Creation began on 04-18-20

Creation ended on 04-22-20

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Talismans: New Beginnings

A/N: Second Impact could damage the world in ways not many people could anticipate. But what if Second Impact could open doorways that were unknown to the human race and release things (or even beings) that were just as dangerous as what others were waiting for?

Second Impact. The first day that half the whole world was forced to go away. Most will never understand what happened to cause it. Not even the sole survivor of the disaster…or so the people that found her believed her to be.

What most people failed to see with Antarctica reduced to a literal Dead Sea…was that something else happened that resulted in much more than the severe crippling of the planet.

"My God…" The disgraced father of Misato Katsuragi uttered as he drifted in the lifeless waters of ground zero, looking up at the dark sky. "What have I done?"

Gripped in his left hand was a small piece of carved stone that he just realized was in his possession. He wasn't sure why or how, but he was certain that it saved his life from certain death in the chaos he had unknowingly unleashed upon the world.

-x-

One year later

"…What is this thing?" A Chinese man questioned as he and his fishing crew had fished out a large object from the ocean.

Suspended in the fishing net with as much fish as they could catch was some sort of statue of a dragon locked in a swirl. It gave the men the creeps because it looked like it was looking at them.

What is this place? A raspy, hissing voice wondered.

-x-

Present

Shinji Ikari had his good days (which were fewer than few) and his bad days (which were often), and this was a bad day. He was supposed to meet his father, but his escort was late, and he hasn't seen his father in over ten years after he left him with his mother's relatives. In every sense of the truth, this young man has lived an empty, unsupported life, missing an obituary if he were to suddenly die. No friends, no sense of hope, not even a silly crush. All he really had in his life…was a solitary lifestyle in the absence of his aunt and uncle…and a small trinket he got on his fifth birthday that his aunt claimed came from an antique gift shop she found on the cheap.

In some ways, his solitude only solidified after he got the only gift that enabled him to get away from his guardians.

I don't even want to be here, he thought as he sat on the steps of the train station in Tokyo-2. Whatever reason he wanted to see me, I'd rather decline him and go back to my little hideaway from the depressing world I live in.

Reaching into his shirt, he pulled out the trinket his aunt gave him, the only thing he actually valued above many meager possessions. A well-made stone relic with an engraving of a sheep on it, Shinji, at first, initially had little interest in the artifact…until he wound up wandering around in the night…and didn't wake up for two days. And then…he wandered around for a week a month later…and had found himself in the hospital being asked if he was taking anything he wasn't supposed to be taking. He lied about what he was learning about in secret; it was the only thing he felt was his escape from people…and would rather avoid losing this small power that he had been given.

The sheep, he thought as he had the stone object hanging from a cord around his neck and tucked it back under his shirt. Nobody knows anything about this trinket or what happened to anyone that had it.

He looked across the street and noticed a girl standing there in front of him, dressed in a school uniform he hadn't seen before, with blue hair and pale skin. She was just standing there, completely void of her surroundings and himself. He blinked…and she was gone.

I could use the sheep right now and get away for a while, he thought, wanting to be anywhere but where he currently was, but then I'd be vulnerable to the unknown factors around me.

-x-

In an office building in Tokyo-2, a man sat in front of a dragon statue that he had acquired a few years ago after establishing a life within the city.

"You better be right about history not following the route it took with you the last time you sought out the assistance of humans," he uttered to the statue.

"Ah, you came to me," the statue responded, "not the other way around. So long as you stand by our pact, I shall honor my end in the end. This world is different, a clear example of how it is possible to find rifts in the space-time continuum and escape into different realms of existence. However, I still require the talismans."

"And we'll get them," the man told the statue.

Ring-ring! A phone on the man's desk rang, and he picked up.

"Yes?" He spoke.

"We were able to locate the item you requested," a female voice explained to him. "It was located within the museum. We're on our way back with it now."

"Excellent. Good work."

-x-

Something was wrong. The situation was not progressing as it was supposed to.

Ring-ring! A phone rang and an elderly man in his fifties picked up.

"Fuyutsuki," he uttered. "I shall inform him."

Hanging up, the man turned to face another man wearing orange-tinted glasses and white gloves.

"That was Captain Katsuragi," he revealed to him. "She has found him and is bringing him to the base. They should be here within the hour."

"What's the status of Unit-01?" He responded.

"Still in the cage awaiting launch."

"Where is the Angel?"

"If I knew the answer to that, I'd be the king of fate."

-x-

"…You don't talk much, do you?" Misato Katsuragi, driving the car to their destination, asked Shinji, seeing that he rarely spoke a word to her since they met.

"What's the point in talking to people when they don't really say how they feel?" He responded. "To hide how one feels is to make those around them curious to the point where they'll snoop around in the darkness just to find a sense of what is felt about them by those that hide their feelings…or broadcast a different shade of their feelings. You live with it long enough to want nothing to do with those that don't have any positive feelings for you, that don't see you as an extension of someone else they either know or don't know."

Misato then wished she had read this boy's profile instead of meeting him and seeing him as such a…apathetic person.

"When people show their true colors to you, you know where you stand in their perception," she heard him say.

-x-

Rising from the water of the ruins of the city, a human-sized creature looked around and saw buildings partially sunk in the ocean. It almost resembled an amphibian or mermaid of sorts, mostly blue and green with a bony faceplate surrounded by tentacles in place of hair, with small legs sticking out of its lower body where the serpentine waist resided. A red orb was situated on its waist, protected by an external ribcage comprised of solid bone and ice.

Where are you? The creature thought, sounding like a combination of a male and female voice. You got away from us before, but we will find you.

To be continued…

A/N: A lot will be explained as time passes.