Creation began on 08-21-20

Creation ended on 08-23-20

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Evangelion Malevolence: Shifting Attitudes

"…only Rei showed up again?" Ritsuko asked Maya as they stood in front of the testing plug housing the First Child.

"Yes, Sempai," Maya responded. "Doesn't the Third Child work half the week at a shrine outside the city?"

"I didn't think he'd commit to such an occupation over coming here."

"But…he's only helping us the other half of the week until we get Unit-02 from Germany. After that, he'll just… Well, it's not like he wanted to be here. Even his own father disregards him."

"How soon until we get the corpses the JSSDF recovered?"

"Eight more hours. Do you think they're actually Angels?"

"What else could they be if not Angels?"

"Monsters, like from the old stories."

"What old stories?"

"Well…like Godzilla."

"Godzilla's nothing but a fairytale."

"That's not what my mother told me. She told me her mother saw it when it appeared sixty-one years ago."

"In Nineteen-Fifty-Four?"

"Yeah."

"I don't believe in such stories unless there's actual evidence of such a creature's existence."

Maya could've countered her belief with such proof of the monster's existence, but she didn't so much as have a picture of it. In fact, it seemed there was nobody in the entire country that possessed even one picture of Godzilla.

"The same could be said for the Angels, though," she countered instead. "It's been two months, and nobody has seen any of them."

Ritsuko didn't retort her protégé's response; there hadn't been an attack by any Angels, which should've happened early on after the Third Child arrived. But there was no indication that any of them ever made their presence known. There had been no AT-Field detections, no blue blood types, nothing.

-x-

Shinji really liked working at the shrine. It was quiet, peaceful, and people that came here came only to pray to whoever it was they worshipped. Of course, Shinji would've done so himself once in a while, but he didn't have a deity to pray to. There were plenty of deities in Japan, but Shinji would rather have one to worship than a cache of them.

"Whichever one you decide to pray to is the one you choose, Shinji," said Isayama to him as the young man locked up the donation case in the back of the shrine.

"I'm sorry, sir?" He responded.

"You believe in deities, but you have none of which to worship. It's okay to be looking for one to devote yourself to, but don't take forever. Study your deities until you find one that you can accept into your life."

"Yes, sir."

Shinji then handed him the key to the safe.

"Shinji," Isayama went again, "there's a job I would like you and someone else to do tomorrow if you're up for traveling out of the city."

Shinji thought about it…and really had nothing he wanted to hold him back from leaving for a short while.

"What is this job, Isayama-San?" He questioned.

"I need you to pick up three statues that were brought from three special locations: Mount Myōkō, Lake Ikeda, and Mt. Fuji. They'll be at a shrine in the city of Myōkō. Some very good friends of mine will be arriving here in the city in a few days, and I'd like to lay out the welcome mat before they do, which these statues will be part of."

"Uh, sure. Is there a deadline for when they need to be here?"

"No, but I'd like the statues to be here sooner than later."

-x-

Five corpses of five large creatures, later confirmed by NERV scientist Ritsuko Akagi to be…remains of five different Angels, based on their compositions and what remained of their cores. This left NERV wondering what had left the corpses underwater when the JSSDF found the remains of the American submarine. In addition, it left Gendo Ikari upset with the current state of things.

"Ikari," went Fuyutsuki to the man in his office, "was this in the scenario?"

"No," he answered him. "Nothing that has been discovered exists within the scenario."

"What do you suppose could have done this to the Angels?"

"Something that nobody, not even the old men couldn't anticipate happening."

All Ritsuko could ascertain about what could've killed these Angels was a small amount of what she had to suspect was strontium-90, only it was so decayed that it couldn't have been the direct cause of death, but was left behind by something that carried it.

Strontium-90 is a product of nuclear weapons like the H-Bomb, Gendo thought, suspecting that someone out to rival NERV was responsible for the defeat of these Angels, but then realized that such a competition was unlikely due to a heavy restriction on the use of nuclear weapons. Who or what is behind this shift?!

-x-

"…What do you mean, he didn't turn in last night?" Misato questioned, being informed that the Third Child hadn't returned to his quarters; being the one tasked with leading the Evas into battle against the Angels, it was her job to know where the children were, even the ones that wanted very little to do with NERV. "Did anyone follow him after he left the shrine?"

"He left the shrine…but he never returned to his unit," one of the Section Two agents explained. "The last person reported seeing him last night was this Isayama guy that owns the shrine he works at."

Misato then decided that she needed to pay this Isayama a visit to ascertain the location of the Third Child; even with the understanding that there were five Angels mysteriously dealt with, NERV still had a job to do, and that meant they needed the boy to be ready until they got the Second Child and Unit-02 from Germany.

-x-

"…How is this possible, Ikari?!" SEELE 02 demanded during the meeting between he and the council. "Five of the Angels were found dead and NERV wasn't responsible!"

"We have no concrete evidence to how this has occurred," Gendo responded, which was the truth, as NERV had yet to fully comprehend the factors behind the defeat of the Angels. "We suspect there may be a rival competitor."

"That'd be an excuse if it were the case," SEELE 10 announced. "There are no other rival agencies out to face the Angels, Ikari. Even the people behind the construction of the Jet Alone project have yet to offer promising results. Is there anything about the way the Angels were defeated you can inform us of?"

"There were traces of strontium-90 in their remains," Gendo revealed.

"Strontium-90?" SEELE 07 spoke. "They were killed by nuclear weapons?"

"There have been no reported incidents of any nuclear attacks. NERV has no access to nuclear weaponry, either. What of the JSSDF? Do they use nuclear weaponry?"

"They've made the use of nuclear missiles redundant after they developed the N² weaponry," SEELE 12 revealed. "What did they say when they informed NERV of their discovery of the corpses when they went looking for the missing American submarine?"

"They think something fled from where the sub was located," Gendo told the council.

"Something, Ikari?" SEELE 01 questioned.

"Some…creature."

-x-

Shinji was never one for enjoying train rides, but as he was now several miles outside of Tokyo-3, heading towards Myōkō in the Niigata Prefecture, he felt he could finally breathe again. For the last two months, he'd been dwelling in a city that he kept hearing was meant to serve as a fortress against these unseen creatures called Angels, that he was among a small number of people tasked with defending against, and not once, even on a bad day, did he ever see a creature by such a despicable designation. He was starting to wonder if his father only wanted him around just to show that no matter what he did with his life, he'd never amount to anything that he had done.

"You don't seem happy about our job, Shinji," said a girl sitting across from him on the train; she was about a year older than him, not too bad-looking, with long, dark brown hair and gray eyes, dressed in tan jeans and a green shirt. "Is there something on your mind?"

"Huh? Uh, no, no, it's not that. I was just thinking about why I was in Tokyo-3 for the past two months. How long have you been in the city?"

"Going on five years now. What brought you to Tokyo-3?"

"My father."

"What's his story?"

"Are you familiar with an agency called NERV?"

"Nope."

"It's a paramilitary agency that he runs. He had me come here to work for him."

"No offense, Shinji, but you don't look like the kind of person that likes to work for anyone in a paramilitary agency, including your father."

"I really don't want to work for any paramilitary agency, Rumiko. Or work for my father, either. It's why I accepted Isayama-San's offer to go pick up these three statues. What made you come to live in Tokyo-3?"

"I had to get away from my family."

"Your family?"

"My parents and my elder brother. I was ten, and we just couldn't get along after a while. That's pretty common knowledge when your brother's a drug addict and your parents are neglectful. So, when I saw an opportunity to leave, I left and went to live with my grandfather. Whenever my parents try to claim that they're doing better and that I should come home, as much as I'm tempted to believe that they are…I'm afraid of being deceived by them. So…I don't exactly see myself ever returning home to them like the last five years of my absence in their lives never happened. I can't ever imagine myself reconnecting with them. Do you ever see yourself reconnecting with your father?"

Shinji looked out the window at the countryside and sighed. He'd been asked a similar question before, almost a year ago, but he never answered. This time, he could answer with a sense of conviction…now that he had the time to think it over.

"No," he answered her, "I can't ever see us reconnecting. We're two ships going down different routes. I don't ever want anything to do with him."

"Then…why don't you leave the city?"

"I…I don't have anywhere else to go. I'd quit NERV and cut my ties with my father…but then I'd be without a destination."

"Well…at least you have the shrine and Isayama while you're here."

"Yeah. Say, why do you work at the shrine?"

"Me? I tried to get a job-training gig at a supermarket, but the people that owned the place told me I was too pretty and that most men that came to the shop would be more interested in me than in groceries."

"Heh. Anyone that told you that you were too pretty to work at a supermarket was either blind, deaf, dumb…and dead."

"Maybe Godzilla can cause some chaos and reinforce the fact that equality is part of the new normal and that everyone can do something to help improve society, even if it isn't new."

"I'll tell you this much, Rumiko… This is the longest I've ever had a conversation with a girl…and like the way you talk."

"Thank you, Shinji."

-x-

"…What do you mean, he left to pick up some statues?" Misato demanded of Isayama after he told her that he sent Shinji and another employee of his outside the city.

"I asked Shinji if he'd be interested in going to pick up a trio of important statues for me, and he accepted. He was eager to get out of the city." He told her.

"That little brat! Are you aware that he's currently an asset to NERV? It's imperative that he be in the city. I need you to end your employment of the boy right now."

"I could fire him…but I'm afraid I'm not going to, Ms. Katsuragi."

"His presence at NERV supersedes whatever you have him do here."

"Except what you have him do…isn't something he views as a constructive use of his time."

"Has he told you what he does at NERV?"

"He hasn't told me anything that I don't already suspect that is exhausting of his very lifeforce the other half of the week he's not here at the temple. As a paramilitary agency, NERV is the subject of many rumors, including ones where random young people are put into a program that is one step removed from waging a war with a future enemy. What is your goal? What is your reason for doing so? And why do such a thing?"

"We don't have time for this."

"Who has time? At this point in our lives, time isn't such an issue as it should be a blessing. Those that don't make time for everything will only have enough time to regret what they didn't do. Before you go, might I suggest you take this book with you?"

Isayama hands her a small book, and Misato takes it and leaves the temple.

The Guardian Monsters? She thought as she walks down the steps and to her car. There are real monsters in the world, and it's the Angels, not some…fairytales.

Before she started the engine, she decided to look at the first page of the book, seeing depictions of at least three creatures that looked like…a bizarre-looking naked mole rat, a flying insect…and a three-headed serpent.

To be continued…

A/N: Just so that you know, no other Angels will be seen, as this plot will focus solely on Godzilla and the Guardian Monsters. Expect to see some of them in the next chapter.