Creation began on 01-20-14
Creation ended on 01-21-14
Neon Genesis Evangelion
The Freedom of Vengeance
A/N: So many prototypes for what I want to write, and so many ways to get inspired to write something new. Just last night, another writer's work inspired me.
The night had no means to wash away the stain of the nightmare he suffered from each passing day. Neither could walking on the damaged streets, exploring the ruins of old skyscrapers, not even the thought of running. All that really helped him…whenever the opportunity came to him…was the thrill of a battle, the glory of a victory before it was achieved…and all the monetary rewards that came after it was over. That was all that could help a boy like Shinji forget his past, his past…and his desire for wanting what was taken from him years ago.
As he stood atop the damaged building in the dead of the night, just as a plane was flying overhead, his dark hair rose up and turned brownish-black as his fists clenched. A smile formed on his face as he leapt from the rooftop and soared to the ground below, smashing the pavement and sending several men and women that were no older or younger than he currently was flying backwards.
"Aaaaurgh!" He heard them scream, and their groans of agony came shortly after.
"So, it's true, then," he looked up past the fallen teens and tweens and saw a boy in a black track suit, "what I was told beforehand: You're the Outcast they all fear!"
"We're all Outcasts, one way or another," he told the boy, "and who might you be?"
"Suzuhara," the boy in the track suit identified himself. "Toji Suzuhara, Keeper of the Juggernite."
"Juggernite?"
"I'll show you my power!"
Shinji saw his body glow with a rainbow outline…and the small building behind him atomize into nothing, replaced by a large, dark, mechanical humanoid equipped with large arms, like a creature that had no choice but to walk on its knuckles in addition to its feet.
Toji then jumped atop of this monstrosity, this Juggernite, and became attached to its head.
"No one has ever been able to beat my Familiar!" He told Shinji.
"Then I'll be the first!" Shinji responded, raising up his fists.
"Those hands," Toji looked at the limbs that were his opponents. "Arms that were wrapped in black and blue armor…and dark hair that browns up whenever they appear. What kind of Familiar Summoner are you, anyway?"
"I don't really take the time to name my Familiar ability," Shinji expressed, "only that it's a strange power I've had ever since I was young enough to remember…and it has caused me much grief. But it has its uses."
"I'll have my Juggernite break you in half! Go!"
The Juggernite raised its massive, right arm and brought it down on Shinji.
"Urgh!" Shinji raised his arms up and blocked the assault, and then a pair of long, black and white, tiger-striped ribbons appeared on his back, extending down to his knees. "My turn! Fist of the Wraith of Grief!"
He lowered his right arm, feeling the armor on its wrist extend a pair of small blades, and brought it back up, punching the massive arm over him and smashing its mechanical surface into bits! The impact was so strong that it sent the rest of the Juggernite falling backwards, crumbling into atoms, and Toji fell to the streets.
"Urgh! No! My Juggernite!" He whined at how his Familiar was defeated so easily.
The fallen people got back up and found the only Familiar Summoner they knew that owned a giant Familiar defeated by a Familiar that was quite rare. They didn't know that many that could use their Familiars as extensions of themselves. For all they cared to admit, this Shinji was the only one that could do so.
Shinji approached Toji, looked down upon him…and offered him his right hand.
Toji sighed and accepted his assistance.
"No one has ever beaten my Juggernite before," he expressed. "Who are you?"
"Shinji," Shinji identified himself again. "No last name. Just plain Shinji."
"Welcome to the Hell that is Japan, the nation the rest of the world uses as a dumping ground for Familiar Summoners."
"Even a place like this has something worth having."
Suddenly, a large, blinding light shone on everyone on the street! A series of large helicopters hovering above them. They all had large, red, capital letters that spelled out "NERV" written on their sides.
"Attention!" A female voice shouted over a megaphone. "All Familiar Summoners! You are under arrest for reckless endangerment and destruction of public property! Surrender immediately!"
"Oh, shit!" A teen girl shouted. "It's NERV! Head for the sewers!"
Soon enough, everyone was running into the dark buildings before they could be followed by the military police that jumped from the helicopters, armed with guns and net-launchers.
-x-
"…Was it really necessary to send a small army after a bunch of kids?" An elderly man asked a younger man, observing the scenes through the cameras the soldiers were wearing on their helmets.
"Against these abominations," the younger man responded, "some would demand an N² weapon be used to eradicate a potential threat."
"A threat? They're just kids."
"Not to everyone."
-x-
"…I swear, they never stop," a little girl said to the other kids that were present, wandering through the sewers. "It's bad enough that they left us for dead on this archipelago, but to try and arrest us simply for trying to survive here…is just immoral."
"It's always immoral," another girl responded.
Further ahead, Shinji and Toji led the way to their destination.
"So, Shinji," went Toji, "how long have you been here?"
"A long time," Shinji answered.
"I meant how many years? I've been here for seven years."
"A decade…ever since my mother was killed."
"Ten years? That's cold."
"My old man was a cold bastard. A merciless son of a bitch."
They reached a light at the end of the sewer and stopped at a damaged opening of a former storm drain, leading to a makeshift village of stitched-up boxes and wooden boards made to look like buildings.
"This is where you guys live?" Shinji asked Toji.
"Most of us," he answered. "You?"
"I, uh…live in a more…isolated spot around this part of Japan. But I might find my way home from here. Until next time."
Shinji then left the others, passing the buildings and leaving the place they used as their living environment in favor of the one he knew.
-x-
In the harsh night, bad men came for them again, thought a young girl's mind, looking to accuse them of any wrong they didn't fully understand, that no one taught them, forcing them to run and hide. The boy with the strong hands and quiet heart helped to get them to safety, showing that, despite his harsh surroundings, he was a good person, never wanting more than what he needed to live. Still, he desired happiness, to be accepted by others. He really wants to be loved.
"…Nami?" A voice awoke the girl, and she opened her eyes to one of the two boys she lived with: Shinji, who seemed like he'd been by himself for a while.
"I was…dreaming," she told him.
"Oh. I'm sorry I woke you," he apologized to her.
-x-
"…The Familiar Summoners," a man said the darkness of a secret meeting. "They need to be dealt with as soon as possible. It's costing as much as a small nation to keep them confined to Japan."
"And that's just yearly," went another man. "We already have at least eighty Familiar Summoners affiliated with NERV, but most of them refuse to be subjugated. Of all the ones that have been scheduled to be shipped to the nation of Japan, some of them had to watch their parents die trying to keep the authorities from taking them from their homes."
"How long until we can get the approval of Operation: Endgame?" A third man asked.
"A year. Maybe less than that," a fourth man answered. "After Second Impact, people have been left in too much financial ruin to care about a move that would murder some of their own."
"That will all change if we can find a way to use these Familiar Summoners for our own gain," a fifth expressed. "Supposedly, the Second Impact had opened a type of doorway to another dimension where there's nothing but unlimited energy just waiting to be possessed. If we got it for ourselves, we'd be able to solve the extensive demands for power."
"But to do that, we must find a way to reopen the door."
-x-
Atop the lonely mountain's devastated mansion, Shinji sat on the roof, awaiting the sunrise, wondering how long he could continue surviving in this demented wasteland that was as close to Hell on Earth as anyplace ever could be. As the sky turned grayish-blue, signaling that the sun would rise soon, Shinji, despite his reluctance to do so, thought back to his awful childhood, back to the day that his sense of security was taken from him. He couldn't forget the very hour that marked the beginning of his personal losses.
It was a week after his fourth birthday, and his mother and he were just walking down the streets of New York; his parents had relocated to the States after a catastrophe called Second Impact had left their ancestral homelands in ruins…and a dumping ground for those that developed unnatural abilities. They were just minding their own business…when the sky turned dark and several buildings were soon demolished by something that wasn't a wrecking ball or an explosive used in demolitions. A dust cloud came their way and Shinji saw something that changed his life. He saw a…a man, a giant of a man, dressed in skeletal-like armor that was black and gray over silver-looking flesh that looked on fire, but wasn't burning like regular fire. But what caught Shinji's gaze and haunted him to the present were the man's arms: The skeletal armor on the right arm was red while the left was green.
This man appeared…and unleashed a firestorm upon them, leaving them buried under some debris. The devastation was so extreme that Shinji, who managed to survive being buried under the debris, was crushed to find that his mother was not as lucky as he had been, for she suffered from a fractured skull and internal bleeding from ruptured organs. It was also the day that Shinji discovered his power.
"Aaaaaaurgh!" He had yelled in agony, and his body glowed with the same, rainbow-like outline as chunks of the debris around him and his arms became enveloped in black and blue armor, just as the black and white ribbons manifested on his back. "Aaaaaaurgh!"
He never saw the man after that day…and nobody took him serious when it came out what he was. Not even his father believed him or tried to keep the authorities from shipping him off to Japan like he had done the murder and destruction on his own. Other than wanting justice for the injustice he was dealt, Shinji wanted to find this Familiar Summoner (he was left to assume that the man had to be one) that destroyed his past. He would ask whoever was from other parts of the archipelago that was a Familiar Summoner if they had ever encountered this man, and all he would really have to ask them is if they had seen somebody that had a red right arm and a left green one.
But no one he asked had ever seen anyone like who he had seen.
I won't give up, he thought, just as the sun rose from beyond the horizon, bathing the land in its light. I will find the guy…and I will make him pay.
A minute later, a pair of small hands were felt by him on his shoulders, and he knew that Nami was up.
"Good morning," she greeted him.
"Good morning," he responded to the little, raven-haired girl he had known for two years. "How was your sleep?"
"I had a nice dream, like the previous night. This strongman with a quiet heart saved people from other people that were cruel and got them to safety."
"Would this man be the same one that fought a gang of bullies and saved a bunch of kids that were being used as slaves?"
"Yes."
"Do you ever have a normal dream, Nami?"
"Shinji-Kun, you know I've not had a normal dream ever since I met you in those ruins."
"You know I hate it when you call me that."
"Yet you never do anything about it."
-x-
"…Misato Katsuragi," greeted the commander of NERV, Gendo Ikari, to the purple-haired twenty-nine-year-old woman that arrived last night during the failed attempt to apprehend some of the Familiar Summoners, "welcome to NERV HQ."
"I was instructed that there was a Familiar Summoner here in Japan that you needed assistance finding," she explained what she was informed of before she left Germany.
"That's right," went the Sub-Commander of NERV, Kozo Fuyutsuki. "Of course, you do understand that our information on the Familiar Summoners is scarce."
"Simple descriptions on abilities is more than sufficient enough."
"Be reminded that we're looking for a Japanese boy around the age of fourteen," Gendo expressed, "and possesses an unusual ability to cover his arms up to the shoulders in black and blue armor and sports two ribbons on his back whenever he uses them. Finding him is a top priority."
Although Misato was sure that Familiar Summoners that could summon giant, mechanical monsters were the more dangerous ones that lived. She had no idea what was so special about a boy that couldn't do anything beyond covering his arms in armor and sprout a pair of ribbons on his back. Whatever the reason, she believed that Commander Ikari seemed adamant that the boy be found and brought to NERV, by any means necessary.
To be continued…
A/N: In case you didn't understand it much, this is based off of s-CRY-ed, with Shinji similar to both Kazuma and Ryuho, Toji similar to Biff, Misato similar to Mimori, and Gendo could probably be Martin Jigmar, but without the powers. Second Impact is the first Great Uprising and Japan itself is the Lost Ground. I'll leave this alone for a while and see if people will want more. If more is desired later on, who do you want Asuka, Hikari, Rei, Kensuke, Kaworu to represent in the story or what powers would you like to see them demonstrate? It's likely that Asuka could be the female version of Ryuho, since she always hates Shinji, mainly just for breathing. Read it and send me a review. It's a prototype!