T. Field. She was harnessing it the same way Kaworu could in the anime and I could in my fanfiction. It made sense that Rei could too, or at least it made sense in my fanfiction. Since both Kaworu and I are able to deploy A.T. Fields for flight and stuff, it created a pattern and thus set a precedent that human-Angel hybrid beings could use their A.T. Fields for various things. Rei was thus using a power that was only thanks to this world being based on my fanfiction.
"When did you learn to do this?"
"I started practicing after you were captured." Rei's feet touched the ground. "I was planning on freeing you if Commander Ikari couldn't be persuaded."
"You'd go against the Commander for me?" The limiters around me faded away.
"You encouraged me to make my own choices and do what I want sometimes." Rei smiled. "It was thanks to listening to your advice that I guided Asuka to the Spear of Longinus. It was thanks to that that we defeated the last group of Angels. I realized you were right. Thank you."
"Happy to be of service." I rubbed the back of my head.
"A doll shouldn't be acting on its own." The plot returned, his school uniform ripped up a bit though he wasn't harmed. "'Zero' was in the middle of putting an end to this story."
"I overheard." Rei's smile went away. "Commander Ikari left a listening device in Zero's plugsuit."
"Really?" I started patting around my outfit. "Sneaky old man."
"Commander Ikari told me your story, Zero, and of the truth of this world. I told Asuka and Shinji a brief summary. I left out the more unsavory parts of 'End of Evangelion,' such as Shinji masturba-"
"You don't need to say." I interrupted.
"The three of us talked before Unit-02 deployed and we all agreed that we trust you."
"Really?"
"You haven't given us any reason to doubt you. You've made all our lives substantially better." Rei walked up close to me. "That's why we want to help you. That's why you shouldn't transform. Don't embrace the cringe."
"What?" But you'll die!" I put my hands on Rei's shoulders. "All of you will die. Ritsuko will destroy everything." I closed my eyes. "But you'll die when I leave for heaven too. This world will have served its purpose and will disappear. This world is doomed no matter what. Fuck, this isn't fair."
"It isn't. That's why you shouldn't accept it."
"What?" I opened my eyes again and Rei's expression was one of determination.
"The plot has tricked you into thinking there are only two options, but you've shown life is complex and things evolve and change. You changed the other pilots and I for the better. We weren't meant to, but we did. You helped us create new possibilities. You can do it again."
"That was only because I allowed it to happen." The plot began rising upward into the air. "The only reason 'Zero' could change anything is because part of this test requires that he be allowed a certain degree of unimpeded freedom." The being in Kaworu's body stretched out his arms in a Christ-like pose. "If I wanted, I could take complete control of everything in this world all the way down to the laws of physics and the fabric of causality itself."
"But he still has freedom."
"What?" The plot said.
"Even if you have only given him freedom because of certain rules, Zero still has freedom. Functionally speaking, it doesn't matter what you could hypothetically do in a different scenario. What matters is this scenario and in this one, Zero has the power to enact change." Rei took my hand and squeezed it tight. "Zero, or rather the person inside this body named Zero, you don't have to follow this Angel's story. This is yours to write."
"Yeah, fuck this fotze!" Asuka's voice rang out over a speaker. Unit-02 approached. Armisael had been defeated, though it left the red Eva with a hole in its head. "This arschloch thinks he can tell us what to do, but nobody tells me what to do! You certainly shouldn't let him boss you around either! We're gonna kick his ass, then we're gonna kick these other two Angels' asses, and then we're gonna be done with this shit!"
"Zero, we didn't get along at first, well, actually it was more that I just didn't like you." Shinji's voice also came from the Eva. "I was jealous of you and yet you still helped me. You've become one of the few friends I have and it's thanks to you that I confessed to Asuka. You've made my life better in so many ways and now I have to return the favor. We're going to save the world together and then we're going to live in peace."
You can do this." Rei smiled again. "We can do this."
My eyes welled up with tears. Despite befriending my fellow pilots, I had felt alone throughout much of my time in this world. I had so much I couldn't share and even when I did share it with Misato, she was suspicious of me. Now I had others who could share my burden with me and help me. I felt seen for the first time since I came to the world of Evangelion. I was being seen for me, not for the character of Zero.
Things weren't hopeless. There had to be another path to follow that would allow everyone to live and the Angels to be defeated. I didn't know how, but it had to be possible.
I smiled.
Blood splattered onto my face. The plot had appeared behind Rei. His arm had stabbed into Rei's back and tore right through her. His hand had come out on the other side, right out of her chest with Rei's heart in hand. A single squeeze and the heart popped.
"The power of friendship is as cringe as it gets."