Optimus Prime

In his baseline Autobot form, Optimus Prime stands thirty feet tall. After scanning Unit-01 he becomes Optimus Prime: Mode Eva, as towering and imposing as an Evangelion and dressed in Unit-01's scheme, a mainly purple cab matched with green forearms.

The form's distinctive feature sits in his chest, which can open to reveal the Matrix of Leadership tinted in colors resembling an Evangelion core, while his right arm reshapes itself into an energy axe with a reddish glow.

The transformation changes nothing inside him. Optimus keeps his intellect, his talent for plans and strategy, and his ability to speak. His stated loves run to freedom, peace, and humanity itself, with Angels, Decepticons, and Second Impact on the opposite ledger. One Evangelion trait stays out of reach: unlike the real units, he cannot project an A.T. Field.

Optimus and his Autobots reach Tokyo-3 aboard Sky Lynx, aiming to stop an Angel and head off another Second Impact, only to find an old enemy waiting: the fiery ghost of Starscream, possessed by the Angel and reborn as Angel-Scream. As Misato Katsuragi orders Unit-01 deployed and the city pulled back, Optimus, impressed by human technology and struck by the sight of the Evangelion, instinctively scans it and assumes its appearance and size.

The duel goes badly at first. Angel-Scream shrugs off blaster fire behind an A.T. Field, seizes Optimus by the throat, and hammers his helmet until it cracks, boasting that the Autobot leader's death will hand him command of the Decepticons and, with it, the universe. The other Transformers can do little against an enemy of that size. The turning point arrives by radio: Wheeljack picks up a signal from Misato, who reports that Unit-01 no longer responds, entrusts the fight to the Autobots, and passes them a strategy.

Bumblebee baits the giant by circling his feet until a missed stomp topples him, and Misato triggers Tokyo-3's transforming buildings to hold the fallen Angel down. Optimus wrenches free of the grip, and when a punch fails to break the A.T. Field, he switches to his Energon axe, lands the blow, and shatters Angel-Scream's core, which bursts in a spray of blood.

Hours after the battle, restored to normal size at a NERV military camp, Optimus learns that other Decepticons may arrive already fused with Angels, and the Autobots choose to remain and support NERV in the fight ahead.