Creation began on 08-23-20
Creation ended on 10-07-20
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Evangelion Malevolence: Myths born from Reality
Contrary to popular beliefs, the trains in Japan couldn't run two ways. They ran whichever way was necessary for people to get to wherever it was they needed to go, so long as they understood the schedules and routes they could take. This had Shinji relying on Rumiko's greater understanding of the train routes they could take to get to Myōkō to pick up the statues.
"Say, Shinji, have you read that book Isayama-San gave you the day after you got hired?" Rumiko asked Shinji as they were sitting on another train on their way to Myōkō.
"Yeah," he responded. "I started looking at it after I returned to my apartment unit."
"What'd you think of it so far?"
"I thought it was unusual for people to be capable of defeating creatures much larger than themselves and were capable of moving faster than they ever could. But the people from the past found a way to defeat them, but then to start praying for their eventual return. I don't understand why they would want these ancient beasts to return. Why would they do that?"
"It has been believed that if you can kill a monster that was originally out to harm you, the monster will reincarnate as a benevolent protector instead of a malevolent destroyer. The belief also includes that the deaths of the country's benevolent people encourage the development of the future guardians, which would return after ten-thousand years."
"Hey, why is one of the depictions of the monsters that were slain only has three heads when the story says that it had more than three, that it was an eight-headed serpent?"
"Ghidorah, the Thousand-Year-Old Dragon. The artists must've had creative license to alter the depictions. Anyway, only a little over two-thousand years have gone by since the slaying of the ancient beasts, so Ghidorah hasn't had time to grow back all of his heads. Once ten-thousand years have gone by, he'll be at his strongest, ready to protect the homeland against any threats."
"Oh… Do you…have a favorite out of the Guardian Monsters?"
"The Goddess of the Sea, Mothra. You?"
"I guess I favor Ghidorah, the Thousand-Year-Old Dragon. Dragons are often portrayed as guardians instead of enemies."
"Yeah."
-x-
"…So, he wouldn't dismiss the boy from his shrine's employment?" Gendo questioned Misato as she returned to his office with the displeasing news.
"He was not convinced that the Third Child's time spent here was constructive like it was in the shrine," Misato explained. "Unfortunately, NERV has no standing to challenge the choices made by a religious group, even if a pilot chooses to spend more time there than training in the Eva."
This was a truth that even Gendo couldn't deny. NERV had some pull when getting local civilian and military organizations into aiding it, but religious factions were exempt from this due to prayers having very little interest in dealing with a global matter. Therefore, the shrine the Third Child was employed part-time at could employ him however they chose and the boy could work there as often as he chose half the week he was not at NERV.
"Do we know where the Third Child is?" He asked her.
"He's heading to Myōkō with another worker from the shrine," Misato answered him, "picking up a bunch of statues, no less."
"What do you want us to do about him?" Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki, who was also present in Gendo's office, asked him.
"Have him brought here for testing when he returns," Gendo answered.
-x-
Sapporo, Hokkaido, one of the few places in Japan that had survived the devastation caused by Second Impact, with the surrounding towns merged into it, saving what few people there were during the economic reconstruction. Except right now, it was facing a storm that was unexpected due to the weather being bad.
"So much for a clear night," a little boy said as he looked out the window of his house.
"But the rain will stop by tomorrow," the boy's father told him as he set the table for family dinner. "We'll be able to head to the beach, then."
A girl about a year older than the boy looked at an old picture that hung on the wall that caught her attention, depicting the ruins of a small village.
"Mommy," she asked the woman setting the meals on the table, "where was this picture taken?"
The mother looked over and answered, "Oh, it's just a picture of Odo Island, a place a few miles from Japan. My grandmother got it from her mother and said that it was taken the day after it was attacked by a monster."
"You mean, Godzilla? But…isn't it just a myth? A made-up story?" The son asked.
"Some people say that he existed," the father explained, "but then the military defeated it."
"But wasn't it attacking people?" The daughter questioned. "That made it bad, right?"
"People and monsters have a different perception on who's right and wrong. Maybe in Godzilla's mind, people were more of an annoyance than an actual threat to it," the father explained as they sat down.
Rumble! The whole room shook for a moment, knocking them and several items down onto the floor, leaving a mess.
"What was that?" The daughter asked, and the house shook again, knocking more things down.
"That…that wasn't an earthquake," the father realized, and the ground shook again.
"It's like…footsteps?" The son suspected, his eyes widening, and the ground shook again.
Crack! A window broke open, letting the wind and rain inside the house.
The mother ran to try and close it with the curtains, but gasped and back away.
"Aaahh!" She screamed, grabbing her husband and children and trying to run out the front door.
Meanwhile, outside the house, amidst the harsh storm, a colossal being had walked down the street…and brought one of its feet down onto the house, reducing it to nothing more than a memory, including those that dwelled within it.
"Grrr," it growled, making its first move against the Japanese as lightning flashed behind it.
-x-
"…Hmm?" Shinji went inside his capsule hotel suite.
"Trouble sleeping, Shinji?" Rumiko asked from the capsule underneath his.
"Uh, yeah," he told her. "I thought I heard someone screaming."
"Me, too."
Because it was late to return to Tokyo-3 with the statues, they had to spend the night in a capsule hotel in Myōkō, the statues held in a safe until tomorrow. But Shinji was fine with this, as it got him out of Tokyo-3, away from NERV and his father, even if it was only for a few hours.
"You really hate your father, don't you?" He heard Rumiko ask him.
"All day, every day," he responded. "Anyone who says we're alike is a liar. We're like water and motor oil; we just don't go together."
"As I've yet to meet the man, I'll take your word for it."
"Pray that you never meet him. He's not a good person."
"Coming from the man who is water, I believe that."
-x-
"…Wait a minute, wait a minute," went Ritsuko to a NERV personnel member operating a surveillance drone designed to operate in bad weather over the island of Hokkaido, "what do you mean, the city's gone?"
"I mean, it's gone," he told her, showing her the imagery being recorded by the drone. "It's not there, anymore. It looks like something more than a storm hit it."
On the screens, they were looking at signs of buildings collapsed, roads fractured, trees fallen and other signs of devastation that looked to be the result of multiple disasters happening at once.
"Can we get closer with the drone?" Ritsuko asked him.
"Yeah, hold on a minute," he responded, lowering the drone closer to the destroyed location that was Sapporo. "It doesn't look like anything survived here. No police. No firefighters. Not even a ramen stand. There's… Wait a minute, that hill wasn't there a moment ago!"
"What are you talking about?"
"That hill, right there!"
One the screens, there was something obscured by the darkness of the background, but Ritsuko wasn't seeing it. The drone operator tried to pull the drone back, but…it looked as though whatever was in front of it was moving.
"What the Hell?! It's moving!"
"Rrraurgh!" They heard a strange sound before something hit the drone, cutting the connection.
"What was that?" Ritsuko questioned.
"I…I don't know what that was," the guy responded, just as confused.
To be continued…
A/N: And with that, the first strike has been made. What hope is there for a paramilitary that has no idea what it's about to go up against?