World War Evangelion
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Author's Note: You've seen it before you'll probably see it again. Another Evangelion fix-fic crossover thingamajig. It gets a little old I'll admit, and some go too far, get too crazy, change too much, get derailed, have the spotlight stolen away from the Eva cast, or just plain aren't any good. I acknowledge that the general idea isn't very new but I assure you I'm trying to make sure that my spin on it is. I acknowledge what makes most of them bad, and because of that I think I can make a good one. It might not be Nobody Dies, or Shinji and Warhammer 40K, or whatever your favorite one may be, but I'm going to try. There were times when I had a really elaborate idea and I tried really hard to make it original and to make it work... but it always became boring to write because I thought about it too much. So here is spontaneity, but it has been proofread, reviewed, and edited so it's not unfiltered or anything. I just hope some of you give it a chance and have as much fun reading it as I did writing it.
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Chapter 1: A Man Moves Forward
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Shinji Ikari did not understand why he was called to Tokyo-3 by his father. He didn't really understand his father at all actually. Shinji's father was a man who was never in Shinji's life at all, especially after his mother died. When Shinji's mother was still alive, Shinji was so young he barely remembered back then, but he certainly didn't remember much of his father. Work probably got in the way back then, but after Shinji's mother died, his father just dropped him at his uncle's and left it at that.
Maybe he should have been mad that his father wanted to meet with him? No, he couldn't be mad about that. He wanted to meet his father again after all those years, he wanted to get back in touch with him. The problem he supposed, and the part worth getting mad about, was how he wrote the letter to call him to Tokyo-3. Four words, "I'm sorry. Please come."
Four words.
Shinji was expected to drop everything for four words.
Un-freaking-believable, right? Well... there he was at the Tokyo-3 train station waiting for someone to come pick him up. It worked, so who was he to argue with results?
He glanced out down the empty streets and scowled. He had been waiting for about an hour and everybody had disappeared. Then there seemed to be something approaching on the horizon... at first it was distant, but it grew closer with great speed and he was able to identify a red vehicle. Closer still and he knew it was a sports car, a mere five seconds later he could make out that it was a convertible.
A red convertible with the top down was speeding towards the station at speeds what made it take to the air and almost fly at the crest of a hill. By time it was close enough for him to remotely be able to make out the driver it was moving so quickly he could only see a blue blur on the side of the passenger's seat.
Then as suddenly as it had appeared on the horizon, the vehicle screeched to a halt right in front of Shinji, spinning around to parallel park facing the direction it came from. Shinji's jaw slacked as he stared at the sublimely shiny paint job on the vehicle, enough so he could see his own reflection in it, and eventually he looked up at the driver, and he realized now the man was indeed in the driver's seat in spite of his position because it was a western car with the wheel on the left side.
That man smiled at him. He had hair dyed a bright shade of blue like the afternoon sky and a pair of some of the gaudiest sunglasses Shinji had ever seen. He was dressed in a pink floral print Hawaiian shirt and a pair of tan dress pants that didn't seem to match the rest of the presentation. "Heeeey! So you're Shinji, eh?"
Shinji just nodded meekly. "And... um... you are...?"
The man gave a thumbs up and then quickly turned it into a gesture to point at himself. "My name's Kamina, Kamina Jiha! I work for your old man and he sent me to pick you up."
Shinji nodded slowly. "Um... if you don't mind me asking... why were you so late?"
The man laughed in response. "Don't be so tense! If it helps, just think of me as a brother! Hell, call me bro if you want! In fact I insist! Come on, hop in!"
The fact that the man did not answer the question was obfuscated by the fact that Shinji had a bad feeling about this. He had a feeling that if he got in this vehicle his life would change forever and there would be nothing he could ever do to change it back. He hesitated... then took a deep breath. His life sucked anyway... why the hell not?
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Gendo Ikari was the sort of man that infuriated politicians and bureaucrats because not only did he know how they worked, but he was never wrong about anything. He knew exactly how to provoke specific desired actions from them at any given time, and they feared him because should he ever run for a public office he would probably win.
"I would like to request that the military stand down from this affair. The enemy is an Angel, and NERV is equipped with the only weapon capable of combating them." Gendo began the meeting with a calm gaze around the room. "NERV was formed and Project-E was started for this very purpose, and I ask that you trust our technicians and our committee."
They'd be damned if they didn't try though.
To Gendo's left sat General Ginrei Kuchiki, general of the JSSDF's homeland defense forces. He was not the sort of man to be told he couldn't handle a situation, especially not one on his own homeland's soil. "What is with all this secrecy? And how much of a fool do you take me for? 'The enemy is an Angel', what a load of rubbish! We do not even know exactly what your Project-E even is, how do you expect us to trust it to be successful?"
A chorus of ascent to the objection sounded and Gendo folded his hands in front of his face. He remained silent.
Sitting across from Gendo at a large oval shaped table was General Bismarck Waldstein, the general of the United Kingdom's overseas military forces. He seemed more level headed than most of the men in the room and turned his attention to Ginrei. "Mind yourself, Mr. Kuchiki. This is NERV we are talking about. According to Mr. Ikari here, this was their purpose from the very beginning, and if the UN found it necessary to create a multi-national organization independent of any government for this purpose, then perhaps we should at least listen."
"That is precisely why I cannot trust them." Ginrei responded coldly. "I have heard of the kinds of things NERV does. Your recruitment program the Marduk Institute, is it not true that you are drafting children for this this little science project? I find it hard to believe any weapon that can be wielded only by a child to be worth using at all, and that would be the only excuse for using children to begin with." Pride seemed to be the greatest foil of the men in the room, and not wanting their well trained soldiers to be upstaged by mere children in experimental super-weapons was indeed of great concern to many of them.
The group was roused in a chorus of agreement again.
So, as the JSSDF and UN big-wigs sat at a table in front of him in an emergency meeting due to the approach of an unknown enemy, they began by ridiculing his secret military project and questionable methods of using a child to pilot said secret military project.
Gendo's silence was contagious as his icy chill of apathy alerted them that he was neither amused or bothered by their objections in the slightest.
"Gentlemen... we have done the math." He turned his head to Naoko Akagi, who stood to his left with a portable tablet up-linked to NERV's computer interface, she nodded and he returned to staring at the group in front of him. "Projected casualties for all possible strategies for dealing with the Angel have been compiled." With a tap on her tablet, hologram screens appeared on the table in front of each of the parties present. "As you can see... projected casualties for any solution not involving the Project-E are astronomical. If all goes well, solutions involving only Project-E have a projected casualty rate of zero."
"These are just numbers, Ikari." Ginrei replied coldly. "Where is the proof? These numbers are close to the population of the entire planet! Your weapon has never been field tested or proven to even work! I don't even know where you received your funding given that, but as it stands you have nothing to show us."
Gendo unclasped his hands and stood up. "Then this will be the field test and the demonstration. These are human lives. Are you willing to gamble on the Magi System being wrong? Are you willing to risk those lives? Every life on Earth is at stake here. So I ask that you trust NERV on this matter. This is what we were created to do. We will launch Evangelion Prototype Unit-00, piloted by designated First Child Rei Ayanami. We will show you what our weapon can do, and we will show you danger of the enemy we face."
There was no real explanation for the silence that overcame the room with his declaration. It was as simple as nobody being able to protest against him.
Ginrei spoke their ascent. "This will be your responsibility Ikari. Should you fail..."
Gendo adjusted his glasses and smirked. "If we fail then truly there is no hope for humanity."
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After Second Impact the oceans of the world had been died a bright red color, as if the explosion on the south pole had caused the earth to bleed out into the oceans in such vast quantities that it was forever stained.
Then, that day off the coast of Tokyo-3, the ocean cried out in a thunderous song. It was as if a whale that was not a whale cried out into the air. It was deeper than a whale's song, longer than a whale's song, stronger than a whale's song. More than that though, within every living thing that heard it... the emotion of primal fear rose to the surface.
That is... every living thing save one.
Shinji stared backwards as the giant beast rose from the ocean, an impossibly huge biped covered in green skin. Bony protrusions, spikes, spines, and large armored plates covered its torso, arms, and legs. It had no head to speak of, but rather a strange bird shaped mask on its face right above a large red luminescent sphere. It bellowed out the cry again, and Shinji shrieked like a girl and nearly passed out before getting dope-slapped by Kamina and forced to breathe in a surprised gasp. "Chill bro, I got this!"
Every living thing that heard the creature's cry was filled with mind numbing terror... except Kamina.
"Relax, it'll never catch up to us! This baby is built for speed!" Kamina floored it, and then there was a loud... whoosh. A great shadow enveloped the car as something massive passed overhead and Kamina slammed on the breaks as the monster landed directly in front of the skidding car with a mighty crash that shattered the road and the buildings on both sides of it. Kamina's eyes were wide and his mouth hung open slightly as his shades slid down his nose.
The great beast stayed squatting before them as it examined the only living thing not buried deep in an underground shelter. From this close Shinji could see its skin was covered in thousands upon thousands of scales, each one the size of a human head at most, and all of them so close together they glistened as almost a single surface. The plates on its legs flapped open rhythmically like gills of a fish out of water.
Kamina's shock wore off and he flicked his shades back into place. "Pretty fast for such a big guy..."
It lifted its disproportional, long and skinny arm so that its three clawed hand was aimed directly at the vehicle, it opened its grasp to reveal a hole in its palm that went deep into its arm. Shinji saw a faint pink light within it and he could see the spike on the creature's elbow began to extend and also started to glow pink.
Shinji screamed and crutched his head and closed his eyes. "I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die..."
Kamina ignored him and reached across to pop open the glove box and retrieve a pistol, which he then pointed up at the building pink light in the monster's hand. "Let's do this!"
The monster seemed to pause, as the light reached critical mass but it did not fire. It's massive mask-like face tilted sideways in what seemed to be confusion. A bead of sweat rolled down Kamina's face as the tension continued to build.
Then an enormous orange boot punted the monster's arm up into the air and the giant energy filled spike shot out harmlessly before coming to rest at maximum length and then retracting back into the monster's arm. It turned it's body to look in the direction the boot came from, and was met with the boot ramming into its face, sending it reeling back in surprise.
Kamina gave a whoop of triumph and pumped both fists into the air. "Alright!"
The owner of the giant orange boot was none other than an heavily armored humanoid robot of comparable enormity to the monster it just kicked in the face. It was decked out it orange and white and its head seemed to contain only a single red glowing eye. It reached down and lifted Kamina's car off the road before depositing it on the other side of the monster's impact crater.
Kamina gave a salute to the machine. "Thanks Rei!" He passed a gibbering Shinji his gun and floored it once more as the giant orange robot prepared to wrestle with the giant monster.
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When Gendo Ikari entered the command center of NERV's tactical operations, Sub-Commander Kozo Fuyutsuki stood from his seat with a sigh of relief. "Glad you could join us in time, Ikari." The formality was for appearances sake, as this was their first big military operation and after they pulled it off they could sip martinis and wear rabbit ears for all the UN cared. At the moment though they had to be extremely professional.
Gendo cast his glance around the room. "Status report." He could tell that something went wrong, he just didn't want to say it out loud. Captain Misato Katsuragi down in front was in open communication with Rei and from the images on the screen... Unit-00 was wrestling with the Angel.
Fuyutsuki cleared his throat in embarrassment. "Well as soon as we received permission to launch Unit-00 we began the launch protocols as instructed. However the Angel hit shore at about the same time and immediately targeted what we at first thought to be a civilian vehicle."
If Gendo was surprised he didn't show it. "However...?" He urged Fuyutsuki to continue after a overly lengthy pause.
Fuyutsuki gestured for Gendo to be seated as he continued. That was not a good sign. "We quickly realized that the vehicle was registered to Kamina Jiha, your... um... 'Chief Janitorial Officer'. Apparently the Third Child was due to arrive today, and by some twist of fate was left behind in the evacuation. Jiha anticipated this apparently and went to pick him up as appointed."
Gendo twitched, that being the only sign he was phased. "So you mean to tell me that Chief Janitorial Officer Jiha, and the Third Child are out there?"
Fuyutsuki sighed in what was probably premature relief. "Not exactly. We launched Unit-00 in haste to rescue them as the Angel began targeting them particularly, however in doing so the First Child was unable to secure any weaponry."
Gendo clenched his hands. "The Evangelions excel at melee combat. This is not a problem."
There was a bright flash on the main screen and Gendo turned his attention to it in time to see the Angel's glowing pink spike shoot through Unit-00's shoulder. "Let me guess. Because Unit-00 is still equipped with the A-Type equipment it does not have a progressive knife on its person, and the Angel is equipped with unexpected melee capabilities."
The statement hung in the air and everyone shrank into their seats.
Gendo huffed slightly and reached into his coat before dialing 3 on speed dial.
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Shinji had finally regained control of his breathing and at some point down the line, shoved the gun back into the glove box. "Wha-what was that thing?" He finally gasped out.
Kamina gave Shinji a nonchalant glance with a hum of curiosity. "Hm? Oh! You mean big green? Yeah, down at NERV we call it an Angel. They're basically big nasty alien monsters. The robot was what we call an Evan... Evangoulin or something... maybe... Evangelagann... bah, not important! At any rate, we basically have those big robots to fight off the aliens."
Shinji just stared at him.
Kamina laughed. "Yeah but all that was confidential, so don't tell anybody I told ya, or else they'd probably kill us both for treason!"
Shinji turned ghost white.
Then Kamina's cell phone rang with the jingle of some rap song. He picked it up and answered it without even checking who it was. "Heeeeey, talk to me." Kamina didn't even pause that long before grinning ear to ear. "Yo Big-G! How's it hangin?... Yeah he's right here!...Debrief him on the way? You sure?... No problem buddy, I'll get right on it!" Hanging up the phone Kamina turned to Shinji with that same grin. "So apparently it's legal for me to tell you stuff now. How would you like to pilot a giant robot?"
