Creation began on 04-13-15
Creation ended on 04-29-15
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Different from You: Refusal and Disdain
"He's not going to leave us alone, isn't he?" Shado's voice echoed in her father's subconscious as he slept.
"You will do as you're told, Third Child," he recalled Gendo's cold tone to him. "You will do as you're told, Third Child."
In his dreams, Shinji had trouble trying to stay positive when negative memories ran rampant to threaten the happier ones. He even had moments where stranger dreams found their way into his subconscious and played themselves out.
"How disgusting," he heard a young woman with red hair (almost the same as that redhead he saw at NERV HQ), and then saw a young man that looked broken beyond any measure of salvation (he never saw the resemblance between himself and the young man) end her life by snapping her neck.
"I have become Death, a destroyer of sinners," he saw a mirror of himself, cold and hollow, but completely different from Gendo, being set on murdering anyone that did wrong and made no attempt to atone for their crimes, and he was dressed in as traditional Japanese attire as possible for one attending a funeral, but wearing several firearms and a bandolier full of shotgun shells, like he was armed to go to war with whoever stood in his way.
"Daddy, please, help me!" His daughter cried, being held by her tied wrists over a pit of darkness by Gendo, whose right arm looked deformed and oversized, like a disease got into him and mutated his limb. "I don't wanna die!"
GASP! He awoke from his slumber, panting and covered with sweat.
Shado, his first thought came, and he looked over at the armchair where his child slept.
He then looked towards the window of the living room and saw cloudy skies. As he turned on the television, changing the channel to the morning news, he sighed at the thought of rainy weather.
"…And it looks like we're due for some rain later this week," a woman said, reporting the weather for the week.
Well, rain rarely hurts anyone, he accepted his up-to-date revelation of the current weather, and got off the couch to go to the kitchen to prepare breakfast.
-x-
It seemed to represent one of the only times the young father and his daughter were ever really happy in Japan, but the photo was also one of the only fragments of a less-than-happy life that was limited to what one simply could not have as long as they remained in Japan. And to be reminded of the fact that a young man that accepted his duty as a father and was willing to take his child and leave the country to start anew in a different place where nobody knew of them was why Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki took the only photo of Shinji and Shado from the residence they once lived at with Yui's relatives; it was to remind himself that these two were simply looking to have a good life and be accepted by others without so much as a degree of hatred or contempt.
"They look happy," he heard Captain Katsuragi say behind him.
"Yeah, they do," he agreed with her. "The aunt and uncle, however, don't care about them. They never did. And Ikari…it's hard to tell with him, but he clearly has no interest in even getting to know his grandchild…and his son has managed to move on and doesn't trust him or anyone alone with his daughter without any intention to harm either of them. Several people have already died because Ikari tried to harm them and claim it was just to pilot the Eva and fight the Angels, and nobody seems to understand that none of this needs to continue if they're just left alone."
-x-
ACHOO! Gendo sneezed, and then blew his nose as he continued down the street towards the building his son and granddaughter were reported to have resided in.
Damn it, he thought, mulling over the loss of Adam to those two creatures that stood up to him in defense of his estranged and bastard relatives, along with the hindrance he faced by his weakened immune system; he suspected the loss of Adam had unintended side-effects on himself that he didn't anticipate when he first consumed him. I'll make them pay for this.
The rain didn't let up, but he didn't care about that, since he had lost an important piece of his plan to hijack the Instrumentality Project from SEELE, as without Adam, he couldn't achieve the forbidden union between the progenitor of the Angels and the progenitor of the human race.
-x-
"…Tiffany!" The humanoid boy said on TV in front of Shado in the rainy afternoon. "Finn, I'm gonna kill you!"
"Eh-heh-heh!" The young girl laughed, as Adventure Time was a recent program she got into earlier this year. "Where do they come up with this stuff?"
"Probably the same place where they came up with Steven Universe," suggested Shinji to her, carrying a hamper full of dirty laundry. "I'm going to go wash the laundry now, Shado, so do behave yourself."
"Yes, Daddy," his daughter responded, and he left out the apartment to head down to the laundromat.
It would probably take him at least half an hour or less if there were no other tenants using the washers and dryers, but this this was what he adjusted to doing every few weeks.
"Yo, Finn," went the humanoid known as Tiffany to the human protagonist of the cartoon, "I'm gonna kill you!"
"No one can stop Finn," Shado uttered in disagreement over what the humanoid said. "He's Finn, the Human, and one of the greatest characters of the show."
"Doin' it for my tooth," said Finn to himself in response to Tiffany's threat to kill him.
-x-
Standing outside the building with a sign written in a language that was neither English or Japanese, Gendo, with an intense hatred over the two individuals that lived in the building, proceeded to step inside.
"Can I help you, sir?" Mister Spera asked him, now wondering where he had seen his face before.
"I'm looking for Shinji and Shado Ikari," Gendo clarified, and Mr. Spera realized that this man had to be affiliated with the group of men in black suits that came three times already looking for the young parent and his daughter.
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist that you leave the premises, immediately, sir," he told Gendo.
"And I'm afraid you don't understand," Gendo insisted. "You see, I'm the boy's father."
Then, his memory of a newspaper article came regarding the published story of the cause of the Second Impact disaster. The man's face was the same as one of those faces in the background of the picture of the day the so-called truth was published! And it also explained some of the major interest in the boy and his little girl.
"Oh, so you're Gendo Ikari," he uttered. "I recall your face from an article I read fifteen years ago."
"Yes, that is correct," Gendo expressed.
"You get the Hell outta here before I call the police!" Mister Spera shouted at him.
BANG! Gendo had shot Mr. Spera in the chest and sent him falling behind the desk.
GASP! He looked up and saw his son, having dropped a basket.
-x-
Oh, no! Shinji panicked, seeing Mr. Spera falling behind his desk after being shot by his estranged father, probably dead or injured. Shado! I gotta get her! Gotta keep her safe!
The sight of the gun in Gendo's hand only intensified the young parent's concern for his daughter's safety, and he tore out of there quickly to get back upstairs.
BANG! BANG, BANG, BANG! Gendo fired at him, but only managed to hit the walls.
Shinji found a lever on a wall nearby and pulled it down.
An alarm started ringing, and an electrical grate fell from the ceiling onto the floor, blocking Gendo from getting any closer to him.
-x-
Shado heard the alarm that rang through the entire building, having been informed that they run throughout the halls and could be heard in each unit, warning the residents of uninvited/unwanted people stepping into the building, and ran into her room to hide in her closet like her father instructed her, just in case someone broke into their home. All she could do now was wait for the police to arrive and for her father to come and get her.
Daddy, she thought, fearful of the outside of their home right now.
-x-
"…Aaurgh! Damn you!" Shinji groaned, getting away from Gendo with a bullet in his left leg. "I gotta get Shado and keep her safe from him."
Limping into an elevator and pressing the button for his floor, Shinji waited for the doors to close.
BANG! A bullet hit the inside of the elevator, but missed the boy as the doors began to close.
"Aaaaurgh!" Gendo, who had gotten free of the grate, ran towards the elevator, but was unable to get in and attack his son. "Aaaurgh!"
Shinji slid down to the floor and sighed a breath of relief as the elevator took him up.
-x-
"Gaaurgh!" Gendo grunted, unable to get the elevator Shinji escaped in to open up. "You can run, but you can't hide."
He looked for a stairway and went up, reduced to finding the two the traditional way.
-x-
Using his shirt as a bandage to keep himself from leaving a bloody trail back to his unit, Shinji got out of the elevator and staggered back to his apartment to get to his daughter. He had to suspect that the experimental medical drugs he was still testing for that pharmaceutical company were responsible for his pain being less than what a gunshot wound would've been without painkillers. And the worst part of today would be that he would have to call the police after more than a year of just wanting to live a simple life of safety and security with his daughter.
"Shado?" He called out for her, locking the door and arming the security system. "Shado?"
She didn't respond, which meant she was doing as she had been instructed, which was to remain silent until he found her, in the uncertain future that he might've been accompanied by someone they didn't know. So he entered her room, slowly opened the closet door and poked his head inside.
Ursa Guardian, her stuffed bear, was in front of her as if to keep her safe from harm.
Shado poked her head from behind the stuffed bear and looked at her father.
"It's the bad man again, isn't it?" She asked him, worried.
He stepped inside the closet and sat in front of her, groaning mildly as he positioned his injured leg down in a cross-legged stance.
"Yeah," he answered her, and she tightened her hold on Ursa Guardian.
"He's never gonna leave us alone, Daddy."
He sighed and accepted her fear of Gendo as an absolute truth, that the man refused to let them go, even when they wanted nothing to do with him. It was just another reason on his list of reasons why he refused to let himself turn out like he had.
-x-
Fuyutsuki must've been at his wit's end to consider what he was about to do, but right now, he didn't see any other alternative but this choice. It would cause problems, but everything else was already compromised. As he picked up the phone, the Sub-Commander dialed a number and waited for the other line to pick up.
"Yes?" The other line picked up and the caller questioned him.
"This is Sub-Commander Kozo Fuyutsuki," he introduced himself, "and there's something you need to know about Ikari."
"I'm listening."
"He's currently in New York trying to acquire the Third Child and his daughter through force, disobeying the order he was given by the Committee."
"Is that so?"
"Yes."
"Call back in an hour."
As soon as the call began, the call disconnected and the Sub-Commander sighed over the choice he made, not regretting that he might've turned on Gendo, but hoping that Shinji and his daughter would be alright once the matter involving them had been resolved.
"Sub-Commander!" He heard Captain Katsuragi as she entered his office. "We may have a problem."
"The Angel?"
"Yes. It's…it's entered US airspace, hovering just over New York."
"We have no Evas situated in the States."
-x-
Concealed just above the rainclouds, the Angel of the Birds looked down at the large city that showed more interest rather than the cluster of islands that was Japan.
-x-
"What about an N² missile?" Shigeru suggested.
"No way," Misato shot him down. "Those have the same amount of destructive force as an N² landmine. And we don't have the authority to launch one into US airspace over a populated area, even to stop an Angel."
"But why would it go to the States?" Ritsuko questioned; as one of the sole people that knew of Lilith being in Terminal Dogma, she found it impossible for an Angel to come to the realization that what they would spend their time coming to Tokyo-3 for wasn't who they were expecting, but would still feel compelled to seek out, no matter what.
-x-
He thinks he can hide from me? Gendo thought, finding a small speck of blood on the floor of the next level he searched, deducing that his son and grandchild had to be on this one. Petulant child.
He walked down the hall, seeing another speck of blood (he suspected that while his son tried to prevent further blood loss, he had, unknowingly, left a trail that directed the head of NERV to him), and followed it to one just outside a door.
BANG! He fired at the door, but the bullet didn't damage it much, leaving just a small dent.
-x-
BANG! Shinji and Shado heard the gunshot just outside their home and the girl crawled over to her father, scared for the both of them.
"Daddy, I'm scared," she told him.
"He's not going to get us," he assured her. "He's not going to get us."
If either of them had looked at the young father's back, they would've noticed that the dragon and phoenix, which they had forgotten about due to their intense panic, had disappeared.
-x-
"Again, you seek to harm those that we must protect," Gendo heard a male voice from down the hall, and saw the see-through versions of the same pair that had deprived him of Adam. "Turn away now, or know inescapable suffering."
It was the blue bird, with flames escaping its beak as the mechanical beast on its right opened and closed its claws.
Instead, Gendo raised his gun at them and fired; he suspected that they didn't have AT-Fields, so they were as vulnerable as people were because they couldn't use theirs.
The bird was shot in the waist, but the bullets bounced off the mechanical beast, who didn't even flinch.
"We…warned you to leave them alone," it uttered to him, "and now you must pay the price."
Using the power of Adam, they melded together and shifted into something completely different from their basic forms. It was a portal of dark energy, and from within it, something new emerged.
Gendo took in the features very sparingly: It was some sort of humanoid, hulk-like and with chains on its wrists and ankles. There was some type of armor replacing the skin and a helmet of sorts with an Egyptian theme to it, making Gendo suspect that the humanoid was of some Egyptian origin. And the entire entity was dark, with red eyes.
"Gendo," it growled at him, in a male voice. "It is time for you to know true darkness."
The portal behind it began to suck in air, and the creature's chains extended towards Gendo, ensnaring the man.
"Urgh!" Gendo gasped, and fired at the creature.
BANG, BANG, BANG! He fired his remaining bullets, but they bounced off the creature.
"In the darkness, your greatest fears shall consume you…until your soul becomes an empty shell." The creature expressed, and began to drag him into the portal.
"No! No!" Gendo yelled, trying to grab onto the floor to keep from being sucked or dragged in. "Stop! Stop this!"
"This fate is reserved for those that choose not to leave others alone," the creature told him. "You brought this outcome upon yourself."
"Aaaurgh! Aaaurgh! Aaaurgh!"
When Gendo was sucked in completely, the portal vanished, and was replaced by the dragon and phoenix, who soon disappeared.
-x-
Several police vans stopped in front of the building and released several armed men in police uniforms, responding to the alarms going off in the building. As they entered, they found Mr. Spera on the ground, unconscious but still alive, despite the gunshot in his chest. Traveling further through the building, they checked each unit after their residents opened the doors and explained what they knew or didn't know.
The only other injury within the building was Shinji's leg, which required a trip to the hospital (something the young father and his daughter weren't all that pleased to know).
"…So, a man just came in, asking to see you two, and then shot Mr. Spera and came after you, shot you in the leg as you ran, and you stopped him with a security grate, but after that, you didn't see him after you got into the elevator?" One of the police officers questioned Shinji.
"I assure you, if I had seen him beyond the elevator on the first floor, I would tell you," Shinji told him as a female nurse was bandaging his leg. "But I didn't see him after the elevator, which I'm grateful for, since I had to protect that which matters most to my heart."
The officer looked at Shado, who was sitting across from the hospital gurney in a chair, keeping her distance from the three adults near her father.
"Sister?" Shinji was asked.
"No," he answered. "My daughter."
"And I thought the days of teenage parenthood were over," the nurse expressed. "At least you're responsible enough to keep her out of harm's way by leaving her in your apartment."
"It wasn't his fault," Shado spoke up. "It was laundry day."
"And what exactly was your relationship with the guy that shot you and Mr. Spera?" The other male police officer asked Shinji.
"He's my father," Shinji sighed, hating that fact even more; he suspected that a gunshot to the leg and not the shoulder or head just made another add-on to the list of acts that constituted child abuse by parents that were either estranged or just impossible to connect with. "We're not exactly close."
"Any reason why he would want to see you?"
"He's a bad man," went Shado, expressing her fear of her grandfather. "He sent people after us."
"Is she serious?" They asked Shinji.
"Believe me, I wouldn't take what she says as serious if I didn't fear the guy myself, and for different reasons than she does."
-x-
"…One of our police contacts have interviewed the Third Child and found that Ikari had gone after them," SEELE 05 informed the other members of the council, "especially after he was instructed to cease all activity into acquiring them."
"We've yet to find him, though," added SEELE 07. "There was evidence that indicated he was in the building, but then he disappeared."
"We'll have to consider Ikari a lost cause, just like his son and grandchild," went SEELE 01 to the council. "Inform the NERV agency."
-x-
After he paid the bill for the treatment done to his leg, Shinji took Shado and left. Though, before they did, they went to see how Mr. Spera was coping with the injury, thankful that he would pull through in a few days.
God, help me if he's still there, he thought as he stood outside the building with his daughter.
When he walked in with her, it was quiet, just as it had always been, and he stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for their floor.
"Daddy?" Shado asked him.
"Yes, dear?" He responded.
"I was talking too much back at the hospital, wasn't I?" She questioned.
"No, they needed to know, though there is doubt that they will take what you said serious."
"You're bigger than I am. Maybe they'll take you serious."
"Maybe, but I don't expect them to."
The elevator stopped and the doors opened to a dark hall. The young father stepped out and looked around, seeing nothing and nobody.
"Come on, Shado," he told his daughter, reaching out to her with his right hand.
The girl stepped out carefully and took her father's hand.
-x-
In an empty alley in Tokyo-3, a small portal opened above a dumpster…and a man fell into it.
The man slowly climbed out of the dumpster, revealing himself to be none other than Gendo Ikari, but his clothes were ripped to shreds, his skin covered in lacerations, and his eyes looking like he had seen horrors that his mind could only tolerate for so long before breaking down.
"The horrors of the heart," he uttered, sounding hysterical now. "Serpents, gremlins, creatures made of fire and rock. An angel of mercy…with a sword of fire. Don't kill me. Please, don't kill me."
He stumbled out of the alley and into the streets.
"Don't kill me. Please, don't kill me."
-x-
"…Don't go, Daddy," Shado begged Shinji, grabbing him by his arm as he got up to leave after tucking her into bed.
"I'm not going anywhere, sweetie," he told her. "I'm just going to change out of these clothes and come right back."
"You promise?"
"I promise."
Shinji then left to his room and change out of his clothes and into a pair of pajamas that he was fortunate enough to have that were still clean; if anything happened to their laundry that had been confiscated as potential evidence in the shooting caused by Gendo, the two would have to go clothes shopping again. When he returned to Shado's room, the girl had still been awake, waiting for him.
"See? I came back." He told her, laying down on the floor beside her futon on a makeshift bed.
-x-
"…Section Two found him on the street, talking gibberish," a doctor informed Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki and Dr. Akagi, showing them Gendo Ikari through a window, who'd been bandaged and strapped to a bed. "We had to sedate him when started trying to claw his eyes out. Whoever or whatever attacked him left a lot of injuries. Lacerations, bruises, a broken left arm, and it looked like a wad of flesh and muscle tissue had been carved out of his right hand."
"Exodia… Necross…" They heard Gendo mutter out, still sedated from earlier after he was being tended to.
"We checked what we had on his medical history," the doctor continued, "and something just didn't add up. This man is forty-nine years old and has had no history of mental illness, yet has suffered from a psychotic breakdown. Can you explain this?"
"No, sir," Ritsuko responded to this revelation, wondering how Gendo could've been driven mad in such a short time (unless he was mad before, but had it under control whenever she or anyone else at NERV saw him). "Has he had an MRI yet?"
"We can't until he's calmer and more manageable."
Fuyutsuki and Ritsuko were then led away from the room's window, leaving Gendo alone, who continued to mutter the same, two words, over and over again.
"Exodia… Necross…"
-x-
With the incapacitation of Gendo all but assured for the time being, Fuyutsuki assumed command over NERV, and his first act was to ensure that the Third Child and his daughter were left alone, since it was likely that Ikari's current state was because he refused to do so, as he had been instructed by the Committee.
While Asuka and Rei were unsure of why this new act was made, the Second Child was left to assume that a failure to convince the boy was the cause, while the First Child had no conclusion due to having no thought on the matter.
A/N: Here's the latest chapter. What do you think so far. It doesn't end anything, but I will want opinions on what you think should happen to progress this story later in the future. Read and review.