Creation began on 04-21-22

Creation ended on 07-16-22

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Hope from the Future: For Naught

A/N: What does SEELE have to say about all of these creatures that have arisen and how Monarch deals with them and NERV's inability to continue being useful?

Even in a holographic meeting of the masters behind the curtains, nobody in the SEELE council were pleased with the discovery of the Godzilla attack on NERV HQ and the death of Gendo Ikari, the latter of which had a higher cost to them…and not for humane reasons.

"So it would seem," went SEELE 06 to the rest, "that everything we have spent all of our considerable time and resources on to achieve…is now for naught."

"If the theft of Adam never occurred, this wouldn't have happened," said SEELE 02. "This debacle can be pinned on Ryoji Kaji, and by extension, all of Japan."

"And all because Ikari tried to hijack Human Instrumentality from us before we could even implement it," added SEELE 11.

"What's done is done," SEELE 07 expressed. "We have lost Adam and Lilith because of Ikari and these…Titans. All that can be done now is to ensure nothing about either can be traced back to us."

"It's hardly a matter of concern!" SEELE 06 yelled out. "The world is more interested in the revelation that these creatures exist! The media outlets have been going on about these monsters for the last twelve hours! How more of them have been appearing since this Godzilla showed up. One looks like a mammoth without a trunk, another looks like a spider mixed with a squid… How did these creatures become a inescapable hindrance?"

"Because Ikari's son somehow got stranded in the past after NERV made the despicable decision to blow the Twelfth Angel up with every N² explosive the JSSDF had left, which did nothing to salvage the Eva, their only actual concern at the time," SEELE 12 informed. "The boy tried to change the past and failed, but ended up leaving behind a legacy that still changed things and messed with our scenario. He made sure nobody could use the Eva after having its core removed and left knowledge of these creatures' existence."

"Only the creatures he was aware of at the time," SEELE 01 stated. "It's possible that there were creatures he knew next to nothing about. Who knows what Monarch told him?"

"It was Monarch that approached him in the past after he was displaced in the year Nineteen-Fifty-Four," SEELE 03 told them. "Ten years after he first appeared, after killing what became known to Monarch as the Nineteen-Fifty-Four Godzilla, a relative of the one that killed Ikari inside the Geo-Front. A second Godzilla had appeared and they had no means to repel it, prompting the coalition to approach the boy for his aid."

While the majority of their blame was directed towards Gendo Ikari, they knew there was still plenty of blame to direct towards Shinji Ikari, even though he was only acting on information he knew scarcely of, which didn't help much in affecting the present…but whose temporal displacement clearly left ripples that continued to affect the future. The father murdered by a creature viewed by people of the past as a sort of deity…and the son that died a year ago due to natural causes, under the belief that he failed to change the future after his brief encounter with a lesser member of the creature's species…despite some of his minor changes having some impact on the world. Both Ikaris had different encounters with different members of an ancient species…but left great reactions that wouldn't go away.

-x-

It seemed like time was standing still for some of them, but the thing of it was…time still seemed to move in a strange way. With Gendo Ikari dead, the chain of command went to Kozo Fuyutsuki, but he was still away from NERV, which, for the time being, left the chain of command to Misato Katsuragi, who simply ordered that anyone left within the Geo-Front vacate it to safer areas, just in case Godzilla returned.

"I don't get it," went Asuka as Misato drove across the streets of Tokyo-3. "Why? Why would Godzilla come back to Tokyo-3…just to kill Shinji's father?"

"Did any of Shinji's journals say anything about these creatures targeting specific people?" Kaji asked; he and Rei were with Misato and Asuka, as nowhere else seemed to be safe for the moment after what befell Gendo.

"Only Mothra, and she was justified in her actions when she first appeared. The Shobijin of that time had been kidnapped by some men to be used for economic gain. When Monarch found out and Mothra appeared to rescue them, Shinji could understand why such a creature like Mothra would go to great lengths to do as she did. When you take something that isn't yours, you place everyone in danger until the matter is resolved. When you capture someone that won't submit to you, you risk other people's lives in the pursuit of profit, whether it's business or pleasure."

"And Godzilla viewed Commander Ikari as a threat because of something he did?" Rei questioned Asuka.

"If that's the only reason, what was it that made him a threat to Godzilla…or the world, even?"

"Maybe it was the way he treated other people," Misato suggested, as Gendo wasn't known to be a people person.

Whatever the reason was, it didn't change the fact that Gendo was now dead, killed by a god that walked the world after being gone for a long time. Now that he had returned, there was really no telling what could happen to them. None of them could say for certain what could happen now. It was no longer their place to decide anything.

Shinji, how are we supposed to survive in a world of monsters that were here long before any of us were? Asuka wondered.

"If we're to survive, we have to find ways to coexist with the MUTOs and Titans," she recalled reading somewhere in one of his diaries, but there was a difference between trying to coexist…and trying to dominate.

All Asuka could accept right now was that when it came to people as a whole, they had a lousy track record of coexisting with other creatures…unless they had no other alternative…and how desperate they often were to disregard the alternatives that did exist.

To be continued…

A/N: Fear not, for there is always hope for all of humanity. The next chapter will focus on the epic scene that most enjoyed to this very day.