Creation began on 09-28-21
Creation ended on 11-23-21
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Welcome to your Escape: What will you do?
It took the repair crew a week, but the results were worth the wait. The Geno Saurer belonging to Valerie Axiom was fully restored and looking as good as new, even with its armored polished to give it a nice shine. Along with Drake's G-Rex and Shinji's Liger Rogue repaired, the Clover Team was ready to return to the theater of competition and continue the decreasing journey to the Royal Cup.
"We're back in business," said Drake, wearing a different outfit from his usual attire when facing opponents, sporting cargo pants with a green shirt with four streaks of pink.
"And at a great time, too," said Geisha as she and Nico came into the hangar with an update. "The ZBC has ordered a rematch between us and the Eva Team," Nico informed them.
"The same Eva Team with the Blade Ligers that just stood by whilst we got messed up by that abomination they had with them?" Drake asked.
"Fortunately, they won't have it this time, and if they do have it, they'll face a greater penalty than before," Geisha told them. "They'll get disqualified and the data Nico found and gave the ZBC will be used to shut down the paramilitary agency that made the Zoid team and put all those people behind it out of employment."
"No Eva," Shinji spoke, "no cheating, none of that bull they pulled on us the first time around?"
"None. They have to follow the rules if they want to continue," Nico told him.
"I'm all for it," Valerie expressed, punching her left fist into her right palm. "Let's kick some NERV-affiliated ass."
"I am so down with that right now," Drake declared.
Shinji nodded and agreed to join in the rematch. It was a rematch with much significance because this time…there would be conflict…and there would be an outcome for one side to rise further and the other to show room for improvement.
-x-
NERV was in a bind, along with anyone affiliated in any way with the paramilitary agency, including the United Nations. If the next Zoid match between the Eva Team and the Clover Team involved the use of the Evangelion that was sent to Zi and had yet to be removed, the Eva Team would be disqualified from future battles and removed from Zi. This put Gendo in a bad mood, as he was never known for following any rules set by those long gone, but if he violated the rules, even just one rule, all for the sake of causing his son trouble, then he'd be the primary one in trouble. There would be no mercy if the rules were violated again by those looking for an easy solution that wasn't there.
"I say we just follow the rules," said a female NERV employee. "I don't need to have anything done to jeopardize my job or freedom."
"Whose idea was it to send an Eva to Zi, anyway?" A male employee questioned.
Gendo, who had walked past them, fumed with anger. The chances of NERV's Zoid team actually prevailing were as slim as they were nonexistent. The choice of using Blade Ligers was because they were among the most basic Zoids that remained in service and were simple to repair with replacement pieces. But his son's Liger Rogue… There was something about it that stood out and set it apart from other mammalian Zoids of the same animal species.
What kind of Zoid is that thing, he wondered, and why would some little girl with no idea of what's really at stake here just give it to a useless person like him when there were other people his age that were better?
Still, the very thought of there being half the people of Earth that were Shinji's age being better-suited than he was to be a Zoid pilot and the other half being worse than him was an astronomical discovery when questioning why he was chosen by the girl to begin with. But it all came down to Nico's choice in the end; she chose Shinji, who was dead in the center of everything in the beginning, letting him adjust and adapt to a situation that was different from what Gendo had designed for his son. And he adjusted to piloting a Zoid faster than he ever could with piloting the Eva, which was meant to be his fate. He could've made a complaint about the Zoid his son was piloting, but he doubt there'd be much to investigate if the Zoid in question was no different from a regular Zoid, just older and reduced to being one of a kind.
For now, there was no other choice but to play along with the ZBC's rules if he was to have any hope of getting the Third Child back. The gamble was still in force, requiring five wins to force the boy to return to Earth, but with the ZBC now watching NERV more closely, any possibility of winning was going to be more difficult.
You can't stay with those aliens forever, boy, he thought as he frowned.
-x-
"…Brushing up on the Blade Liger again, Shinji?" Valerie asked Shinji on the night before the rematch against the Eva Team, seeing him watching a holographic display of the basic Blade Liger in recorded battles over the course of its operational history.
"Yeah," Shinji answered back. "I just want to be prepared for whatever comes our way."
"There's nothing to it. You see one, you fight like Hell…and you give 'em Hell."
As much as Shinji wanted to agree with her, he'd rather be safe than regretful by making sure he knew everything possible on what a Blade Liger could do when faced on the battlefield. He didn't doubt the capabilities of the Clover Team, the capabilities of his Liger Rogue…or even in his own abilities, but he didn't want to risk losing to the Eva Team. Even just one loss would've meant needing to fight harder to ensure that the Eva Team didn't get a second win against them…because he was terrified of the mere idea of having to return to Earth, to that maimed country of Japan, to those relatives that gave him no joy in life. The first ambition he ever received after meeting Nico was to avoid ever going back to that life, and now his second ambition was to win the Royal Cup as a member of the Clover Team.
"Destroy the blades of a Blade Liger, they lose the primary weapon they have against facing you," Valerie expressed.
"Yeah," Shinji agreed with her, seeing an image of a Blade Liger losing both its blades against another Zoid in a battle of speed and strength.
-x-
"The rematch will begin in four hours," Ritsuko informed Misato as they sat in Central Dogma, on the alert for the Eighth Angel should it arise.
"Yeah," the tactical strategist replied; she was more concerned with the possibility of an Angel attacking over the rematch against NERV's Eva Team and Nico's Clover Team, and then there was something that was off-putting on another text from Nico to her that made her suspect that she was more aware of the Angels than what she currently knew about them, even with the captured Sixth Angel in their custody.
"You keep calling that thing that protects them an AT-Field, but if you keep attacking them from the front, what's protecting them from behind? If it can't protect the entire Angel, you'd be advantageous with hitting them with duds in front and actual missiles or whatever from behind." One of the texts read, and Misato had to take that into consideration.
Each time they tried to attack an Angel, they only managed to do so on the front or the sides, but never the back, which would imply that, while the AT-Field could be maneuvered, it didn't protect the entire Angel from attacks. If they wasted their ammunition on the front, they wouldn't have any to harm it from behind. Or worse, keeping it distracted with an Eva would buy time to detonate an N² bomb or missile behind the Angel and they'd be rid of another threat to the human race.
"I'm beginning to think that we should just cut our losses with the commander's son and put the issue to bed," she told Ritsuko.
"Do you honestly think that he'd let his son walk away from NERV?" Ritsuko questions.
"He's already walked away from everything else. More than walked, in fact. He flew the coop, ran away from home, and there's not a thing any of us can do, aside from a gamble in which he and his Zoid team loses five times in a row, to make him come back here. Even if we did succeed, there's no guarantee that he'll even pilot the Eva, knowing what he knows and why his father wants him here. There's no guarantee at all."
Except to Ritsuko, there was one type of guarantee to ensure that Shinji would cooperate if they were successful in getting him back. They would use brainwashing, to rewrite his memories or entire personality. However, at this point, it was a risk that they'd be unprepared for if the boy had a solid hold on who he was and why he made his choice to join a newly-established Zoid team to compete against other Zoid teams for a shot at the Royal Cup and a king's ransom if he won. The chances of rewriting the way his mind worked were slim to none, and the chances of him being manipulable were even slimmer if he resisted.
"Still, the public are divided over what should happen," she heard Misato say. "Some want him to win with the Clover Team, some want him to lose, and some want to know what he'd do if he was set financially and out of his father's reach."
"What would someone like him do if he was financially set for the rest of his life?" Ritsuko asked. "What would someone like him actually do?"
"Probably buy a house, date a celebrity, invest in something beneficial to the people, like medical technology. But the thing is, we don't know him well enough to know what he'd do if he won the Royal Cup. But we do know one thing about him that's clear, and that's how he wouldn't come back to Japan. Not to his father, and not to his other relatives."
-x-
Traditionally, Gustavs weren't able to pull three Zoid carts, but as the years came and went and further development into them progressed, Nico's could pull three platforms and still keep a good pace without overloading the endurance of the small Zoid.
"Have I ever mentioned how much your Gustav is an impressive Zoid, Nico?" Shinji asked her as the entire team was in the cockpit of the little girl's Zoid.
"You could stand to mention it a little more," she replied.
"Despite the immense weight of all three Zoids," Drake uttered, "a Gustav is well-known as being among the greatest workhorses on Zi. Within all things small…reside a power greater than what is imagined."
"Who said that?" Geisha questioned.
"I did."
"Bravo."
Beep! Nico's Gustav's sensors picked up three bogies two miles out from where they were heading, and a holographic system showed that it was the three Blade Ligers.
"I guess I gotta ask you two this obvious question," said Valerie to Shinji and Drake as she zipped her suit up to her neck. "Are you ready for payback?"
Both young men looked at her like she had asked the most unusual question they had ever heard.
"I said," she repeated, "are you ready for payback?"
"Yeah," Shinji answered her. "I'm ready."
"I am so freaking ready," Drake added, his tone heavy with rage.
"Heh-heh-heh," Nico chuckled; if these three were psyching themselves up for the battle, it was another way to fortify their resolve to persist. These four are crazy right now…but I like them all the same. It makes me wonder: Where will we be years from now?
Once they reached their destination, Shinji, Drake and Valerie got out of Nico's Gustav and ran to their Zoids before the Judge impacted onto the ground.
-x-
"I see him boarding the Liger Rogue," Gendo was informed of the happenings on Zi from one of the pilots of the Blade Ligers from his office. "He seems quite pleased with himself for being here."
"Focus on him when the other two are disposed of," Gendo ordered the pilot, but was then reminded of how the ZBC was monitoring them closely to make sure that there was no cheating or foul play, including accidental murder, involved. "Discreetly. Discreetly."
"Understood, sir."
-x-
Crash! The Judge showed up and was elevated from the crater, activating and declaring the designated area a legal battlefield.
"Battle rematch. The Clover Team versus the Eva Team. Battle Mode Zero-Nine-Eight-Two. Ready… Fight!"
And with that, the rematch began!
"Let's go, Rogue!" Shinji yelled as he pushed a lever to engage his Zoid's acceleration.
"Rrrrrraurgh!" Liger Rogue roared, aiming towards the first Blade Liger they had their eyes on, which was the one in the middle.
To be continued…
A/N: I know this was short, but it's to build up to the next chapter, which will conclude how the rematch ended. NERV now has no other choice but to follow the rules if Gendo wants to force his son to return to Earth, and Shinji, against such an agenda, will do all that he can do on the battlefield to avoid facing that judgment day because he prefers what he has right now over what he doesn't want in the future.