Ultraman Evangel: Ultraman vs Evangelion
Episode 3 - Reactions and Much Ado About Life, Part 1
Disclaimer: The Ultraman series and Evangelion series are properties of Tsubaraya Productions and GAINAX Company, respectively.
Shinji's Dream
Shinji Ikari found himself in this vision of space again. He could already guess that he was about to encounter Evangel again, so he dubbed this space Evangel Space. Shinji floated above the red Earth that was his home planet. Sure enough, Evangel appeared before Shinji again in a flash of light.
"Evangel..." Shinji greeted.
"Shinji Ikari," Evangel said, "be alert and wise... because we have revealed ourselves in defeating Sachiel, Third Child of Adam, our enemies will now seek us out."
"Sachiel?" Shinji questioned, "that Angel we beat just now? They have names?" He paused for a bit, before asking, "Evangel? Can you tell me anything more about the Children of Adam?"
"Shinji," Evangel continued in his cryptic tone, "there is a great darkness about... beware..."
"Evangel... what..." Shinji was trying to get answers, only for Evangel to flash again and cover the scene in light. Shinji felt himself falling back into unconsciousness.
NERV Hospital, Tokyo-3 Geofront, January 10, 2045 AD
Shinji gasped as he woke again in the land of the living. He found himself in a bed staring up at a blank white ceiling. He groaned as he stretched out the kinks in his limbs, only for him to hiss as a residual ache shot from his left arm, followed by a headache in the middle of his forehead. Remembering the acute pain from Eva Unit 01 being damaged, Shinji was grateful that being an Ultra Host to Evangel meant that he could heal and recover more quickly and easily than regular people.
He looked down at himself as he sat up. He was dressed in a white hospital gown. Looking around, he sighed at just how blank and lifeless the white room was. "Man, it's ugly..." He then tried to spot for his belongings, especially the Splendor. He then laid eyes on the nightstand next to his bed, and the Splendor was there with a note. With a sigh of relief, Shinji picked up the Splendor and read the note.
'Your belongings are with me,' the note read, 'come find me. Misato Katsuragi.'
'P.S.- You might want to leave that trophy when you are piloting. It looks precious.'
Shinji chuckled at Misato thinking the Splendor was a trophy. He felt the Splendor pulse warmly in his hand before he put it in his pocket. Not wanting to wait and spend another minute in this ugly room, Shinji found some slippers and put them on. He walked out into the hallway to the astonishment of two nurses.
"Mr. Ikari!" One of them gasped at seeing Shinji walk so easily.
"Hi there," Shinji waved casually with a smile.
The two nurses looked back and forth between each other. "You... you know that you shouldn't be walking like that so soon," the other nurse said.
"I'm not hurt that bad, believe me," Shinji said, "a slight ache, but nothing that some walking won't cure."
"But Mr. Ikari," the first nurse tried to hold him by the arm, but Shinji just pulled back firmly.
"Look," Shinji said firmly, "I know you two are trying to do your jobs, but I'm not spending another minute in that freaking room. I'm walking right now, so at least clear me to walk around this place before I go mad from the unbearable white colors."
The two nurses looked to one another, before the first one relented and said, "okay, but just make sure to check out with the front desk. Captain Katsuragi wanted us to inform her when you were awake."
"Thank you," Shinji said. As he walked down the hallway, he then noticed an open door revealing the blue-haired girl from yesterday, sitting on the bed. Looking at the name of the patient on the floor, he saw that it was indeed Rei... Rei Ayanami. As he walked up to the door, he felt the Splendor warming up again. It was the same reaction whenever he was in proximity to her. Shinji walked in and Rei turned her head to look at him.
Rei saw Shinji enter her room. She looked at him blankly before her eye widened again in surprise. Shinji was momentarily replaced with the vision of that same silver and gold giant she saw in the hangar and on TV. She recalled that everyone called this figure Ultraman, but why she was seeing Shinji as Ultraman confounded her frozen logical mind.
"Hi Rei," Shinji greeted the girl, "it's good to see you're alright." He looked around for a seat but seeing none just stood next to Rei's bed. She just continued to stare at Shinji in stoic silence.
Neither of them said anything for seconds as the Splendor warmly pulsated in Shinji's pocket. Shinji then said, "I'm sorry that my father tried to make you pilot that thing..."
Rei blinked her good eye, but otherwise said nothing. Shinji waited for a response but hearing none decided to continue. "What he tried to do with you with those injuries was wrong... and I was not about to let you die on account of that man's callousness." Rei continued to stare, apparently not knowing what to say. Shinji exhaled, and just gave a sympathetic smile.
"Well..." Shinji said with some resignation, "it's alright if you can't talk... or don't want to talk right now." He laid a gentle touch on Rei's fingers through the cast. "Just get better, okay?"
Upon their fingers touching, Shinji felt the Splendor pulsate warmly in his pocket. Rei, on the other hand, felt a jolt of warmth as Shinji was replaced with the figure of Ultraman again. She was confounded by this, and the sudden warmth of emotions that flooded through that touch.
Suddenly, Ritsuko Akagi entered the room and saw Shinji. She was surprised that Rei had a visitor besides her and Commander Ikari. "Shinji Ikari," she said.
Shinji turned to see the doctor. "Dr. Akagi," Shinji greeted.
"I thought you were still supposed to be in bed," Ritsuko wondered, "that Angel's attack would have caused some heavy trauma."
Shinji just shrugged. "What can I say? I guess I heal fast," he answered.
Ritsuko was silent for a bit, and seeing that Shinji was apparently as well as he claimed, decided to drop it. She then looked over to Rei with a bit of a neutral expression. "I would guess that you did not expect new company either," she remarked. Rei did not say anything to Ritsuko but stared out the window.
Shinji smiled warmly before rising to leave with Ritsuko. "I'm ready to be discharged, Doctor," he told her.
"Don't you want to rest a bit more?" Ritsuko asked.
Shinji frowned a bit with a mocking chuckle. "Anywhere but that room," he said, "the white in there is so bright that someone's gonna go blind." Ritsuko did not dispute that last bit.
As the two left, Rei saw Evangel in place of Shinji again, before it was Shinji again.
Tokyo-3 Battlesite
Misato sat in a tent overlooking ground zero where the Third Angel had blown up. NERV recovery crews were scouting the area for forensic samples of any sort of the Angel. Meanwhile, she was on a laptop scouring the news networks and video sharing sites, thinking that NERV PR would have covered up details of the battle.
However, Misato quickly found out that someone had apparently taken a personal video of the battle, first between Evangelion Unit 01 and the Angel, and then Ultraman appearing up to the point that he blasted through the AT Field and blew up the Angel. The video quickly went viral as people talked about the angel-like Ultraman saving Tokyo-3 from certain destruction. While NERV PR had put pressure on to have the original video tracked down and removed, it had already been copied and shared throughout the whole wide web. Everyone was talking about a 'real-life' Ultraman with a mix of disbelief and excitement. It was such that both the UN and NERV were being flooded with calls and inquiries into the mysterious being that destroyed a kaiju.
"Wow... and I thought PR would be on top of this," Misato remarked as she watched a talk show with animated hosts and guests talking about Ultraman, even doing replays of Ultraman's best beatdowns of the Third Angel, finishing with his cross-like arm beam demolishing AT Field and Angel.
"Well, it's not every day that the world witnesses a giant monster attack," Ritsuko said as she sat down beside Misato, "let alone a fictional giant alien actually coming to life and beating up that monster."
It was then that Misato remembered something. "Hey, Rits," she said, "that Angel did speak right?"
"Right..." Ritsuko said with a questioning tone, still reeling from the surprise that at least one of the Angels spoke aloud.
"It called that being Ultraman," Misato wondered aloud, "isn't that the name of some old TV show?"
"The one about an alien from outer space fighting giant monsters," Ritsuko answered, "I heard of it." She honestly thought the whole premise of such shows to be rather cheesy, but last night's battle made the premise all too real for her liking.
"Who would have thought that Ultraman was real," Misato went on, "and his timing was almost impeccable, as though he could sense that Shinji was in danger..."
"That... and the fact that he was able to break through an AT-Field without one of his own," Ritsuko added. She was till wracking her head over that one.
"You did say that an AT Field can only be cancelled out by another AT Field, so how did Ultraman do it?" Misato and everyone else had seen how Ultraman attacked and damaged the Angel without even a hint of using any AT Field-related abilities. The bright golden cross beam he emitted from his forearms had cracked through the AT Field and killed the Angel as one of the biggest upsets of last night. Where Evangelion had been built to absorb and cancel out AT Fields at close range, Ultraman seemed to outright break them.
"That's what I want to find out," the blonde scientist said, "and how he seemed to neutralize the Angel's S2 organ without it going supercritical with that beam of his. Whatever energy he was using somehow kept the Angel from exploding in a much larger mushroom cloud."
Misato just hummed. Ultraman's appearance had caused a series of reaction chains throughout the world, and ignited a lot of questions about him, his origins, and his abilities. "And Shinji?" Misato decided to change subject, "how is he doing?"
Ritsuko gave a startled laugh at that. "Wouldn't you believe it, up and about like he had just gotten a good night's rest," she answered, "he was walking and healthy as I've ever seen a boy, considering the damage Unit 01 took."
"Really?" Misato gasped in a mix of surprise and relief, "oh thank goodness... but walking?"
"Yes, walking, and wanting to be anywhere but the hospital," Ritsuko answered with a bit of an amused smile, "he said that the bright white colors were making him blind."
"Huh... all that and his humor is intact," Misato murmured, thinking of when Shinji was being recovered from Unit 01. What was also strange was that he was holding some sort of wand with golden angel wings in his hand. She removed it from Shinji's grasp for safekeeping, but then felt a sudden urge to keep it with him. She escorted him to the hospital and left the wand next to him, feeling that it was very valuable to him. It was strange that Shinji took it into the LCL with how priceless it looked, but Misato had a feeling that he wanted it when he woke up. Now she could look forward to seeing him and perhaps asking him about it.
Gendo Ikari's Secret Conference Room
Gendo Ikari sat with his fingers crossed together, across from him were the five other members of the Human Instrumentality Committee, a mysterious conference under the equally mysterious organization SEELE. They had called Gendo into a meeting two hours earlier than planned in response to last night's events regarding the defeat of Eva Unit 01 and the appearance of the silver and gold giant the citizens of Japan were referring to as Ultraman. None of them were pleased with this unexpected intervention.
"Ikari, explain this interference by this 'alien' giant and why you did not address this immediately," the man in red from Britain demanded.
"This is a major deviation from the scenario formulated from the Second Dead Sea Scrolls," the yellow member from France seethed, "do you know what this could mean for the Project!?"
"Gendo Ikari," Keel Lorenz, the head of SEELE from Germany began, "do you have any information regarding this... 'Ultraman', as the people and media are calling this being?"
"Believe me when I say that I never saw this coming myself," Gendo replied, not betraying anything else in his expression, "I am still gathering information on this giant, and how he has been able to combat an Angel without the use of an AT Field."
"And will this interfere with our scenario to any significant degree?" Lorenz followed up.
Gendo raised his head slightly to look over his hands. "I have inquired with my Vice Commander on his apparent knowledge of this being..." He thought back of his prior conversation with Fuyutsuki.
Flashback, Gendo's Office
"Tell me more about this being, and how you came to know of him," Gendo asked Fuyutsuki.
"He is Ultraman," Fuyutsuki answered simply and added, "he is a giant of light, of a different sort and species from the so-called Angels, and fights across many worlds and dimensions whenever darkness and evil threaten humanity from space and even Earth itself. I was a young man when one of them saved my life."
"One of them? Saved your life?" Gendo raised an eyebrow at hearing this personal experience for the first time from his long-time professor and friend.
"Yes..." Fuyutsuki said with a hint of nostalgia, "a long time ago... one of them saved me when an expedition into one of Earth's ancient civilizations had turned into a disaster."
"Then who is that Ultraman that we saw today?" Gendo demanded.
Fuyutsuki exhaled and smiled a bit. "I do not know, but if I had to discern and say... he is an answer to my prayers that one of them come to protect us during this age."
"Protect us?" Gendo asked, a little irritated behind his stoic expression.
"Yes," Fuyutsuki said as a matter of fact, "the Ultramen have an affinity for humans, which drives them to protect us."
"Your Vice Commander clearly has a connection that he has not disclosed up to now," the blue member from Russia said with a hint of displeasure, "and you know how we feel about secrets."
"Indeed, I know," Gendo simply answered.
"Ikari," Keel then said, "for now, you are to continue operations of NERV with the primary objective of destroying the Angels with Evangelion. However, it is now imperative to investigate Ultraman and find ways to handle his interference. Dismissed."
The five mysterious men of SEELE disappeared as they signed off from the holographic conference. Gendo rose and contemplated this latest development. He would indeed investigate Ultraman... because he had the potential to upset HIS own plans.
Shinji rode with Misato, glad to be finally out of the hospital and hospital robe. He had been told by Ritsuko earlier that he was staying with Misato during his time in Tokyo-3, but he also detected a hint of dismay in the doctor's voice. He just shrugged and decided whatever it was, he would deal with it as it came.
"You had us scared back there, Shinji," Misato expressed with sincere relief, "but I'm glad that you're on your two feet again and out of that hospital."
"Why? Something wrong with that place?" Shinji asked with a raised eyebrow.
Misato shrugged. "Nah, just white, boring, and depressing."
"I thought the same thing," Shinji quipped, eliciting some laughs from Misato.
"Finally, someone who agrees with me!" Misato jested back.
The two rode up to a ledge overlooking Tokyo-3. As they both got out, Shinji was treated to a high and clear view of the city nestled in the valley.
"Why are we here?" Shinji asked.
"Just watch, Shinji," Misato urged. Two minutes passed before Shinji heard a low rumbling sound from below. He saw as the low-rise buildings rose into the air, with others just rising right out of the ground where they used to be concealed. Shinji found himself awed at the sight of a metropolis rising out of the ground as skyscrapers lit up the evening sky.
"That is Tokyo-3," Misato said with a smile, "the city you fought to protect... and now has this Ultraman protecting it."
Shinji stopped himself from chuckling, thinking how ironic it was for Misato to have Ultraman Evangel next to her in secret. He then said, "must have been something, huh?"
Misato hummed as she glanced to Shinji, who continued to stare out over the city with a proud smile on his face. "It was the strangest thing, honestly," she expressed, "I never thought there was another thing in the world that could fight, let alone kill those Angels."
"I wish... I had been awake to see it," Shinji pretended, knowing that his identity as Ultraman Evangel was a sensitive topic, and he wanted to gauge Misato's trustworthiness in an organization under his father's thumb. "So... you picking me up from the hospital and driving me around," he changed topic, "I'm guessing that you were assigned as my guardian."
"Wow, you really are sharp," Misato blinked back in surprise, "why yes! You wanna see my place?"
"Sure," Shinji shrugged his shoulders, "after all, I could use a place to sleep and some company." He thought back about Ritsuko's apparent dismay and thought what could be so wrong about staying with Misato.
"Isn't this just a lot of snacks and fast food?" Shinji asked as he eyed the aforementioned items in both his and Misato's shopping baskets. The two had decided to stop by the local convenience store to pick up groceries.
"They didn't give me much of an advance notice," Misato admitted, "this is kinda like making up for not being ready for you. And besides, consider this me celebrating new company!"
"Huh..." Shinji hummed as he counted all the chips and TV dinners that Misato got.
As the duo walked up to the counter, Shinji overheard two women chatting with each other rather animatedly with their children in hand.
"That robot they sent out didn't do that much good," one of the women said, "look at the damage that was done to the business district."
"This used to be one of the safest cities in Japan, but now they've turned it into a warzone," the other lady said, "and they couldn't even kill that monster right."
"And now there is that giant," the first lady added, "what was that thing?"
It was then that the first woman's little daughter chimed in, "Ultraman, he is called Ultraman!"
"Akiko, don't interrupt me," the mother chided.
"No, she's right," the second lady said as she steadied her groceries and her own baby, "everyone on TV and the Web are saying that this giant who killed the monster is Ultraman."
"Ultraman? I thought that was just an old fictional TV show character!"
"Well, who do you call a giant that looks just like him?"
Shinji realized that Ultraman Evangel had really become the talk of the town. Everywhere he went and browsed on the net, everyone was talking about Evangel and his battle with the Angel.
The ladies continued their conversation. "I don't know," the mother with the girl said, "but I now want to move away to somewhere quieter now, but my husband has his mother to care for, and the economy isn't that great now."
"If that giant is indeed Ultraman though," the second lady with the baby seemed the more optimistic of the two, "then we have nothing to fear with him fighting those kaiju."
"Nothing for you, but I don't want my house and family getting stomped on by kaiju, robots, or alien giants!"
Shinji kept silent as the chatter went on. It was then that the little girl turned and looked at him. Shinji gave her a smile, which she returned with a cute grin and handwave.
Misato's Apartment
'What a mess!' Shinji thought upon first seeing the inside of Misato's apartment. The neat freak inside him almost had a panic attack as he saw piles of trash bags, clothes, beer cans, and food wrappers about. He cringed as he looked about, and for some reason, found two refrigerators.
"Why are there two refrigerators?" Shinji asked his new guardian.
"Oh that," Misato said casually, "he's probably just sleeping."
"'He'?" Shinji asked, totally confused as to why someone would be sleeping inside the fridge.
The two cleared the table and after scrounging together a somewhat reasonable meal from the fast food, the two began eating.
As Shinji endured the overly-salted taste of his food, he could not help but notice how many beer cans Misato was downing.
"Oohhhh! Now that's the stuff!" Misato raucously cheered as she downed her ninth can.
Shinji just stared at Misato acting like a drunk teenager. The older woman then noticed Shinji's gaze. "Come on, life doesn't get any better than this!" Misato said.
"You wanna bet?" Shinji said with a raised eyebrow, "you almost sound like someone my uncle and I knew."
"Oh?" Misato said with a smirk and a quirk in her eyebrows, "and who is that if I might ask?"
Shinji sat back a bit and breathed hard. "A friend of my uncle and former wingman of his," he revealed, "wild partier and drinker like you wouldn't believe. Almost every chance he got, he would drag my uncle off-base during leave to the closest bar or casino like a kid in an amusement park."
"I like him already," Misato giggled, a bit tipsy now.
Shinji however, shook his head. "When the post-Impact and postwar recessions hit though," he continued, "the guy got more and more into that stuff, until one night he collapsed into a coma. My uncle barely got him to the hospital, and even then the alcohol poisoning had already done a number on his liver, which was practically shriveled out and rotting. He wasn't dead thanks to my uncle, but he was practically a living pin cushion hooked up to tubes and IV needles stuck into him... and practically throwing up his stomach and lungs."
Shinji saw as Misato suddenly gagged and spit her beer off to the side. The older woman coughed loudly as she started to look sick. She suddenly ran off to the kitchen sink which was almost cluttered with a mess, and Shinji heard Misato retching, running the water, and then retching some more. He just shook his head at it all. 'She's taking some hard lessons to heart,' he thought.
Misato continued running the sink to wash down the mess she made and wash out her mouth. She calmed down enough to stop, but the image of herself in that bed wasting away with tubes stuck in her had stuck.
"You alright?" Shinji suddenly asked behind her.
Misato breathed heavily before looking back at Shinji with a bit of a glare. "Did you have to be so graphic?"
Shinji just shrugged his shoulders. "Hey, you asked first," he just deflected, "and I just happen to care as well."
"Screw you..." Misato just shook her head.
"You're welcome," Shinji said, stifling a snicker from leaving his lips.
Misato sauntered back to the table and sat back down. She tried to finish the rest of the beer in her can, but found herself unable to, thinking of the horrific details of Shinji's story. 'Great, now I can't stop thinking about it,' Misato mentally groaned. Shinji Ikari had hardly been with her for a night, and he had already started sobering her up and ruining her enjoyment of beer faster than any therapist could accomplish. She somberly set aside the beer and decided to just finish the goop that was instant food in front of her.
After the two finished, Shinji went to the sink to rinse his plate and cutlery, only for his inner neat freak to see red and green at the sight of the crummy dishes lying around. The neat freak was suddenly overtaken, or supplanted by a sort of determination from the inner Ultra residing in him. With pursed lips and Ultra stamina, he grabbed the washing gloves next to the sink and put them on. He began to run the water full blast and dousing the dishes and sink with the dish-washing soap.
"Shinji?" Misato asked as she watched in bewilderment.
"Well, Misato," Shinji began, "if I'm sharing this place with you, I'm going to be helping to maintain it like it really is my house, starting with all this." He grabbed a scrubber and began to viciously attack the stains, thinking of them as little kaiju for him to clean house on. With astonishing speed, he cleared the sink and left the dishes to dry on a rack, then proceeded to whip out a trash bag from under the sink and shove the old cup noodle containers and beer cans into it.
"Whoa," Misato was stunned at how Shinji was cleaning up with Superman-like vigor, "I was about to suggest that we play rock-paper-scissors to divide up chores..." She then smirked teasingly, "but then again-"
Misato was cut off by a cleaning cloth being tossed her way. "If you have time to chat about chores," Shinji stared back at her as he followed up with a spray bottle, "then you have time to help tidy up your own kitchen and dining room." He had a serious, dutiful demeanor about him. Shinji pulled out the rest of the cleaning supplies from under the sink and set them out like an armorer handing out weapons to troopers. "You can help with cleaning the stains off the table and counters while I handle the debris," he told her.
"Shinji-"
"Let's just finish this," Shinji gave a firm expression that almost made Misato think of a younger Commander Ikari, "then we at least have one clean area to start with."
Misato sighed in resignation. 'Yep... he's definitely the Commander's son,' she thought as she started spraying and wiping. She continued to glance at Shinji, who was practically a rampaging cleaner as he went about sweeping up the trash. Strangely, he seemed to hardly break a sweat or his calm demeanor as he worked at an almost blurring speed. After five minutes, the kitchen and dining table were sparkling and smelling fresh. Shinji stood tall and proud with the vacuum cleaner like a staff, while Misato was panting.
'Should have thought of tidying up a bit before brining him here.' Misato was tired, but after looking upon the kitchen, she could not help but feel a little better with how better-looking and fresh-smelling it was. She looked to Shinji and saw how strong and tireless he seemed. His personality and physical profile compiled by NERV agents definitely failed to do justice to this specimen of a young man next to her.
"Well," Shinji said, "I think that should do it for tonight." He set the vacuum off to the side. "I think I'll go and take a shower to freshen up."
"Go right ahead..." Misato said as she collapsed back into her dining seat. She thought about getting herself another beer to relax, but then the image of the wingman Shinji talked about came back to haunt her. 'Ugh... curse you for that Shinji...' she bemoaned to herself, before settling on an iced soda.
A few minutes later, Shinji entered the bathroom with just his shirt, boxers, and a towel. He nonchalantly took his shirt off and was about to remove his boxers when he saw that the tub was filled with water. "Already?" Shinji wondered why the tub was filled, when he sensed that something was in the water. Stopping himself, he looked into the water. Suddenly, an animal that was apparently a penguin came up and shook its head. "Oh!" Shinji was a bit startled before staring at the penguin-creature that looked at him with a strange look. Shinji walked out to the dining room.
"Misato," Shinji called out, "there is some sort of penguin taking a swim in the restroom." As though on cue, the mentioned penguin waddled past him. Shinji just stared at the strange animal with some sort of backpack just walking up to one of the fridges.
"Oh, that's my pet, Pen-Pen," Misato just casually introduced, "an experimental warm-water penguin that I adopted." Pen-Pen looked up at Misato, holding a can of soda. The penguin seemed to nod with approval, before opening the fridge and taking a can of soda.
"A penguin that likes warm water... and drinks soda," Shinji said with a hint of amusement and fascination. He would have been weirded out, but his training involving fighting all sorts of weird hostile kaiju meant that he had become somewhat used to encountering strange creatures.
Pen-Pen gave 'wark wark' sounds of apparent approval to Misato. The penguin then turned around and waved a greeting to Shinji. Finding it rather cute, Shinji gave a friendly smile and waved back. Pen-Pen then opened the second fridge which did have his bed and 'room' of sorts and settled in.
"Oh, nice abs and muscles there," Misato said with a quirk of her eyebrows. She saw that Shinji's arms were indeed quite muscular for his slim build, and he even had a six-pack on his exposed abs.
"Oh..." Shinji turned slightly pink as he saw that his fine-toned build was on display. "Thank you, I guess," he replied before going back to the restroom. He had a feeling that this was going to be quite a stay.
"So how's your stay with the new guardian?" Shin Asuka's voice came over Shinji's wireless earbuds as they chatted over the phone.
"Her name is Misato," Shinji replied as he laid on his bed in his new room, "and she seems okay. Though I might have accidentally cured her of an alcohol addiction." He told his Ultra mentor about what he said to Misato over dinner and her spit-take reaction.
Shin Asuka roared with laughter. "Shinji, you are cruel!" Shin jested.
"For one, I won't have to worry about a drunk guardian and other potential issues," Shinji said with a grin, "I would think I was doing her a favor."
"Brutally honest way of a favor... and I like that!" Shin laughed.
"I learned from the best," Shinji jested back as the two Ultra friends had a good one.
It was then that Shin decided to ask. "So... did you learn anything new about your dad or NERV?"
Shinji's expression grew serious. "Well, you saw that giant robot I was in yesterday? It's NERV and Father's pet project, called Evangelion," Shinji related, "and for whatever reason, I'm apparently the only one who can make it move."
"Children piloting kaiju-sized war machines?" Shin sounded off with a hint of disgust in his voice, "boy, if that doesn't remind me of a bad memory." He thought about the scheme that was pulled with Zaigorg back in his world.
"And that's not the worst of it," Shinji added, "Father threatened that if I refused to pilot, he was going to put an injured girl into the cockpit to pilot it."
"No," Shin sounded off on the phone.
"It's true," Shinji said with a headshake, "and if I hadn't stepped in... I don't wanna think."
"What a piece of work, your dad," Shin said, wondering how Shinji could have such a man for a father.
"You can say that again," Shinji agreed.
"Anyways... so if they are stuffing you into some giant robot, how are you going to fight as Evangel?"
"You were flying space jets for Super GUTS while fighting as Ultraman Dyna," Shinji grinned, "and I did say that I learned from the best. I'll figure things out as they come."
"Hehe... well I'd better let you go, Shinji. Good night, little bro," Shin said.
"You too... Ultra Bro," Shinji replied before hanging up and setting his phone aside. He laid back on his pillow, but found himself thinking about Evangelion. He found the purple monstrous-looking Eva Uni 01 to be eerily familiar, and the way it connected to him was almost symbiotic with a sensation of a long-lost connection from his past that he could not put his finger on yet.
Then there was Rei Ayanami. Whenever he was close to her, his Splendor glowed with a warmth that brought a strange level of deja vu and a sort of... care for her wellbeing. It just felt natural to care for her and even want to protect her. He had only met this quiet girl for a short time, and yet felt this strong, heart-felt desire to keep her safe, whether from the Angels or from whatever his father was up to.
'Who are you Rei... and what is Father and NERV up to...' Shinji thought as he drifted off to sleep, still having her face in the eye of his mind.
Episode 3 - Reactions and Much Ado About Life, Part 1
I am terribly sorry about the late update, but working life and life in general can really take a lot out of ya. XD
I had hoped to make a longer chapter, but I ultimately decided to split the intended chapter into two parts, especially to be able to fit more into Shinji/Evangel's interactions with other characters.
Thanks to those who reviewed, followed, and faved this story through thick and thin, and I hope you all remain on board for the rest of this Ultra Evangelion adventure!
Enjoy, and God Bless! :)
