Creation began on 02-01-19
Creation ended on 02-21-19
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Elite Two and One
Bertha didn't think that Shinji would be able to best her Hippowdon after the injury it had inflicted on his Tangrowth, but after summoning his Gyarados, whom she heard was a force to be reckoned with, she began to have second thoughts. And now, even when only two of his Pokemon were beaten, she had been reduced to her last one, a Donphan. Even if she managed to defeat his current Pokemon out on the field, a Tropius, Shinji would still have his Tangrowth and Gyarados among the four he had left.
Shinji, affected by the exhilaration his Tropius was feeling, had to believe that this match had already been decided for in his favor.
"It seems like we're advancing further, Misato," he expressed to his Eevee.
"Eee!" She agreed with him.
Up in the crowds, Kensuke and the others were cheering for Shinji to win the match before they had to disappear again.
-x-
"Man, is Shinji good or what?" Shigeru asked Hyuga and Maya.
"The effort he put in training his Pokemon shows with each battle," Hyuga responded. "Each and every one of these creatures is like a rock star."
"Even the ones that were beaten," Maya added, and they watched as the match ended in Shinji's favor as the Donphan fell to the ground after being hit with a Solar Beam. "Who's next?"
"Whoever it is, they're bound for defeat," Shigeru stated, seeing the crowds cheer for Shinji as he received a lick on his right cheek by his Eevee. "Damn kid's a superstar."
Gendo, on the other hand, watching with contempt, just fumed over his son's latest victory.
-x-
Misato, Kensuke, Toji and the girls all awoke from the induced coma and sighed at how they would have to watch the next two battles between Shinji and the Elite Four of Sinnoh.
"I would've loved to see Shinji go up against Flint in person," said Asuka as she removed the IV tube from her arm. "He's only ever faced two Gym Leaders that use Fire-Type Pokemon. How well would he have gone against a member of the elite that uses Fire-Types?"
"Don't get me started on those two Gym Leaders," Kensuke sighed as he got onto his feet. "Blaine was the first, and Shinji fought him in a volcano. When he went up against Flannery, it wasn't even a challenge."
"Why is that?" Hikari asked as she removed Toji's IV tube.
"Shinji was just too much for her to take, and they both only used two Pokemon. He didn't use his Gyarados, but he still won. He instead used a Golduck that he trained from a Psyduck. It drove him a little crazy, but after it evolved, it showed adaptability."
"Why did it drive Ikari-Kun crazy?" Rei asked him.
"As a Psyduck, it kept trying to use Hypnosis on him, something his Eevee had to set it straight on because Shinji didn't need any of his Pokemon putting him to sleep unless he asked first. We both heard there were a few trainers that had Psyduck, but only the majority of them had those that didn't give them a hard time over the slight problem regarding their frequent headaches."
"So, Shinji had a Psyduck that gave him a headache?" Misato asked him.
"Only whenever it tried to use Hypnosis on him, but Shinji was among the majority of trainers that were able to make Psyduck respond well by overcoming their headaches before evolving."
"Wait a minute," Hikari spoke. "Flannery? She's the Hoenn Gym Leader of Lavaridge Town, isn't she? With the hot springs that people and Pokemon can use all the time because the spring they get their water from never runs out?"
"Yeah, that's right. After he defeated her, Shinji treated us all to the hot springs. I think he needed them more than my Brute-Chan did because he was stiff in his joints."
They each imagined Shinji in a hot spring (Misato and Asuka had it easy, since they went to one before) and could picture the boy in a state of pure relaxation.
"Ah, yeah, this is how to relax," they imagined him saying, sinking into the hot water.
"The next time we're with Shinji, we need to be near some hot springs," Toji declared, "even if it's only subconsciously."
"Yep," Kensuke agreed.
-x-
"Ah," Shinji groaned as he fell onto his bed after returning from the Pokemon Center. "I owe each of you a lot of gratitude, Misato."
"Eevo," the Eevee responded as she lay beside him on the bed, just as exhausted as he was.
They'd be facing Flint in ten hours and needed to be ready by then, but needed the rest. Also, as Shinji had selected his roster for the upcoming match, including the Golduck he had caught before traveling to the Johto Region and started training vigorously during the time spent in the Hoenn Region, he felt some nap time was desired and deserved by everyone.
"Stand tall, everyone," he muttered in his sleep. "Because each of you are winners to me… If you get knocked down, just get up again…"
"Eee…eee…" Misato went, as if agreeing with her trainer.
-x-
"Maybe we should try bringing this Pen-Pen with y'all the next time you go there," Antonio sighed as he saw Misato and the others eating solid food to replenish their bodies in front of Palkia, "and next time, I should try joining you myself."
"Oh, really?" Misato asked him. "Do you really think you'd be able to get there and meet Shinji in the Pokemon world?"
"I wouldn't know unless I gave it a shot…and getting to meet the very person that proves that interdimensional travel is possible…and who has a person of great interest to countless people…would be a grand privilege."
"Yeah, it would," went Kensuke as he finished his chow mein. "Have you been reading the comments on YouTube? Some people want to connect with him, know more about him, learn his training methods, how he connects with his Pokemon."
"Yeah, there's something about him," added Asuka, "something that…makes Pokemon gravitate towards him. If he's not catching them, they're catching him."
"What are the chances of another rare Pokemon gravitating towards him?" Antonio asks her.
"Oh, if I know Shinji as a Pokemon Trainer able to get as far as he has, visit three different regions beside the one he woke up in, those chances are slim. It's the same as his chances of winning the Sinnoh League."
"I might need to start a pool here on Shinji."
-x-
GASP! Shinji awoke from the most intense dream he had by far, drenched in sweat.
"Eee!" Misato joined him in gasp, her fur equally drenched.
"Misato," he spoke to her, "we both saw the same thing…right?"
"Eevo," she answered with a positive nod.
Shinji checked the time and there was still three hours until the match between himself and Flint. Then, he picked up his Pokedex to search for what he had seen in his shared dream with Misato; if what they saw was indeed a Pokemon, then it would be in the database.
"Here…you…are," he uttered, stopping on the image of the creature they saw. "Rayquaza."
"Rayquaza, the Sky High Pokemon," Dexter informed. "Rayquaza is said to have lived in the stratosphere for millions of years, feeding on water vapor and particles for food. Because it resides so close to the ozone layer, it has been rarely seen by people."
"But…we saw it…even though we've never seen it before," Shinji told Misato.
"Eee," she responded; she was just as confused as her trainer was. "Eevo."
"Weird," he expressed, setting the Pokedex down on the desk. "Very weird."
Then, reminded that he had been sweating as a result of the intense dream, Shinji decided to take the time to shower away the dirt after he gave his Eevee a good scrubbing.
"We'll figure it out at a later time," he told her.
-x-
"…It looks like Shinji and his Eevee saw something while asleep," one of the assistants informed the group as they were reviewing a recorded file of the boy and his Pokemon in an aerial setting, appearing high above the planet.
"They must be nearing space," Toji believed.
"No, that's the stratosphere," Misato realized, "but close enough. Why would they be dreaming of a place like that?"
"Maybe because of that," Asuka went, pointing to a large, green serpent that seemed to be gliding across the atmosphere. "Gott im Himmel, what is that?"
"Kensuke, have you and Shinji ever see something like this?" Hikari asked the otaku.
"No way," he answered, "not even once."
The serpent stopped moving and appeared to be standing in front of Shinji, looking intently at him, as if studying him.
Shinji just stood there, holding his Eevee in his arms with a look of woe on his face.
Then, the serpent circled them, not like a predator, but more of an observer, examining the human in its presence before ceasing, standing before him again.
"Grrr," it growled, and then the footage cut off.
"That's when he must've woken up," the assistant explained.
"If that was a Pokemon, it must've been a rare one," Antonio suggested.
"Like his Lugia of the Legendary Bird Trio," went Hikari.
-x-
"…Nervous, aren't you, Flint?" Bertha asked her fellow member of the Elite Four as he sat in the locker room assigned to them.
"Who, me, nervous of facing a kid named Shinji Ikari?" Flint responded. "Not a chance in this lifetime. I look forward to facing this Shinji Ikari. He seems to be a skilled trainer if his Pokemon are powerful enough to stand up to ours with little resistance."
"With this kid, it's like facing a Pokemon Trainer that's somewhere between a mortal…and a deity. I think with the possible exception of that Eevee of his, the majority of the Pokemon he rotates are pretty strong…and rare. I've looked at his file…and he's got Pokemon that other trainers can only dream of catching. He's got a Mew and Mewtwo. I mean, I heard rumors there was a Pokemon by that name, but I never thought it actually existed. And before he showed up here, he caught the Lake Trio and a Darkrai. I'd say he has the makings of becoming a Pokemon Master one of these days…if he sought such a title."
"I'll believe that…after I've fought him," Flint expressed; he didn't want to assume anything about his next opponent beyond the match…until after the match.
Only then…would he be convinced that this Shinji Ikari was everything people were claiming that he was.
"Well, it's getting close to your match's time," Bertha reminded him. "Good luck out there. Make him work hard to win."
-x-
"…A Fire-Type Pokemon Trainer that's a member of the Elite Four isn't someone to take lightly, Commander Ikari," Ritsuko informed Gendo in his office on the upcoming match between Shinji and this Flint person. "They're on a level higher than that of a Gym Leader. If Shinji makes a wrong move and loses this match, whatever shot he had of facing the champion of the Sinnoh League goes with it."
"Except you don't have any reservations of him losing, do you?" He asked her.
"No," she answered him, "but it never hurts to keep an open mind."
There's no open mind about him wasting his time trying to win a little game when he should be doing as he's told…and he's drafted the other pilots over to Giovanni just to watch him or visit him for a while.
"You know, it wouldn't actually be a waste of your time…if you developed a positive reason to want to see him and remind him of who was waiting for him to return," Ritsuko suggested to.
"I don't have time to waste on him," he responded; no matter what anyone said to him, Gendo couldn't and wouldn't see Shinji in a positive light that deviated from what had been originally set in motion long ago.
And with the way things have been transpiring, there was no point in even thinking of one thing benevolent about wanting to see Shinji, and if he couldn't without stress in the seriousness of getting him back into the Eva and facing the Angels…or even using his son's Pokemon for his own purposes…then there was no point in trying to reach out to the boy.
Even Ritsuko could see that her boss' only interests were in the Instrumentality Project and the exploitation of the Third Child's Pokemon if such an opportunity came to take them. There were times where she had to wonder if Shinji, despite the ease of how he had adapted to his new surroundings after he had transitioned, had hated her for the decision that left him displaced in the Pokemon world.
"If you develop a positive reason to want to try and see him, you'd be amazed at how well he's been since he ended up there," Misato had actually told her after she returned from her first sojourn in the Pokemon world to see Shinji. "Even though he knows it was you that implemented the plan that destroyed the Angel in order to salvage the Eva, not him, he actually has no hatred for you. In a twisted way…he actually thanks you for doing it, even when there was a chance that it could've killed him. He didn't think much of it, but he was happy to have ended up in the Pokemon world. He could've ended up anywhere, even dead, and he's just grateful that he ended up there. You should count yourself lucky, Rits. If he was as angry with you as I was, I'd have most likely given you a pair of shiners."
Maybe she was lucky, which would probably explain why Gendo hadn't been on her case about the boy's displacement yet.
-x-
The crowds were wild again as the stadium was packed to capacity for the next match.
Shinji and Flint had been introduced to one another and the referee and announcers had declared the match was a go.
"You might've bested two out of the four of us, but it ends here, Shinji Ikari!" Flint yelled.
"We won't know that until the match ends," Shinji responded, holding up one of his Poke Balls.
Flint threw his first one out onto the field, revealing a large, serpent that resembled an Onix, but with more of a creepy face that smiled.
"A Steelix, huh?" Shinji uttered; he had been expecting a Fire-Type, so this was a surprise. "You took me by surprise. But I got one of my own."
"Eevo!" Misato went, looking forward to this as her trainer threw the ball out onto the field.
"It's a meet and greet to defeat, Fenikkusu!" Shinji shouted, and the ball opened up to reveal…his Moltres, spreading its mighty wings of fire.
Now Flint was caught off guard; he was expecting Shinji to rely on Water and Rock-Type Pokemon, but a Legendary Pokemon was an unexpected adversary. There was no way his Steelix, even if it boasted an impressive defense status, could endure the punishment any Steel Pokemon would receive from a Legendary Fire-Type Pokemon like Moltres.
"Begin!" The referee declared.
To be continued…
A/N: Things are gonna heat up and burn out! And throughout all the intensity, I never got around to the revelation of how Shinji felt if Misato or Rei and Asuka informed him that it was Ritsuko's fault that he got displaced into the Pokemon world. Now that we know, it's water under the Onix.