Creation began on 07-06-19
Creation ended on 07-09-19
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Welcome to your Escape
A/N: Gundam Meister of Rituals inspired this idea of a crossover.
What made people deserve the right to be called parents to a child or children of the Twenty-First Century? That was a question that Shinji Ikari, one such child, couldn't obtain an answer to because nobody was willing to answer for him. His own parents were, despite his best efforts to think positively of, lack of any better word, nonexistent; his mother was said to have died in a freak accident when he was too young to remember anything and his father was stated by many to not be a man that was good at understanding the needs of anyone other than his own, including the needs of his son. For all fourteen years of his life, Shinji seemed to be a prime example of a child without parents and left in a world that failed on purpose to do right by him.
The train ride to Tokyo-2 did nothing to help him with his personal thoughts about seeing his father, who sent him a letter telling him to come to Tokyo-3, something he had to share with his guardians that he was against doing because he didn't believe there to be any positive reason behind wanting to see his only son after so long. Unfortunately, they didn't give him a choice in the matter; he had to go see him…and they wanted him gone.
-x-
"…You sure this is him?" A man asked on a cell phone a block away from the Tokyo-2 train station he was supposed to be at, looking at a photo of a young man with a miserable expression. "He doesn't seem to be anyone who knows about anything."
"That's because he doesn't know anything," a female voice responded to him on the other end. "But he's a person that can help our cause more than his father wants to manipulate him to further his own. And we won't lie to him, either. Carefully approach him and try to get him away before Ms. Katsuragi arrives. Timing is everything."
"Understood, ma'am."
Hanging up on the phone, the man returned his gaze to the station, just in time to see his target walking down the steps, seemingly frustrated over something.
"Well, no time like the present," he sighed and ran across the street to approach him. "Shinji Ikari? Are you Shinji Ikari?"
The boy looked at him, looking confused, and then looked down at a photo in his right hand.
"Did my father send you?" He asked.
"No, I don't work for your father," the man answered him. "I represent a group of individuals led by a woman who has a proposition for you."
"What are you talking about?"
"We know about your father and his agency…and what he plans to do with you. My employer wishes to save you from him by offering you something else to devote your time to…of your own volition, not something that you'll be forced to do by a man that can't be bothered to do right by his only son. And she'll tell you everything she knows about why your father wanted you to come here; she won't deceive you."
"Why should I believe you?"
"That's the smartest question you've asked me. My employer knows a lot about you, Shinji Ikari. She's researched you thoroughly, and believes that you're the right person her group needs for an ambitious goal all its members strive for. You're not happy with your life here in Japan. You don't know anything about your parents because your guardians refuse to disclose anything about them to you…and you have no friends of which to hang with. You're practically alone all the time…and you don't want to be, but you don't want to be here, either. Do you really want to meet your father? Deep down, I think you know what is to be expected from going to him if you do…and you don't want that at all."
Shinji looked down at his father's letter him, nothing but redacted information and a handwritten note saying for him to come to Tokyo-3…and not in any way nice to his ears. Then, he looked at the picture of the woman who was to pick him up, her provocative pose somewhat disturbing to his mind. Maybe he did know what was to be expected from seeing his father deep down…and it wasn't something he wanted to happen to him.
"Does your employer have a name, sir?" He asked the man.
"Nico Megumi of the Clover Team," he answered Shinji. "Are you familiar in any way with the Zi Organic Intelligence Droid system?"
Shinji gave him a confused look; he clearly had no idea what any of that meant.
"It's okay," he explained. "Not many people do."
-x-
"…What do you mean, he wasn't there?" Ritsuko Akagi asked Misato Katsuragi over the phone as the latter woman was on her way back to NERV HQ shortly after the discovery of the boy she volunteered to pick up wasn't at the train station in Tokyo-2. "Did you even go to the pickup site he was supposed to be at?"
"I did, and there wasn't anyone there," Misato answered. "Either he was there earlier and left…or he never showed up at all."
"Commander Ikari will be disappointed about this."
"You don't need to tell me that; he always seems disappointed about everything, no matter what it is."
"But this will be a major disappointment; he was expecting his son to be here."
Beep! The faux-blond woman's phone received an alert.
"Hold on, there's another call," she informed Misato, and pressed a button to accept the new call. "This had better be important; otherwise, you're wasting both my time and that of NERV's."
"I'm calling from an unlisted number to inform you that the boy you were expecting to arrive today won't be coming," a female voice revealed to her. "He won't be arriving today, tomorrow or any other time in the foreseeable future. He has been sought after by my employer with a better proposition that doesn't require him to do something dangerous to his own life."
"Who is this?" Ritsuko demanded, but the call ended.
-x-
"…The Angel was defeated with three N² mines placed where it stopped advancing and was unable to regenerate from its damage," Kozo Fuyutsuki told Gendo in the latter's office when it was discovered that the military forces stationed near Tokyo-2 had a different strategy suggested to them by a random member over their initial strategy to utilize only one N² mine to defeat the Angel. "This unexpected outcome gives NERV more time prepare for the next attack, since we were unprepared for this one."
"The Third Child was supposed to arrive here today," Gendo responded as he was displeased with the discovery that his son was approached by some other group…and how the boy just up and decided to accept an irresponsible offer to him when he was supposed to be here helping them. "Who approaches a boy with a previous obligation to our cause and just convinces him to accept an offer he knows nothing about?"
"Are we any different, Ikari?" Fuyutsuki questioned him, not that the offer the boy would've been given by NERV would've been any different or better than the one he had accepted from a stranger that just approached him off the street.
Ring! Gendo's desk phone rang, and he answered it.
"Ikari, speaking," he uttered, and then his face frowned. "Is that so? Very well, then, let her in."
He hung up and wondered who could be here to disclose the recent information they had on the Third Child's current whereabouts.
The door to his office opened up and Captain Katsuragi came in with a woman around her age that had long, brownish-red hair and a lighter complexion than any of them possessed, dressed in a business suit.
"Commander Ikari, Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki," Misato introduced, "this is Samantha Toros of the ZB Commission."
"How do you do, gentlemen?" The woman, Samantha Toros greeted the men.
"You caught us at a bad time, ma'am," Fuyutsuki expressed.
"Actually, I'm pretty sure that you were caught at a good time," she explained. "Unpredictability and unexpected outcomes make for better solutions to unanticipated situations. I'm here to let you know that you don't have to worry about Shinji Ikari for the time being."
"What have you done with him?" Misato demanded from her.
"I've done nothing," Samantha defended. "You'd have to ask the woman that requested for him to join her group; she made the call and had him approached before you were expected to get him. All I know is that he was made an offer that he could've chosen to refuse…and he accepted after a short while to ponder what was likely to happen to him had he stayed here in Japan."
"And what would've happened to him had he stayed here, he'd be…trafficked around someplace?" Fuyutsuki suggested.
"No way would he be harmed in such a degree. He was asked to join in something that isn't a live-or-die situation, just a win-or-lose one."
"Elaborate," Gendo demanded.
"Is NERV familiar with what the ZB Commission does?" Samantha asked them.
"We don't even know what the ZB Commission is," Misato explained; this was the first she had ever heard of such an organization.
"What about the Zi Organic Intelligence Droid systems?"
Fuyutsuki's eyes widened at the sound of that terminology uttered and responded with one word.
"Zoids," he spoke. "You work for an organization that sanctions Zoid battles between different groups to test both the adaptable technology and compatibility of the pilots found between the ages of fifteen and twenty-two. A recent exception was made to see if fourteen-year-olds were just as compatible."
"Surely, you could've approached some other fourteen-year-old," Gendo insisted.
"Only half," Samantha responded.
"Half the fourteen-year-old kids here in Japan?" Misato asked, confused.
"Only half of the other fourteen-year-olds alive today in the world were estimated to be slightly better than Shinji Ikari is expected to be," she explained, "and the other half were expected to be worse than he could demonstrate, but Shinji was dead in the center and not a random shot from out of the dark. Still, it's the woman who picked him you should speak with. All I know is that she's looking forward to seeing him later this evening."
-x-
"Oh, my God," Shinji gasped at the sight of the large, red and gold, avian-like robot that perched atop the large hangar's roof.
"Yeah, that's a Fire Phoenix, Shinji," said an older girl behind him, her face painted like a geisha while wearing a blue yukata with a silver chain hanging around her neck. "She's my pet. I'm often told to use her in battles, but I don't."
"Why?"
"Only thirteen of these Fire Phoenixes exist around here, and it isn't for sure if we'll ever see them in the wild again. But that's only half of the reason I don't use her in battles. When I walk away from the Clover Team and live it up, I'm going to take my Fire Phoenix and fly away into the sunset."
"You…you said see them in the wild again? You treat them as though they're living creatures."
"Come inside and I'll show you why."
Shinji followed her into the hangar…and saw a large dinosaur-like robot with what looked like cannons and other weapons on its back and arms with a few cracks in its form.
"Whoa!" He gasped, intimidated.
"It's just a modified Gun Sniper, Shinji," the girl told him. "It belongs to the great-great-great-grandson of Leena Toros, Samantha Toros' son, Drake Toros. But this one's probably got two years left before it passes on."
There it was again. There was that assumption that these giant, animal-shaped robots were alive that Shinji found unlikely. Just what was it that made it alive, that made people consider them to be living creatures when they looked like mechanical constructs that moved around under the will of someone else?
The girl walked over to a large screen on the wall and picked up a remote control, turning it on and displaying an image of a metal sphere surrounded by some cables and giving off a subtle, red glow that appeared to be pulsating every two seconds.
"This is called a Zoid Core, Shinji," she informed him. "These are the result of compressed organs from Zoids of the earlier generations before the modern generations came around. A long time ago, Zoids used to be regular animals like the kind that used to be around where you're from, but evolution transformed the majority of them from organic to techno-organic. So long as the Zoid Core exists and remains intact, the Zoid in question is as alive as you or myself can be considered. It thinks, it feels and moves like we do. But if it ever gets damaged and can't be repaired, the Zoid will die. The mechanical portions transmute to stone in fossilization, and the Zoid can't be piloted ever again. Some think it's easy to get over a Zoid that's died because they can be replaced by getting a new one, and it's possible because science enables us to produce them for a variety of purposes, but it's not easy to forget about the times you spent with them up until their final days. When your Zoid dies, all you have left are the memories of it."
Shinji then turned to look back at the Gun Sniper, seeing that, despite its state of decrepitude, it still had a lot of life left in it.
"How long has it been in service?" He asked her.
"Over one-hundred-twenty years," she answered.
"Wow…"
"Yeah, it's an heirloom that still has some fight in it."
"So…what do I need to do to get one of my own?"
"We need to test your compatibility with our list of Zoids; if everyone could control a Zoid, everyone would have at least one or three. Since you're starting out and we're hoping that you'll be exactly who we need for the Clover Team, your compatibility with a Zoid is a priority. Some people do well with Zoids suited for defense, wearing out an enemy's firepower, while some prefer a Zoid with more offensive force. The Zoid most suited for you, like anyone else, is a mystery until we know for sure. Are you ready to begin?"
"Yes."
-x-
Gendo was furious! His son was supposed to be here in Tokyo-3 piloting the Eva to face the Angels, but instead he was elsewhere, beyond his reach and influence, getting schooled in participating in a lousy tournament sanctioned between the UN and a mysterious organization that couldn't be traced anywhere on the planet, something Fuyutsuki attributed to the fact that Zoids weren't associated with Earth, that there was a sort of pact made between the two organizations several years ago that allows for the revenue the Zoid Battle Commission has for the people that followed the establishment for a long time. How was there access to another world beyond this one in the Milky Way with technology revolving around the use of large, mechanical animals that could be operated like how the Evas needed to be operated? And worse was how could someone from that world want the Third Child on their team just to get him away from here?
"People pay top dollar to watch the teams compete against one another to be among the best," the woman had explained to Gendo earlier before she left after disclosing that Shinji would be affiliated with this Clover Team. "It's been going on for less than two-hundred years, but people enjoy watching the Zoids fight against one another, watching the pilots develop their skills. If Shinji ends up going down the same path as those before him did, he'd be a successful young man…provided his team survives the competition against other teams that will be more experienced and better equipped."
But so long as Shinji was away from NERV, Gendo couldn't achieve his objective, which he viewed as the only thing that mattered. And because the Angel that attacked after the fifteen-year absence was defeated by the military, NERV was shown up and kept on standby. He was to expect a call later on from the woman that sought out his son, and he knew exactly what to say to her: Return the boy to Japan or face the consequences.
Ring! His phone rang, and he picked up.
"Ikari," he uttered.
To be continued…
A/N: This is the first chapter. I'll get to the second as soon as I can. But what do you think of Shinji piloting a Zoid instead of an Eva? And this is before he even meets his old man!
