Creation began on 06-04-20
Creation ended on 06-08-20
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Unnecessary, Necessary
Antonio was fortunate that Kensuke came over and informed him of the four Pokémon that a small attempt to open a minor portal into another dimension had managed to bring into their world. They were all members of the Porygon family, comprised of two Porygon, a Porygon2 and a Porygon-Z. And Kensuke was surprised that they were able to pull out four Pokémon that even Shinji didn't possess due to them being artificial Pokémon that existed in the digital world. It was anyone's guess if they could be created in this world, but Antonio didn't want to get his hopes up on people being able to create Pokémon after learning how some of the Pokémon encountered by people were the result of their years of altering the environment to suit their needs or from their attempts to play God, like with Mewtwo. He felt it was likely that Ritsuko Akagi would attempt to do so simply due to her curiosity, but doubt she'd succeed, and due to his own understanding of genetics, anyone that tried to create a new form of life might've ended up creating something much worse than already existed.
"People are talking about them on social media now," Kensuke revealed, looking at his phone. "They want to know if they're Pokémon that move around cyberspace."
"You know more than any other person that has been to the Pokémon world and back again know, Kensuke Aida."
Kensuke smiled and then responded to the questions: "Yes, they are Pokémon. The blocky ones are Porygon. The roundish one is called Porygon2. The one that looks like it's trying to stand up on its tail is called Porygon-Z. Their designation is Virtual Pokémon."
-x-
"…This has gone viral," went SEELE 10 to the council, informing them of the discovery of these Virtual Pokémon traveling around the Internet. "They're showing up everywhere there's a connection to the digital world."
"How did they get here?" SEELE 01 demanded.
"A small experiment the Giovanni Corporation attempted in the aftermath of another power outage that resulted in everyone placed into induced comas to travel subconsciously to this other dimension spending three months there while only comatose for only a day," explained SEELE 04 to them. "Apparently, the outage was deliberately caused by Ikari."
"Ikari," SEELE 11 uttered. "He was ordered not to bother with them. Their research hardly interfered with our goal. Even with the revelation that the pilots began spending more time comatose to see the displaced Third Child, the fact that the last Angel to attack was contained and last reported still in containment, they were not viewed as a hindrance."
"These Virtual Pokémon haven't even exhibited signs of being a threat to us," said SEELE 08. "Artificial intelligence appears to be absent in them; they don't pick up information from where they go, they just…wander around."
Suddenly, the virtual systems they used to display their holographic monoliths started displaying one of the two Porygon, just looking around and turning sideways or upside-down.
"You see? They show up, they get noticed, and then they wander someplace else." SEELE 08 revealed to the council. "These Pokémon are hardly a threat."
"How did we find out about these Pokémon?" SEELE 01 wanted to know.
"Doctor Akagi," SEELE 03 informed. "Apparently, Ikari used the MAGI to instigate the outage that lasted nearly a week. She also explained that the initial power outage was due to Ikari's desire to regain control of the Fourth Child when it was discovered that he managed to visit the Third Child when he was comatose during an earlier experiment to establish contact between them. While the outage had the intended desire to cut the experiment short, it caused a time gap between our dimensions. Four years have passed for the Third Child in the other world, resulting in him being eighteen instead of fourteen. After this discovery, Dr. Akagi decided against causing another outage under the possibility that doing so would result in the time gap expanding further and leading to the potential demise of the Third Child if he didn't find his own way back. Ikari, on the other hand, didn't fear such a possibility and chose to cause another outage, resulting in three months to pass."
"So, the outage was deliberately was caused by Ikari…due to his resentment towards Giovanni and his own son taking his time to return to this world."
"If Ikari does this again, he could risk damaging any attempts to enable Giovanni to achieve their little ambition and enable the safe return of the Third Child," SEELE 11 expressed. "We have already completed another Eva unit for the Mass Production Evas. That brings the total of completed Evas to five, leaving seven more to be produced. If Ikari continues to persist in a way that endangers our scenario, we won't be ready for the Instrumentality Project."
"We have no other alternative," SEELE 01 accepted. "We are all in jeopardy so long as Ikari can not keep from meddling in the affairs of the Giovanni Corporation, which in turns, endangers our plans to save the human race. We'll have him atone for his arrogance…severely."
-x-
Fuyutsuki couldn't blame the personnel for their lack of attendance and need to call in sick. And with the discovery of Porygon, Porygon2 and Porygon-Z in their world, it was a sign that things were changing since Shinji's displacement. Worse was that he couldn't fault anyone except Ikari for trying to take control of something he had no control over to begin with. Everything had been spiraling out of his control…and Fuyutsuki found it somewhat amusing to be in a situation where control was hardly assured.
"Tell me, are things getting better in my absence?" Shinji had asked him once during their journey to Nimbasa City.
"Honestly, Shinji, with the exception of the two Angel attacks that occurred after you were displaced, it's hard to imagine another situation where an Eva is required. People are more interested in what you do. They didn't know who you were until after the videos of your adventures were put on the Internet. And now…now, the only situation is one where whether or not people will be around by the time you find your way back." He told him.
"Fuyutsuki!" He heard Gendo yell as he was in the hall.
"Ikari," he responded.
"Everyone has left the base!"
"Everyone called in sick."
"Nobody calls in sick unless they have an excuse to go elsewhere!"
"Ikari, the power outage upset a lot of people that live in the city. What were you thinking? You can't force your son to look for Pokémon he needs to find that will help him return here just because you want him to. And worse, you tried to keep the power off, just to prevent Giovanni from continuing with their research, which in no way threatens the Eva research or the Instrumentality Project. You were practically reducing people to living in the Stone Age without electricity to aid in their daily lives. You don't know what people might do to you if they ever found out about your stunt. You'd probably find yourself dealing with an angry mob."
"The lack of personnel here leaves the base vulnerable to breaches."
"I'd probably just explain to the people breaking in what they want to know."
"That's cowardice, Fuyutsuki."
"No, that's realism. Cowardice is doing whatever you think it takes to cause problems for other people when you can't have your way. I would suggest that you stop trying to cause problems just because your son isn't here and won't come back just because you want him to."
"He could find those creatures he needs to return here if he put in the effort!"
"In Unova, it took him two months just to find one Pokémon that he wasn't even looking for, and the next day, he found and caught Pokémon that were basically the same type, but they had forms associated with the four seasons, and each one represented a different season. It was like…they were looking for him, specifically. It's just as the Fourth Child had explained, that some Pokémon will sometimes gravitate towards Shinji. They don't even have to be Pokémon others say are strong. Sometimes, they're Pokémon that Shinji sees within the potential to become strong. Maybe in some ways, certain Pokémon will test certain trainers, and Shinji is no exception to that belief. In the end, you can't force solutions to happen just because you want him back to pilot an Eva he has already made a conscious decision to avoid after remembering the truth about what happened when Yui disappeared."
"He only remembered because he had Psychic Pokémon helping him."
"They helped ease the pain of remembering what was tormenting for him."
Ring-ring! Gendo's cell phone rang, and he answered.
"Ikari, speaking," he uttered, and then his grip on his phone tightened.
-x-
Rei hated being separated from Shinji as she recovered from the shortened coma and avoided being around Commander Ikari after it was suspected that he was the cause of the power outage. Even as she walked around the park and looked at the artificial lake there, all she could do was…imagine the Shiny Gyarados that Shinji had that was nicknamed after her, one of his strongest Water Pokémon, swimming around the lake, attracting a lot of attention from the people nearby.
"So, you decided to come to the park, too?" She heard Dr. Akagi say to her.
"I didn't want to go back to NERV HQ after suspecting that Commander Ikari was behind the power outage, resulting in our extended stay with Shinji in Unova. I have never spent such a long time away from piloting the Eva, just traveling around with Shinji as he looked for new Pokémon and challenged Gym Leaders to gain entry to the Unova League at a later time. Even though it was only for a day here, over there, it will always be three months, and over there…it was three months without being bound to the Eva, without fighting the Angels, any of that. Shinji…being with him over there is like…more than a leave of absence…or a vacation. It was…just a life of wanderlust."
"Yeah, it was…and still is," Ritsuko agreed with her. "You gotta hand it to Shinji. Getting displaced into another dimension where strange creatures live and are capable of things that seem impossible elsewhere…and where he can catch them and train them to do more than what they're already capable of…makes him seem like a hero in many ways."
"If he returns…when he returns…the chances of him returning with Pokémon of his own seem possible, and he can have them restore the planet."
"Yeah, that would be incredible."
"What do you suppose that he is doing right now?"
"He's gotta be at the Mistralton Gym by now, facing the leader there."
"Skyla, the third Gym Leader who specializes in Flying-Type Pokémon. Shinji has the potential to win the badge he covets from her."
-x-
"…I heard before the last conference that you did these theoretical battles," went Shinji to Skyla after making a reservation to face her. "I hope you've stopped those and will be an impressive match against."
"Oh, you can count on it," Skyla responded. "Are you ready to begin?"
"Are we ready, Misato?"
"Eevo!" Misato chirped.
"We're ready!" Shinji declared.
-x-
Gendo Ikari had officially relieved of his command of NERV by the UN for deliberately causing a power outage that crippled Tokyo-3's power needs and causing a ruckus with the interdimensional travel project that was being run by the Giovanni Corporation. And it appeared that Giovanni had managed to open a small portal to the dimension that Gendo's son was displaced in for just a minute, resulting in pulling out four Virtual Pokémon and enabling them to wander around harmlessly in cyberspace with limited electricity. Not only that, but now Kozo Fuyutsuki was appointed the new commander.
"The Committee fired him?" Misato asked Fuyutsuki as they saw Gendo being escorted out of the Geo-Front by Section Two agents.
"Apparently, word got out of his interference with Giovanni's interdimensional project and how he attempted to force part of the project to run his way by accelerating time through blackouts, which caused a total of four years and three months to pass. The Committee is already convinced that by accelerating time over there, we run the risk of causing too much time to pass for whoever is physically there."
"And their beliefs on people that are subconsciously there?"
"Subconsciously, the mind only ages, leaving the body unchanged. They believe that there's a slim possibility that Shinji can still pilot the Eva, despite being almost nineteen, but until he returns or Giovanni can bring him back, NERV is not to interfere."
"But…we're not prohibited from going over and seeing Shinji, are we?" Misato wanted to know.
"They didn't that say we couldn't, only that we're not to interfere with their research. There's a difference between helping and interfering, and since I'm the new leader, I'm not going to interfere with Giovanni's research like Ikari did. The Angel is still trapped in the spatial rip and so long as it can't get out, I see no conflict of interest."
"Maybe we should ask if Palkia can include two additional spatial rips, just in case."
-x-
"Hey, Sakura," went Toji to his sister as he came to see her at the hospital.
"Hey, big brother," Sakura greeted when he entered the room she was in. "What was with the blackout, huh?"
"A man was very upset with the way things were going and wanted to cause a ruckus," he explained, setting a chair aside from Hikari as she came inside the room. "We were told earlier that he was fired from his job and sent home today."
"Your friend's father, right?"
"Yeah."
"He seems to really hate his son just because he's not here, doesn't he?"
"Honestly," said Hikari, "Mr. Ikari seems to dislike his son, no matter where he is, in this world or the Pokémon world."
"Why?"
"We don't know, sis," Toji admitted; nobody alive seemed to have a clue as to why Shinji's father despised him, and there was absolutely no indication that Shinji ever did anything to deserve this resentment. "Does there really have to be a reason to hate someone?"
"Grandfather says that there always has to be a reason behind hating someone, even if we don't understand it," Sakura explained. "You once hated Shinji because I got hurt…until you saw that piloting the Eva hurt him, after which you two became friends. Whatever the reason, you're bound to find out why his father doesn't like him."
Toji nodded in acceptance of this from his sister; whatever the reason, they were bound to find out. Fathers don't just hate their sons or daughters for no reason.
"How long will it be until you go back to see Shinji?" She asked them.
"Probably two more days," Hikari answered.
"That long? Shinji must miss you guys."
"Yeah," Toji agreed with her, "but we were together for three months while asleep for a whole day. He probably doesn't miss us that much."
"A day, a month, a year, if he misses you guys and he's been gone for over four years in another world where time runs differently because of the way alternate dimensions are said to, then he misses you. Your presence in the Pokémon world, even if it's only temporary, provides Shinji with stability as he continues to go on his journey to return here at his own pace and to become one of the greatest Pokémon Trainers…if not the greatest."
"Pokémon Master, Sakura, and, yes, he'd be one of the greatest, if not the greatest," Hikari corrected her. "There must be others that are greater than he is…and have been catching and training Pokémon longer than he has."
"Is there any place there that he hasn't visited yet?"
"Plenty of places that he hasn't visited yet. There's the Kalos Region, which we haven't visited yet, and as far as Shinji knows, there are two other regions with Pokémon that can't be found anywhere else."
"I hope I get to see the Pokémon world one day."
"Yeah," Toji agreed with her. "It's…really a whole new world to live in. It's…really beautiful, too…even when we don't think it is."
To be continued…
A/N: I confess that Toji's last quote in this chapter was inspired by what Hank Voight said to Olivia Benson in Chicago PD: "It's beautiful…even when it isn't." I hope y'all enjoy this chapter until the next one is up. Peace.