Rei was simply too worn down to fight the Angel anymore. Her mind was reeling, her body, though all in her mind, felt like it was in excruciating pain, she was bleeding, and her heart ached from the image of Cirus stabbing her. She was just too weak now.

The young man started to circle her as she sat there, crouched down to the ground, clutching the wound in her stomach. “So tell me, what gives you the right to kill me? Why should I die and not you?”

“…I do not know,” Rei’s voice came back choked as tears fell down along her cheeks.

“You should, you are the one that kills me and the others. Well, you and your friends, your fellow humans,” the Angel continued. “So why do you fight if you do not know why you should?”

“…I was told to.”

The young man was behind her now. A cold sensation rushed through Rei’s body from her shoulder, making her eyes widen as she looked back, seeing his hand on her shoulder. He leaned down closely to her. “So you do whatever this ‘Commander Ikari’ tells you to?” he asked.

Rei opened her mouth, but no answer came from her for a long while. “…I used to,” she finally replied, looking back down at her lap. “…Please,” she started pleadingly, “stop. Do not do this… please.”

“Why are you pleading to me? I am not the one that stabbed you, he did,” as the young man spoke the image filled Rei’s vision once more. Thankfully this time it did not make her feel it, but she saw it.

“But you are making me see it,” she replied, closing her eyes and turning her head away.

His hand fell from her shoulder and he continued to circle around her. “This human, he gave you new thoughts, new plans. Didn’t he?” Rei nodded.

“For the first time you had something to look forward to, something- or someone- who treated you as you saw others treat each other. For the first time you saw the purpose in wishing to survive.”

Rei shook her head. “Not the first time.”

“Ah yes, Ikari’s son. You sacrificed yourself for him. A sacrifice made not by your own nature.”

Rei’s frame curled in on itself. “I did not ask to be remade!” she almost screamed.

“But you would now, wouldn’t you? Because if you were not, you would have never met this Cirus, isn’t that correct?”

Rei nodded slowly. “What do you want with me?”

“You were chosen some time ago, but I really just want to wipe your species from existence.”

“Why?”

“Why not? Do I not have a right to defend myself as you defend yourself? Do I not have a right to exist here? Do I not have more of a right to exist here than you?”

“I don’t know,” Rei answered desperately, a sob choking her as she finished.

“What even gives you the right to exist? You’re a doll, a toy, a man’s play thing,” the young man practically spit the words at her.

His words rang true to her. She had been a man-made being, made in his image. Could what man made not be destroyed by man, and for any purpose he wished? It was true, she did not have a right to exist.

But even as she thought the words to herself, another part of her responded. Cirus had said that all beings have a right to exist for their own purpose.

He was wrong…

What makes him wrong?

How can I have a right to exist?

You exist, that is what gives you the right to. Don’t you want to exist? To stay with him, let him comfort you? Let him make you feel human?

But what right do I have to feel that?

You exist! You have a soul! Man can not create that which makes you who you are. He can only aid in the process. Do you not wish to feel wanted? Do you not wish to be with someone who cares for you?

Rei’s body curled further down and she nodded. Yes… I wish to be with him, I wish to feel wanted, but I do not-

Yes you do! You have as much right as any other living being.

Rei’s eyes opened and she looked down at the black ground with them opened quite widely.

You deserve to be wanted, you deserve to be treated as a human… to be loved. Don’t let yourself be destroyed!

As the other voice in her inner mind spoke, it slowly changed from hers to Cirus’, his tone desperate and deeply concerned.

Rei’s head slowly raised back up, her eyes narrowing slightly back to their normal level as she looked up at the Angel. “Yes… You do have a right to exist…” she said softly.

He smiled. “So you see then?”

She nodded. “…But I also may exist. If you attack me, or attempt to wipe Man out, I may defend myself, as you may defend yourself.”

The young man narrowed his eyes at her menacingly and his demeanor changed. The image of Cirus stabbing her filled her vision again, but this time Rei’s brow creased firmly and she gripped the hilt of the knife in her stomach. “He would not do that… Cirus is kind to me, the first being to treat me as if I was human. You can not make me believe a lie!” she finished firmly and the image shattered from her vision as she pulled the blade from her body. The cold rush of the metal was sickening, but she didn’t falter. And as she pulled the blade out she saw the Angel, his hand around the blade handle also, his arm extended. He had been the one to stab her. “I will not let you do this to me,” she said calmly.

The man bared his teeth and his jaw opened, unleashing an inhuman scream of rage before he disappeared in a swirling mass of color from her mind. The blade in Rei’s hand disappeared in the same manner, and when she looked down, the wound and all the blood was gone, her clothes whole.

Rei awoke in the cockpit of Unit 00 and looked up with calm determination at the massive Angel before her. Its facemask staring down at her intently as it stood upright and high. Unit 00’s eye flashed and its arms suddenly jerked up, pulling the tendrils with them. The muffled sound of the Eva’s straining voice built and built as it slowly and steadily rose into the air. Finally the tendrils snapped like ropes one by one and the Eva rose to its feet as they fell off completely, turning back to liquid.

The Angel generated an odd sound as its body shivered slightly. It took Rei a moment to realize the massive creature was laughing in a sickening imitation of the human gesture. It looked down at her, the sides of the mask slowly curving into a sick smile with the bared fangs as they eyes started to glow brightly.

The voice of the young man came into Rei’s mind as the energy built within its eyes. So be it, human. I shall destroy you thus, and with the last word cross-patterns of red energy formed in each eye before surging out and down, ripping through the air toward Unit 00.

The Eva’s arms flew out to the sides as its AT field went out full spread. The two streams collided with the spatial phase change and purled and curled all over it, but did not penetrate it.

You have your own AT field? The Angel laughed again. Then I shall enjoy this.

The Angel’s body suddenly reared up as it leered down closely to the AT field, its cloak-like body spread out to the sides for hundreds of meters in both directions, forming claws at the tips of the massive ‘wings’. The eyes glowed again and unleashed another powerful set of blasts point blank range into Rei’s AT field. She gritted her teeth and it held. Unit 00 raised its hands to the AT field to hold off the Angel as it pushed down, the Eva’s head ducking down. Rei saw one of Unit 14’s swords on the now normal ground near her Eva’s feet. Unit 00 went down to one knee and dropped a hand down, gripping the sword and rising up blade first. The blade drove straight through her AT field and flew into the Angel’s forehead, driving through to the hilt.

The Angel screamed in pain and reeled back, pulling itself off the blade and letting Rei take a moment’s respite. She was breathing deeply from the sudden exertion.

The Angel’s face healed and it glared down at Unit 00 as best it could with the face it wore. Suddenly the black liquid streamed back behind it, peeling away from a humanoid body and filling the air behind the Angel. Its body was a pale brown color with massive taloned hands and was powerful-looking and flexile all over. The eyes flashed once more and the blackness solidified and broke apart behind it, forming six massive black wings. The beast held it hands limply at its hips as it looked down with calm menace at Unit 00. Then let us battle.

Rei lowered her AT field’s power so that it was just defending her Eva as she raised the sword up above her head. The Angel reached up to the sky with its right arm and then brought it down at Unit 00 talons first. The Eva tilted the sword so that the blade ran from side-to-side and blocked the powerful strike that forced Unit 00 down to one knee.

Rei held the Angel’s arm at bay long enough to leap back and gain some distance from it. She could block its energy attacks, but the physical attacks were very powerful, she wasn’t sure how many more of them she could hold off without taking damage.

The Angel roared and stepped forward, the small motion of the massive legs carrying it toward Unit 00 rapidly as it brought the same arm down in a great arc. Unit 00’s sword shot up and took the hit, holding off the attack as it had before. It once again dropped to one knee and a power struggle started. The Angel leered down at Unit 00 and its eyes glowed brightly from within. Rei looked down and saw the green and red energy start to collect underneath her. In less than a second, Rei’s AT field expanded below her feet and the cross-blast ignited below it, spreading the normally straight pillar of energy out in all directions as it bent the AT field upward. The entire situation resembled a fiery flower blooming with explosive force. The raw power of the Angel’s energy attack was starting to push Unit 00 up into the air, AT field and all. Energy streaked over the edges of her AT field and skirted up into the air briefly before dying away.

Rei shoved the Angel’s hand away with her sword and spun it over her head before bringing it back around for a broad slash at its neck. Her aerial lunging motion unbalanced the rising pillar of energy and her AT field, throwing her forward as the cross-explosion completed its form. Unit 00 dived down sword first before setting itself into a somersault. Then Rei flayed her arms and legs out, spinning around slowly in the air as she brought the sword down on the Angel’s shoulder. It slashed down the beast’s body until she landed, the blade scraping off from the beast’s right hip and plunging into the ground. Rei looked up and saw the Angel heal almost instantly, not leaving a trace of the damage she’d done before it angrily batted her with its arm in the mid-section. Rei grunted from the impact as it threw Unit 00 into the air and plowing into the ground a few hundred meters away.

The Angel’s eyes flashed again and Rei instinctively raised her AT field in a bubble all around her. The ground about the Eva suddenly flew apart as four different cross-blasts ignited around her and rose into the air. They were much larger than any of the other Angels’ blasts and soared much higher into the sky. After a few seconds they finally died away and Rei took the opening to break into a run to the right. She kept her eyes on the Angel, making her Eva strafe to the right instead of a straight run. She knew Cirus was hurt, but with the Angel coming after her the way it was getting close to him would only cause him more harm. Please stay alive, Cirus.

The Angel followed her intently and slowly turned its body around as she circled quickly. Its six mighty wings spread out and back to their fullest extent and then rushed forward all at once. The clouds above the Angel illuminated with hundreds of lightening bolts before it rained down in sheets toward the Eva. Rei’s eyes widened at the attack, but she quickly raised her AT field and ducked down. The power of the lightening almost crushed her into the ground, but her AT field and footing held.

The lightening dispersed and Unit 00 stood back, looking toward the Angel. Rei was visibly surprised by the damage inflicted to the city between Unit 00 and the Angel. What little wasn’t totally destroyed was burnt black and in pieces. Its capacity for collateral damage took away Rei’s ability to retreat from the city, so she tightened her grip on the sword in her hand with a calmly determined face before running toward the Angel over the much flatter terrain.

The Angel’s sickening laugh rang out once more as it fell to one knee and hunched its back, swinging its arms down to the ground and spreading out its wings again. The eyes flashed, and the wings snapped forward. Two walls, easily as tall as the Angel himself and wide as an Eva, of red-green fire rushed forward from either side of him.

Rei could see the two massive blasts would destroy anything in their path if she dodged them, so she had to block them. Unit 00 set its feet firmly and spread its hands out, its AT field spreading through the air as the two walls collided with it. Red-green energy filled the other side of the AT field, but did not punch through. However, the kinetic force of their rush was shoving Unit 00 back along the ground. Rei groaned as she strained against the two attacks, trying to stop them from moving her.

While she was distracted, the Angel laughed again before leaping into the air with a powerful rush of all its wings. The speed it was traveling at left streaks of color in the air as it arced toward Unit 00 through the sky, dropping down feet first with its eyes building in brightness.

Rei caught the dark figure above her and looked up. Her face slackened a small amount before she reached back with her sword arm and threw the blade at him. It spun up through the air so fast it looked circular like a saw. The Angel continued to dive, apparently unconcerned with the blade flying to meet him.

Instantly, the Angel gawked in mid-air as the energy walls died and it came crashing down, clutching the blade buried to the hilt in the exact center of its chest. It slammed into the ground with an incredible crash, sending blackened debris flying into the air.

Rei relaxed her AT field back to a defense position and eyed the Angel intently.

The Angel roared angrily as it stood back up, ripping the blade from its chest and throwing it to the side like a twig. He raised one arm and then drove it down, tearing through the ground of the city and ripping up literally tones of metal and wire. The eyes flashed again and the junk swirled like liquid before forming into a massive blade with a black hilt.