Shinji Ikari One Shot
The Hammer Of The Gods
He heaved back on the oar, straining his legs and back together. As strong as his pull was, his reach was as gentle, sliding the wooden oar into the water without a sound.
He slapped the back of the man on the bench in front of him, his comrade was behind the pace. It wasn't an insult, just a reminder from one man to another.
It was Sunday. They had heard the church bell echo through the fog just a few minutes ago. Perfect…
Shinji woke with a gasp and a start. He wiped at his face and was surprised to not find it wet. The dream had been scarily real and just out of nowehere. He had never even been on a boat, why was he dreaming about one?
"You alright there, Shinji?"
He was sitting in the blue sports car with the woman who picked him up from the train station. Misato, she had said her name was.
"Y-yeah, yeah I am good." Shinji said, still catching his breath.
A moment later, Shinji was definitely not alright as the green giant appeared on the horizon. He had thought he would feel better once they were underground. He was wrong, he had seen something even scarier than the angel. His father. Then the evangelion. Then the blue haired girl covered in blood and oh god he hated blood.
They had shoved him in the robot when he was still freaking out. He had thought he was having an asthma attack until they tried to drown him. He had blacked out as the orange fluid filled the plug.
Shinji…
"Huh?" Shinji said and raised his head from the damp wood of the deck. As he looked around he found himself back on the boat in the fog. There was nobody else now, and the boat very gently rocked in the sea.
Shinji, the fate of all life on earth rests in your hands.
Shinji looked up and saw lightening light up the sky as the booming voice spoke.
"M-me?"
Yes, you.
"B-but that's crazy!"
Yeah, you are a bit of a pussy. That's a problem.
"Wait what?"
Don't deny it.
"I'm not but…" Shinji had never even landed a punch in all the fights he had been in. Well not really fights. He had gotten the crap beat out of him a lot, usually for some reason, just as often not. He had just graduated high school a few months ago and had never even been on a date, he was afraid to ask.
In fact, as a whole, we are dissatisfied with the number of wimpy milk drinkers on this planet right now. For the species that invented organized warfare, you've all gone soft.
"Um…"
But right now, you are what we have to work with. So we are going to make you a proper warrior, whether you like it or not.
"Don't I have a choice in this?"
No. Now this is going to be unpleasant, but it will hurt us much worse than it is going to hurt you.
"Really?"
No.
The bolt of lightening ripped through Shinji like a hammer to the head and everything faded to black again.
They were careful as they went ashore, sliding slowly into the shallow water instead of jumping. It would not do to give themselves away now.
Weapons were passed down. He took his axes and his shield from his comrade still aboard the boat. He did not have a sword or a mail shirt like the veterans among them. This was his first raid among the men, his first Viking. He had only a rough leather vest over his brown tunic, the wooden shield painted in his jarl's colors, and two axes. He held one in his right hand, and the other in his left, his shield hand. He didn't even have a helmet. Bound up in his rope belt were sacks and more rope.
They came through the forest. He watched the older men, how they walked, how they moved. Thirty-eight armed men moved like the wind, silent and leaving no sign. They emerged from the forest in a wide phalanx. He was near the center, only a few men away from the leader.
As they approached the village edge, he was nervous. There had been no guards, no watch. He had been told they had waited until they were in their temple hall for just this reason, but it still seemed too easy.
A few broke off to begin searching the larger homes, but he had been told to stay with the group. The temple of the Christ-god had to be attended to, and the villagers within. Thiers bows took the few guards that surrounded the small village's steepled temple. Those men who had brought spears surrounded the doors. From within they could hear the lowly moaning of their songs. What pathetic gods would be pleased with the mewling of infants?
"Shinji! Can you hear me?"
Shinji opened his eyes. He was still inside the machine. He could see out now, though there was not much to look at in the hanger.
"Shinji!"
"Yes I can hear you."
"Are you alright?"
"Yes."
"Alright, we are getting ready to launch. Remember, the eva is controlled by your thoughts. Don't worry about the controls; just think about attacking and the eva will take care of the rest."
As the electric railway activated and Shinji was pressed down into the throne, the cockpit faded again.
It had been too easy. Between the men-at-arms and the militia, they were outnumbered two to one, and that was not even counting the peasants hefting clubs and pitchforks.
He ran. Like a coward, he ran from the fight. Arrows whistling past his head, he sprinted into the cover of the trees. He could hear the clattering of mail and armor behind him. As it got closer, he resolved to at the very least die like a man.
He spun to his left, shield raised edge first. He felt something break beneath it and counted himself lucky to have connected with the wild swing. As the soldier fell before him, he raised his axe and screamed a war cry.
He was little more than a child. Slight, even in his layered clothing and meager armor, dark hair cut in a rough bowl to stay away from his eyes. The barest hairs had grown upon his chin. He caught sight of at least six men around him, with more likely on the way or cutting down his comrades. The boat would leave without him.
He would fight here, he would die here, and may the valkyir take him.
They shouted at him in their language. A few words similar enough, he knew they demanded his weapons. He would give them freely.
He threw his shield down to the ground with force, enough to startle them. He retained his second axe, even as the shield left him, and charged the closest two. His ruse had given him just enough time, and he screamed as the head of an axe ripped each man's throat from his neck.
Screams followed, his and his enemies. He soon forgot everything but the rush of the bloodshed, and when the arrow sunk into the meat of his shoulder, the red rage took him.
As the evangelion came to a shocking stop above ground, Shinji was breathing hard through clenched teeth.
The angel was before him, a giant of green flesh and white bone. Giant… Jotun… enemy. Enemy.
The boy roared inside the great machine, and the machine roared with him. Together they charged the angel and faster than the giant could raise its arm, they were upon it.
He remembered only brief flashes. Taking the archer with a thrown axe and snapping the arrow off. Taking up the swords of fallen men in each hand and carving through their brothers like pigs at slaughter. When all weapons had been stripped him, leaping upon the last man between him and the boat. Gauging at his eyes with his thumbs until they splattered over his hands, and his white knuckle grip on the man's throat until he stopped screaming and finally stopped thrashing under his little body.
Misato Katsuragi was a veteran. Despite her new job as a staff officer for NERV, she was no POG. She had been in the impact wars, she had seen the worst humanity had to offer.
Watching the battle, she wanted to vomit.
Shinji did not see his own arms. He saw the evangelion's arms as his own. He felt the evangelion's arms as his own.
Shinji raised his gore soaked arms to the full moon and the howl of a wolf echoed in his head. The red fury was leaving him and he was sad to see it go. It had felt good, full, right. It completed him, as thought he had finally found what had been missing his entire life.
Straddled beneath the evangelion was the emptied body of the angel Sachiel. Its arms were crushed to a pulp, and its barrel chest was split open with the ribs sticking into the skyscrapers that bordered the street on each side. Shinji had kept hitting, and tearing, and pulling, until he found bone again. The red crystalline core had been crushed long before he stopped.
As the power ran out, Shinji and great machine both slipped into restful sleep.
When he finally awoke, for real and without the red mist in his eyes, he saw friendly faces of his fellows over him. He was laying on the cold wooden deck of a longboat and as he looked around, he saw he was surrounded by treasure and goods.
"I'm not dead." He said.
"Far from it boy." He heard a familiar voice say. His jarl, the headman of his village, to whom he had sworn his service. "You were a sight to see back there. The skald will want to speak with you I think."
"The skald?" He replied. The skald was the priest of their village, the one who made sure the rights were observed, the stories told, and new stories recorded. "Why would the skald wish to speak to me?"
"Because my boy…" His jarl said and knelt down to touch the young man's forehead. "You fought as a chosen of Odin, as berserkgang."
There were murmurs among the men. Some attesting to his ferocity, others of dark fates that followed such warriors. He didn't care. As he looked up at the clear sky, his thoughts were for his soul. He had run. Was this a blessing for having the courage to stand and die as a man rather than live as a coward? Or punishment for having run, so that he would never retreat from battle again?
When Shinji awoke, it was under an unfamiliar ceiling. His head hurt, and the light coming through the windows only made it worse. He rolled to his right, away from the light, and found his whole body sore. As the blurriness left his vision and his eyes began to focus, he saw something strange on the white nightstand beside the bed. He reached out a weary arm and picked it up to examine it closer.
It was a pedant, on a braided leather cord, a necklace. He thought the pedant might be an anchor at first, but as he turned it over in his hands, he saw strange writing along the back.
"This is Mjolinir…" He read. "Wait, what language is this, how can I even read it if I don't know what it is?"
"Because you were given the knowledge."
Shinji quickly turned to face the voice, a bit too quickly as the muscles across his back locked tight. Shinji kept himself upright with on arm stuck stiff against the bed with the other held tight against his protesting ab muscles. Leaning on the windowsill was an old man with a long beard and a patch over one eye.
"Along with the beginnings of knowledge of many things. We had so very little time, but it seems it was enough to get you through." The old man said in a voice like rumbling gravel as he walked over to Shinji's bedside and sat down on the edge of the bed.
"Y-you were the one who spoke to me, in the dream, right?" Shinji asked.
"Yes."
"Who are you?"
"Oh, I am very sure you know the answer to that, berserker."
Shinji didn't care how sore he was or how much his muscles protested. In an instant he had pushed himself all the way to the headboard and back against the wall.
"No… no fucking way."
The old man's chuckle was dry and Shinji saw his shoulders rise and fall with his laughter.
"You are my warrior, my chosen…" He said and reached out one long arm to touch Shinji's forehead with a single fingertip.
"I dub thee Wulfstan. You will herald the return of the true way to this world, and with any luck, we may all get through this little debacle and live to see Ragnerok. Now get some rest, it will be in your dreams where you will learn what you need to know."
End
Born out a conversation with Seeking Professional Help.
If this fic continued, it would be my attempt to write the real Norse religion, referred to in its modern form as Asatru, not that watered down marvel comics stuff. The conversation which inspired this was to the point that Norse mythology would not be as interesting as Hindu mythology in the context I used it in Trishula.
Thinking of doing a chapter with short endings for each of the five so far. Just little bookends, leave the middle up to y'all's imagination.
As always, if you like it and want to see more, say something!