Creation began on 11-28-24
Creation ended on 02-05-25
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Welcome to your Escape: The Final Battle
Setting the Gustav on autopilot to continue the rest of the way to Mammoth Bear Canyon, Nico yawns as she reclines in her chair; the journey would conclude in another two hours due to how far the Clover Team was from their destination. As she looks up at the ceiling of the cockpit, the rest of the team were passing the time in their own way.
Valerie was writing up her to-do list on what to do after the Royal Cup ended in their favor.
Drake was already making his plans to invest in Zoid programs to revitalize the discontinued models and put them back on the market for future use.
Geisha was talking to her parents on how she and her team were just one more obstacle away from entering Class "S".
Shinji, despite the pressure of knowing any wrong move could result in their defeat, was updating his Zoid profile with how he feels about being so close to winning and how much he wants to carve out more of his own future.
"Do y'all hear it yet?" Geisha speaks up after finishing her phone call with her parents.
"Hear, what?" Valerie asks her.
"The fireworks of victory."
"What do they sound like, Geisha?" Shinji wants to know.
"Like Chinese New Year, the Fourth of July, Christmas and your birthday, all rolled into one moment that you want to bottle up for as long as possible."
"That sounds…very beautiful, Geisha. Very beautiful."
"Spectacular," Drake expresses, closing his eyes and imagining the fireworks.
"Except that when I imagine them, I always see myself in a vast meadow with fireflies," Nico reveals, almost disappointed in herself.
"Even so, it's the feeling of knowing that you have grasped victory that makes it all the sweeter," Geisha explains. "That wonderful feeling."
"Going from being a nobody…into a somebody," Valerie utters.
"We're the people nobody's ever going to forget," Shinji says with confidence. "We're going to be among the best."
"Amen, Shinji," Nico responds.
"Amen, Shinji," Drake adds.
-x-
"…Aw, man!" Several NERV personnel gasp, and Fuyutsuki can understand what they were worried about at this moment.
As the Royal Cup on Zi was nearing its finale, most of the competitors had been defeated, leaving only the Clover Team…and Gendo Ikari as the last ones standing. Both sides were on their way to the finish line, determined to win it all. As dreadful as it feels right now, it feels to Fuyutsuki that this was some sort of predestined scenario that had nothing to do with the Angels or Evangelions, this inescapable fight between Gendo and Shinji, an unbearable match between father and son where only one could win. Most were rooting for Shinji, anyway, but Fuyutsuki knows that anything done in the heat of the moment could change the outcome between victory and defeat.
"…But just knowing that he has a Zoid that nobody's been up against before," he hears a woman say, referring to Gendo and his Death Stinger, "and he's after his son for rejecting him… He seems almost unstoppable right now, and he has the means to back up his intentions."
"Yeah," a man agrees with her.
Even Fuyutsuki has to agree with them that Gendo, for the moment, at least, does seem unstoppable. But he was still a soloist…and his son was part of a team. The only difference between them was that he had to do everything on his own, while Shinji did all that he could to contribute to a greater whole that he was a part of. This is why it was most likely that the Clover Team could win over the dangerous soloist in their way.
"Who are you expecting to win?" He hears someone say to him, and he sees Dr. Akagi. "Ikari? Or his son's team?"
"Isn't it obvious?" He asks her.
"The chances of the Clover Team winning against a Death Stinger are slim to none. A Death Stinger is…a monolith that hasn't been conquered in a long time. Even if the Zoids on the Clover Team are primarily dinosaurian-based with one mammalian-based Zoid, their chances of victory are not as high as can be expected from my perspective."
"And why are you so certain that the Clover Team won't win?"
"Because Ikari doesn't accept defeat very well."
At this point, he doesn't accept anything that doesn't go his way very well, Fuyutsuki thinks.
Looking down at his tablet, Fuyutsuki sees the geographic layout of where the Royal Cup was taking place, and seeing the two separate competitors heading towards the same location from different parts of the terrain.
"You may believe that," he tells Ritsuko, "but I like to say that I have faith in Ikari's son and the Clover Team because they're all after what winning will grant them. But Shinji wants something more than just to win the Royal Cup. He wants a better future that is his to own."
-x-
Bump! Shinji, who was asleep for a while, feels his seat jump up and he wakes up, looking around the cockpit at everyone else in the Gustav.
"Ah, what?" He reacts as he gathers himself. "How long was I asleep?"
"Just an hour and a half," Valerie tells him, doing sit-ups. "We're nearly there now."
"Drake and Geisha got back into their Zoids an hour ago to lighten the load of the trailers," went Nico, explaining why the cockpit was devoid of two of their members. "Not that the load was really hampering the Gustav. The trailers were retrofitted with anti-gravity rings to reduce the combined weight of the Zoids."
"I thought I was asleep for longer," Shinji tells them, "that I missed the rest of the Royal Cup and cost us the whole thing."
"Gosh, no. We're about to win this."
"Geisha to Nico!" They hear Geisha's voice on the intercom. "Do you read?! Geisha to Nico! Come in! Over!"
Nico taps a button in front of herself and replies, "Loud and clear, Geisha. What is the emergency? Over."
"I'm right above the canyon, but there's something wrong with the finish line," Geisha expresses.
"What do you mean, there's something wrong with it?"
"There's something that looks like a large number of bridges covering the top of the ravine made from a lot of old Zoid parts."
On the screen in front of them, they received a feed from Geisha's Storm Sworder and see Mammoth Bear Canyon…and what Geisha was concerned about. All over the canyon were these…bridge-like constructs that were made using old Zoid body parts, all leading away from, or rather, leading towards, what appeared to be a trio of ruined Ultrasaurus Zoids that were facing each other in the form of a triangular tower.
"What in the name of Zi is that?" Valerie questions.
"It's the Tenth Great Wonder of Zi," Nico says, stunned by the sight of it all. "Those Ultrasaurus wrecks…are where the finish line is."
"This seems so…supernatural," Shinji utters.
"It is, Shinji. There's often a supernatural aspect to certain Zoid matches, but this… This takes the cake right now." Valerie tells him.
Nico takes a closer look at the bridges the discarded and fallen Zoids had been fashioned into…and sees that their structures were not suited for her Gustav to traverse upon.
"I can get you close enough to the bridges," she tells Valerie and Shinji, "but I can't go any further than the edges of the canyon."
"Just stay as close as you can," Shinji expresses with a smile. "We just need to reach the Ultrasaurus heads to win, right?"
"One of you gets there, finds a control panel and enter your Zoid Gear into it, and that's that. There's only one obstacle that keeps us from doing that right now."
"Yeah, I know exactly who that is."
"And he's already here," Geisha informs them, seeing the Death Stinger climbing atop one of the bridge-like structures the fallen Zoids had become. "But he knows he can't claim victory unless he defeats us to ensure that there's no further opposition."
"This is Drake calling in," they hear Drake on the intercom. "I'm on the eastern side of the canyon, about to traverse the bridge here."
"Be careful," Nico warns him. "Just because it was made from the bodies of fallen Zoids, it doesn't mean that it's safe to move on if it can't support that much weight."
"Yeah."
"You two better get to your Zoids, too," she tells Shinji and Valerie. "Do your best to keep that Death Stinger soloist from winning…and don't forget to have fun."
"We're the Clover Team. Clovers are symbols of good luck, and we have good luck."
Nico couldn't agree more with that notion.
"Go kick so Zoids," she utters with a chuckle.
"Totally," Shinji responds.
-x-
Gendo didn't question the bizarre nature of the bridge he was crossing atop to his destination. All he needed to know was that the strange, tower-like structure comprised of these Zoids was where he needed to go in order to get one more step closer to the finish line. Unfortunately, he needed to combat his final obstacle before he could claim victory in this tournament, and that was to defeat the Clover Team. But he didn't just aim to defeat this despicable bunch. No, he intends to cripple each and every last member, starting and ending with his own son.
Looking up in the air, Gendo sees the Storm Sworder belonging to that Geisha girl and was the Clover Team's only member with a Zoid capable of flight; if Gendo takes her out, she takes away the team's aerial superiority.
"Who else is nearby?" He wonders as he flips a switch on his right side of the panel, and something on his screen pops up and shows something on the back of his Zoid detaching from it and moving away in the air in front of him.
The Death Stinger was equipped with a surveillance drone, one of the recent modifications made prior to its deployment in the Royal Cup. The drone flew high enough to give Gendo a decent view of the layout, and he could see another Zoid in the distance moving along the bridge-like constructs these Zoid ruins made. It was the G-Rex belonging to that Drake Toros, the Clover Team's expert in Zoid maintenance. Still, Gendo couldn't run from an adversary when he was so close to winning that he could practically taste it right now.
"It's time to begin the end," he says, and presses a button on his left side.
The Death Stinger, which was an old blue and reddish coloration, suddenly changes to a dark coloration with orange trimmings and replacing the red visor and spots with orange ones.
"Well, well, well," Gendo utters, as he didn't expect the Zoid to change its color scheme; the switch he flipped was just supposed to make the Zoid move quicker. "I'm going to have so much fun now."
-x-
"…Uh, guys," went Drake as he noticed the Death Stinger on the opposite side of the bridge that he was on that leads to one of the Ultrasaurus Zoid husks, "are you seeing this? The Death Stinger just did a facelift. It went from blue and red to black and orange."
"I see it, Drake," he hears Geisha respond to him. "That's unusual."
"I don't like surprises that much. I'm engaging him."
"We're engaging him, Drake. Time to win this thing."
-x-
"…You two better hold him off until we get to you," Valerie says to Drake and Geisha as she gets into her Geno Saurer's cockpit. "Two against one may seem like an advantage, but four against one seems like a better one."
"I hear that," went Shinji as he climbs up to his Liger Rogue.
"Hold up, Shinji," Valerie stops him for a moment. "If your old man is holding some surprises in store of what his Death Stinger can do, you should stay back until we know for sure that he's exhausted most of his arsenal."
"Are you sure about that?" He asks her.
"Yeah. Just a feeling. Maybe it's destiny or something, but he's out to get you, then the Clover Team needs an ace in the hole, and that ace is our trump card: Liger Rogue."
Shinji ponders this suggestion and nods his head in understanding; since his father's Zoid also possessed a Charged Particle Cannon, among those that were stronger than the one possessed by Valerie's Geno Saurer, even with its modifications to improve its power and performance, so long as one of the Clover Team's Zoids remained active and able to fight against the Death Stinger with the necessary combination of speed, power and luck, they would still win this. Also, he didn't mind being a trump card. This meant he was the team's last chance at winning if nothing else works.
"You can use your CPC against him, right?" He asks Valerie. "So long as it's within the reasonable bounds of a Zoid match, right?"
"That's right," she answers him.
"Then just make sure to let him know that we're not going down without a fight."
"That's the plan."
The head of her Geno Saurer closed around her as the system started up to full strength, and the dinosaurian Zoid got off the Gustav trailer and headed towards the Zoid bridges. Because the bridges weren't well-made to walked upon by some Zoids, Valerie opts for using her baby's modified armor's thrusters and ion boosters to hover over the small gaps of one of them. If anyone pays it any mind, they would think that this Geno Saurer was capable of limited flight.
"Wow," went Nico as she sees the Geno Saurer soar over the malformed bridges. "That seems like a thrill."
"Yeah," Shinji agrees with her through the intercom.
-x-
"It looks like Ikari is about to face off with G-Rex," Ritsuko hears Maya say as she and the other personnel members see the Death Stinger, now sporting a black and orange color scheme, standing just a few meters away from where the chimeric/dinosaurian Zoid stands on the bridge made from fallen Zoids. "My goodness. The color scheme is creepy."
"It matches the way he looked when he was here," Hyuga expresses; Gendo would wear a black uniform everywhere and his glasses had an orange tint to them. "Where's the Judge to oversee the fight?"
At his question, a Judge appeared nearby to permit the fight.
"Battle Mode set," the Judge utters. "Ready… Fight!"
Once the match was set, Ritsuko sees the Death Stinger's tail glowing with the same lighting as the previous Zoids that had a similar weapon as the Geno Saurer, taking aim at the G-Rex.
"It's got a Charged Particle Cannon, too?!" She gasps; if Gendo knows how to use it, he clearly had an edge to him and would use it to win.
-x-
"Drake, use your E-Shield!" Geisha yells over the intercom, and Drake slams his left fist on a button on his side.
G-Rex was then covered by a geometric-looking dome of light, just as the Death Stinger fired its CPC at it.
"We all came prepared, Gendo Ikari!" Drake says as the particle beam hits his Zoid's shield, only pushing G-Rex back by three inches. "Grr!"
Geisha flew behind the Death Stinger, but the stinger redirects from G-Rex towards her Storm Sworder, and she has to dodge before being hit by it.
"Aaaah!" She screams, just barely evading it before the stinger returns its attention to G-Rex and its shield. "You're going to pay for that, you self-righteous jerk!"
She pulls a trigger on her right throttle stick and fires four missiles at the Death Stinger.
The Death Stinger unleashes a barrage of missiles of its own and forces the Storm Sworder to zigzag around in the air to evade them.
"Geisha, pull out!" Drake tells her, his G-Rex's shield starting to show signs of caving in under pressure. "Aw, damn! The shield's breaking!"
"Drake, you better have something up your sleeve, 'cause I'm about to kamikaze this!"
"No, Geisha!"
But the Storm Sworder was already diving towards the Death Stinger, followed by at least five missiles behind it, barrel rolling in the process.
"Geisha!" Drake yells, but then the Storm Sworder pulls up from its dive and just narrowly avoids the Death Stinger's E-Shield, which erected to protect it from the flying Zoid and its own missiles. "Whew!"
Because of the failed attempt to attack Gendo, the Death Stinger had to cease its use of its CPC and activate its shield to protect itself from its own missiles, allowing the G-Rex to drop its own shield and counterattack.
"Eat my lead and my goop," Drake says as he presses three different buttons, causing three compartments on his Zoid to open up on its left and right sides and back, "you unworthy cretin!"
Blast! From out of the G-Rex came a barrage of rockets that shot up into the air and collided with the Death Stinger, covering it with green and gray putty.
"I thought it was crazy for you to stockpile those Resinite rockets," Geisha expresses as her Zoid hovers over Drake's.
"It'll slow him down some," he explains, "but not for long."
True to his words, the Death Stinger's large claws were starting to pound on its legs to get free from the fast-drying goop. The goop, Resinite, was a nonlethal method meant to disable enemies long enough to let heavier hitters to get the chance to take them out. In this case, while G-Rex might have looked like a heavy hitter, Drake had to own up to the fact that it was nowhere near the powerhouses that were Valerie's Geno Saurer and Shinji's Liger Rogue, but he was adaptable in other ways as a defensive combatant. But he still had one other weapon that was a last resort if everything else fails.
"You two better get out of the way now!" Drake and Geisha hear Valerie yell as, on the other side of the Death Stinger, coming in hot, was her modified Geno Saurer, landing on the ground and anchoring itself in place. "It's about to get real over here!"
As its tail straightened out and opened its vents and its mouth opening to reveal its CPC, Valerie took aim at the Death Stinger, and the G-Rex and Storm Sworder retreated from the line of fire as fast as they could.
"You are…"
BLAST! The Geno Saurer fires its Charged Particle Cannon at the Death Stinger, hitting its shield, which was putting up a fight.
"Is this the best you can do?" Gendo asks, unimpressed with this young woman. "I expected more from a bunch of has-beens."
"Those are bold words coming from a man whose only agenda is unjust payback for feeling disobeyed and cheated out what he expected from his own son that realized he was crazy as a guy that sold his soul to a demon and didn't know how much he lost."
Gendo frowns and waits for the girl's attack to cease; there was no way she could fire that particle beam of hers forever. It was just a matter of waiting it out.
Unfortunately for him, Valerie was versed in the E-Shield technology and knew how much power they needed to remain active, as they were incapable of being used indefinitely due to their energy consumption; even an experiment was attempted to utilize nuclear energy to power a shield, and it only lasted for three hours against repeated barrages of CPCs, and could have lasted for eight days under regular conditions. But a Death Stinger, even one that hadn't seen action for centuries but was maintained by the ZBC, couldn't keep its shield up before feeling a severe drop in its power reserves.
-x-
"It's an unparalleled show of strength between these two Zoids, people!" A woman's voice yells over the airwaves as everyone on Earth were watching the Royal Cup in its final moments, seeing the attack and defense between the Geno Saurer and Death Stinger. "Valerie Axiom of the Clover Team with her modified Geno Saurer against soloist Gendo Ikari and his Death Stinger! Both Zoids possess Charged Particle Cannons, a powerful weapon heavily regulated by the Zoid Battle Commission! But which one will prevail in this show of power? An Energy Shield can only last so long against charged particles used offensively before giving out! And this is a Zoid that can triple its output with those Buster Claws!"
On her tablet, Asuka couldn't believe that this Valerie Axiom woman was actually going up against the former head of NERV, and with a Zoid that could've been seen as one of the best weapons if NERV had one for use against an Angel. True to the woman's voice on the radio, the two Buster Claws on the Geno Saurer's back turned around and charged up before firing two additional beams at the Death Stinger's E-Shield.
"It's a spectacle, people!" The voice says. "Axiom's got flair right now! The Clover Team is the Cinderella story looking to become a new legend, and the Death Stinger's all that stands in their way to happily ever after!"
"Does she really have to call them that?" Asuka questions, a little put off by such a comment that the last Zoid team in the Royal Cup being a Cinderella story.
"Ikari's kid and his team better win," she hears a man say. "I got two-thousand yen riding on him to take home the gold."
"Hell, yeah!" Another man adds.
Asuka was confused by the personnel's behavior towards the boy that chose a Zoid over an Evangelion. They wanted him to win, despite knowing that it would mean he would likely abandon the planet for the rest of his life. And on the other hand, it did appear that the former commander was after his son for abandoning him when he was expected to show up and face the Third Angel, despite never knowing anything about the Evangelion until after he got to Zi to be recruited into the Clover Team.
"Is everyone here wanting this kid that has never piloted an Eva to win?" She questions.
"Yeah!" She got her response from half of everyone present watching the livestream from Zi.
What is wrong with these people? Asuka wonders.
-x-
Gendo looks at the status of his E-Shield, and groans over how little energy it has before it needs to shut down.
"No choice," he grunts, and shuts off his shield and fires his CPC at the Geno Saurer.
The beams were locked in their connection, and sending waves of charged particles into the air!
"Holy Mother of Kaiju!" Geisha gasps as her Storm Sworder feels the waves of charged particles. "This is getting intense!"
"You can say that again," went Drake as his G-Rex was also feeling the waves of charged particles in the air. "We got charged particles that are off the charts being generated here."
"Don't give up, Valerie."
The beam battle wasn't letting, with both Zoids giving it their all.
Valerie's Geno Saurer's intake fan activating in an attempt to cool down its heating armor.
Gendo's Death Stinger was showing signs of heating in its tail.
"I refuse to be defeated by some pathetic kids that think they're smarter than their superiors!" He yells as his Zoid continues to fire its charged particle beam.
Valerie's Geno Saurer starts to show it was losing the battle of beams, as its anchors were starting to strain.
Crack! The anchors fractured, and Valerie knows that her baby's at its limits.
"Brace!" She yells, shutting off the particle beam and turning to get out of the line of fire.
Blast! Gendo's beam hit the ground and caused an explosion that sent Valerie's Zoid into the air.
"Aaaaahhh!" She screams as she crashes onto a bridge, her Zoid missing its feet, its right Buster Claw damaged, and its left arm missing. "Damn soloist."
Her Geno Saurer could still move, but just barely. Its operating system was still functional, keeping her in the fight, but with little to no mobility, Valerie was a vulnerable target.
"Any last words?" Gendo asks her as his Death Stinger approaches her Geno Saurer.
"Yeah, I got a few," she responds. "Do you truly hate your son this much to come all the way to Zi, register for the Royal Cup, put yourself through a semblance of Hell…just to face the team that he's on to keep him from winning a path to a better future that doesn't include someone like you in it?"
"He only had one job," Gendo replies. "One job, one purpose, and what did he do when I had a use for him? He decides to leave and come here…just because some little alien bitch picked him out of countless other children…and offers him information that he wasn't supposed to have access to…and gave him a choice between going back to Earth…and being one of her lackeys…and he chose the latter. I'd sooner see each of you lose everything than to be seen as false idols."
"Well, then, I guess this doesn't matter if you hear it: I didn't have much of any expectations from Shinji when I first met him, but after seeing him in our first battle, he grew on me. And after meeting you in person, I must say that the only disappointment here…is you."
Inside his Death Stinger, Gendo glares at the young woman inside the Geno Saurer and aims his stinger at it; so long as the Zoid could still move, it was still a target, even if it was crippled. He needed to make sure that he eliminated this woman while the option to was available.
"I'd rather see each of you lose than to let him walk away from what he owed me on Earth," he utters as the CPC was charging.
"Oh, Hell, no!" Geisha yells as she flies her Storm Sworder towards the Death Stinger.
Slam! It collided with the tail and sent the particle beam firing into the distance, dying due to lasting only three seconds.
Grip! The Death Stinger's pincers latched onto the wings of the Storm Sworder…and ripped them off its body, and it fell off onto the ground.
"Geisha!" Drake and Valerie gasp.
The Death Stinger then fires a dozen rockets at the other two Zoids.
-x-
"…Oh, man, what a spectacle here, people!" The voice says across the broadcast all over Earth. "Soloist Gendo Ikari has just dispatched Geisha of the Clover Team and is proceeding to finish off Valerie and Drake! He is so not looking to lose the Royal Cup! And where is Shinji Ikari?! He has yet to make his appearance in this final showdown!"
"Where is he?" Kaji questions as Asuka was now into the last Zoid match of the tournament.
"Maybe he ran off," Asuka suggests, "realizes that he can't beat his old man with a Zoid like his and knows it's better to accept his losses and flee."
"Asuka, if he ran off, his status on the Zoid team would indicate that he forfeit the whole thing," Kaji explains to her, showing on the tablet that the four members of the Clover Team had different statuses within the tournament; Geisha was defeated, with Valerie and Drake currently in trouble, but Shinji was active, just not yet in the battle. "And if the Zoid can still move, it can still fight. No, Shinji's probably laying in wait for his opportunity to face his old man. Or more than likely, he's on reserve, serving as the Clover Team's trump card, their ace in the hole."
"The last resort in case all else fails."
"Exactly."
"What chance does a Zoid that looks like some big cat that got a makeover after the first match it took part in stand against one that looks like a giant scorpion? I don't see him standing any chance against something like that."
"Never underestimate the bond between a Zoid and the person it chooses to pilot it, Asuka. Liger Rogue is likely thousands of years older than much of mankind is, but it chose Shinji out of many others because it believes in him. Sometimes, you don't get to pick the Zoid that you want to operate just because it's got bells and whistles and weapons of mass destruction. Sometimes, the Zoid will pick who it wants, for better or worse. Liger Rogue may be a big cat, but just because the Death Stinger is larger, you shouldn't right it off just yet. It's not over until the last opposing Zoid is down and out."
On the screen of the tablet, the damaged Geno Saurer was further damaged, with the G-Rex showing signs of wear and tear across its armor, but Valerie and Drake were still listed as being active in the match. But Asuka, based solely on the fact that the Geno Saurer was now missing its other Buster Claw, suspected that it couldn't take on any further punishment from the Death Stinger, whether it fired its CPC or some other type of weapon. Then, she sees the battered G-Rex opening its chest compartment, revealing a type of cannon that she didn't recognize from the other index menu of Zoids catalogued by the ZBC.
"What is that?" She questions.
"I don't know," Kaji replies. "I've never seen that before."
-x-
Drake knew it was inevitable, but he was willing to take one for the team if it gave them a greater shot at winning.
"Drake?" He hears Nico's voice say to him.
"Desperate times call for desperate measures, Nico," he responds, activating his Zoid's last weapon. "I'm not a big shot here, but I still got enough brass to show my adaptability."
"You do realize that if this doesn't work, you'll be vulnerable."
"Yes…but all the more reason to do it. You better take cover if you're close by."
"Drake, you crazy fighter, you… Be careful!"
The cannon charges up…and Drake presses a red button on his right joystick.
"Block this if you can, Gendo Ikari!" He utters, and his G-Rex fires a beam of electrical energy at the Death Stinger.
Gendo gets hit, but feels like all of his hair is standing on its ends…along with a feeling displeasure going up his spine.
"What was that?!" He demands to know, checking his Zoid's systems.
The Death Stinger's power status was fluctuating between stable and weak, moving its legs slowly. His targeting screens lit up with information errors explaining that some sort of power-dampening effect was in play.
"An EMP?" He wonders, seeing the G-Rex collapse beside the damaged Geno Saurer. "He would really jeopardize his own position in this match to stop me?"
It was a rick, but it was within the rules and regulations of the ZBC for Drake Toros. The cannon he used was designed to fire a short-range electromagnetic pulse that could affect whatever electrical or mechanical devices within its sphere of influence; since Zoids were biomechanical, the EMP could affect them to some degree, but just enough to stagger them. What really gives the weapon of last resort its effectiveness was the fact that the people of Earth were only seventy-three years away from actually harnessing this kind of technology with their current N research. At least with most researchers in the field, and Drake was in no hurry to see Earth exploiting such technology for warfare.
"Drake?" He hears Valerie's voice through the intercom. "That attack was reckless."
"I know," he replies; if communication between them was still working, then the EMP wasn't as strong as he had hoped it would be, meaning the Death Stinger would still be active. "Can you still fight?"
"Un-uh. My baby's had it. You?"
"I got nothing left. Geisha?"
"My wings were ripped," Geisha's voice adds in. "I couldn't help any further, even if I wanted to. We're in the miso soup now."
"No offense, Geisha, but I prefer dim sum right now," Valerie expresses.
"Yeah."
Drake looks up ahead and sees the Death Stinger approaching him and Valerie, slowly…but still standing strong.
"This sucks," he utters, unable to move his Zoid an inch. "All we have left is the last gamble to win this."
"This time," they each hear Gendo say over the intercom, "I will make sure that none of you can get up from this."
He raises the pincers of his Death Stinger up and brings them down on both Valerie and Drake's Zoids, putting them out of the match.
"Aaaurgh!" They grunt and groan, their combat systems frozen.
With this, all three were out of the tournament, leaving the only member left to represent the Clover Team and their path towards winning the Royal Cup…the one person that Gendo hates above all else.
"I am practically the victor here," Gendo tells them.
"It's not over yet," Geisha responds. "Not until you beat the last of us. We still have our ace in the hole."
"To think that we'd be putting our hopes and dreams on the one person you hate most," went Drake, "but I guess that's the way it goes in this business. And the strongest cards one has are often the ones they have yet to play."
"It's all you, Shinji," adds Valerie. "Win this."
"You three are betting on that brat? And where is he when you need him?" Gendo asks.
"Right here!" They hear Shinji's voice, and Gendo looks down at his console, seeing something approaching from the rear of his Death Stinger, and fast.
Turning around as fast as he could, Gendo sees the Liger Rogue leaping into the air, its front legs charged with energy, and using its left one to slash him.
Crash! The Death Stinger's right pincer fell to the ground.
Gendo looks at the opposing Zoid…and notices something off with it. It was a little bit bigger than he had last seen; instead of being fifteen meters in height, it was almost his own Zoid's height of twenty meters, if not nineteen meters. How did Shinji's Zoid get so big?
"Son of a…" He utters, raising his left pincer, but Liger Rogue quickly turns around after landing on the ground and tackles the Death Stinger, actually pushing it back a considerable distance, away from the other three Zoids. "Aaaurgh! Damn you!"
-x-
"Whoa!" Misato gasps as she and Pen-Pen see Shinji's Zoid go head-to-head with Gendo's. "Yeah, Shinji! That's it!"
"Yarp!" Pen-Pen agrees; he didn't know who this Shinji was, but he was clearly no pushover.
-x-
"You're seeing it here, people!" The voice announced over the broadcast. "The last member of the Clover Team, Shinji Ikari, is engaging his father, Gendo Ikari, to decide who wins the Royal Cup! Such fierceness! And it looks like Liger Rogue has grown a few meters to match the Death Stinger!"
"Incredible," went Fuyutsuki as he sees the Liger Rogue push back the Death Stinger, and it did look bigger than it was before. How is that possible?
"Amazing," he hears Ritsuko say as she watches the match between father and son. "He has a lot of pent-up anger towards his father that he's unleashing on him right now."
"Anger…and hope."
"Hope, sir?"
"If he defeats his father, not only will his team will win the Royal Cup, but he will have made his own path to forging his own future more permanent now that he has secured the means to reach it. Can you imagine it? Going to a place that is like Earth, but not like Earth…and never going back to where you were…because you chose not to? Because you chose where you went over where you used to reside?"
Watching as the Liger Rogue continues to push back the Death Stinger, Ritsuko can fathom the increased likelihood of Shinji choosing to stay on Zi rather than return to Earth if he wins. In the end, there were those on Earth that would rather immigrate to Zi on account of its climate and lack of flooded locations and larger, habitable areas. This and the fact that Second Impact ruined the Earth for the common folk to the point where life on a planet similar to Earth was preferable to what would never be again on the third rock closest to the sun.
"This is it, people!" The announcer declares on the speakers as Liger Rogue takes a bite out of the left side of the Death Stinger, trying to damage the mobility of the remaining front pincer. "This is the final battle to decide the end of the Royal Cup!"
But it wasn't just the last battle to decide who won the tournament. It was likely the first and last battle between father and son to decide their future, and neither wanted to be dealt an uneasy fate if the other up and wins. The only difference being that most of the spectators are actually rooting for the son to win, as their opinions of the father were the same: Gendo just wanted to keep Shinji from humiliating him further or becoming an independent champion of sorts by winning a the Royal Cup and making it to the big leagues.
To be continued…
A/N: There will be an explanation for why Liger Rogue got a little bigger before facing the Death Stinger in the next chapter. The new second month of the new year, and the only world that has fewer problems than most is the one we all retreat to in order to delude ourselves that most of everything will be fine when we don't know for sure. We are the regular people that have everyday problems to deal with, like buying groceries or paying bills, neither of which are easy due to these increases in cost of living, but we strive each day to survive.