Creation began on 10-30-14
Creation ended on 11-02-14
Neon Genesis Evangelion
To Protect or Enslave
A/N: What is it about Different from You that draws readers to it more than my other works of Evangelion? Is it the fact that I made Shinji a rape victim? That I made him a teen parent? That he considers his child the only good thing he ever did in his life? People should try giving my other works a chance because they're just as good.
A black Sedan pulled up in front of a building and released about four men in black suits and glasses, looking like government agents out of a comic book or the Secret Service. The building itself looked like one of those apartment buildings that dotted most cities in Japan, but was not as advanced as the ones seen in Tokyo-3.
As the men in black stepped inside the building, a man sitting at a counter noticed them and uttered, "Hey, hey! You can't just barge in here! This is a private residence!"
One of them approached the counter and presented a picture of Shinji Ikari to him.
"We're looking for this young man," he explained. "We received an anonymous tip that he resides here with a little girl. Is this true?"
"Sir, I couldn't tell you, even if I wanted to," the man responded. "This is a private residence for people that value their privacy, security and safety."
"We can place you under arrest for interfering in an official investigation," another of the four men in black informed him. "Is the young man here?"
"I'm not interfering in any investigation, but like I said, I couldn't tell you, even if I wanted to. This building is full of people that don't want trouble from anyone."
-x-
Across the street from the building, a young man watched as the lights inside the windows flickered on. He suspected that the residents of the apartment building were being disturbed by the four men that got out of the Sedan and stepped inside.
"Are they the reason you didn't stay in your building?" He asked, closing the curtains and turning to face Shinji Ikari, who sat by his table, counting several dollar bills he had.
"It's been a year since I left Japan, and after my daughter was attacked by my father just yesterday," Shinji explained to him, counting eighty grand in his hand right now. "He hurt my daughter, tried to kidnap her, and I can only suspect why he was at the park at all."
"This something to do with the reason he called you to that Tokyo-3 place last year?"
"Maybe. I just don't want my daughter getting hurt because of something I did last year just to get us away from all that hatred."
"Daddy?" They heard a little girl's voice, and Shinji saw Shado coming out of a room, dressed in footed pajamas based off the zebra.
"Couldn't sleep?" Shinji asked her as she went over to him.
"Bad dream," she explained. "The monster was in it again, along with that bad man."
He picked her and sat her on his lap.
-x-
"…The Third Child wasn't anywhere in the building he was reported to be living in," one of the men in black phoned to his superior. "He must be on the move."
"Find him," the voice of Gendo Ikari responded on the other end of the phone.
-x-
"How do you propose getting the Third Child to rejoin NERV?" Ritsuko asked Gendo.
"He won't have a choice," he answered her.
-x-
"…I don't understand why NERV seems so obsessed with this boy," went the redhead, Asuka, looking at the picture of Shinji. "He's not much to look at, and he only piloted the Eva, what, once? What's so special about him?"
"If Commander Ikari says he's needed for NERV, then he is needed for NERV," responded Rei to her, sealing her plugsuit for another round of testing Unit-00.
"How does one boy attract so much of NERV's attention? I mean, we've beaten five Angels without him being around."
Rei couldn't forget those battles. After the Third Child had left, several weeks went by until the Fourth Angel arrived to destroy mankind. It took both Units-01 and 02 to defeat it. Then the Fifth Angel, with all the power from Japan's power grid after Unit-02 was nearly reduced to molten pulp.
She didn't know what occurred during the Sixth Angel incident, but only that the Second Child took care of it. They then worked together again to defeat the Seventh Angel, which had been split in half by Unit-02, and had nearly lost Tokyo-3 trying to protect it from the Eighth Angel, which was a massive bomb of an enemy.
The Third Child only defeated one Angel, and left after that incident and wasn't seen since that day until NERV got word of his whereabouts in New York.
One thing Rei overheard shortly after that incident was debatable, but the possible rumor that the Third Child had been a female criminal's "baby daddy" years ago, unknowingly fathering a child he didn't know about until after its mother died in prison.
Asuka, on the other hand, didn't seem to know about the boy's history.
-x-
"…Will I have to wear my hair in a braid all the time?" Shado asked Shinji, who was tending to his daughter's hair the next day.
"No," he answered her, putting the finishing touches on her braid. "It's just while we're outside for today. If we see anyone that pays too much attention to us, they shouldn't be able to recognize you."
"Why can't you just change my hair color?"
"No, there's nothing wrong with your hair color the way it is, Shado. Okay, all done."
Shado looked at her brain in the mirror and placed the end of it over her right shoulder and put on her green sailor cap.
"How do I look?" She asked him, dressed in a purple shorts and a blue, short-sleeved shirt with a black tank top underneath it.
"Heh-heh. Adorable." He called her, and then hugged her.
"You're the best, Daddy."
Hearing that made Shinji's heart swell with a small degree of pride that he had at being a parent to such a girl like his daughter. It just made him forget more about his rape that resulted in her conception. Something that was that bad resulted in something that was quite good. It still surprised him that he was actually the girl's father, able to ignore who her mother was.
-x-
"…We're monitoring phone calls, credit cards, video surveillance," Ritsuko told Gendo, the MAGI now linked to every camera and phone system being used in New York. "If he tries anything, we'll know."
"It's unlikely he'll try anything," Kaji told her. "He was able to get out of Japan without making a peep, and this pharmaceutical company paid him almost two-million for his participation as a guinea pig for their new medicines. He doesn't have a checking account, so it's safe to assume that he keeps the money in safe deposit boxes somewhere."
"What's wrong with just trying to talk to him peacefully?" Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki questioned.
"After being made aware that his father was looking for him, he disappeared," Misato revealed; there was no doubt that the boy was fearful for his daughter's safety if Gendo put his hands on her.
-x-
This time, Shinji took Shado to a different park, sitting on a bench that was at least a bit closer to where he could keep a closer eye on her as she played with the other children around her age on the playground equipment. Her minor makeover seemed to keep her from harm's way as he tried to read the newspaper that he had with him, working on improving his English. But he couldn't help but look around the park at others that were there; he had to be vigilant of his daughter's safety, keeping everyone he didn't know or trust at a distance.
So far, nobody seemed to be looking his daughter's way, which was a good thing, but he still couldn't relax a little. He couldn't even sleep for five hours last night because of a nightmare he had with his father trying to force his daughter into the Evangelion to fight a monster similar to the one he had beaten before departing the Japanese city and the very country itself.
"Daddy, stop him!" Shado screamed, being forced into the Entry Plug.
He shook the nightmare out of his conscious, fearing that it was no different from premonition, a warning of greater woes to come.
As Shado was about to go down a slide, the girl stopped and looked at her father, who seemed incapable of relaxing after what happened the last time they were at the park. She sighed and worried that he would get hurt by his own hands if he didn't take it easy. And then she looked around the playground for anybody that might've been looking at her and saw no one doing such, but she didn't feel safe, anymore. She went down the slide and went towards the swing set, sitting in one of the four swings available.
"New around here?" A boy to her left asked her.
"Um, yes," she answered him.
He was around her age, dressed in a red shirt and green shorts, with glossy, blond hair and hazel-colored eyes.
"Nathaniel," he introduced himself to her.
"Shado," she responded, "without the 'W'."
"Nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you, too."
"How long have you been in the city?"
"Not that long. You?"
"Two years, at least."
"Before then?"
"Germany, and my parents were glad to get away from there."
"Why?"
"All my father would say that it was a difficult family matter that had no better solution."
"I think I understand that. Difficult family matters, I mean. Daddy and I had to get away from a place that was hard to live in, too, because there were people that just didn't like us."
"I have a grandmother and a cousin that were just too difficult to be around. The last time I saw my cousin, she was just…proud all the time."
"And that was bad?"
"My father introduced me to a basic understanding of pride, and it's that if a person feels that they are more important, more better than those around them when they are not, then they are full of themselves for believing such."
Shado nodded at this, trying to comprehend all of what she learned.
"My grandfather hates Daddy… A lot of people hate Daddy…and he's never done anything wrong," she revealed bits of her sad history to the boy, just enough to explain some of what had been past tense…and without revealing everything.
"That's awful, hating someone for no reason at all," Nathaniel expressed.
Shado then looked at where her father was sitting, and smiled at him.
Shinji just smiled back.
-x-
Kozo Fuyutsuki couldn't get the little girl that was Shinji's daughter out of his mind. As he stood in front of Unit-01, the girl's voice, her cry for her father to get away from the Third Angel, echoed in his conscious.
"Daddy, get away!" Her voice had uttered in fear.
Shinji had to have been less than ten years old when he had been raped by his female kidnapper, and managed to father a little girl that seemed completely innocent of all the horrors that befell the boy. It was one of the few things that made the elder wonder how and why something like this could happen to a boy that hadn't done anything wrong to anyone. And yet, when it came to leaving Japan and trying to find a life elsewhere in the USA, Fuyutsuki saw Shinji as a young man that had been thrust into fatherhood right after his childhood had become strained, and accepted this responsibility without hesitation, choosing to be the type of person that Gendo could've been, but chose not to be.
If it was between protecting and enslaving, he thought, walking away from the purple behemoth now, Shinji chooses to protect, but Gendo chooses to try and enslave. But Shinji wants only to protect his child. Gendo wants only to enslave both parent and child.
-x-
After the park, Shinji decided to treat Shado to a short time at the beach. It was mainly because the beach they were heading to was not as crowded as the other beaches around New York, and mostly because he wanted her to run along the shore as the waves came and went.
"Is this the beach, Daddy?" She asked him, pointing to a nearby beach that had some buildings that were partially-buried within the sand.
"Yeah," he answered. "That's New Drop Beach."
The sun was still pretty high, so there was enough light to ensure that the little girl had ample safety with which to play around in. Also, because they were the only two present on the beach, there was no risk of danger to either parent or child.
-x-
"…We've been keeping our distance with these two, but they might be the Third Child and his daughter," went a man over the phone to Gendo, as the NERV leader viewed a monitor that showed a little girl and a young man at a beach.
"He thinks he's so clever," said Ritsuko, noticing the little girl's hair had been tied into a braid as she ran back and forth against the tides.
"He probably just wants to have fun with his daughter," Fuyutsuki expressed, seeing the little girl now grabbing a handful of wet sand with a smile on her face.
But Gendo wasn't the least interested in this scene being monitored, recorded and sent back to base. If these two individuals on New Drop Beach were Shinji and his daughter, then NERV had to act up quickly before they lost track of them again. A whole year since the Third Angel attack was enough time for the Third Child to adjust to some measure of freedom. He needed the boy to pilot the Eva again and face the Angels.
"Ikari," Fuyutsuki uttered, "maybe we shouldn't do this."
But Gendo ignored the elder's suggestion. As Unit-00 had been repaired and upgraded after the arrival and defeat of the Fifth Angel, NERV had three Evangelions…and were short a pilot. While he could've chosen any of the candidates that went to the school to receive an education that were no different from cannon fodder, Gendo preferred to use his estranged son. And if he couldn't use the boy, then maybe his daughter would prove to be an adequate replacement.
-x-
Shado, exhausted from playing, ran toward her father and fell to palms and knees in front of him. She had so much fun that she lost track of the time that he was keeping track of.
"Is it time to go home yet?" She asked him.
Shinji checked his watch on his right wrist and found it was close to eight-thirty.
"Yeah," he told her. "Let's go home."
He picked her up and walked back up the path they took to find the bus stop that would have a bus waiting to take them home.
Snap! Shinji stopped, hearing a twig or something snap in half nearby, but he didn't see anyone because there wasn't enough light in the sky, anymore…and he didn't see any streetlights that were working.
"Daddy?" Shado asked, worried.
"It's probably nothing, sweetie," he told her, but he felt like he was lying to himself because he wasn't sure if they were being followed.
The young father resumed walking down the path.
Flash! A light was shone on his face by someone from a distance.
"Urgh!" Shinji reacted, turning his head away from the light.
"Shinji Ikari?" A man asked him.
"Who?" He responded.
"Shinji Ikari," the man repeated, revealed to be wearing a black suit.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
The light was then shone on Shado's face, frightening the girl as she held onto her father's shoulders tighter in fear.
"Hey, we just left the beach and we're going home now." Shinji told the man.
Suddenly, the man in black was accompanied by at least four others.
"We're from the paramilitary agency NERV," the initial man in black announced, "and we'd like it if you came with us."
"And if I were to decline?" He asked them.
"We have authorization to use force, if necessary, to make you cooperate," the man explained.
"On whose authority?"
"Commander Gendo Ikari."
"Don't know him."
But Shinji felt threatened by the five men, and put Shado down.
"The only way we'll be going anywhere with you," he told them, taking out a small, curved karambit knife with a longer blade, "is by force."
They didn't count on the boy being armed with a weapon; they had been told that he was likely to be defenseless and spineless. But the sight of the knife and the boy's defensive glare made them think differently now.
Shado ran over to a nearby tree and held onto the trunk, keeping watch on her father; they had been over this in the unlikely situation that someone wanted them to go somewhere with them against their will, and she was to keep a safe distance every time he pulled out his knife, which he felt was the lesser of the two defensive evils, with the other being a gun.
"I guess before we get started," Shinji told them, "does anyone want to get out?"
-x-
"…Understood," Fuyutsuki sighed, receiving an update from the agent from Section Two in New York, and hung up. "Section Two have the Third Child and his daughter in their custody and are bringing them to NERV.
"Excellent," Gendo expressed.
"Your son was armed with a knife," Fuyutsuki informed him. "He murdered three of the five agents that had them cornered…and the fourth agent tried to grab his daughter, ended up with stab wound to his groin."
Gendo didn't express any concern in the deaths or injuries to the agents; so long as the Third Child and his daughter were collected, nothing else mattered.
But Fuyutsuki wasn't convinced that this was right at all. He knew that Ikari knew that his son wanted nothing to do with NERV or the Evas, but he went ahead and had the pair captured like they were animals in a game hunt.
-x-
Shado defended her father's actions, regardless of what they were. As far as she was able to be convinced by anyone, Shinji had every right in his choice to defend himself and her from the men in black that came to them.
So the last two men left alive handcuffed her after they sedated Shinji, who tried to kill the fourth agent that tried to grab his daughter. The sight of her father unconscious and restrained made her worry that they were both in serious trouble if they ever met the bad man again.
"Something to drink, young lady?" One of the men in black suits asked her on the plane, offering a cup of water.
But Shado stayed quiet and ignored him.
To be continued…
A/N: This will be the last chapter worked on until I get to finish the next chapter of A New Cause. You see how far Gendo is willing to go to ensure that Shinji and Shado are in NERV custody, and how far Shinji is willing to go to protect his daughter and himself, even using a knife and willing to murder if threatened by others. Who do you think is truly good and who is extremely cruel?