Talkin' with the Moon

by Pheonix Down6

Adam was not the first man, but the first god. A messenger to all the world that everything was wrong. Warnings have been met with force, and now the time of retribution is at hand.

1. Prologue

"I am no longer The Third Child." Shinji Ikari reassured himself. Lately he had been in dire need of this kind of mental reinforcement. Third Impact had been initiated and halted in what seemed to be a single heartbeat, yet during it not a heart was to be found. Only complete solitude. Happiness. Peace. This was four years ago. It was indeed Shinji Ikari who had freed man from the grasp of God's Divine Judgement, and liberated the human soul to live on it's own; in misery or bliss. Mankind was truly free.

The Evangelion Project had been closed and abandoned, leaving the fruits of NERV's labors in permanent cryostasis. The Children specified in the Marduc Report were no longer pilots for the beast known as "Eva."

Asuka Langley Soryu had moved back to Germany. Her mental condition worsened after the Third Impact and she was diagnosed with numerous psychological disorders, such as Social Anxiety, Paranoia, and Identity Diffusion. She did not live with her adoptive mother, but was committed into an Institute for the Mentally Insane.

The Rei Ayanami involved in the Third Impact was undoubtedly destroyed. Gendo Ikari had partially reopened the DUMMY PLUG project to recreate her. The fourth clone was now active and living the life of a normal girl in Tokyo 3.

Shinji Ikari, however, had not experienced any dramatic change since the Third Impact. Not long back his father had tried to apologize for treating him like an object as opposed to his son and had offered to let Shinji live with him from then on, but Gendo Ikari's sins were too great to atone for and his son had rejected the offer. Shinji held somewhat of a grudge but that did not stop him from meeting his father for lunch several times a week.

SEELE had been abandoned after the conspiracy of the Impact, when NERV Headquarters threatened to turn the power of all three Evas along with the might of the Lance of Longinus against them. NERV now stood as an independent organization in the field of world affairs and was an active participant in diplomatic debates amongst the Neo Japanese government.

Life was truly at hand with no God to rule or bind.

"Gods in His Heaven. All's well with the world."