Creation began on 11-01-17
Creation ended on 05-22-18
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Hope from the Sky: Addition
It was as big as the Colossal Titan had been, far larger than the Evas were and the Dark Titan had currently become. Maybe by at least an additional five or ten meters, with blunt-like legs and bony spurs on its shoulders along with a skull-like head or face. Another distinguishing feature was the large, red sphere in its center, glowing like a beacon or something. And surrounding it on all sides were Titans or various heights, but not like the mindless ones the Eldians were familiar with. No, these Titans all possessed varying tones of darkened skin, similar to the Dark Titan.
"Is that thing like the creatures your Eva was meant to fight against, Shinji?" Kaede asked as she was being held by his Eva's left hand, several feet above the streets while the civilians were being evacuated to a safe distance.
"Yeah, no doubt about it, Kaede," he answered her, his voice displaying the fear he had against the previous Angels, but the fear was countered by his newfound confusion over the Titans the Angel was somehow levitating around it. "Kaede, they all look like…"
"I know," she cut him off, worried that these Titans were anything but what they had seen and dealt with before as she raised her right hand to her mouth. I hope we're wrong. I hope I'm wrong.
The Angel landed on the edge of land of the island…and let the Titans down so they could run into the streets of the city.
"Here goes the first line of defense," said Shinji, erecting the Eva's AT-Field to stop the Titans.
SLAM! Many of the Titans, ranging from three-thirteen meters, smashed into the barrier and were reduced to pulp in the air covering bones.
"I counted at least thirty of them," Kaede told Shinji.
"Forty-seven for me," he responded, keeping his eyes on the Angel, which hadn't budged from where it landed. "Be careful now. We still don't know how many times you can do this within a day."
"So long as I'm able to and my body's not exhausted, I should be okay."
Of course "should" was anything but comforting. But right now, their concerns had to be protecting the people from the two threats.
"You're not some weak damsel in distress, Kaede," Shinji told her. "You're a powerhouse and hope for the people. Show them what it means to have hope."
Kaede nodded and jumped off the Eva's hand, biting into her left thumb, triggering her Titan transformation as she reached the ground.
BANG-FLASH! The explosion caused by the transformation sent many of the smaller Titans flying backwards as a powerful blast of heat and wind blew their way, giving rise to the Dark Titan.
"Aaaaauurgh!" She roared, having a new feature to her form: Her jawline and hand structures were streamlined and her teeth looked like they were made entirely from some sort of crystalline material.
It looks like Ms. Ymir was a Titan Shifter, thought Shinji, seeing that this new feature was only possible if Kaede's Dark Titan spinal fluid was ingested by one. Now, she has the power of the Jaw Titan in her.
With five of the Nine Titans possessed by his girlfriend, Shinji felt that their chances of winning this war between Eldia and Marley will improve. So long as they had the Eva and the means to protect the people from the enemy.
"Titans," he heard Kaede's Dark Titan utter, its voice sounding like an older version of the girl, but harsher and angrier. "I…hate…Titans. I…will…end you."
Suddenly, the Titans that managed to recover from being turned to pulp started to back away from the massive height of both beings and the fact that the Titan much larger than the Colossal could've ever been was now speaking.
"You're able to talk now?" They heard the purple behemoth say to the Dark Titan.
"I didn't think I could until now," it replied. "Which goes first?"
"Divide and conquer."
Divide and conquer, meaning that while Kaede would deal with the Titans because she could return them to human form, Shinji would fight the Angel because the Eva was designed to do just that. It would only be them and a handful of Survey Corps members, minus Eren and his two friends, who were chosen to protect Historia in case they missed any Titans.
-x-
"…Why'd they pick you to be my bodyguards?" Historia asked Eren, as he, Mikasa and Armin were assigned the duty of protecting the girl from harm while the Survey Corps and the Evangelion fought to protect the city and people.
"We're just in case some Titans get passed the Survey Corps," explained Armin to her.
"And you think something like that could actually happen?"
"We have to be open to the possibility that it could happen."
The world outside the building they were inside shook, indicating that the battle was getting much closer to them.
"You three had best be ready!" A male Garrison member had told the three Survey Corps members as he ran into the room. "That kid in the purple giant has engaged that thing the Titans came with!"
-x-
CRASH! Shinji didn't expect this Angel to be so tough, with just the Eva's AT-Field keeping its energy blasts at bay and what few empty buildings there were safe from destruction and rendering the people homeless.
But something was happening that Shinji didn't expect. Despite the Eva being ill-equipped to fight this Angel, its punches and kicks were stronger than he thought they wouldn't have been; he suspected that this was most likely a side-effect from having consumed so much Titan flesh and blood to empower the Eva and keep its internal battery charged. He may not have even needed to use his Prog. Knife against this Angel unless absolutely necessary.
If I break the core, I defeat the Angel, he thought, willing the Eva to raise its right fist to aim for the Angel's exposed core. I have to end this quickly!
He let loose his fist and made contact with the core…or so he thought.
THUNK! The Angel, anticipating an attack on its core, shielded it with its defensive membrane.
"Aaaurgh!" Shinji groaned, but fought through the psychological pain and punched the protected core again, this time making a dent in the covering.
Wrap! Something unfurled from the Angel's sides and wrapped around Unit-01's neck.
It looked like toilet paper, but felt like dense rubber around Shinji's neck.
"Gaaaugh!" He struggled to breathe.
-x-
The miniature Dark Titans had been reduced to just a small sum, maybe less than thirty of them now, and were too small to be much of a threat to the massive one that was Kaede, whose spinal fluid was unleashed upon them from her Titan's arms and legs.
My Dark Titan must be extremely unique, she thought, seeing that the smaller Titans had evaporated after just being doused by her Titan's spinal fluid. Not one of them had to consume it.
THUNK! She heard a loud noise that sounded like something hitting something with less than the desired results, and she turned to see Unit-01 now being strangled by the Angel.
No! She panicked, and the Dark Titan charged towards them, driven to save Shinji.
The Angel took notice of the strange humanoid that wasn't an Eva and unleashed its eye beams at it.
BLAST! The Dark Titan was struck…but continued to charge towards the Angel, unfazed by the attack to its front, sporting a large series of cracks to its torso.
BASH! It slammed into the Angel and sent it falling down with it atop it.
Kaede made her Titan begin bashing the Angel's head with a force unlike what she did back when it was slightly larger and just as brutal five years prior when she first transformed.
"You…shall not harm…Shinji!" The Dark Titan uttered.
"The core!" Shinji uttered through the Eva's loudspeakers. "The red sphere! Crack it until it shatters!"
Raising its right arm, willing it to harden as much as possible, Kaede brought the limb down hard onto the core as its protective membrane covered it again.
SLAM! It collided with the membrane, which then shattered under the intensity of the Titan fist, which also shattered away, leaving a ruined limb that was beginning to regenerate.
"Guurgh!" The Angel growled, its eyes glowing with energy, aimed at the Dark Titan's head.
In the Eva, Shinji saw that the Angel was poised to take Kaede's Titan head off. Even if the Dark Titan had the strength of five of the Nine Titans, he feared for her life; Titans were no doubt weaker than Angels and were dead for good if too much of their nape was destroyed. He had to protect her, both because she was necessary to help free the Eldians from Paradis like he was, and because as her boyfriend, it was his responsibility to keep her safe from harm.
The Dark Titan raised its left arm to block as much of the upcoming attack as possible; even if what Shinji explained what some of the previous Angels were capable of doing, something that none of the Titans demonstrated in the past, not even to invade the Walls, Kaede had to do her best to protect herself from its fury.
BLAST! The Angel fired its beam attack, but it missed its mark!
Kaede, despite being prepared for the inevitable, gasped at what happened.
Unit-01, against all odds against this mighty Angel, had taken on the full force of its attack, leaving it only singed.
"Grr!" The Eva growled.
Shinji, Kaede thought, worried that he might've been seriously hurt by the attack.
"Core, Kaede," she heard his voice again, sounding upset. "Core."
Taking advantage of the distraction, the Dark Titan hardened its left arm and brought it down hard on the exposed core, sparking a small series of cracks that were chipping off.
"Huuurgh!" The Angel shrieked, and quickly started to move away from the two giants that it feared would be the end of it.
"Oh, no, you don't!" Shinji uttered as he willed the Eva to grab it by its sides and jump it to the ground. "You brought Titans to this island to attack the people, you attack my girlfriend, try to kill her in front of me, and now you try to flee? I'm breaking you to pieces and making sure you never harm anyone else, ever again."
Taking the Eva's Prog. Knife, Shinji made the Eva stab through the Angel's armored hide, hoping to reach the core on the other end.
-x-
The whole of NERV HQ in Central Dogma watched as the scene between Unit-01, the Dark Titan and the Angel seemed to be moving towards the former two's favor as the purple Eva began plunging the Prog. Knife deep into the Angel's back.
"My God," Misato gasped, seeing Shinji thrust his right arm deep into the Angel, followed by the Dark Titan using its head to grab onto a part of the armored head portion, managing to rip it loose.
"If this is what happens to someone that threatens his girlfriend, then he's well within his right to use lethal force, no matter who or what it is," said one of the male technicians.
"And the girlfriend is pretty pissed herself," added a female technician.
But Gendo was still unwilling to let either one get away from him and NERV without a fight. Even if Unit-02 was destroyed, he still had other means to deal with the troublesome pair that was the Third Child and this…girlfriend of his that possessed an as-yet unfathomable power to become an Eva-sized giant with unexplored abilities.
The Eva then ripped off the core through the Angel's back and the Dark Titan used its regenerated hands to strike it down multiple times like a pair of hammers, cracking it until it crumbled under pressure, causing the Angel to perform a death rattle.
"Angel…dead?" The Dark Titan spoke.
"Yeah," Shinji answered back. "This Angel is not going to be harming anyone else, ever again."
"The Angel…has gone silent," went Maya, announcing the status of the Angel.
-x-
It was a nightmare, but nothing even the Rogue Titan could match; none of the Titans could match the strength of the Eva as it dragged the ruined, lifeless remains of the Angel towards the water away from the city, causing several of the lesser Titans remaining to flee.
"Aaaaurgh!" Shinji yelled as he made Unit-01 throw the Angel corpse as far as possible out into the ocean, managing to toss it a good six feet from the coast.
Kaede, still in her Titan form, pursued the remaining Titans and bit into her wrists, shedding as much of her spinal fluid as possible to hurl at them to change them back into human form.
Atop a building roof, Levi watched as the Eva had procured another victory for the Eldians and how the Sogen girl had reduced the threat of the Titans again by restoring them to their previous state.
"We've checked the streets completely, sir," one of his corps members informed him a few seconds later. "No further Titans found."
"Rrrrrrraaaurgh!" The Dark Titan howled as steam burst free from its body as it dropped to its knees; Kaede had pushed this Titan form to its limits and was likely exhausted.
"Good work out there, everyone," he congratulated them.
-x-
"Aah!" Kaede gasped as she pulled herself free from the Titan flesh, breathing fresh air as she ripped out her arms. Did we finally do it for the day? Did we save the people and the community from the Marleyan Titans and the Angel?
Looking up, she saw the Eva kneeling down as its back opened up to release its Entry Plug.
Shinji emerged from the plug and breathed in the fresh air as he looked down at Kaede.
"We need a holiday one of these days," he uttered. "A very long holiday after all's said and done."
-x-
"…We were right about you, Ymir," said Armin to the woman later that day after rounding up the former Titans from earlier.
"What do you mean?"
"You were a Titan Shifter."
"I'm sorry, were?"
"The Titan power you possessed was transferred over to the Dark Titan. She now has five of the Nine Titans in her possession."
"Careful. You make her any stronger, and she may turn on you."
"And why would I do that?" She heard a female voice…and saw Shinji and Kaede enter the room. "We're all in this for the same thing. We all want freedom from the nation of Marley and the end of this feud between them and Eldia."
Ymir simply sighed and looked away from them.
"You do realize that by no longer having the power of the Titans in you, you're free of the Curse of Ymir, right?" Shinji asked her.
"What?" She asked, looking a him.
"The Curse of Ymir. Anyone with the power of the Titans only has it for thirteen-fifteen years. Once that time passes, the power abandons them in favor of a new host to inherit it, leaving the previous host with a severe case of fatigue. You got the power of the Jaw Titan five years ago when you unintentionally ate the previous person that had it."
"What makes you assume I killed someone for something you think I had?"
"He didn't say 'killed'," went Eren to her. "Titans can't consciously be called killers. People that get turned into Titans lose all semblance of free will and the ability to make choices. People with the ability to turn into Titans at will, however, can be viewed as killers if their aim is to kill."
"Even if you did devour someone else five years ago, you can't really be held accountable for their death if you had no conscious drive," Armin added. "Mindless Titans focus completely on just devouring others. They can't choose who to eat and who not to eat."
"And you're sure that this girl has the Titan power you say I once had? How do you know she doesn't just… I don't know… Gets better with each time she turns?"
"We forced Bertolt, Reiner and Annie to cut themselves over and over again, and none of them changed. Not even partial transformations. The guy that was the Beast Titan was reported to have performed minor self-mutilation on himself, most likely trying to transform, and he never changed, either. If they wanted to change into Titans, they would've done so."
"So, what now, then?" Historia asked them, changing the subject from past to present.
"Now?" Shinji uttered in response. "The threat we faced out there today had help from the world I'm from, a monster that was intent upon wiping out everyone…yet it apparently aided the Marleyans to try and wipe out what's left of Eldia…and we need to settle this before something worse than what happened today happens again."
Of course, Shinji's view of settling this matter between Eldia and Marley was most likely different from the views of the others, but Kaede was willing to agree with his view of how to best settle the situation before there were repercussions worse than what they knew of. She just helped Shinji defeat an Angel that might've been able to take out an entire army of Titans if it chose to, and it frightened her to know that it was possible it could've killed her. And there were still two of the Nine Titans left to face…and they, the Survey Corps, the Garrison, even her own parents could think of more than nine reasons…why this Marley nation…didn't deserve to continue exploiting them any further.
"Marley most likely doesn't know about either the Attack Titan, which eluded them for centuries, the Dark Titan, which can turn Titans back into people and even take the powers of the Nine Titans for itself," Eren explained, "or the Evangelion, which is our strongest ally. We don't know when, but we're going to Marley…and ending this war between the two nations for good."
Shinji thought for a second that he could see a slight hint of woe on Ymir's face, like she was afraid of what they were going to do when they could do so. He wondered if…she was afraid of the people of Marley because of something they didn't know about. But whatever the reason, he was involved in this now…and he couldn't escape it, even if he wanted to, without hurting anyone else. And he was the only one capable of piloting the Eva here, so he was necessary in any strategy the Survey Corps developed that required it.
-x-
Asuka didn't want to believe it, but there was no denying it. She got word that Shinji and his girlfriend had defeated the Angel that came to this world on their own…and she missed the whole battle and everything.
A Titan and an Eva working to beat an Angel, she thought in her makeshift cell. That only makes the girl's abilities more valuable. NERV will desire her even more now.
She wasn't sure how a Titan could take on an Angel, but if this girl was as good as she presumed, then the paramilitary agency had struck close to gold by demanding her to be relinquished along with the Titan-empowered Unit-01. One way or another, NERV had to have them both in its possession.
We'd be close to invincible if they got with the program, she suspected.
-x-
If Gendo sent Rei and Unit-00 to the other world to face the Third Child, Tokyo-3 and NERV HQ would be left vulnerable to the Angels, and if he sent someone the Third Child knew enough to converse with, there was a chance he'd let his guard down, but he would also get suspicious of their reasons for being there. He would need a full-proof strategy in order to get the better of the boy and take back the Eva. There was no for-sure way of knowing how he'd respond to a threat on the life of someone he knew here, but Gendo expected for his son to react with concern for anyone he cared about to a degree where he'd put aside his own life to save theirs.
"Send in Dr. Akagi," he ordered from his office as he had an idea on how to force the boy's hand.
"Yes, sir?" Ritsuko questioned as she entered his office.
"What is the status update on Evangelion Unit-03?"
To be continued…
A/N: Uh-oh! Who do you suppose is worse the other right now? Gendo or Marley? Kaede's Dark Titan now has five of the Nine Titans. Should she receive the last two or just one of them while Eren gets the other, knowing that he'd have to kill one of them to do so? Review!