Creation began on 09-12-21
Creation ended on 10-18-22
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Different from You: Unlawful Hunt
A/N: How far is one willing to go to get their way?
Kahn, one of the least known puppets belonging to Andre Toulon, looked out one of the windows from one of the empty rooms of the hotel, seeing a car pull up to the building, and then turned to Jester, pointing towards the door.
Jester jumped off a chair and ran out the room; whatever Kahn saw was enough to warrant alerting Toulon, Shinji or even Rumiko. Down the hall, he spotted Shado with Leech Woman and Pinhead walking towards the elevator. He spun his head in order to get the little girl's attention.
Shado turned around and saw Jester running towards them.
"Hello, Jester," she greeted him, but then noticed his expression being one of shock or surprise. "Is…something wrong?"
When his face spun again to show his devious face, the little girl understood that when he showed these two expressions, it meant he was afraid because something bad was likely to happen to any of them.
"Oh, no," she reacted, and pressed the button for the ground floor. "You're lucky. I was about to go to the first floor. Come with us."
Jester accompanied the three as the elevator went down.
Ding! The elevator went as it reached its destination.
Shado came out and saw Rumiko at the front desk.
"Rumiko!" She uttered as she ran over to her.
"What's wrong, Shado?" The teen mother asked her best friend's daughter.
"Jester says that something bad is going to happen."
"Bad?"
Jester climbed the desk and spun his head to show her his devious face. Then, he spun his head again to show his surprised expression.
"Oh, great," Rumiko accepted and told Shado to go find Toya and hide up in their rooms while she went to get Shinji.
Since it was the afternoon, Shinji was likely in the kitchen preparing lunch for the guests.
"Rumiko?" Toulon spoke to the teen mother as she walked down the hall to the kitchen. "What's wrong with you?"
"Possible trouble," she explained. "You remember when Shinji said his father would probably send people to take him back to Tokyo-3 against his will? Well, your friends may have found someone coming to look for him…and likely me and our kids, too."
"Go get Shinji and hide."
She went into kitchen…and came out a minute later with Shinji.
-x-
Up close, the Bodega Bay Inn didn't seem like a tourist destination at all. As the Section Two agents arrived, it looked more like the hotel was just a waste of time and resources to build in Japan. The five agents walked into the lobby and their presence bothered several of the patrons that were present.
"Hello, welcome to the Bodega Bay Inn," Toulon greeted the men in black. "I'm Andre Toulon. How may I help you?"
"We're from the UN-sanctioned paramilitary agency NERV," the lead agent responded, reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out a photo. "We're looking for this young man. Probably has a little girl with him, accompanied by a girl around his age with a little boy."
Toulon looked at the photo of Shinji and responded, "No, he's not here, and I've seen everyone that comes here."
"Are you sure about that, sir?" The agent asked him. "We received confirmation from a source that you've seen this boy."
"And what makes you assume that I've seen this young man?"
"He's a fugitive and has been missing for a year," a second agent stated. "If he's here and you're hiding him, you're aiding and abetting a known fugitive."
Toulon looked at the picture further and had to share his personal belief on what was claimed about the young man.
"He can't be a fugitive," he stated. "Why, he looks like he can barely stand up for himself. What'd he do to be labeled a fugitive of the law?"
"He went AWOL last year and didn't go through the proper channels," a third agent said.
-x-
Knock-knock. A knock at the door was heard and Toya got up off the floor and peeked through the mail slot.
"Who goes there?" He asked, seeing Pinhead outside with Tunneler. "You two are on time."
He opened the door and let the puppets inside the room before he closed the door again.
Shinji sighs as he sat on the floor by the window and set a deck of cards in front of himself, Shado, Rumiko, Toya, Leech Woman, Jester and Six-Shooter.
"Okay, everyone," he uttered. "Are you ready to play?"
"Ready," Shado and Toya responded.
"Bring it," Rumiko added.
The puppets nodded their heads in the positive and Shinji dealt the cards.
-x-
"…Even without the busy season of tourism," Toulon told the quintet of agents that came to the hotel, "everyone here is entitled to their privacy. You're free to look around, but my staff and I won't be held responsible for you disturbing the guests' privacy because you were looking for someone that isn't here."
The Section Two agents then noticed that several guests, most likely people from other parts of the world here on vacation or business, were looking at them like they were a pest and not people; there wasn't a single individual that wished to have their peace, rest and relaxation disturbed by some Secret Service wannabe suits during their time here.
"If it turns out you're harboring the subject," the lead agent proclaimed to Toulon, "we'll have this place shut down and put you out of business."
Then, they left, leaving Toulon wondering just what made Shinji the subject of desire and apprehension by this NERV agency…and how similar they were likely to have been to the Nazis that once tried to capture him and his puppets to know their secrets.
-x-
"…The guy there claimed to know nothing about the Third Child's whereabouts, sir," Gendo was informed from the Section Two agent later that day through a phone call, "but he's most likely lying."
Present in the office were Fuyutsuki, Ritsuko and Misato; they needed to be up to date on the situation, as well.
"Was there any indication that the Third Child was there?" Gendo asked.
"We were unable to confirm. We couldn't search the hotel and the staff refused to help."
Something in Misato's mind told her that broadcasting NERV's presence wasn't going to help them if they were treating Shinji as some sort of criminal when he made a choice to leave after the Third Angel attack, disgusted with the fact that the only reason he was even told to come to Tokyo-3 was to fight an enemy he knew nothing about until after he met his father. If this was more personal, it had to because Gendo was upset that his son injured him prior to leaving; not many men could let go of a grudge in which they were given a kick in the balls. Still, ever since Shinji left with his friend and their illegitimate children, things had been unsteady, with both the deaths and maiming of the other pilots and how the city wasn't feeling like a safe place to live. But he'd been gone for a year, and it was unlikely that he would cooperate like the first time.
"Keep tabs on the hotel," Gendo ordered the agents. "If the Third Child is hiding there, bring him back, even if it means using force."
When the call was ended, Fuyutsuki spoke up.
"Is that even necessary, Ikari?" He asked Gendo. "If he knows you're looking for him only to pilot the Eva, he's likely going to refuse."
"In situations like these, it's expected for one to show resistance when cornered," Gendo responded. "He's had a year to come to terms with everything he was told."
That's a bit of an understatement, thought Misato; she had her doubts that Shinji would cooperate with them at all.
"And what if he refuses?" Fuyutsuki asks.
"It won't come to that," Gendo expresses.
"You can't guarantee that," Misato told them. "He may try to disappear again."
"It seems to be clear that if he hasn't returned to his uncle's in the time spent after he left Tokyo-3," went Ritsuko, "he has no intention of ever going back to his other relatives, which would make him a runaway with an illegitimate daughter. Hiding in a hotel would provide him with adequate means to care for the girl."
"Unless, of course, the girl is dead or not with him."
"There has been no record of any deaths of young girls matching his daughter's description. It's safe to say that he wouldn't get rid of the girl."
"What do we know about the hotel staff of this…Bodega Bay Inn?" Fuyutsuki asks, changing the subject of Shinji's daughter to the place where it was assumed the boy was hiding in.
"Some of the personnel are locals of Oshima Island, with a handful of others from outside the country," Ritsuko explained. "The man in charge of the building goes by the name of Andre Toulon, but…there's little information on him. I ran him through the MAGI, and they came back with less than his age. This man is over one-hundred-twenty years old."
"That's…not possible," Misato claimed; she couldn't believe that there was a man that was over a century old and still alive. "There's nobody capable of living this long."
"The only other thing on him that they found was what was on social media from people that visited the hotel. Apparently, he would put on small plays with puppets that earned his moniker of a master puppeteer."
"The hotel owner is a puppeteer in his off-hours?" Gendo questioned.
-x-
"…You have any hearts, Shinji?" Rumiko asked Shinji as the card game with the puppets continued on.
"Go fish," he replied, and she pulled a card from the deck. "Leech Woman-Sama, do you have any kings?"
Leech Woman, holding three cards, threw one down, revealing it was a king of diamonds.
Pinhead, who was sitting on Shinji's right side, raised his left hand up and hit Shinji on his shoulder, indicating that he was upset with him.
"Ow," he went. "I'm not winning on purpose, Pinhead-Sama. I can accept loss in a game."
Jester spun his head around and showed his devious face.
"You think Daddy is cheating, Jester-Sama?" Shado asked the prankster puppet, who spun his head again to show his sad face. "But Daddy doesn't cheat. We're all sitting away from each other so we can't see each other's cards. Six-Shooter-Sama, can you see our cards?"
Six-Shooter, holding his cards with four of his hands, looked from around them to nod his head in the negative.
"I think Pinhead just wants Shinji to show some chivalry," suggested Rumiko, "let Leech Woman-Sama win."
"Wouldn't that be cheating?" Shinji asked.
Jester spun his head to show his devious face again, indicating that Shinji was likely to win at Go Fish again.
"I'm not a cheater. Here's my remaining hand." Shinji declared, putting his cards down to show that he had a king of hearts, a joker, an ace and a queen of spades.
"Ladies," went Toya, "gentlemen and puppets…be nice. It's only a game."
Knock-knock! A knocking came at the door, followed by a note being slipped through the mail slot, getting their attention.
"I'll get it," Shinji told them, getting up and walking towards the door to retrieve the note. "It's from Myers-Sama. The men in suits are gone for now."
Opening the door, Shinji was greeted by a man in his late-thirties or early-forties, with blondish hair and a friendly face.
"I got word from my wife in Massachusetts," the man informed the teen parents. "That paramilitary agency, NERV, seems to be primarily focused within this country…and despite having branches in other parts of the world, these beings they call Angels…have only shown up in Japan or the waters around it. Officially, ever since you left Tokyo-3 last year, there were five attacks…and NERV's Japan branch has had twelve kids piloting those behemoths."
"Twelve?" Rumiko questions. "It seems like they have everything under control if they have twelve teens doing what Shinji did only once. It makes no sense to come after Shinji after all this time if they're doing well without him."
"They had twelve pilots in total in the year after you left, Shinji," he reiterated, "but there have been three casualties, several maimed and NERV's reputation just seems to get worse. There doesn't seem to be much of a protocol for NERV recruiting teens beyond the fact that every one of them has a birthdate after the day Second Impact occurred and their mothers are gone. They're just feeding them in, one after another, and if something happens to compromise them, they just go look for another one."
"What?" Shinji asked, looking back at Rumiko, the kids and the puppets before looking back to the man. "Twelve teens…in one year…after we left to get away?"
"It probably explains half of why they're looking for you; they're running out of inexperienced candidates and need someone that has managed to pilot one of their creations and lived to tell about it."
"Yeah…no. That's not going to happen. If they've had problems of this sort, that should've convinced them enough that something wasn't working with what they're doing. What happened to the rest of them? The ones still there?"
"Two are still in one piece, but the rest are in the hospital. The last one they recruited got hurt in an accident and now she can't walk."
"That's messed up."
"My advice, Shinji: Don't bend for your old man if he's after you for this craziness."
"That's the goal, ignoring him until he gives up."
"Daddy," went Shado, "what he doesn't give up?"
That was a question he was unsure of how to answer. Or even if he could answer it. He wanted nothing to do with his father or NERV, his other relatives that hated him and Shado, and he sure as Hell didn't want anyone else trying to compare him to his father when he did everything he knew he could to be as removed from the guy as possible. One of the things he knew that set them apart was how, unlike the way his father treated him, he refused to walk out on his own child like she was nothing; the very thought of doing so made his heart beat with unease.
"The guy's gotta stop sooner or later, Shado," Toya said to the girl. "People may have patience for some things, but not everyone has patience for everyone. One day, he has to stop and realize that he's reaching for the impossible with your father; if the man just left him when he was little, only to call him up one day just to face a monster, the he's not really a good person. He may not know how to be a good person. Shinji basically told him that he wasn't going to do that again. He either has to accept that…or something else will happen."
"Like what?" Rumiko asked her son.
"Something, Mommy. Maybe…he loses his job, whatever that is."
"That'd be nice," Shado claimed.
"Yeah, it would," Shinji agreed. "Thank you and Susie-Sama for the update, Myers-Sama."
"No problem. It's how we choose to live with the time we've been given back after Second Impact. As a previous master, I must say…it's good to see old friends."
Shinji turned to look back to the puppets and had to own up to how strange…but appreciative he felt…when it came to speaking with someone else that knew the secrets of the Puppet Master and guarded them.
"But…you're still one, aren't you?" He asked the man. "I mean, they trust you, they listen to you…and you protect the secrets they hold from those that would abuse and misuse them, right?"
"I'll never be as good as Toulon."
"But," went Rumiko, "he entrusted you with his friends when he was disembodied. And…you fought against unjust forces before any of us were born. What makes one worthy to be in the same position as the Puppet Master? What makes one deserving to have the mantle for even a little while?"
"Respect the puppets, protecting the secret of life…and avenging those harmed by those that would misuse their gifts for wrongful reasons."
"But…to protect the secret of life," went Toya, "that means protecting the puppets from the bad people, right?"
"Yes," Rumiko answered him.
Toya then did an open-hand explosion fist bump with Pinhead; this was something he had taught the puppet a while back.
To be continued…
A/N: It's been too long since I updated this story, and it's one of many I'm trying to update. And yes, the man they were speaking with, I'm sure you can guess who he is. A shoutout to the first person that can. A whole year since Shinji and company left, and the hunt for them has only just begun. Who else will be seen?
