Chapter 2: True Calling

'Yee HAW!' shouted Misato at the top of her lungs, as she downed her Yebisu beer.

Shinji paid no attention to Misato's antics; he was still depressed over killing the angel. Since he first gained his status as a Toa, the first thing he had been taught was to never, under any circumstances, take another sentient beings life. Now that he had broken that code, what would his brothers and sisters think of him? Although, the worst thing was that after he had killed the angel Iden had left him without a word. It was like his father rejecting him all over again.

-Flashback-

'But…but father I don't want to stay with him, I wanna stay with you!' pleaded a four year old, frightened Shinji.

'I have no use for you' his father replied coldly and walked off leaving Shinji alone with bags far too heavy for him to carry.

Overcome with emotion caused by his fathers' rejection and his mothers' recent death Shinji fell to the ground and cried.

Several hours later Shinji sat on the bench next to his bags waiting for an uncle who would never come.

Now thinking that he was so useless that his uncle did not even want him, he began to cry once more.

Meanwhile, a short distance from Shinji two human looking people where walking about. One was a teenage girl with blonde hair and deep blue eyes, who was catching the attention of many male teenagers, the other had snow white hair and light blue eyes who was currently using his unique looks to grab the attention of many girls in the area.

But the blonde one heard the sobbing and walked towards the source. She found Shinji with his down crying his eyes out.

'What's wrong little one?' Shinji heard a soft, caring voice ask, sniffing and wiping the tears from his face he looked at the person standing above him, who regarded him with a concerned smile. She then knelt down to Shinji's level and placed a hand on his shoulder.

Seeing that she was sincere and genuinely concerned about him, Shinji poured his heart out to her, telling her how his mother had died, his father had left him and that there was no one who wanted to take care of him, relaying all this made him cry once again.

Pulling the little child into a hug, letting him cry onto her shoulder, she sang a soft song for him, in a language that he could not understand, but it still soothed him enough to make him stop.

'If you want I could take care of you' she said, 'my village has more than enough space.'

'You would?' asked Shinji, still sniffing and amazed that some stranger would be willing to take him.

'Of course' she replied with a smile, 'come on I'm sure you're hungry lets get something to eat and then I'll show you my village, by the way what's your name?'

'Shinji Ikari'

'Mine's Tuuran'

-End Flash back-

The memory still brought a smile to his face, Tuuran had gotten in trouble with the others for bringing him, but she never regretted it, how he wished she was here. Whenever he needed someone to talk to she was always there to help him.

With a sigh Shinji continued on with his cooking, as he had recently discovered Misato only cooked to kill. It's a good thing that he had taken all of his mothers old cook books with him when he went to stay with Tuuran, otherwise it would be instant ramen all the time, Shinji shivered, {that was a scary thought}.

Feeling homesick once again, at the thought of him and Tuuran learning to cook, Shinji's dark mood returned with a vengeance.

A knock on the door broke the dark thoughts for a moment, 'I'll get it' he said with a sad voice.

As Shinji moved to open the door, Misato looked at her young ward with a pained expression, he looked as if he hadn't had a good nights sleep for the past week (which Shinji hadn't, ever since he defeated the angel), she was beginning to worry that he might even try to hurt himself if he continued his downward spiral, but she noticed his mood improved at an incredible pace when he opened the door to a very pretty young blonde girl.

'Tuuran!' exclaimed Shinji in surprise and disbelief.

'Hey, Shinji', she answered hugging the surprised boy; 'you wanna go grab something to eat?'

'Can I Misato?' he asked.

Seeing the effect that the young girl had on Shinji, and not wanting to send him back into his depressive state she answered with a sly smile, 'Sure Shinji-kun, just remember that there you two are underage, so don't do anything you two will regret!'

'Ugh, Misato!' he cried out in embarrassment, and horror that his guardian would actually say something like that in front of company.

With a laugh, Tuuran took Shinji's hand and led him out of the apartment and into the streets of Tokyo-3.

'So how have you been, brother?'

'Well, I'm better now that you're here'

'Does this have to do with that monster you had to fight a while back?'

'How…how did you know about that?'

'Iden came and told me, he knew how you would take it'

Shinji cast his head down in shame, all this time he had thought Iden had left him because he was disgusted by what Shinji did.

As if reading his thoughts, Tuuran put a hand on Shinji's shoulder, 'Didn't we talk about all this negative thinking?'

'I'm sorry'

'Don't worry Shinji I understand, but you do need to think a bit more of yourself you know? It's not healthy, dwelling on all the bad things that you think could happen.'

'Tuuran, I did do a bad thing I broke the code! I…I killed something!' he cried out, staring at the ground not wanting to look at her face.

Pulling him into another hug, she said, 'Shinji, there was no other choice, Iden found out a lot about those "angels" and said that if you hadn't done that the entire earth would be in ruins.'

'Shinji, you did what you had to do, that's what makes you a hero' she said, 'and don't ever think any different.'

'Okay' he said, with a sigh feeling the weight of the world lift off him.

'Come on I'm starving!' said Tuuran, with the face of an excited child as she led him to a burger joint.

***Unity, Duty, Destiny***

Having returned home rather late (it had actually begun to get dark), Shinji carefully opened the Major's door and found her asleep on the table with a beer still clutched in her hand, snoring rather loudly.

With a smile, Shinji carefully lifted Misato from her chair and moved her to her bed, putting her down gently.

Moving back to his room, he grabbed his backpack and unzipped it, revealing a crimson mask with a black stripe travelling down the middle.

'Sure took you long enough!' said a tired looking Iden, the mask relaying his facial expression, 'while you where off stuffing yourself I had to fend off some horrific Rahi!'

'Pen-pen? He's just a penguin, he might be odd, but he's no danger to anyone' said an amused Shinji, 'by the way thanks for telling Tuuran what happened…I needed someone to talk to.'

'No problem Shinji, being an organic Mask of Spirit, I can come and go as I please' he said with an odd smile (odd in the way that his "mouth" was essentially a hole, including his eyes), 'although, it did take her forever to use a mask that was able to see me'.

'Thanks Iden, you're a real friend'

'All right, all right let's stop talking about how great I am, otherwise we'll be here all night!' the mask said with a loud laugh.

'Shh! Misato's sleeping' Shinji hissed.

'That's the purple lady right?'

'Yes and she very kindly allowed me to stay here while I pilot the Eva'

'So wait does that mean there are more of those "angel" things?'

'Unfortunately, yeah'

'Oh yay, I can't wait' Iden replied with a roll of his eyes and a sarcastic tone.

'You where all for fighting a week ago' Shinji pointed out with narrowed eyes.

'Yeah, but I was hoping that it would be normal fighting, not giant robots and stuff'

'Okay, so you want us to go fighting in our Toa form, huh?'

'Nothing would give me greater pleasure!' replied the excited kanohi.

Placing the mask on his face, Shinji's body glowed and crimson electricity crackled around him as Shinji Ikari was soon replaced with a 6 foot, red and black biomechanical warrior, with a blue glow that shown from behind his mask.

'Wow, I feel a bit stronger on Earth than I do on Vetra Nui' exclaimed the Inika.

{'Well, the matoran universe's worlds could have a stronger gravity or maybe the Red Star is closer to earth?'} Theorized Iden.

'Well, either way I guess we'd better watch our punches.'

With that said, the Inika leapt out of his window, into the streets below.

***Unity, Duty, Destiny***

A woman ran screaming through the streets of the "poorer" side of Tokyo-3, three vicious gang members where gaining on her and when they caught up with her, well let's just say they weren't looking to make a nice conversation.

The poor woman, not even 25 years old, was frightened of what would happen when those three caught her. Running, adrenaline pumping through her veins, she took a wrong turn and ended up in an alleyway with no way out, but from the side she came in.

'Oh God, please no' she cried out, praying for a miracle, but ultimately knowing that no such miracle would come.

'Hey there, lady you move pretty fast' said the thinner of the three, as they caught up with her, flicking his knife about menacingly.

'Please, just take my money and go' she pleaded, throwing her handbag at their feet.

'Okay, we'll take the money and you' said the large one, who was wide, muscled and stood at least 6 foot 3, with a cruel grin.

'Hey, I get first dibs alright' said the one who wore a beanie on his head, who gripped her arm painfully tight, causing her to yelp.

She scratched him with her long nails, falling backwards as he let go of her and held his bleeding face.

'Gah! You're gonna pay for that you little…'

'Hey you three, leave her alone' said someone from behind them.

All four turned towards the voice and saw what appeared to be some sort of armoured person with a strange looking "face" and glowing blue light coming from its eyes and mouth.

'What the hell is this cosplay night?' said the skinny one.

'Yeah, go back your little conventions while the big boys have some fun' the larger one chuckled.

'I don't want to fight you, but you three are pushing your luck.'

'Pfft can you believe this guy?' the large one laughed again.

'Alright, that's it. Takeshi, take this nut job out' beanie said, beckoning the large one.

Cracking his knuckles, with a grin on his face, Takeshi said, 'Sorry 'bout this kid, but we did try to warn you.'

'No I'm sorry', said the strange "cosplayer", he let loose an arc of red electricity that hit Takeshi and sent him flying back into the wall at the back of the alleyway where he slumped to the ground, unconscious.

'What the…?' began beanie, who attempted to tackle the red and black person, who merely side stepped, grabbed the back of his shirt and tossed him aside.

The final gangster showed off his fancy tricks with his knife, trying to either threaten his attacker or reassure himself.

'Back off man, I know how to use this!'

'Hey, I have something like that' said the stranger, who pulled out a weapon (seemingly from nowhere it appeared from his back) that appeared to be some sort of staff, it had a 1 metre long, black "pole" with a sharp wicked looking blade starting from about halfway on the pole, making the weapons total length 1.5 metres.

Spinning it around he asked, 'Wanna see whose is better?'

Taking the safer course of action, the skinny one fled.

The woman stared at her saviour, taking in his odd appearance; he looked like a person who was made out of red and black armour.

Kneeling down to her, he offered his hand, which she gladly accepted, and pulled her to her feet.

'I…thank you' she said.

'No worries, only doing my duty' he answered simply, with a warm smile, 'are you going to be alright from now on, or should I help you on your way home?'

'Um, no…thank you, but I should be fine now'

'Well, if you need me just shout'

'Wait' she started, 'what's your name?'

Her saviour put on a thoughtful expression, and then almost looked like he was having some sort of internal debate, but he eventually answered her, 'Toa Inika or Inika if you don't like being formal.'

Before she could ask any more questions, the "Toa" as he called himself, leapt into the air and soon disappeared from sight.

***Unity, Duty, Destiny***

{'Boring! Don't any of you humans know how to fight at least?'} A bored Iden asked.

'Hey! I know how to fight' Shinji answered, not amused at Iden's generalisation.

{'Who taught you? Oh, that's right, Toa warriors!'}

'Oh, whatever Iden' shaking his head, Shinji continued on his way back to his new home, hoping that Misato wouldn't be awake when he got there.

He clambered through his open window and then removed his mask, becoming Shinji Ikari once more.

'Did you have to say that, about our staff?' Shinji asked, as he got ready for bed.

'Oh, come on! Didn't you see the look on that guys face, it was hilarious!'

Too tired to argue, Shinji just got into his bed and fell asleep.

-Chapter 2 end-

Finally! Took me awhile to finish this chapter (bit of writers block), but it's done. I will be telling Shinji's life before piloting Eva in flash backs or him talking to his other brothers or sisters (he has 6 in total). Any who, please read and review, also if you like the Fantastic 4, I have written a story with the pilots becoming the famous team, so give it a try if you want.