Creation began on 09-13-20

Creation ended on 08-10-22

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Enter the Star Warrior Kirby

A/N: Even within the tiniest of us, there lies a potential hero.

NERV had nothing but bad press and disgust by the media via the public. Even when two months went by and the paramilitary agency had time to regroup, the personnel had lost a great of respect and credibility from the Japanese nation. Not even the transfer of the Second Child and Unit-02 did anything to lift the bad cloud of negativity from NERV, as it seemed more people that commuted to and from Tokyo-3 were looking into other areas to commute to and from due to a leak in information.

"…So, one kid gets treated badly by NERV, and the whole nation looks down on NERV?" Asuka Langley Soryu questions Misato as they walked down the hallway to Central Dogma.

"It wasn't everyday that you find out someone that was expected to pilot the Eva is someone that went missing eleven years ago because he was taken away by an alien from another world, Asuka," the woman explained, "but, yes, ever since the Third Child's brief return and departure, NERV has lost the respect of the public of Japan. They say it was a miracle that the boy was still alive and unharmed, despite the fact that he hadn't aged a day since he was last seen. But his father was…less than happy that he was here and still a little boy."

"He was still a little boy? As in, really little? Not even five years old yet? That little?"

"Yes. It's unbelievable, I know, but so was the fact that the alien that took him being the same one that brought him back, only to take him away again when the boy expressed his desire to leave after what his father did."

"So, the kid shows up after disappearing for more than ten years, unchanged during the whole time, gets the third degree by his old man, and then gets rescued by the same alien that took him away to begin with?"

"More or less, Asuka. Honestly, I think Shinji's better off away from here. His father did point a gun at him before he left."

Asuka found this to be quite ridiculous, but had to consider that maybe it was better than having the Third Child here. If NERV wanted a little boy, practically a baby, to pilot an Eva, there'd be issues regarding how and why this needed to be so.

"Tell me something," she wanted to know, "what would NERV had done to the boy if you needed him to pilot and he was still little?"

"From what Ritsuko informed me," Misato explained, "NERV would've subjected him to constant injections for growth hormone acceleration, forcing his body to develop faster until he was physically in his early teens. However, something like that would've been unethical and viewed as inhumane. It hasn't even been performed on a human due to the illegality of doing so; just the mere idea of it being committed is considered an abomination…and I personally couldn't see any child, even someone that should've been fourteen instead of three, being subjected to something like this, even for the sake of protecting the human race. It could've caused him immense pain, forcing him to mature like that."

"Why do you think the boy came back to begin with?"

"Probably to see if his father was a changed man. He probably regretted coming back and seeing that he wasn't a changed man at all. There were no words of kindness from his father at all; the guy was just disappointed in the fact that he disappeared and didn't grow an inch for over a decade. Most parents would've been brought to tears at the sight of their kid in the flesh…but Commander Ikari… Nothing but contempt. Even his son deserved better than him."

-x-

"…So, what made you decide to help the boy leave with the alien, sir?" Ryoji Kaji asked Fuyutsuki as the latter sat in the cafeteria, trying to enjoy his lunch.

"He didn't deserve to be locked up and treated like a laboratory specimen," he answered the man. "Not that I was willing to risk anything of the sort happening to him. And then, there was Kirby; if he only returned to see how Shinji was doing, it was anyone's guess as to what he'd do if the boy was harmed. Letting him go with Kirby ensured that nobody else was harmed after the alien dealt with the Angel."

"Some believe that letting the boy go was to spite Commander Ikari."

Fuyutsuki couldn't deny that being a possibility. In fact, some part of him, however small, did enjoy the little victory he received from watching Gendo lose his son due to his own arrogance. Even if Shinji chose never to return after what Gendo did to him, it was still a victory that would follow Fuyutsuki to the grave.

"No child deserves to be locked up or treated like they mean nothing to their father by their father," he told Kaji. "If Ikari was going to lock him up or run experiments on him, then the boy deserved to be free to decide what he wanted to do with his life, even if it meant hurting some people in the process."

"What makes you think he's still alive after what happened to him here?"

"He claimed where he lived after he left wasn't a bad place. There were friendly people that lived where Kirby took him. A planet in the shape of a star, a place where seasons exist. Who wouldn't believe in such a place?"

-x-

Even though Shinji never had much of an interest in swimming, it didn't stop him from hanging out with Tiff and Tuff by the beach, provided he had his water wings and a tube to keep him from sinking. He was a terrible swimmer, but one of the things that made Dream Land's beach area a pleasant place to attempt to practice swimming was how there were no dangers in the water. No sharks, no giant squids, no jellyfish or even sea monsters to attack the local residents. This made Shinji not so afraid of the water, with the exception of going too far out and not being able to reach the shore without aid.

Kirby had left two days ago to return to Earth to protect the people from other creatures like the one Shinji saw, so there was no telling when he'd be back on Popstar. But from what Kirby was able to ascertain from what he learned from the creature that had attacked the people, there were at least ten more Angels, and each one as diverse and unpredictable as this Sachiel had been, despite being a simple organism in terms of form and abilities. But the creature, as Kirby pointed out, was still adapting, becoming more powerful than it was in the beginning, and if it had adapted each time the humans hit it with something that failed to kill it, it would've been next to unstoppable and able to wipe out the whole planet.

Shinji, no matter how he felt about his father being a loser and a monster, didn't want others to suffer because of the creatures out to get rid of them all. And, from what he was informed not too long ago, there were other people, just like himself, from the Earth, that had left long before he had to live on Popstar…and he had only met ten of them, and they were slightly older than he was…and less than mobile. Apparently, Kirby had a periodic drive to find people that had been abandoned, were looking for a change, or even just wanting to get away from what they felt was a miserable end to an unhappy life, even if it was only for a day. But life on Popstar was different for humans due to the atmosphere, putting their bodies on pause in terms of what Shinji understood as cellular activity; the human body being comprised of a multitude of cells, each one designed to divide as time went by, but when they can't divide any longer, they simply stop and cease to be, which enabled humans to age the way they did. Being on Popstar, however, forced a halt in this aspect, preventing aging and letting people live longer; Shinji had met a woman that claimed to have come from a place on Earth called Egypt, and she was probably the oldest at being over what he learned to be three-thousand years old…and still spry, despite looking only thirty-eight years old.

If Shinji had stayed on Earth, where people were bound to the frailties of their existence, he would've resumed aging like he had before he left with Kirby, eventually growing up and growing old or until something else happened that caused his body to stop doing what it did to keep him alive. But nobody on Popstar was everlasting. Nobody on Popstar was above the unavoidable, which was why they had to be careful not to get hurt too much.

Oh? Shinji thought, feeling like something had touched him under the water. But…there are no sharks or monsters in the water around Dream Land.

Suddenly, he felt something else touched his feet and bottom…and the water around him receding, revealing a large creature.

"Oh!" He gasped as he was on the back of a large, whale-like creature with green and blue scales on its surface and fin-like wings on its sides.

"Oh, my gosh!" He heard Tiff yell. "It's a dream whale!"

-x-

"…It came back again?" Asuka questioned Misato as NERV was alerted to the return of Kirby as his ship drifted above the planet in space. "Why would it come back again?"

"It's anyone's guess, but if it came back for a reason," said Fuyutsuki as he was watching the ship the alien was in, "maybe he can be reasoned with."

"You want to talk to it?" The Second Child asked him. "You want to talk to an alien?"

"The last time anyone tried to speak with this thing," stated Kaji, but it was only based on what little information that had been available at the time of the initial encounter, "it sucked them up and spat them out or slapped them on their faces."

"That occurred when people attempted to engage the alien negatively," Fuyutsuki expressed; the only people that were never harmed by Kirby were Shinji, himself and those that didn't raise a gun to him or try to impede his actions, which were to get Shinji away from the Geo-Front after the boy expressed his desire to return to Popstar. "If we're just trying to talk to him, there's no risk of conflict between either us or him."

"Except you can't guarantee that this alien will speak with us," Ritsuko informed him.

"Uh, this thing's ship is practically parked in the air space just above the country," went Shigeru, pointing out that Kirby's ship was situated right over the archipelago, as if deliberately situated there for the alien to drop down on them whenever it chose to.

But Gendo, who was also present when the alien returned, had a scornful expression behind his glasses. He blamed this thing for the disappearance, return, departure and embarrassing revelation surrounding the Third Child and his unchanged appearance, and wanted it disposed of. Losing Shinji was just a woeful thorn in his side and the fact that the boy chose to leave a second time with this creature was a betrayal towards Gendo and everything he had sacrificed for his goal. It was his hope that someone else would view this footage of the pink alien in space and view it as a hostile threat against the planet; if NERV couldn't be charged with destroying it, there were plenty of other agencies or the military superpowers of the world that would love to get their hands dirty with getting recognition for getting rid of it.

-x-

All Kirby had to do was wait now until the next child of Adam made themselves known to the world. For now, he would be above the planet and observe the landmasses that made up Japan. Although most of the planet was covered in water, from a distance, it seemed unchanged in the aftermath of a devastation, but if one looked at Earth more thoroughly, they would've saw that Japan's landmasses were less than they had been over a decade ago…and the planet had lost one of its polar dominions, replaced by nothing but additional water, which resulted in several coastal areas no longer being present. While Kirby had the barest of information taken from Sachiel, it was enough to understand, in the barest sense, that the cause of this planet's global misfortune…was the fault of people themselves, those in control of the world they lived on, the men and women that thought they could live at the top and decide everything that the rest of the world did.

But as a whole, the people were no different from any other race belonging to any other planet in the universe to Kirby; they were diverse, complete with individuals that were positive and negative, with different ideas, opinions and so on. Some wanted to do good for others while others wanted to do things for personal reasons. And for some when it comes to desire, they were willing to do the worst to obtain their goals while the rest of the world just wanted to move on with their lives. But as a Star Warrior, Kirby had to protect the weak and defenseless from those that would do harm to them, and humans, a species that was still young and unaware of their potential greatness, was among those weak and defenseless specks of existence.

Beep-beep! His ship went, detecting a new threat on the planet that matched the initial threat he faced before he took Shinji back to Popstar.

An image appeared on the screen, depicting a strange, red creature that resembled a squid of sorts with a jewel under its head.

"Poyo," Kirby reacted, and vacated his ship to descend to the planet.

It was time to protect the people once more.

-x-

Even when NERV had more time to prepare for the next Angel, it still felt like they were ill-equipped to deal with it while the JSSDF fired their missiles against it as it made landfall from the Pacific Ocean.

"What's the status of the Evas?" Misato questioned Maya.

"Unit-02 is being launched, but Unit-00 is two minutes behind," she answered.

There had been an attempt to activate Unit-01 with Rei, but something went wrong; the Eva, despite having a similar software system as Unit-00, failed to activate with the First Child. For some reason, this particular Evangelion was problematic when trying to get to work for NERV. It was as though, against human innovation, it was defective and unable to function, giving the makers a difficult time that could've been used to create refined versions of it to serve the greater good for the world.

"The JSSDF just ran out of munitions," Shigeru informed.

"What the Hell is that alien doing?" Hyuga questioned, and all eyes were on Kirby as he entered the fray, floating down towards the archipelago.

"Where's it going?" Misato demanded to know.

"Tracking, tracking… It looks like it's heading towards the Angel."

-x-

The Fourth Angel, Shamshel, floated above the streets and beside the smaller buildings as it approached its destination…until it felt the presence of something different from itself…and from the Lilin, halting its progression. It looked up and saw…something tiny and not as shaped as the Lilin.

-x-

Kirby looked down at the Angel and knew that it wouldn't stop unless stopped. Willing his body to become stone like before, he fell from the height he was at…and onto the Angel's exterior, sending it crashing onto the ground below.

"Rrrrraaurgh!" The Angel shrieked, feeling like a piece of its hide had been broken off by the attack. "Rrraurgh!"

Flash! Kirby, having broken off a piece of the Angel, consumed it and assimilated its properties, a sample of its powers to use against it.

Now, Kirby was the same shade of red as the Angel, wielding a pair of light energy whips and wearing the same mask as before with the previous Angel.

"Star Warrior Kirby: Shamshel Mode!" He announced, and then whipped his whips at the Angel, inflicting damage to its exterior, harming it.

-x-

"…You have gotta be kidding," went Asuka inside Unit-02 as she saw Kirby attacking the Angel. "It's actually causing harm to the Angel?"

Maya and Ritsuko checked, and it was confirmed that Kirby, now apparently with the power of this Angel, was inflicting grievous harm to the Angel.

"It seems like whatever this alien is, if it's able to break even just a small piece of the Angel and consumes it, it gains that Angel's power, whatever they're capable of. It uses the Angel's own abilities to fight the Angel."

"Like fighting fire with fire," Misato realized; while the Evas were merely artificial copies of the First Angel, meaning they were pale in comparison to the Angels themselves, but a creature that could assimilate its enemy's abilities, becoming sort of an exact copy of them, that was an opponent that was representing yourself on a level that was unspoken of. It's like facing yourself in a warped mirror or something…or an evil twin, even.

Then, watching as Kirby propelled himself forward and pushed the Angel away from the city, the NERV personnel saw the small alien that had copied the Angel's abilities put its arms together, forming a sort of drill with the laser-like whips, rotating it like an actual drill, and propelled forward again, aiming towards the Angel's core.

Pierce! Kirby went right through the Angel's body and soon reverted back to his original state…and the Angel fell to the ground, its core exploding into pieces, leaving the giant monster a lifeless husk.

"Incredible," went Kaji; he couldn't believe that a small creature like this pink alien could defeat an Angel with its own power.

Then, Kirby floated away from the scene of his victory and the Angel's defeat.

To be continued…

A/N: EchoingNeptune's non-review pressured this chapter's completion. Please, let the next review be a review. I hope this impresses people until the next chapter.