Chapter 29: Battle for a Future to Believe in
This cruel thesis, a spiteful angel's mockery,
Will bring with it the sorrow of futility
Hold on tightly and do not lose vitality
You must wake up, for now the dream is history!
Come now, reach out—you must embrace humanity
Rise up, young boy, and make yourself a legend!
"Tabris!" I yell out as my Eva lands ankle deep in LCL. The blue and gold Eva turns around. My eyes flutter between them. Unit 06, Unit 01, and the red Eva Unit at the ground at Unit 01's feet. Unit-02 has a progressive knife in the base of it's neck, right where the entry plug goes. Toji's dead, Kensuke's dead, Rei's dead, and now even Asuka's dead. Kaworu, Shinji, and I are the only Eva pilots left. And I'm the only one standing between them and Third Impact.
"What the hell did you do Shinji?" I ask, my voice coming out as a low growl.
"I-I didn't..." Shinji's panicked voice comes over the intercom.
"Yes you did Shinji. You murdered her! Just another senseless death...and for what?! Do you really think that life during third impact will be any better than it is now? No, don't answer that. What you think doesn't matter, not anymore." I accuse while I pull my progressive knives out of Unit 05's pylons. Then I go to slash him. I rush towards him and prepare to slice the purple eva's neck. Unit 01 just stands there, immobolized by Shinji's fear and guilt. Before I can get close to him though I feel a pain in my gut and I'm pushed back. I look back up and see Unit 06 now standing in front of Unit 01 and putting down it's leg.
"It's a bit hypocritical of the guy who killed Rei to talk about senseless deaths, isn't it?" Kaworu says while rushing at me. I block his progressive knives with my own. "At least we're fighting for something. A perfect world where everyone can live without the fear of hurting each other. What the hell are you fighting for? A world full of nothing but sadness. A world that's full of bastards like Gendo and Seele. A world full of loneliness and the hedgehog's dilemma. A world that's full of loss! Is that what you're fighting for?!" he continues as we continue to block each other's attacks. We slash at each other again and this time our blades interlock. Sparks are flying and the room is filled with the sound of metal rubbing up against metal.
"Do you think you're special? That you can save this world? That you're not as broken as the rest of the humans forced to pilot these machines? The truth of the matter is that you are. Face it, ever since the deaths of Toji and Kensuke you've been unstable. Having to leave Mari to die was just the final nail in the coffin-"
"How did you know about that?!" I interrupt.
"Oh, guess I should've mentioned that I was there. Here, let me show you. A.T FIELD!" Kaworu yells.
Suddenly I find myself back in Seele's base, back in the same hallway that I left Mari and Kaji in. Kaworu must be using his A.T Field to mess with my mind like he did before. I look at the ground and see Mari and Kaji there. They don't seem to notice my prescence.
"Come on man, stay with me." Mari says while trying to attend to Kaji's wound.
"You really should've gone with them." Kaji chokes out.
"I won't. You saved me once before, it's time to return the favor." Mari replies.
What is she talking about? Maybe a mission they were on together?
Suddenly I hear footsteps and spin around. I see Kaworu walking down the hallway. I go up to punch him but my body phases through his. Figures, this is just a memory that Kaworu's implanting in me.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Mari asks.
"Oh come now don't play dumb, you already know everything there is to know about me." comes his response.
Mari grunts in frustration and points her gun at him.
"Do you really want to do that? You won't be able to harm we with something like that."
"Heh, won't know until you try. Besides, it's not like I have any other options." says Mari before quickly pulling the trigger, hoping to catch him off guard. The sound of the gun going off echoing throughout the hallway. The matter was settled in an instant. Mari lay dead on the ground, a bullet in her head. Kaworu walks up and picks up Mari's gun. He aims it at an on his death bed Kaji. Another gun shot goes off and my vision goes blurry again.
After a split second my vision comes back and I'm sitting back in Unit-05, still locking blades with Kaworu. Suddenly he head butts me, knocking us out of our Knife lock. As I regain my compsure I see Kaworu about to hit me with an overhead slash. Unit-05's hand comes up and reflects Unit-06's knife with it's own. Then I kick him the stomach, knocking him back a bit. I back up a bit to catch my breath. Surprisingly enough after he regains his composure he starts backing up too. What's he planning?
I don't have much time to think about that though since Kaworu throws one of his progressive knives at me. I don't have the time to react to it and a stabbing pain in my chest confirms that it hit. I barely have time to react to the second one. I knock it aside with an A.T Field. I look back to Kaworu and see a horrifying sight. Unit-06 has just pulled the Spear of Longinus out of Lilith.
I get nervous as the Eva turns back to me and brandishes it like a weapon. Damnit, that thing can do real damage to me. If I get stabbed for real that's it, I'm done. I grip my progressive knives closer and get in a defensive stance as Kaworu walks closer. Once he gets close enough he switches stances and starts holding the Lance like a spear.
"Just remember, you brought all of this on yourself. I offered to let you help hell I even gave you a way home, but you just had to play the hero." Kaworu says.
"Yeah well you aren't exactly the most trustful person I've met here, I figured listening to you would just screw me over in the long run." I shoot back.
"Alright fine! You made me do this." Kaworu says in frustration.
He lunges forward with the Lance, probably hoping to catch me off guard. I side step him and slash at the Eva's rib area. Without missing a beat Kaworu sees an opening and plunges the spear into Unit-05's left calf. I grit my teeth and try not to scream as a wave of pain goest through my body and as I feel the blood roll down my left leg.
He quickly pulls the spear out, which sends another wave of pain through my body. I force the Eva to stumble backwards, hoping to get a bit of breathing room. He goes for another stab and I deflect it with my progressive knives. This goes on for a bit, step back and deflect, step back and deflect.
I was so focused on Kaworu that I wasn't paying attention to my surrondings as I eventually back up into a wall. Kaworu raises the spear up to slightly higher than chest level as he prepares to stab again. Damnit, not much I can do. As the Lance lunges forward I do the only thing I can think of and try to jump to the side. It...almost works. I feel a sharp pain in my right arm and blood starts running down that too. Son of a bitch, he got me. I look up and see Unit-06 walking away.
"Hey, don't you ign-" I stop mid-way through my sentence as when I started to move I realized that my right arm was stuck to the wall. I look to the side and see the reason. Kaworu had stabbed through my arm and into the wall.
Damnit, I can't give up here. Toji, Kensuke, Rei, Kaji, Mari, all of their deaths will be in vain if I give up now.
"Don't worry, I'll help you." says a feminine voice.
"Who..." I trail off
"It's nice to finally meet you." says the voice.
"Wait a minute...Mari?!" I exclaim.
"Well yes and no, I am Mari Makinami but not the same one you know. We don't really have time to go into it now but back when I was young I was experimented on by Seele and Nerv, they wanted to see if an Eva pilot could pilot if the soul inside the Eva was themselves." The voice summarizes.
"So that means...but wait then why was Mari normal? Asuka's mother went through the same procedure you did and she went crazy."
"It seems to effect certain people differently, after my experiment the half of my consciouness that you grew to know had a crippling case of amnesia. I don't know the full story but appareantly after the experiment a man named Kaji became her guardian and recruited her for some sort of spy work. That's all I know, but we have bigger problems to worry about." she says as I look back at Kaworu walking towards Lilith.
"If you break yourself out of this I promise I'll give you the strength you need to end this fight." Unit-05 tells me.
"But how am I supposed to..." I trail off again as I look at my left hand, I still have my progressive knife. My eyes flash between my right arm and my left hand. This is gonna suck but I don't have any other options. Time to end this.
"Hey Tabris!" I yell out, knowing that calling Kaworu by his angel name will provoke more of a reaction out of him. I watch him turn around.
"You asked me why I'm fighting you. Well the truth is it's because I'm an optimist.I believe in humanity, always have and always will. Even when I was at my lowest and I did some despicable things my views never changed. I don't think people need someone like you to force them to be happy. I believe we're capable of doing that all by ourselves. As humans that's our greatest trait, the ability to adapt. Sure this world sucks, it's full of bastards, angel attacks, and a severe lack of therapists and we all have our individual hardships. But the answer isn't to force the world to change to make you happy. It's up to you to change! If you're not happy then find something that makes you happy, if you're not loved then love yourself. And if you're in a tough spot..." I say as I raise up my progressive knife.
"...then just push through the pain!" I yell as I slash the Eva's arm off. My real arm goes limp and it doesn't hurt anymore. Could this be because of the fact that I cut it off while it was being affected by Lance of Longinus. I shake my head a bit to get my mind off of it and focus back on Kaworu.
"So as you can see us humans are tougher than you think. You've underestimated me from day one. You've had plenty of chances to kill me and you didn't, even now when you had me on the ropes you just walked away." I continue my speech as I feel Mari's prescence from inside the Eva surround me.
"And now you're going to regret it. As long as I'm still breathing I swear to you and everyone else that third impact won't happen. A.T Field!" I say as the Eva's stump of a right arm begins to glow. Then a light explodes from it and when the light dies down my Eva has an orange and glowing A.T Field arm.
"Heh, that's better. So after all that I just have one more thing to say. Did you really think I wouldn't be a threat? Did you really think I would just roll over and die? Who the hell do you think I am?!"
Yeah I kinda decided to just upload this now instead of waiting a day like I originally planned, you guys deserve it.
Betcha guys weren't expecting something like this? Honestly this is the chapter I've wanted to write for so long that I would've been kicking myself if I didn't at least write this as a full chapter before I left for bootcamp. Think of it as a special gift for you guys being so awesome, even when I have been slightly less awesome as a writer.
This time around the title is taken from the final boss battle theme of Tales of Xillia, which is an awesome Action Rpg. And the lyrics come from Geekyfandubs version of A Cruel Angel's thesis, the theme Evangelion (obviously). Also yes the last line is a reference to Gurren Lagann. It was originally going to be a reference to Zeta Gundam (Mari was supposed to talk to Kaworu and then he would've said Paptimus' now somewhat infamous line of "A woman's voice") but I like Gurren Lagann more and it fit the mood that I was going for better. The last update will be in the synopsis form like the last chapter. See you guys there.
Not much more to say other than thanks for being awesome and supportive.