In the cool evening that Daten City presented to its residents a fight was occurring. If one wanted to find this fight they would have to go into West Hollywood to find a Baboon Ghost fighting a rather mysterious character. This character was pale like the full moon with blue hair unlike anything residents of Daten City could compare. The red, piercing gaze of this character froze people in their place while enraging Ghosts more than the resident Angels ever did. The weird spear this person used could change its height instantly, making it nearly impossible for enemies to predict its actual range.

"I, Baboona, am the Ghost of women looking for fame only to be doomed due to primate features! Hairy faces, larger builds, monkey faces, and our bodies eventually making us never able to-" The red spear pierced Baboona in the chest, making it explode seconds later.

"Well that takes care of one of the Ghosts." The character bent down to grab the weird currency that Ghosts left whenever they were defeated. The amount varied between each Ghost, but the use of them was still a mystery. There was a puddle near the coins that made the character pause to stare.

It was weird to think that he was Ikari Shinji, resident of Tokyo-3 who is living in Daten City. The initial few days he began his life in Daten City quickly became weeks that blurred together. Between being a student in an American high school, living with Corset, and getting better at manipulating the LCL to transform, nothing really stuck out to Shinji at the moment. Though he should have paid more attention to his peers at school, he never took the time to integrate himself with them.

Most of them at least.

Brief was someone who Shinji was unsure if they were friends due to the cold war they waged against one another. They kept any conversations between them as polite as possible, yet Shinji knew that Brief was trying to collect any DNA he might get his hands on. There were moments that Brief would bump into him near a sharp corner hoping for some blood to be spilled. Despite the attempts at collecting DNA, Brief would never succeed thanks to Lilith teaching him how to compress wounds from spilling blood. It still shocked him of the lengths Brief would go to figure him out.

Mari still obsessed over him in a way that Shinji did not know how to handle. There was only so much he could handle of her constantly pressing herself on him, holding his hand without his permission, or trying to take his things for reasons unknown before he felt like telling her how he felt about her. She was part of the reason Shinji did not make more friends. If she calmed down and acted like a sane human being, then he could feel more at ease of making more friends.

'Then again the people who have been trying to be my friend at school aren't exactly people I want to associate with.' The school nerds were the bulk of people who were interested in getting to know him. If they were on a Kensuke level of nerd he would not mind. Kensuke could be rather tame if he put his mind to it. Perhaps it was the influence of Daten City that made the nerds more carefree and wild with their interests, but it put Shinji off. He did not even want to think about the nerds who were interested in Gehirn and, by extension, Nerv.

Then there were the jocks, mostly the jocks on the football team, who sought him. Apparently some girl saw him without his shirt and noticed how 'ripped' of a body he had. His build, Shinji shortly found out from Rei, was a side effect from manipulating LCL throughout his body. The words Rei used were above what he could understand, but Shinji knew that he now had jocks seeking him out. He wanted to stay out of the spotlight as much as possible at school due to his past with 'fame' as an Evangelion pilot. Yet it seemed as if fame always found him in one way or another.

"The priest is coming your way." Hearing Lilith's warning made the young man run for the opposite alley with his disguise quickly disappearing. The priest was another threat that he could not simply kill like the Ghosts he fought. The priest, Garterbelt if Shinji remembered correctly, was a respected yet high profile character in Daten City. Not only did he donate to reconstruction projects in the city with money raised from volunteers, he personally ran food pantries in the city. There was more that he did for the city that he recalled Brief telling him, but listening to Brief was a double edge sword. A memory came to mind of Brief telling Shinji that he should join the football team like the jocks wanted. If Brief hadn't made it clear that he wanted some of Shinji's DNA, the idea of acting like a normal teenager would have been pleasant.

A scream from behind made Shinji realize that something not human was behind him. Rather than turn around to face the threat he ran faster with the hope that he would be free of the unknown entity. He jumped on an industrial garbage can, his feet kicking some garbage behind him before jumping on a fire escape ladder to climb. For a second he glanced down as he climbed. That second rewarded him with the sight of a Ghost that looked similar to an ogre with no legs to run with. Was it simply trying to devour him in order to gain a pair of legs? Rather than find the answer out Shinji climbed to the roof of the building and looked down at the Ghost. Much to his confusion a loud 'bang' resonated below, which was followed by an explosion that gave him the opportunity to pull the ladder back to its normal position.

"Was this the Ghost Garter told us about?"

"Fak no it is not. This Ghost was only worth a single Heaven! The other one was estimated to be worth five Heavens. Now how am I supposed to pay my bills?"

"You could fuck some bachelor and take his wallet."

"Oh yeah. I could do that and come out with my libido in check too. Time to go on the hunt!" By the time the smoke from the explosion disappeared the voices Shinji heard disappeared. Something about the voices seemed familiar to him, which was most likely not a good thing. He took his time to relax and ponder what could have happened if he had not reverted back to his human form and fought the ogre Ghost. Would he have fought the owners of those voices for the weird currency he now knew were called Heavens? Could he actually use the coins for something? Why did Lilith not tell him of the two unknowns who could kill Ghosts? Was it possible that the priest was able to mask their presence?

Taking the moment to relax seemed to do everything but ease him.

Shinji's morning routine was, thankfully, no different than any other day at the mayor's home. He woke up at five in the morning, an hour before Scanty and Kneesocks woke up, in order to make himself a normal breakfast and clean up his mess. The 'food', if Shinji could call what they ate edible, still smelled rancid and the sight of it made his stomach churn. He would, after cleaning his dishes and ensuring he packed his bag for the day, would jog to school per Lilith's instruction to keep his body in shape. If he did everything in time he would show up right around the time the first bus would offload some students to the school.

"Good morning Ikari." Shinji looked up from the notes he was reviewing to see a blonde girl who wore the latest brand of clothes that he never knew the name of. Her purple eyes looked down at him with intrigue rather than the scorn others would get from her.

"Good morning Barby. How was cheer practice yesterday?" Barby, otherwise known as the queen of the school and best in the cheer squad, smiled and waved her right hand over her chest.

"Me and the girls are in top form for our next game. We will bring morale to our athletes and show the rivals who the queens are in Daten!" Barby moved her hand from her chest and placed it on Shinji's left shoulder. "You should come to a game or two Ikari. I bet everyone from our school would enjoy seeing you there!"

"I will think about it."

"But you always say that." Barby replied with a pout and sat next to his left. Shinji was fortunate that only the cheerleaders were with Barby at the moment. Otherwise he would have to deal with jealous guys from different grades trying to harass him after she left.

"You know that some of my friends are a little eccentric to go to a game with me." Barby, unlike the nerds or the jocks who sought his attention, was the only one who talked to him like a normal student instead of a source of fame. It might seem as if she only sought him for his foreign fame with how often she asked him to go to one of her games, yet she did this with various students who rarely went to any school event.

"Loathe as I am to admit it, you are right. Mari would cause a major scene with her obsession over you. The Akuma sisters might be okay. Then there is Briefers, the constant bully target. I have tried to get him more involved with school events too and tried extending friendship to him too. Yet something is odd about him."

"I get what you mean." Shinji nodded at the group response from the other cheerleaders. He sat there content as the cheerleaders began to talk to Barby about their normal topics (cute boys, fashion trends, latest crushes, being asked out, gossip) and thought of his time in Tokyo-3. Moments like these reminded him of how he, Toji, and Kensuke would talk between classes about girls (mostly Asuka and Rei), TV, military stuff, and other mindless talks that made Shinji smile.

"He has such a cute smile." One of the cheerleaders tried to whisper. Tried being the key word. Hearing her words made Shinji blush and quickly stand up.

"It was nice talking to you Barby, but I'm gonna grab some breakfast. See ya!" Thankfully some of the cheerleaders moved aside so he could leave.

"He has such a nice ass too!" Shinji was sure that the cheerleader from before spoke about his...ass. God what a weird thought to ponder. He did not have to think about it too long as a loud burst of static made him pause.

"Shinji Ikari would you please come to the office. Again, Shinji Ikari would you please come to the office. Thank you."

'What did I do?'

-Author Note-

Hello readers, reviewers, and followers! While this might not be the update many of you were looking forward to, I wanted to give readers something to ease into before I start tying Shinji into canon plots. I plan on giving this story more attention now that I have found some of my original notes on where I wanted Shinji's development to take. So, to everyone who waited years for this story to gain attention, I apologize for making you wait for so long. Hopefully you can put up with an author who might post plenty of different updates one moment and disappears in another. I will not reply to reviews this time around (my apologies for anyone looking forward to me doing that!) so I can focus on updating another story. So, until next time everyone, stay golden!

Kazikamikaze24