Creation began on 08-03-20
Creation ended on 09-20-20
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Talismans: Negotiations
"…You run away from NERV just to work here at a junk shop?" Shinji heard that awful voice that he had left Tokyo-3 to get away from as he was sweeping up the dust on the floor, and turned to see his father in front of the shop, accompanied by seven black suits. "This is just disappointing to see."
"Unless you're buying or selling, I don't have time to attend a social call, if that's what this even is," he told the man. "What brings you here to Auntie's?"
As Gendo stepped inside the shop, Shinji took three steps back to continue sweeping from a safe distance; if this man's presence here had anything to do with his agency or his son's severing of familial ties, this was going to get ugly quick.
"It came to my attention that you had your identity altered," he told Shinji.
"Yeah, and what's it to you?" Shinji retorted, lowering to sweep up the dust in the dustpan. "I don't have time for a social call…"
"You can't walk away from what we're facing," Gendo told him.
Shinji sighed and walked away to a trashcan and dumped the collected dust.
"And what exactly are you facing?" He challenged. "As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing wrong…except perhaps you coming here…and talking about something I want no part of."
"I'm offering you one chance to atone for your misbehavior. Return to Tokyo-3 and pilot the Evangelion against the Angels."
"And what happens if I tell you to go away and suck on mud?"
"I will make things difficult for you and everyone that works here."
Shinji felt threatened and balled his fists. It was one thing to come after him just because he chose to reject a system run by people he had lost his faith in, but to have the same people threaten others he worked for or with…was crossing a line where familial ties were nonexistent and had to be severed in crueler ways.
"You need to leave," Shinji told his father. "Now."
"What is your…"
"Now! Leave!"
"Shinji?" They heard a female voice as someone entered from the back of the shop. "Is there something wrong?"
It was Auntie, followed by Hideki Katsuragi, who was wearing white pants, a shirt and apron, looking pristine over the filth he had accumulated over the last fifteen years of his life.
"This disgrace here just threatened me with making things difficult for everyone that works here," Shinji told Auntie.
Auntie looked at Gendo, almost seeing a resemblance between father and son, but thought better against it because this man couldn't look any less like a father and more like a demon.
"Gendo Rokubungi," Hideki uttered, not as pleased to see the guy had aged considerably in the last fifteen years without hiding a measure of some malice against the world.
Gendo looked at the man…and immediately felt the strangest sense of déjà vu take hold of him. It was the way this man looked and spoke that made his memories of the Antarctic resurface.
"Who are you?" He demanded.
"Hideki Katsuragi," he introduced himself, "of course, you knew who I was the second you saw my face."
"How are you, of all people, even alive?"
"The kami were merciful to me when I had given up any hope of seeing the next day," he told a half-truth; he had no doubts that Gendo was among those that simply couldn't be trusted with anything that he could use to harm others, and he refused to betray Auntie after he gave her the Dog Talisman after having it for so long, embracing his return to mortality.
"And you work in a junk shop? Why not work for NERV?"
"And answer to you? Uh, Shinji, would I have to answer to him?"
"I think everyone at NERV answers to him, Mr. Katsuragi," said Shinji, "and working for him is comparable to a death sentence."
"And he tried to make you work for him?"
"I keep telling him that I refuse, but he's hard at hearing."
Auntie walked over to the father of one of her employees and created a gap between parent and child by blocking the former against the latter.
"What brings you here?" She asked him.
"That boy," he answered her.
"And what do you want with him?"
"I need you to terminate his employment here, immediately."
"You mean, fire him?"
"I need him in Tokyo-3."
"I'm afraid I must refuse you. You see, you're trying to poach one of my employees…and I can't have that. There are others you can hire to work for you, and yet you keep trying to hire someone that wants nothing to do with you. That's a sign that you should give up and move on."
"I'm afraid I must insist that you fire him…or else," Gendo warned her.
"Or else, what, you sore loser?" Shinji questioned.
"I will make things difficult," Gendo repeated, and then turned to walk away.
"Even if you continue to persist in trying to get me to bend for you, just know this, old man," he heard Shinji say to him. "The closest you'll get to me is a pile of ashes. You hear me? That's the closest you'll ever get to possessing me."
"We'll see," Gendo responded, and got into his car and drove away.
"Bastard," Shinji muttered. "There is no way that I'll ever return to you, dead or alive."
-x-
"…You're in no position to make demands from me or anyone, Shendu," said Dai Gui to the immobile prison form of Shendu and his human allies after he revealed his true form to them, along with revealing the Tiger Talisman. "This world will belong to all the Demon Sorcerers, not just one of them. If you want to retake your place in our grand design, then we have things to discuss that those of you can do for us personally."
The boss beside Shendu found the mere sight of the Earth Demon Sorcerer to be monstrous, unlike what he had envisioned Shendu to look like once he had all the talismans back in his possession and released from his statue form.
"What do you want, Mr. Dai Gui?" He asked him.
"As you are probably aware, the planet has been recently restored to a previous state of being by us demons," Dai Gui explained. "Now, we want the humans to know who we are and why we did what we did…and what is expected of them if they wish to survive."
"Broadcast to the world that demons exist among humans and they will take possession of the planet by any means? People as a whole are not as cooperative as you would think. After Second Impact, the military superpowers of the ravaged world got an uptick in their weaponry development, just in case another country declared war upon the rest of the world. Some believed that wars were orchestrated on the belief that people couldn't be trusted with their freedom, and if you take their freedom from them, they will resist and fight back."
"Humans have always been a flawed race."
"People value three things above all else, Mr. Dai Gui: Freedom, privacy and security. If they feel they are going to lose just one of them, they may very well lose all of them. And in any war, the side that wins is the side that possesses the most influence. The losing side will become desperate, willing to do anything to ensure that they can feel a measure of safety and security. If their safety and security is assured, they will forfeit their freedom."
"Where did you learn of this belief?"
"War history."
"History is decided by those that control the world."
"And if that's what you want, you need to be able to get control of the world. There are many ways to do so."
"I'm listening."
-x-
"…I can't believe that was Gendo," said Hideki to Shinji as he and the majority of the shop personnel were present and informed that the boy's father had threatened them. "He did not get any wiser with age."
"Does anyone with an agenda do?" Juggernaut questioned.
"Unfortunately, no," says Desdemona, setting a teapot on the countertop beside her. "And people with agendas are not often able to own up to their inability to change."
"I once had an agenda," stated Auntie to them, "and I have changed much with age."
"Uh…Auntie, you're the best example of a person that sees redemption in most that others don't see anything in," Cobra Moss told her.
"If I ever see your old man, Shinji," went Dragon, "do you think I could get off with murder in defense of other people he threatened?"
"I dare not risk you trying, Dragon," Shinji told him; unless opportunity presented itself to enable at least one of them to inflict grievous harm to his father, Shinji wouldn't let any of them make such a risk in fear of losing their lives or freedom if they were ever caught. "I'll keep tabs on him with the Sheep Talisman."
"Dammit," went Sheegwa, irritated, "why do we have to be troubled by a man that hates his own kid and can't admit it? Why can't we just be troubled with idiot criminals or demonic powers at work? No offense to you, Shinji."
"None taken," he responded. "My father is a horrible person, and we would be better off without him causing us problems."
Serpentina came over and set down a medium-sized chest onto one of the tables and opened it up to reveal its contents.
"These were the items you labeled not as dangerous so long as they were kept separate from other dangerous items, Auntie," she told their boss as she reached into the chest and removed a small, red pendant. "Aaurgh…this one is on fire."
"Yeah, I had to literally go to war with another curator for most of these relics," Auntie revealed. "He was…most unsettling with his reasons for possessing such items."
"Auntie," Dragon uttered, "the guy sought to do more harm than good with such talismans…and you merely stated that no amount of what he was doing was worth the potential outcome. You believed in there being hope in the darkest of times, he didn't, and when push came to shove, you came out on top and relieved him of the dangerous items."
Hideki looked at Auntie and believed her to be unlikely to have been able to face someone that previously had these items in the chest.
"It was a decade before Second Impact, Hideki," Auntie told him, clarifying things, "and this…curator…was the last guy to incite me to lose my control. He was fortunate to walk away with his head still attached to his body."
"You mean, you almost killed him?" He asked her.
"You know how we all have our personal demons?" Shinji told him. "Well, some of us have certain demons that are…harder to talk about. Sometimes, it takes a bizarre day to see what others would find insane."
"I'm still adjusting after fifteen years. I'm just trying to understand what was done to enable Auntie to obtain dangerous artifacts."
"I'm among most in this shop to possess an ability that stems from an encounter with the supernatural, but unlike everyone here, I possessed this ability all my life, but it's not something that I can simply express like they can."
Hideki looked at Dragon, Juggernaut and Desdemona, getting the impression that what Auntie was talking about was exactly as what they were capable of.
"This power you call a Stand?" He questioned. "Yes, you mentioned that only those with some measure of spiritual strength can possess such a power, but it varies from one person to the next based on their personalities."
"Except Auntie's is not a social or cooperative Stand," Dragon claimed. "Hers is… Well, let's just say that hers is the one Stand you wouldn't want to be alone with. It's the very opposite of everything she is, inside and outside."
"So, what are these relics you got from this curator?" Hideki asked Auntie.
"I took the Ember Stone, the Glacier Stone, and the Wheel of Shadows from him," she answered, reaching into the chest and pulling out a second stone, showing that it was emitting a strange, bluish energy. "They were all part of a set of thirteen artifacts that, if brought together, have the potential to destroy the world that currently is and create a new one that isn't. As tempting as that was, it would have had repercussions for everyone, so I threatened the curator against gathering all of them. If he ever did and I found out about it, he was going to regret it with every breath he took."
"As an antique keeper, Auntie has to think about the world in terms of what can do the most harm and needs to be kept away, allowing items that can only do the least amount of harm if they're in the right hands," Serpentina expressed, looking at the third relic inside the chest, the Wheel of Shadows. "Auntie, I thought you were going to dispose of this one."
"It is difficult to dispose of it someplace that nobody will be curious to venture to in order to find it," she told Serpentina. "Shinji, will you help find places that can be used to hide this one?"
"Do volcanoes and trenches count?" He asked her.
"Very."
"I'll start with Mt. Fuji and then Mt. Mihara."
"Maybe you should check the South Pole, too," suggested Hideki.
"Any other places I should check to hide something dangerous?" Shinji requested to hear from everyone else."
"Aokigahara," Dragon suggested. "People mainly go there to die, so who says that those that go there don't also try to hide things?"
"Challenger Deep," Sheegwa added. "That's the deepest part of the ocean. Perfect place to hide things you don't want others getting."
"The far side of the moon," Serpentina also added. "Unless, of course, people try to terraform the moon for colonization."
-x-
"…You neglected to mention that your father was alive and currently in Ōta, Captain Katsuragi," Gendo informed Misato after he returned to the Geo-Front.
"I fail to see how that is any of NERV's business," Misato stated; while her relationship with her father was still strained, she wasn't going to bring it up any more than necessary after discovering that the only reason he survived Second Impact was due to a piece of stone with a dog painted on it.
"How much of our operation does he know about?" Gendo questioned her.
"He probably only knows as much as your son probably told him," she suggested. "The last thing I ever heard of him was that he sought employment from the same antique shop that the Third Child is currently employed at. When asked why he'd want to work at an antique shop, his response was that he needed a fresh start after what he experienced fifteen years ago, and that he could never go back to such a career choice."
"I've given the Third Child a choice to return to NERV of his own volition, otherwise he will find things to become difficult."
"Personally, I believe you can threaten him all you choose…and he'll still refuse to come back. Everyone that appears to work at that shop for that woman that owns it all have respect towards her and can take offense to anyone disrespecting her."
Before Gendo could speak of his opinion about Auntie, the door to his office opened and in came Fuyutsuki, who seemed bothered by something.
"We have a problem," he told them.
"An Angel?" Misato questioned.
"If only it were so," he responded. "We're getting a pirate broadcast from someone calling themselves Tso Lan, who has information that the whole world needs to hear about."
"Tso Lan?" Gendo repeated, never hearing that name before.
-x-
Radio and television signals were being hacked, revealing an obscured being with glowing, red eyes.
"Are we live?" An electronically-altered voice uttered to someone behind a camera as the obscured being was being filmed.
"We're live," another electronically-altered voice responded. "You may begin."
"Humans everywhere, I am Tso Lan, and your leaders have blinded you to many things in order to make you believe that the world was nearing its end. They couldn't be more wrong than believable. This world doesn't end…unless the new masters say it does…and I am one of those new masters."
In front a television set in Auntie's shop, Shinji and the others were watching as this person was talking to the world.
"SEELE, a group of such people, have fed you false beliefs that everything is fine while another group called NERV…have been holding a giant of dangerous proportions underground, beneath the streets of this Tokyo-3 in a place called a Geo-Front," Tso Lan continued, "using it as a lure for what they thought would come to establish an apocalyptic reset to your world. Of course, something of that sort would've happened…if the creatures they had been expecting weren't dealt with fifteen years ago, just after Second Impact occurred, by my comrades and I. We dealt with these beings they refer to as Angels, and we have taken their powers to augment our own. The restoration of the planet's coastal regions and the South Pole, that was us…and we can undo it if we so choose. If you think this is a bluff, you will be proven wrong. This world belongs to us now, and you must either submit or face certain doom. Resistance is futile. So who do you suppose is the bigger risk: SEELE and NERV, who tried to hide that your insignificant lives were going to expire…or the rulers that seek followers? You decide. Be sure to look for strange phenomena in the skies and in the oceans. This is your first warning."
Then, the broadcast ceased and returned to what was left of the original program that was airing.
"The Demon Sorcerers," Shinji sighed.
"They're making their move," Auntie added.
"How bad is this?" Hideki questioned.
"I met one of these Demon Sorcerers," Shinji told him. "Bai Tza, the Water Demon Sorceress, and she was dangerous, even though I was in my astral form when she chased me for the Sheep Talisman. I used her to deal a blow against NERV before I left Tokyo-3."
"Whatever happened there is the fault of the people at NERV, not yours," he waved whatever Shinji did off as an issue the paramilitary had no control over. "If NERV was tasked with dealing with these Angels, you owed them no aid against a demon that wasn't interested in their affairs."
"But to answer your question of how bad this, it's bad if they're all together. There's eight of them, and if they all have taken the power of these Angels to augment their own, they're a dangerous bunch. If they restored the planet, they can undo the restoration if they so choose. But I don't think the demon Shendu had anything to offer in the planet's restoration. Not if he doesn't have the talismans he drew power from."
Hideki looked out towards the windows displaying the outside of the shop, to the streets and the people that saw, heard and, without any doubt, were talking about what happened a few minutes ago wherever they were.
"What are the chances of riots breaking out?" He asked.
"Only fools and people frightened by what they don't know or understand riot," Auntie stated.
-x-
"…It's gotta be a bluff," went Hyuga to his fellow Bridge Bunnies after the pirate broadcast ended in the Geo-Front.
But people elsewhere in the Geo-Front were starting to talk about how this Tso Lan figure pointed out that the Geo-Front was where a large being was being held to attract the Angels and how the whole world knew about it now.
"This is going to cause some civil unrest if this broadcast was global," Fuyutsuki stated to Gendo and Misato after they were informed of the pirate broadcast.
"Nobody is capable of performing a planet-wide restoration," said Misato to them.
"Not with existing technology," added Gendo; even the technology utilized by NERV was incapable of anything of this sort, as nothing was being implemented to attempt to undo what happened fifteen years ago. "Probably just some cultists trying to take credit for what wasn't their doing."
Ring-ring! Gendo's phone rang, and he answered it.
"Yes?" He questioned, and his jaw tightened.
Misato got the impression that on the other end of the call was anything but someone concerned about what they either saw on television or heard off a radio or from someone else. After Gendo hung up after several responses, she saw that he wasn't happy about whatever the call had been about moments ago.
"Well?" Fuyutsuki asked him.
"That was the UN," he explained. "People from there are starting to grow concerned with what they heard about NERV."
"They actually believe that NERV is housing a giant under Tokyo-3?" Misato questioned.
"Seeing as how some unidentified creature forced its way into the base without any resistance, anyone that was still alive from the attack that left several dead were able to get unrestricted access to Terminal Dogma." Fuyutsuki clarified.
-x-
"…Do you honestly believe people will believe that my demon brethren are the ones responsible?" Shendu asked his human subordinate after the broadcast was sent across the planet.
"Nothing happens overnight, Shendu," he told the demon statue. "To incite fear, patience needs to be unleashed one step at a time, which can take days or weeks. There's no time table to rule us, and nobody will be expecting an attack from us."
Even if Shendu accepted this as a fact, his sole concern was the repossession of the talismans…and Dai Gui and the other Demon Sorcerers dangled the Tiger Talisman in front of him like a human suffering from dehydration and starvation, begging for scraps to get by. Even without the interference of the Chan Clan, he desired no less than to escape his imprisonment and retake control of all of Asia. Even without the need of waiting for the Chinese New Year, he sought his desires above all else, but he needed to demonstrate patience and restraint. But time…time felt like a great enemy to him because he had to wait for over nine centuries, almost a millennia, until humans had adapted enough to make his move.
"You don't trust your relatives, do you?" He was asked by his subordinate.
"They have never had a reason to trust me," he answered back, "and the feeling is mutual."
"Family ties are the hardest ones to gain trust from. Nobody's perfect."
-x-
For the most part, it seemed as though the civilian life in Ōta was the same as it was the last eight days. This was what Desdemona saw as she entered Ōta's cemetery to pay her respects to her deceased parents.
"Even though it seems like the world is finally on its way to mending, no amount of restoration can mend the wounds left in my heart when you two were taken from me," she said in front of a small tombstone with her family's name engraved on it, representing her parents. "It's crazy, but it's the world we live in. The Earth was fixed to its original state by demons with power over the elements, and they demand worship from people. Like that will ever happen. I only have worship for one person outside of the kami, and that's Auntie. Even when I didn't have a chance of putting my life back together, Auntie saw my potential and helped me. Even when I took a leave of absence from the shop, she knew I'd recover from my injuries and move on. I hope you're keeping watch over her in my stead."
She looked up at the clear skies and sighed.
-x-
"…So, Desdemona originally took a two-month leave of absence because she was going on maternity leave?" Hideki asked Auntie as he was helping her move large crates. "She's married to someone?"
"No," Auntie stated. "Her personal life is her own, business, but she wasn't seeing anyone. I respect anyone that's willing to raise a child on their own, but it's a hardship when it hits you harder than you expect it to when nothing goes right for you."
"What do you mean by that?"
As she set the crate down, Auntie sighed and sat down on the ground, gesturing for him to sit with her.
"While she's not seeing anyone, she had a bit of an encounter with another of my employees," she explained. "I don't question the possibility of in-house romance around here so long as it's mutual and not hurting anyone or affecting their responsibilities, but some relationships often become questionable if neither party involved are able to understand where they stand in each other's present."
Just then, a man with a well-built, muscular shape walked by, with shaggy, blond hair and teal eyes, carrying two violin cases.
"A father with twin girls donated these violins," he said to them.
"Thank you, Bouncer," Auntie responded. "You can set them with the other donations and go home until the night shift starts."
"Yes, ma'am."
That was something Hideki also had to adjust to, practically most of Auntie's personnel having these nicknames they used in place of their real names. He never heard of any boss giving this much leeway with identification in a workplace.
"I, uh…don't understand the fluidity of your employees, Auntie," he confessed to her.
"In what way?"
"Some of your staff, like Shinji and Sheegwa, look like school students, some, like Desdemona, look like they could be working in office buildings someplace, but Bouncer looks like…like…a guy that could kill you if you crossed him the wrong way."
"Word of caution: Bouncer isn't far from what you just said."
Hideki looked back into the room where Bouncer was storing the violins.
"What did he do?" He asked.
"He used to be a bouncer for a club he worked at five years ago," she explained. "One night, he saw a man getting rough on a woman, and he asked him to leave. The guy threw the first punch, and Bouncer punched him back. The guy went down…and he didn't get back up."
"But…Bouncer had no intention on killing the guy, right? So, it wasn't premeditated or whatever they're calling an unintentional murder. I mean, he just wanted to knock the guy out, right?"
"Try telling that to the police when all they want to hear is what they want to hear. Most police officers these days don't care about what happened, just making an arrest for even a petty crime, like loitering or being a suspected criminal just for walking down a neighborhood you're not usually seen in. Bouncer was arrested, but he wasn't convicted of murder. It was ruled justifiable homicide, but Bouncer couldn't go back to his job after that night, and the two police officers that showed up started following him around. He came into the shop and when they came in after him, I stood up for him…and hired him, right there and then, and told the police to leave."
"And he's been working here ever since?"
"The night shift here or in a museum isn't all that different from working as a bouncer in a bar or a club, just not that many people to watch out for. Plus, Dragon, Juggernaut and Steampunk play cards with him to pass the time."
Bouncer then walked past them and punched his attendance card out.
"Everyone here has a history that sets them apart from the rest of Ōta's society?" Hideki questioned out of curiosity.
"Yeah," Auntie answered. "It's not easy to be a part of a place if others think you can't fit in."
"I ruined my chances of fitting in years ago, squandered my life in the pursuit of scientific advancement. Never again will I ever pursue any interest in scientific advancement for as long as I live."
Auntie nodded her head in agreement with his decision.
Suddenly, Shinji's astral body emerged from a nearby wall and he flew towards them.
"What did you find, Shinji?" She asked him.
Some people in Tokyo-3 were very upset with NERV, he revealed to them, and with the revelation of the large, white being buried in their Geo-Front's basement that my old man tried to hide or keep investigators from seeing, there's going to be some problems for the paramilitary agency and the people that were supposed to oversee it.
"How far did Gendo try to go to hide this giant being?" Hideki asked Shinji. "What did this giant look like?"
He tried to pass it off as a resource for his Evangelion project. It was white, likely larger than an Evangelion, marshmallow-like, based on its visual texture and proportions, with a purple mask with seven eyes, and it was nailed to a giant cross with its lower body missing, looking like someone tore away its legs and left a mess.
"It didn't glow, like it was made of light?"
No.
Hideki thought about it and suspected that whatever Shinji saw at the Geo-Front under Tokyo-3 was not Adam; he figured that it was also unlikely for a being of such a colossal height to regenerate after self-destructing and melting the arctic environment of where it was found.
"You've seen something like what Shinji has seen before?" Auntie questioned him.
"Something like it, but it was fifteen years ago, before Second Impact, in the Antarctic. It was called Adam, the First Angel."
I kept snooping around and heard a name that was said by Bai Tza back when I realized I had to get away from NERV, Shinji explained. I think she called it Lilith.
"Lilith…"
"Lilith, believed in some cultures to be the original wife of Adam, created by God to be his equal," said Auntie, "but Lilith refused to be subservient to Adam and left the Garden of Eden of her own accord, never to return."
Well, Bai Tza decapitated Lilith when I lured her down there to Terminal Dogma, that chamber where NERV had her kept in, and when the investigators found her, her head was still on the ground. It didn't even look like they were making any attempts to put the head back onto the body, either.
-x-
If it wasn't one thing with NERV facing a series of accusations from the public, it was another thing for the public to find mysterious happenings occurring around the world. There were large icebergs showing up in lakes cut off from the oceans, stone statues of strange beings emerging from the sides of mountains and cliffs, and cloud formations taking on the shapes of castles and skull symbols used to mark poisonous chemicals or biohazard environments. All of these were manifesting days or weeks apart from each other, from random parts of the world, sometimes even happening at the same time. If these were the warning signs of something different or a sign that whoever was responsible for restoring the planet to its original state so that people could rebuild…people were definitely starting to suspect that they were a lot more powerful than they said they were.
Gendo was facing flak from practically everyone on all sides, including SEELE, who was also getting looked at for hiding secrets of such significance after their identities were leaked to the public. As he sat in his office, he fumed over how NERV's legal protection was being terminated and an extended investigation into the paramilitary agency's future regarding the use of the Evangelions if there were no Angels to face at all. While he had a mind to persuade the JSSDF that NERV still had a purpose if they could convince the Third Child to return, he had his doubts about even the threat of annihilation forcing his son to aid him.
How did my scenario go from flawless to undone in the span of a few days? He wondered as he feared that the second the UN decided that the Evas were no longer necessary, Unit-01 would be shutdown for good.
The door to his office opened and Ritsuko Akagi entered.
"The Committee contacted me, claiming they were unable to contact you," she informed him. "They want to know from you directly how it was possible that the Third Child escaped from NERV when we were attacked by an unidentified creature that wasn't an Angel."
"What did you tell them?" He responded.
"I told them exactly how he fled, but they still want to hear from you," she explained; even Misato had informed the Committee of her inability to detain the boy from leaving the city, even when held at gun point by her, but they demanded an audience with Gendo to hear from him about his son's alleged refusal to aid NERV. "What do you suppose are the chances that we'll be shutdown in favor of protecting the interests of the people?"
"The chances of us getting shutdown are high," he told her, "and all because of that petulant brat and his unwillingness to do as he's told."
To be continued…
A/N: How many of you want to see NERV disbanded? How many are you want to see Drago in the next chapter? How many of you want Misato's father to receive a Stand of his own?