Creation began on 08-10-21
Creation ended on 04-24-22
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Talismans: The Demons (Can't) Advance
Japan, like anywhere else in the world, had its share of myths and legends regarding demons and specters, and, like most of the personnel of Auntie's shop, Shinji was privy to the more-benevolent variations that just…lingered around Ōta longer than he lived there. Accompanied by Juggernaut, he was helping to deliver another year's worth of toys to this one building in the city that housed several orphans from the aftermath of Second Impact, operated by a woman that Auntie had known for more than twenty years. At first, Shinji had been worried about his encounter with the woman, but only at first; if the woman made no attempt to try and harm others before, it was clear that she never aimed to. And as they arrived at the building, they passed a sign that a bit childish due to the fact that it had handprints of different colors belonging to little hands: "Mu-on'na's Home for Lost Children".
I was lost for a time, but Mu-on'na didn't try anything with me when Auntie informed her that I worked at her shop, Shinji thought as Juggernaut ringed the doorbell. She's only intimidating when protecting her kids from possible danger, and with the Demon Sorcerers now in our world, she's going to be on the alert if they try anything.
"Who is it?" They heard a little girl's voice behind the door.
"Delivery from Auntie's," Juggernaut replied, and the door unlocked to reveal a ten-year-old girl with long, ebony hair and blue eyes, dressed in a pink dress. "Izayoi-Chan."
"Welcome," the little girl, Izayoi, greeted the two men, and led them inside. "Did you see that thing on TV about those people that call themselves the new masters of the world?"
"We did," Shinji responded, setting his box down on the floor in the middle of a large playroom. "How is Mu-on'na taking this revelation?"
"Mother Mu-on'na is anything but cheerful right now," they heard a little boy say to them, dressed in black shorts and a purple shirt, with amber eyes and a small ponytail of brown hair. "She tries to hide her fear from us, but we can tell she's worried about them coming after her."
"Because she chooses to live among people or because she's not malicious?" Juggernaut asked.
"Ma…delicious?"
Shinji wasn't going to prod at the boy's lack of vocabulary and opened the box of toys from the shop, pulling out a basketball and handing it over to him.
"Hello, Shinji and Juggernaut," a woman in her mid-thirties greeted them, sporting a green yukata, with long, grayish-brown hair and green eyes. "I was just…putting on my face."
The two men bowed to the woman and then Shinji took out something from his pants' right pocket: It was a small, round object the size of a ping-pong ball made of some sort of smooth stone or glass.
"Auntie said that you spent ten years waiting for this," he told her as she raised her left hand to receive the object. "I hope it helps you keep the kids safe."
"It's only a replica of the one that was lost to time, but even this is a genuine artifact if properly used for a benevolent purpose," Mu-on'na stated, tucking the object into her yukata. "Thank you for bringing it over."
Shinji bowed his head again to her and then looked over at a nearby mirror, seeing her face reflected to him. Or rather…not seeing her face due to what she was deep down, which was part of the reason she needed the discretion of those that knew her personally or were sworn to secrecy about her.
Mu-on'na was…figuratively…and very literally…a woman born of the nothingness that resides within the world. A literal false mother for orphaned children, and she'd been around for more than four-hundred years…but lived with people in secret for over one-hundred years by the time she met Auntie. Unlike most demons that had been around for generations, she was among the sort that practiced benevolence instead of malevolence; her sole passion was the happiness of being around children in need of a caring, parental figure, and she constantly felt this emptiness inside her that was only alleviated through the company of children. She looked after them until they no longer needed her…and she moved on to the next child that needed her…until they no longer needed her.
"We will get a lid on this should they try to come back," Juggernaut informed Mu-on'na, letting her know that they were taking the matter with the Demon Sorcerers seriously. "They make a move on you or your kids, they so much as spit in your general direction, and they're going back to that prison dimension they were banished to long ago."
Mu-on'na smiled and bowed to the pair.
"Much appreciated," she expressed.
-x-
"…We'll need hummingbird saliva for the Sky Demon and hair of ewe for the Earth Demon," Auntie told Dragon as they were taking inventory of what they lacked to banish the Demon Sorcerers should they make a move on Ōta in the shop.
"We may need the Monkey Talisman to get the animal resources," he responded. "Can the Monkey Talisman turn things into extinct animals?"
"There was no indication that it couldn't; its power revolved around animal shape-shifting, not whether or not it could only turn creatures into other creatures that were still among the world's immediate host of organisms. And to be honest, I only used it twice after acquiring it, just to make sure that it worked."
So far, they had the objects symbolizing the demons' defeat by the Eight Immortals, but the other resources would need to be gathered elsewhere. It was mere luck that the castanets needed to banish Tchang Zu were in their inventory and a gourd needed to banish Bai Tza could be obtained from where Auntie could find them. A katana, while not the type of sword previously used to banish Shendu, was still a sword that could be used to slay a dragon, and a hand fan could be found or made to banish Xiao Fung.
-x-
Misato didn't like this one bit. She wasn't even sure why Fuyutsuki informed her of this, but Gendo, who was being reprimanded by the UN until they decided to let him go, along with the rest of them, was planning something that involved his son. It was obvious that he was upset that Shinji had legally changed his last name, but Gendo, who left his son with his wife's relatives after his wife died, was taking this personally and might've wanted to make his son's life in Ōta as miserable as possible. If this was the case, then it seemed like the father was unwilling to leave the son alone, even when it was best to do that when the son just wanted to be left alone after making his escape from Tokyo-3.
"Does he hate his son that much that he's unwilling to leave him alone until he comes back to do something that no longer matters?" She wonders out loud in the command center of Central Dogma. "What is his deal?"
"He doesn't like it when he's refused," Ritsuko stated. "In his mind, it has to be his way…or no way. Still, it was unpredictable to know that his son would sever his own ties with the name Ikari after coming to Tokyo-3. I thought as a teen, he'd just rebel at every chance he got. Instead of just rebelling, he cast aside a piece of his past and rewrote his own personal history."
"I don't know whoever it was that said this, but Shinji probably did the one thing most people don't think of doing unless they have the time and resources to do so, and he had neither: He made his own future…and his own past in the present."
"Making one's own future and past, huh? Well, he clearly had help in the form of people from that city he relocated to when he left his relatives."
"Yeah. Some very helpful people."
-x-
"…Well, it looks like the Monkey Talisman isn't limited by what happened fifteen years ago," Auntie sighed as Juggernaut had volunteered to be the guinea pig for the use of the Monkey Talisman's power of animal shapeshifting, having turned the man into one of the most rare and beautiful of animals in the world: A tiger, something you couldn't find unless in a zoo these days in the most out-of-reach cities. "Are you alright, Juggernaut?"
The five-hundred-pound albino beast sat down in the room where Auntie kept the talismans and nodded his head in the positive; only Juggernaut's body was changed, not his mind.
"Rrraurgh!" He roared.
Auntie raised the talisman up and used it again.
"Undo," she uttered, and the talisman shot a beam of light at the tiger, returning it to Juggernaut, who stood up like before. "How do you feel?"
"Like I took a short walk on the wild side," he answered her. "We should try a Komodo dragon next time."
Auntie sighed and raised the talisman again.
"Komodo dragon," she requested, and the talisman shot a beam of light again at Juggernaut, turning him into a ten-foot version of the desired animal. "Magnificent."
"Grr," the reptilian beast growled, dripping saliva onto the floor.
"Oh!" Auntie gasped and grabbed a cup and brought it to the dragon's jaw; since there was no telling what else they needed against the Demon Sorcerers, this was a good opportunity to collect a new sample that might come in handy, since the animal body is different from the human body. "Komodo dragon saliva carries toxins and bacteria that could come in handy later on," she told Juggernaut, collecting enough of his saliva in the cup before using the talisman to return him to human form. "We're in business with our animal ingredient needs."
"I can't believe I was getting hungry as a Komodo dragon," he informed her.
As they were gathering their animal ingredients, Shinji was using the Sheep Talisman to traverse the world in astral form in search of the Demon Sorcerers, leaving his body defenseless under the watch of Hideaki, who, like Desdemona and Serpentina, was learning about the enemy in order to deal with them should they try to come for Drago or the talismans.
"…You remind me of one of the Chan Clan," Drago informed Auntie as he examined the antiques in storage, "but he kept oriental objects. You must collect and redistribute every other object that has existed to people that can use them."
"Just about," she replied. "My primary specialty is antiques, but not everyone is interested in things that are over a few centuries old…or look like they're a few centuries old. They'll sometimes want something that is old, but recent or tied to the previous century, so I make it a point to have other things to redistribute. We have resources that can still be used without causing more harm to the planet just to possess things we may not even need."
"Recycling."
"Yeah. That is the general term for reusing old objects."
Drago then picked up an object shaped like a nesting doll, only it was black and featureless. He could sense the magic that still resided within it.
"Is this a Grimhold?" He asked them.
"Yes," went Juggernaut. "We don't use items like that unless other alternatives fail."
Drago put the nesting doll down and backed away from it. He was only familiar with several objects of ancient magic belonging to other places of other cultures, some of which he had been subjected to by his family long ago…as a test subject to see how effective they were.
"You still feel the darkness within your soul, don't you?" Auntie asked him.
"The darkness?" He responded.
"Yes. That darkness that doesn't fade, even with time."
"You're familiar with it, I presume?"
"If you ever saw it, you would know to keep your distance. It's not something I would let out unless I absolutely had to, and even then, it's a risk for everyone to be near me."
"I still possess the total sum of my family's demonic chi when they were banished, but I gave up those ambitions of world domination in favor of a peaceful life. It is as the wisemen would say…about being able to resist all but temptation."
"But so long as you resist, you can never break," Juggernaut told him.
"True."
-x-
The only downside to traveling in astral form for Shinji right now was that he might've been vulnerable to any demonic energies swirling around wherever he went, but he searched through building after building after building within Tokyo-3, Osaka-2, Nagoya-2, and was about to search Tokyo-2's buildings, but hadn't found any of the Demon Sorcerers lurking around yet. He was searching for anyone that had something they weren't supposed to have. So far, there wasn't anything out of the ordinary; there were vaults full of documents and bank bonds, broom closets where some people decided to make out, or elevators that only go to certain floors in some buildings due to being express elevators.
I'd be better off spying off my father and later snitching on him to keep him in line, he thought as he flew around another building in the city. If I knew it would be this hard to find a statue of a dragon wrapped up, I'd probably draw a picture and post it on the Internet for people to look for if they knew where to find it.
He flew through the roof of the next building…and paused before what he'd been searching for.
Oh, Kami, he gasped.
A statue, resembling a sort of serpent, coiled or tightly wrapped up, with the head and face positioned in the center with twelve indents shaped like octagons in a semicircle underneath. What caught Shinji's attention the most of all with this statue was the resemblance he could see between it and Drago, realizing that this had to be the statuesque prison of his father, Shendu. Looking around, he saw a Japanese man sitting in front of a table, giving off the shady businessman feel to Shinji. The guy seemed rather collected, organized and capable of handling things when he needed to.
"…Based off the information that's limited regarding that antique shop," he heard the man say, "it doesn't seem like the people that were there are like any other group of people. It's mostly just teens and adults, some with records that date back a few years. This woman that owns the shop is the one that employs them and keeps them in line. She's not even special in any sense if she's over seventy years old; if you hit her with enough force in her chest, she'd fall and croak."
"Not if she possesses the Dog Talisman, which grants youthful energy in addition to immortality," he heard the statue speak, confirming that it was indeed Shendu, who spoke in a raspy tone. "This was once the case for several pests that interfered in my affairs."
There was no indication that Shendu could see Shinji's astral form, so Shinji took off after memorizing the layout of the top floor and the address of the building. With this new information, Auntie and the rest would be one step ahead of the Demon Sorcerers when and if they chose to make their move on them.
-x-
It was a quiver containing arrows, but there was one that stood out due to its unusual arrowhead shape and design. As Hideaki understood from history books, arrowheads were made from whatever materials that were available at the time of their creation, whether they were stone or metal. But this arrowhead had an ornate, insectoid design…and it intrigued him.
"I wouldn't get too close to that arrow, Katsuragi," he heard Auntie tell him, and he looked at her, seeing her expression was one of mild contempt. "It has a history that is unpleasant for most that get hurt by it."
"I'm sorry," he apologized to her. "I was just looking at it."
"It's okay to look," she assured him, "just not okay to touch. That is, not unless you have a strong measure of spiritual strength…for that arrow awakens within those pierced by it a Stand, a representation of their innermost self."
"A Stand? As in those abilities some of your employees possess?"
"That's right. It's part of a set of arrows made centuries ago from a meteorite that struck the planet…but nobody versed in the history of these arrows know for certain how many were made and how many are still out there in the world, possessed by people with negative intentions that may use them."
"You mean…you're not the only one that has one of these arrows? There are others?"
"There's a foundation that has most of the ones recovered, but they allowed me to keep this one because I'm not a monster or someone that will use it on random people. Are you familiar with the Speedwagon Foundation?"
"Speedwagon? They…they were a medical and environmental research organization. I'm surprised you know them."
"Know them? We both share a passion for items that could be used to benefit both people and the world. How certain legends from history are based mostly on truth and not so much fabrication. Even relics that were used mostly for wrongful purposes that could be used benevolently. And this arrow is just one of several that are in the gray area of light and darkness, many of which can't see the light of day until someone can handle them without being influenced negatively."
Hideaki looked at the arrow again and sighed. Whatever Auntie's reasons for having this relic in her shop were her reasons, and he returned to his chore of wiping the glass and plexiglass containers around this level of the shop where some of the other relics were kept that needed to be cleaned every now and then. But then he felt he needed to ask a question.
"Can I ask how a Stand was required by the employees that have one?" He spoke to her.
"They worked for their Stands," she revealed. "They put in the effort to build up their spiritual potency, defining their innermost selves, and when the time came, getting pierced by the arrow…and then being healed by the Horse Talisman…because I wouldn't risk their lives for a power that they have to nurture and bring out for themselves…rewarded them with their Stands that will be with them for the rest of their lives."
"The strength of a Stand is dependent upon the strength of the person that possesses it," they heard Drago say, carrying a box of old sports memorabilia. "When the Demon Sorcerers heard about the power of Stands, they became intrigued and desired the power for themselves…but became disappointed by what they discovered upon gaining one of the arrows."
"What enraged them upon gaining one of the arrows?" Auntie asks him.
"As powerful as they were, their lack of spiritual strength made them incapable of manifesting Stand powers. No matter how many times they stuck themselves with the arrow, they couldn't show even an ounce of Stand-derived abilities. They resented humans and animals that could develop Stands due to their spiritual strength and wanted to make sure that they would never amass enough numbers of Stand Users to fight back, but they couldn't be sure of how many arrows were made before they became aware of them. My only assumption was that the people that made the arrows made just enough to keep in control of whoever they used them on. Maybe twenty, maybe fifteen. Nobody knows for certain."
"So, your father, aunts and uncles couldn't develop Stands?" Hideaki made sure he understood right. "That's very… That's a bummer."
"Yes, it is. But I can't imagine them doing any good with Stands of their own."
"What would you do with a Stand of your own, Drago?" Auntie asked him.
"I'd just defend myself against my father and other relatives."
-x-
"…We'll need to dispose of Lilith to safeguard our future control and domination of these humans," went Dai Gui to the other six of the Demon Sorcerers as they had gathered for another meeting in Po Kong's home on Mt. Everest. "Simply decapitating her will not suffice."
"Leave her to me, then," said Tso Lan. "She'll be sent spiraling into the fire of the sun where she'll burn to ash and nothingness."
"It's not just the matter of dealing with Lilith," expressed Hsi Wu to them. "Some of these humans aren't willing to fall in line when we make our move to seize total control over this world. Isn't this…SEELE group…the same people that forced Adam to self-eradicate, which caused the Second Impact to begin with fifteen years ago? What if they gained possession of his remains and attempt to repeat their actions again?"
"My network of hackers will reveal to me the location of where the remains of Adam are hidden," Tchang Zu assured them all. "Disposing of what remains of Adam will be done in due time. We have all the time in the world right now."
"Adam, Lilith…and Shendu," Xiao Fung uttered, reminding the siblings that their draconic brother was also an issue due to his nature of being deceptive. "So long as he remains confined in his statue prison, he will not be able to make trouble for us."
"And what of his son, Drago?" Hsi Wu brought up. "He's with some humans in that city he ran off to. Even if he possessed our combined demon chi, he could've rivaled us to some degree, but he chose not to face me."
"Are you sure that he lost any interest in taking his place among us?" Bai Tza questions Hsi Wu.
"We didn't really make time for small talk, Bai Tza."
-x-
"…So, Shendu is confined to an office building in Tokyo-2?" Drago asked Shinji when he relayed the information he had acquired from when he was traveling around in astral form.
"Yeah," Shinji expressed. "I don't know if he could see me or not, though; I know that the Sheep Talisman would enable him to do as I have done with it, but would he have known I was there, even without it in his possession?"
"No. No, he'd need the Sheep Talisman in order to see your astral form. Without any of the talismans, he's just a statue that can talk and spit fire every now and then. Destroying him while he's in that state reduces him to a spiritual state of existence, but without the talismans, he's even less of a threat in that state. He can't do much without any of his talismans."
Shinji, despite accepting this truth, kept the Sheep Talisman tucked under his shirt. He had no intention of letting Drago's father or anyone else for that matter take the one thing that gave him a sense of freedom and escape from his life's sense of confinement.
"Except they're not really Shendu's talismans, Drago," went Auntie. "He just needs them to return to power and be free. But no access to any of them…means no issue derived from him…except whoever serves him."
"Yeah, that's right," added Sheegwa as she poured another cup of tea for Auntie and Shinji during this sharing of new information. "Your father's not a threat if he can't even do his own dirty work. He needs others to do even a little of what he can't do."
"Like any other villain with an agenda," said Juggernaut as he put his cup down at the table, "he would need servants, emissaries or individuals to represent his intentions. So he either had them already or sought them out by appealing to their darker desires."
"My father will often resort to humans that will do anything for money," Drago confessed. "But Shendu is as selfish as any other member of the Demon Sorcerers; whatever he promises, he won't make good on it, no matter who makes a deal with him."
"He's that bad?" Shinji asked him.
"Before we were banished to the netherworld, he claimed the world was his and his alone. He had no intention of sharing it with anyone, including me when I wanted to take it from him and the other Demon Sorcerers. That, however, was just a childish goal to prove I was worthy of being an equal."
"Their disposition of you was that bad?" Hideaki asked.
"In their hierarchy, I was probably under my father; they hated him more than they looked down on me."
"But you're not with them right now," said Sheegwa to Drago, reminding him that he was with them, among people that worked in an antique shop. "Their disposition of you doesn't matter here. The only disposition that matters here…is the disposition we each have towards people that either looked down upon us or failed us before we were old enough to realize it."
"Who failed you long ago?" Drago asked her.
The teenage girl looked at the Fire Demon and chuckled.
"My grandfather," she revealed. "Not one of my best memories of people that had dark desires."
"What happened to your other relatives?" He asked her.
"My father died in a riot following Second Impact," she explained, "and my mother and unborn sister died the following year. We all have our demons hiding in the dark."
Sheegwa's only other stigma was that her grandfather's death was hardly an accident; the man had attempted to hurt her…and she had to defend herself, something the law failed to do when they found out about her actions. However, because she was under the legal age of criminal responsibility, her crime of murder was accepted as self-defense, but with the issues of rebuilding after Second Impact left Sheegwa in one problem house after another before she ended up Ōta four years ago.
"I'm sorry everyone suffered that day half the world was taken away," Hideaki spoke.
"If you didn't know what was going to happen that day…or didn't anticipate that something of the sort would happen," said Auntie, "you're hardly at fault. True, you caused that nightmare to occur…but you lacked intent. No intent to cause harm, no direct accountability. The people you worked for, however…this SEELE… If they wanted that nightmare to be unleashed, then it's their fault for the suffering that befell everyone that day and the days that came after. Even if the scars heal, the stinging memory of each one will linger."
"And yet, you still go on," Drago expressed.
"Yeah. We don't fully recover from the scars…but we still go on."
"The Demon Sorcerers can't be allowed to advance."
"What?" Shinji responded.
"My father, aunts and uncles. They want this world…but they shouldn't be allowed to have it. They can't advance."
-x-
Gendo may have had the UN watching him, but he refused to let the Third Child avoid his responsibilities to NERV while he still had authority, so he sent some Section Two agents back to Ōta with orders to retrieve by any means necessary, even if it meant ending the lives of those people that work at the junk shop. Just because he had his last name changed didn't erase his affiliation with the paramilitary agency, no matter how much he despised his blood ties or the name Ikari. And even with a world on the path on reconstruction, he refused to let the boy deny him what he had sacrificed everything for, even if it meant destroying it all over again to save it.
You're going to wish you hadn't run away from me, boy, he thought as he walked down the hall to Terminal Dogma. You abandoned us for a crappy life and a crappy job at a crappy shop for some crappy antiques! You have no perception of the future! You're as pathetic as the life you chose to lead!
Entering the chamber where Lilith still resided, still decapitated, he looked up at the behemoth crucified to the metal cross, pondering how to deal with the setbacks done to his scenario. First, the Angels never showed up, then the Third Child escaped from NERV when some strange creature disguised as a woman showed up, followed by NERV HQ being exposed and Lilith getting her head cut off. He didn't care about the planet being restored to its pre-Second Impact state, inspiring the people to rebuild, even if this phenomenal resurrection was caused by some mysterious beings. Once Second Impact started, they had to progress towards the future in order to survive, not this insane method of going backwards instead of forward. Even if it meant brainwashing the boy, Gendo would do whatever it took to get his plans back on track.
"Ikari," he turned around to see Fuyutsuki standing in front of him.
"Fuyutsuki," he responded.
"Although it's against my better judgment, I will only ask you this once. You really should just leave him alone."
"We can't do that. We're in the midst of a crisis, and he's one of very few that can pilot the Eva. So long as they survive, that is what they must do."
"He'll reject you. He will always reject you. No matter what you try, he won't reconsider what you want him to do."
"He'll have no choice."
Little did either man know, they were being watched by two separate beings on opposing sides. One was Shinji Omamori, once more in astral form, keeping tabs on his father…and Tchang Zu, existing in the form of electrical energy within the lights of Terminal Dogma, making sure that Lilith was still around so that Tso Lan could dispose of her later. Neither really cared about NERV, but neither could risk there being other issues because of the people that tried to interfere in their goals, both professional and personal.
The sooner he gives up, the better off I'll be, thought Shinji as he looked up at Lilith's headless body. Why doesn't the government just dispose of something like this?
So long as Lilith exists in human possession, they will always risk destroying themselves in an instant, thought Tchang Zu, watching from the lights above, and we can't afford to have our future slaves wiping themselves out ahead of time. Just you wait, Lilith. You're living on borrowed time. Humans, especially the ones that think they can control all others, were your best and worst creation.
To be continued…
A/N: Whenever I think of a potential intro for this story, I'm always splicing the opening of Jackie Chan Adventures with JoJo's Bizarre Adventure's opening that used Chase by batta. Is that crazy? Anyway, these are the opposing factions currently in play: NERV, the Demon Sorcerers (minus Shendu and Drago) and the workforce of Auntie's Rare Antiquities (plus Drago); NERV (solely Gendo) still aims to reacquire Shinji to pilot the Eva, the Demon Sorcerers aim to get rid of Lilith to lay claim to the human race, and the junkshop workers aim to dispose of the Demon Sorcerers to protect the world as it slowly rebuilds. Please, review what you think about this chapter and what you think will happen in the next one. Until next time!