Creation began on 04-25-20

Creation ended on 05-06-20

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Talismans: Attack in the Night

The second he awoke from use of the talisman, Shinji got up from his bed and grabbed his bag and rushed out the door of his hotel suite. The second he saw that crucified abomination locked up in NERV HQ, he knew his father and these people were insane. Even if there were members within the personnel that knew of the creature, the fact that they kept it around instead of destroying it was proof that any country in the world could have secrets like this that were inhuman and insane. The sooner he left this place and returned to Ōta, the better…and he could just find someone affiliated with the news someplace to sell out NERV to if they didn't know.

"Uh, Shinji Ikari," he heard a man in a black suit and glasses say his name as he sped-walked towards the lobby's front doors. "Wait! You can't leave!"

The doors slid open to let someone in…and Shinji stopped at the sight of a woman with long, sea-green hair in a blue and white dress.

"Good evening, young man," she greeted him, but her voice sounded devious. "You have something I want."

Shinji got the feeling that this lady wasn't who she seemed to be.

"And you're wearing it around your neck, too!" She cheered. "That's convenient!"

She reached out with her right hand, but Shinji backed away from her.

"Hand it over!"

"Lady, I don't know what you're talking about!" He told her.

"Just hand over the talisman and I'll let you live to be my servant."

"If I were to hand it over, I'd be shackled in one place all the time. It's the only way I've been able to get away from where I am."

"As touching as your claim is, that talisman you keep was born of one of my brothers, a disreputable being. And right now, he's just a miserable waste of space aided by mortal servants that will do his bidding in exchange for unspoiled riches. His talismans will serve in making him subservient in this ruined world that you humans have no respect for."

"Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to stay away from the…" The man in the suit spoke to the woman…and she swiped his head off with her left hand, sending it rolling away and his body falling to the floor.

"Aaurgh!" Shinji gasped; he hadn't expected a woman to be able to murder a man in such a fashion; in fact, he hadn't expected anyone to be killed in such a fashion by anyone else.

"I hate it when mortals don't know their place or have what I want," the woman expressed calmly. "Now, I will say this once more. Hand over the talisman."

As fearful of this woman as Shinji was right now, the fear of no longer having the talisman made him more unwilling to give it up. Even if it had once belonged to someone else a long time ago, it was now his to use until someone pried it from his lifeless fingers.

"No," he told her. "I don't care what you say or what your threats are. This talisman is mine."

Then the woman shrieked and turned into something inhuman in Shinji's eyes. She resembled some sort of gorgon with a fish-like serpent tail, all blue and white like her dress had been, with a red sphere on her waist.

"You're going to regret such a decision, boy," she uttered. "I want that talisman!"

-x-

"…What do you mean, the Third Child left?" Gendo demanded over the phone in his office. "Who attacked? A woman? She killed one of you? Find him and bring him here."

He hung up and looked at Ritsuko, who was in a state of undress.

"It appears that the Third Child has attempted to leave the city," he told her.

-x-

This was not some woman with a desire for his talisman as Shinji hid in the abandoned warehouse. She was some sort of monster, a mermaid or something that looked like it needed water to survive. Hiding in an old freezer, he decided to use his talisman to escape for a while and pray that nobody would find his body defenseless; he didn't enjoy leaving his body in places where others could go and decide that he was a defenseless pushover. The only other benefit of the Sheep Talisman was that his soul could wander around for long periods of time while his body rested, so while his mind knew no fatigue, his body could rejuvenate from fatigue.

I gotta make sure that nobody can keep track of me, he thought, wandering above the streets of Tokyo-3. But I gotta keep an eye for…

"I see you!" He up at a rooftop and saw the she-creature slithering around. "Humans may be blind and deaf to your presence while awake, but I'm a demon, and I see your soul as clear as daylight! And if your spirit wanders, your body is a sitting duck!"

You still have to find me.

"Oh, I'll find you! You can only get so far on your own! You can't evade the might of Bai Tza!"

Bai…Bai Tza? Where have I heard your name before?

Then the she-creature, Bai Tza, raised her arms up…and fired streams of high-pressured water at the buildings around her. The sides and windows dented and shattered from the force of the streams unleashed by her.

"I'll admit I was surprised that you could escape from me by running away, you got a head start!" Bai Tza admitted. "Why keep a trinket from my brother that you could've sold for wealth? It's wasted on someone that's going to die soon!"

For as long as I can recall, everyone has despised me for being the son of two people I can't even relate to, Shinji explained to her, flying away from the warehouse he was near, hoping that she'd follow him. Then when I was six, my aunt got me this talisman that she thought was useless. To be honest, it was the only gift she ever gave me that held any actual value to me. At first, I started venturing out at night while I was asleep. It turns out the world at night where adults rule…is more or less ugly as it is during the day. I've been to places that are awful and where unspeakable acts are committed. But I couldn't talk to anyone about any of it, even if I did try to talk about it. They'd think I was crazy…if they didn't already. Then…I started wandering around during the day, and I went to an aquarium without paying to see the fish. That's when I realized that I was limiting myself by going around where I lived when I was with my aunt and uncle, worrying about getting lost…and I was already lost…and alone. So I went wherever I wanted to go, knowing that nobody could see me or hear me. They couldn't catch me; they didn't even know where I was going because I wasn't really missing. I once screamed when I saw a shark swimming towards me when I realized that I wasn't even in the water. So the talisman granted me a semblance of freedom…and I value it more than what I once longed for.

"That power you speak of…is astral projection. You have my wretched brother's power of astral projection?! Of the majority of Shendu's abilities, that is the most useless among them! I thought you'd have one of his talismans that grant super strength or invisibility, not the ability to project one's soul from their body! That talisman might be useless, but it still belongs to Shendu, so I will take it from you!"

Bai Tza chased after the fleeing spirit on a stream of water, causing massive damage to the streets below, and being seen in her true form by people out and about.

Shinji went underground where she followed him; she might've been unable to harm him, but she could still cause some property damage, and right now, he needed her to cause trouble for some people that might've been just as dangerous as she was.

-x-

Alarms inside the Geo-Front went off like crazy, alerting the NERV personnel to some sort of attack, but none of them knew what it was.

"What's going?" Misato asked Ritsuko on the bridge. "An Angel?"

"Unknown," the faux-blond responded. "Something just appeared in the city and began attacking. Then it just breached the defenses and entered the Geo-Front."

On the screens, the unidentified enemy resembled some sort of monstrous mermaid, slashing away at things with these blades of water.

"What is that?" Misato questioned.

"If it was any meaner," went Ritsuko, "I'd say it was my mother."

-x-

Bai Tza continued to chase after the soul of Shinji Ikari, seeing several men and women in the process, either knocking them aside or injuring them with her water whips and water blades as he evaded her.

"There is no way you can hide from me!" She told him as he flew down another floor. "I'll always be able to see your frightened soul like how any demon sees mortal flesh!"

She smashed through the floor, followed by another floor, and another, seeing that he was fleeing downward. She would have to make certain that when he had nowhere left to flee, her water attacks would cut cleanly though his limbs; the second he returned to his body, he would feel as though the nerves in his flesh and blood limbs had failed him beyond their capacity to keep him upright or support his weight when he moved.

-x-

"Where is the enemy heading?" Gendo demanded to know the second he got onto the bridge in Central Dogma.

"It keeps heading down," Ritsuko answered him. "We believe it's heading towards Terminal Dogma, sir."

"Where is the Third Child?"

"Section Two lost him when this creature attacked the city. There's been no sign of him."

"We have no choice. Send out Unit-01 with the First Child."

This was something they didn't expect. The First Child was in recovery and they were going to send out an Eva against some creature that wasn't even a large monster, just a creature that seemed to be able to manipulate water to be strong enough to cut through solid steel doors.

-x-

Shinji flew through the large doors that housed the large being that influenced him to want to leave the city the second he got up. He was hoping that the moment this Bai Tza saw this thing, she would cut it down to size and help expose NERV to the public, one way or another.

Now all I gotta do is wait, he accepted and turned to face the doors. Come and get me.

SLICE! Blades of water cut through the doors and caused them to fall to hacked bits, revealing the demonic mermaid in all her dark glory.

"You've run out of places to run, haven't you?" She questioned, and then looked up at the large being. "What in universal creation is she doing here?!"

Suddenly, the red sphere on her abdomen started glowing brightly, as if signaling something wrong to her.

"Lilith, the primordial mother of mortals," she expressed. "She's been awaiting the day for someone to come and unite with her, resulting in the elimination of whatever is the dominant lifeform on the planet. Unfortunately, though, her equal and opposite, Adam, along with his spawn, his messengers…are unable to carry out that desire. My brethren and I have always had plans for the human race, and their widespread extinction isn't part of them. A pity, Lilith. I've always heard of you, but to find you like this, so weak, so vulnerable after what humans have done to you, and to have fallen out of existence in such a way… I'm disappointed in how far you've fallen from grace. I'm disappointed in how you allowed humans to treat you. Allow me to release you from your tortured state."

She conjured a large blade of water from her right arm…and swung it at Lilith's head, cutting through the neck with ease. The head fell off the suspended, crucified body and hit the ground.

"Do you know what makes humans such a miserable collection of despicable creatures, boy?" Bai Tza asked Shinji. "They never know what they truly desire…until they don't have it any longer in their meaningless lives."

Some people just don't appreciate what they have, Shinji told her, not that he knew for a fact; he didn't really have much in the way of family, not when his mother was dead, his father was a loser, and his aunt and uncle were disinterested in actually getting to know him, instead doing anything to avoid him altogether.

Then, Bai Tza realized something else that seemed unusual.

"You lured me down here on purpose, didn't you, boy?" She questioned.

Guilty as charged.

"You were never down here when you fled from me. That would be impossible. So why did you come down here to start with?"

I don't trust people with secrets like this that are just awful…and I don't want to be here around people that would exploit me like some sort of pawn. I didn't want to come here at all…and will be content with leaving the first chance I get.

"So, you manipulated me into damaging this underground chamber and creating problems for your people. Clever and deceptive, like a demon."

Except they're not my people. I don't know these men and women and they sure as Hell don't know me. I don't trust them. They kept secrets that were just too dark…and I refuse to be a party to their hidden agendas.

"That still doesn't change the fact that you wield one of my brother's talismans, even if it's a pathetic power to wield. You can only stand to be away from your vulnerable body for so long. One day, when you least expect it, you'll let your guard down, and when you do…you're as good as dead."

Then at least I'll be away from here, Shinji told her…and vanished from sight.

Bai Tza snarled; this was a new ability that the boy had demonstrated with the astral projection power of the talisman, being able to just disappear without showing where the projected spirit fled. But she knew she would find the boy…and pry the talisman from his dead hands.

"What the Hell is that?!" She heard someone say behind her, and turned to see some men with raised guns at her. "Don't move, or we'll shoot!"

Bai Tza raised her arms up and shot her head tentacles at them.

"Ugh!" They fell down dead, the result of being decapitated by her tentacles.

The red orb on her body continued to glow brightly, and she turned to face Lilith's severed head.

"So, you still have some fight in you?" She questioned. "Well, I can't fault you for that, Lilith. Even when decapitated, you still cling to existence. You remind me of Shendu, the slithering dragon when he was reduced to a wandering spirit that couldn't do anything without assistance. And this Angel that I absorbed into my body is fighting against me, but losing. To unite with you would eliminate the humans on a widespread scale, which we cannot have happen. As pathetic as they are, they are too valuable to lose. I'll be sure to tell the others about your current state."

Then Bai Tza slithered out the way she came in, letting these humans clean up the mess that boy led her into making. At this point, they were powerless against the Demon Sorcerers, even with their technology.

-x-

Gasp! Shinji returned to consciousness and busted out of the old freezer and grabbed his bag, fleeing the warehouse and into the night.

I gotta get outta here, he thought, needing to find another place to hide until he could catch the first bus or train out of this city. I just have to hold on until the transportation services kick back up. So demons really do exist. But her accent… She didn't seem to be from around here. Maybe Auntie could tell me something about her if she knows.

He saw some buildings nearby that seemed to be abandoned for longer than the warehouse he tried to hide in. They looked like old apartment buildings. A sign on a fence read "CONDEMNED DUE TO STRUCTURAL INSTABILITY", but Shinji couldn't hide outside because of some structural instability in old buildings. So he ran up some stairs and hid in an apartment on the second floor.

A brief flash of light occurred and while Shinji's body recouped in the darkness of where he lay, his soul was wide awake, on the lookout for any signs of possible danger.

I just need to hold on for two days, he reminded himself. You can hold on for two days, Shinji.

To be continued…

A/N: I wanted to see how one of the Demon Sorcerers would react to someone using one of Shendu's talismans, deciding that, even if it was a useless power being exploited, they would still desire it for their own purposes. Technically, Bai Tza's attack on the Geo-Front was Shinji's personal attack on NERV, but because she was chasing him, the people getting hurt or killed by the Water Demon Sorceress were collateral damage. Also, NERV had to be caught unprepared and unready to launch an Eva, which would've been a waste of time to use against something that wasn't even big enough to be considered a threat against the world. Until the next chapter.