Creation began on 10-14-20
Creation ended on 11-17-20
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Evangelion Malevolence: Enter Baragon!
The video had been broadcasting live across the planet, letting other parts of the world know that the terror of Japan's past had returned to take vengeance upon the people that dwelled there. It was getting less traction in Germany, where a redhead of thirteen years was watching the carnage that continued to take place in Akita.
"I should be there facing this thing," she expressed her disappointment in NERV's lack of action.
"You don't want to face that thing," a man beside her with an unshaven beard told her. "I used to believe that thing was nothing more than a story to frighten children to bed at night. Nobody should want to face this thing, not after the devastation it caused back in the Nineteen-Fifties. It's a curse that refuses to be lifted. A killer that was killed once before…and a ghost that refuses to move on."
"You make it sound as though you're actually afraid of this creature."
"This is Godzilla, Asuka, a god incarnate that behaves like a devil full of hatred against people for their own arrogance. It'd be foolish not to be afraid of it…because it doesn't discriminate between anyone, and it doesn't matter if you're a soldier for the military or a little kid on a playground. Everyone's the same to this creature: Guilty of some kind of arrogance."
The girl, Asuka, returned her gaze from the unshaven man to the television screens, watching as the people continued to run from Godzilla, which just knocked over a few buildings and swatted several cars off the ground.
"Grrr! Rrraurgh!" Godzilla roared.
"Gott im Himmel," she uttered, and then saw the back of the monster glow bright blue as it opened its mouth, which also glowed blue.
FLASH! Everyone watching the news covered their eyes as the screens went static, indicating the connection was severed and that whoever was filming…was no longer filming.
"What in the…" Asuka uttered, but the unshaven man cut her off slightly.
"An atom bomb incarnated," he uttered, fearful for anyone left wherever they were in Japan.
Asuka started to wonder just what was NERV going to do against this creature if it was still there after what it had unleashed upon the people.
-x-
Misato, Fuyutsuki, Gendo and others at NERV HQ couldn't believe that this had happened. They couldn't believe that Godzilla had…obliterated what remained of Akita, people and all, like they weren't even there.
"We…we need to do something," Misato stated. "We need to stop that monster before it can progress any further."
"The Evas can't fight something like that, Captain Katsuragi," Maya expressed out of fear. "That…that incarnate god of destruction just obliterated Akita like it was not even there!"
"We don't even know if an Eva would be effective against…this," added Hyuga.
They were merely frightened of Godzilla. Everyone that heard of the monster's historical raid on Tokyo in the past and saw the monster's return in the here and now were frightened, and had good reason to be. This wasn't some Angel that they were preparing for over ten years ago, it was a monster they couldn't be sure of was either born from a primordial place in the past or the aftermath of their collective arrogance as they entered the Atomic Age.
"Akita could still be there," Misato suggested; they couldn't be sure unless they had a visual of the location.
"I don't think so," went Shigeru as he accessed one of the satellites NERV had access to over Japan, and revealed to everyone in Central Dogma what they had suspected. "Unbelievable."
Even from miles up high above the remains of the archipelago, the satellite had revealed that Akita had been completely eradicated…and Godzilla himself was walking through the charred ruins of the city.
"Contact the JSSDF," Misato ordered.
-x-
With their connection to the horror that had been happening in Akita on TV severed by what Godzilla had done, everyone employed at the temple had expressions of concern and uncertainty regarding what they should do. Even Shinji had his doubts that anyone could do anything to stop Godzilla. Well…anyone that was human, anyway.
"Isayama-San," Shinji then spoke up, looking at his employer, "what should we do?"
"Whatever you feel you should do," he told them all. "Pray that the Guardian Monsters can stop it, take whatever you can and get as far away as you can, warn your friends, your families."
Shinji looked over at Rumiko and wondered if she was going to run; he didn't really have any friends or family to tell about this so he didn't have anywhere to flee to or anyone to flee with.
"Hang on," she uttered in realization, and took out a geographical map of the prefectures. "It showed up in Akita in the Tōhoku Region. The Kanagawa Prefecture is in the Kantō Region."
"Yeah, meaning it'll be awhile before Godzilla can get here," Shinji stated. "What are you getting at, Rumiko?"
She pointed to the Chūbu Region, specifically the Niigata Prefecture, and said, "We were in the Niigata Prefecture when we picked up those statues, Shinji, at Myōkō!"
"The Guardian Monsters?" He questioned.
"Yes! Since it's close by, that means that…well, it means that if they exist, then Godzilla will have to deal with Baragon first." She answered.
"Baragon, the God of the Earth."
Itsudatsu turned to look over at one of the three statues, hoping that one of his friends would at least get close to where he was in a timely fashion.
-x-
With Akita no more, Godzilla continued his mission to punish all of Japan by proceeding towards the next, nearest location, which was the Yamagata Prefecture, and to destroy its core city, people and all. Anyone that managed to survive would eventually die when he made his round trip back through the ruins to ensure that there were no survivors. Vengeance against this once-great nation would know no boundaries.
Rumble! The ground beneath him shook with each step he took, but for some reason, most of the rumbling didn't seem to be caused by his footsteps.
But it didn't matter. There was nothing on this plane of existence that could harm him, anymore. He had survived since ancient times and knew that after his exposure to that great fire these humans unleashed upon the world all that time ago, he had survived with a great adaptation that left him in momentary agony…and nothing that was as insufficient as that great fire could harm him. Sure, that was that time where he was taken by surprise and he fell to sleep for a long time, but that was a one-time disgrace, nothing that would be repeated by these humans.
-x-
"…Wait, what do you mean, it wasn't recorded by them?" Misato questioned Ritsuko, who seemed to be stumped by an earthquake that was claimed by a handful of civilians to have originated in the Niigata Prefecture in Myōkō, but it moved towards the city of Murakami.
"Those seismologists and their seismographs didn't record anything," she told Misato, showing her a picture of a geographical location. "But now, it seems there's another creature besides Godzilla, and this one is moving underground."
With their orders by the JSSDF being not to engage Godzilla unless it came near Tokyo-3, which seemed likely the longer it was out there, unimpeded by whatever tried to stand in its way, NERV was reduced to being a bystander because there were no Angels to face…and nothing to indicate that either Godzilla or this other creature were associated in any way with Angels.
"Are you sure about this?" Misato asked her.
"Positive," Ritsuko confirmed. "There isn't any doubt that this is definitely a living entity, at least thirty meters in length."
"What in the Hell is going on here?"
"I don't know, but I can give you a guess on where this thing is going."
"Where?"
"Based on where the latest tremors were reported, it seems like this creature is heading towards Godzilla. If it continues to maintain its current speed, it'll probably intercept it somewhere in between the Akita and Yamagata Prefectures within two hours or less. Most likely, it'll be this location: Semboku."
-x-
"You heard it here, ladies and gentlemen," a newswoman expressed in front of her cameraman as they were among the various news media crews at Lake Ikeda among several people that were there to observe the mysterious object that floating in the water. "This massive, cocoon-like structure emerged from the lake about two hours ago. Many have gathered, despite the apparent danger that has been brought upon us all by the return of Godzilla, to marvel at this astonishing sight. Best estimates put this structure around the size of an ocean liner, but we have no clue as to how it can float in the lake like a flower petal. Nobody has ever seen anything like it in years."
In the middle of Lake Ikeda, a large, white, cocoon-like structure that resembled a malformed peanut or the outline of an infinity symbol. Its very existence was a mystery to many, as those that lived by the lake hadn't seen or heard of anything like it before. There had been minor stories of a legend about a sacred beast that had been said to have been buried somewhere within the lake in ancient times, but nobody truly believed in such a myth. But as the majority of the people had believed Godzilla to have been nothing more than a myth due to its history being obscured to the point of nonexistent, some had to consider the possibility that not every myth they heard of once or twice was completely a myth.
-x-
"…So, Shinji, as we understand it, your old man wants you at NERV right now?" One of the other temple employees asked as Shinji grabbed his backpack.
"Yeah," he sighed, checking to make sure that his copy of The Guardian Monsters was in it. "Not exactly how I wish to be spending my time."
"But…if they did something to make it so that you defeated Godzilla… Well, then, you'd pretty much be a hero," another man told him.
"That's where I have to stop anyone that believes that, and for three reasons. A: Those people at NERV drafted me to face creatures they kept labeling as Angels, not monsters like this Godzilla. B: I have no faith in what they built to face Angels could actually face something like Godzilla. And D: I'm the absolute last person on the face of the planet that anyone would even consider calling a hero because of that man. You hear my name, the first thoughts you'd have are, 'Isn't he that boy that was abandoned by his father', 'He's the son of that man they say killed his own wife in an experiment', 'I don't want anything to do with his kid' or something else of the sort."
"Are you sure about that?" One of the women there asked him.
"I have been stigmatized and ostracized ever since I was four years old, and that just obliterates any idea of popularity or being a hero," he stated, and then left the temple.
"Poor guy," another woman expressed. "He's clearly not the type to have had a positive upbringing in any way, whatsoever."
Rumiko then expressed, "If you were walked out on by your parents and left with people that didn't enrich your childhood, there's no such thing as an upbringing. You were just being watched over by people that was paid to watch over you like you were a waste of space."
"You talk like you know more about him than you let on, Ms. Gaidoku," a teenage boy three years older than Rumiko or Shinji stated.
"I… We just talked a lot on the way back from Myōkō," she explained, and then grabbed her backpack. "I'll be back later."
Itsudatsu watched from the back of the temple and wondered if there was something going on between two of his employees that was an act of the kami. He wasn't against such a possibility, but if other forces were at work, he prayed that some bonds were made to endure more so than other bonds. As he turned to look at the statue from the temple associated with Lake Ikeda, he noticed a tiny, white-winged moth had flown atop it.
"Let there be mercy to those deserving of it," he uttered, and the moth took off.
-x-
Most of Akita had been either too far from Godzilla's initial attack or was already a ghost town by the time he had reached Semboku. And there were few people that had been there to do one thing, which was to make use of the hot springs located at the Tamagawa Hot Spring.
"Grr," he growled, watching as people looked up and saw him.
"Aaah!" A woman screamed and pointed up at him.
Everyone else, which came to about fifty-seven men and women, saw him and moved as fast as their limbs could take them. But Godzilla smashed his way through the hillside, causing an avalanche of rocks and dirt to come falling down upon them, either burying them alive or crushing them to death.
Rumble! That strange sensation came again from underground, making Godzilla stop his progress and look at his surroundings.
Up above in the air, a few helicopters were present, but far from the monstrous nightmare to be of any concern yet.
Within one of the helicopters, a male reporter and his cameraman were filming Godzilla and broadcasting it to anyone that was watching.
"Godzilla has reached Semboku and has begun damaging the Tamagawa Hot Spring location," he uttered into his microphone. "He stands at a brutal height of sixty meters. His body charcoal-black with bone-white spines protruding from his back. This is a living nightmare that has returned from the depths of oblivion to exact revenge upon us, people."
Suddenly, the ground beneath Godzilla sank in and said monster fell down, almost three feet.
"And now, it seems that Godzilla has fallen into a collapsed section of the ground."
A chunk of the ground burst open…and revealed something in front of Godzilla. When the dust cleared, he was looking down at some strange creature that was smaller than himself, moving on four limbs and possessing a reddish hide.
"Graaaurgh!" It cried, looking at him.
"Rrraaurgh!" He roared back.
"It's unbelievable, people!" The reporter expressed. "Another monster has appeared and is facing Godzilla! It must be at least thirty meters in length, moves on four limbs and has a reddish-pink skin tone! On its head is a large, curved horn."
The red monster stood up on its hindlegs and slowly approached Godzilla.
-x-
"No way," went Hyuga and Maya as they saw the red monster on their screens in Semboku, facing Godzilla.
Misato took out her copy of The Guardian Monsters and examined a page that had a larger description of one of the creatures written about inside it. Although the details were older, there was no mistaking the features. The red monster on the screens in front of Godzilla…was the Sacred Monster that had been killed thousands of years ago in ancient Japan, buried near Mt. Myōkō. This was the God of the Earth, Baragon.
"He's even bigger than from when we saw him on TV at the temple," she heard a girl's voice behind them, and turned to see Shinji with a girl around his age that was not affiliated with NERV in any way.
"And there's Baragon," Shinji added, watching as the fight between the two began.
"Based on size, power and abilities," the girl expressed, "I fear that Baragon may not come out of this as the victor."
"Shinji, who is this and why is she here?" Misato asked them.
"My friend, Rumiko Gaidoku. We work together at the temple." He answered back.
"She doesn't have any clearance to be here."
"Well, right now, nowhere in the city above feels safe if that (points to Godzilla) decides to come here and blow us all into the next world."
"I'm with him, regardless of what any of you say," Rumiko stated, letting her opinion be heard. "I could care less about what any of you are doing here."
There were a multitude of reasons why a regular civilian shouldn't be down here in the Geo-Front. They could've been spies from a rival agency looking for secrets to expose NERV to the public, fanatics that exploited whatever relationship they had with the personnel, pilots included, to get closer to whatever was being done in NERV, or were just out to find out something they weren't supposed to know anything about.
"Aah!" People gasped as Misato turned back to see Baragon had taken a bite into Godzilla's left arm and was being thrown against the hillsides and ground.
"Unbelievable," she uttered, watching as Godzilla freed himself from Baragon's jaws and threw him onto the ground.
Baragon quickly righted himself up and dug into the ground, disappearing before Godzilla could unleash his fire breath on him.
"Radiation levels in that place spiked for a few seconds," Shigeru revealed. "That Godzilla…that fire that comes out of his mouth…they're pure radiation."
"It's a living nuclear weapon," stated Ritsuko as Godzilla looked around, unable to tell where Baragon had disappeared off to.
"And it looks like the red monster has disappeared, leaving Godzilla stumped as to where it has gone," the reporter announced to the viewers.
Suddenly, Godzilla fell into another cave-in caused by the collapsing ground under his weight.
"What is Baragon doing, trying to bury him?" Shinji questioned.
"When you're not as strong as your opponent, you do your best with what you can do," Rumiko suggested as a way of explaining Baragon's strategy against Godzilla.
"This is bad," went Misato, as she was on the phone with someone. "The JSSDF is going to drop an N² explosive in Semboku in ten minutes. With any luck, it'll destroy Godzilla."
"Yeah, but along with anyone else that's still trying to get away," Rumiko expressed; she had lost any respect for the Japanese military after hearing various reports of how anyone with connections to that organization just caused more problems for the survivors of Second Impact than they were intended to resolve, resulting in more casualties over the following months before order was reestablished.
"How many people live there as a whole?" Shinji asked her.
"Less than four-thousand, minus the tourists."
"And no warning to them as they're trying to escape."
"The JSSDF have to consider the ramifications of what could happen if Godzilla were to continue his rampage unimpeded," Ritsuko explained to them.
"Even if it means sacrificing a few people that don't receive a warning because they're already trying to escape?" Shinji questioned, which made him look as though he had even less faith in any military organization. "Yeah, that's very heroic…and sick."
"This is the real world, Shinji," Misato told him. "If you can't stomach it, then you won't survive whatever comes next."
Shinji sighed and responded, "Then maybe we don't deserve to survive at all."
He then turned and walked away from them.
Rumiko looked at the adults and had to agree with Shinji; as much as they were desperate to defeat Godzilla, it wasn't going to matter half as much if they made decisions to give up on people that were trying to survive and move on with their lives, too.
"You can say and think whatever you want, but he's right," she told them, and walked out to join the boy.
"How can you side with him?" Ritsuko asked her. "He doesn't know what we're prepared to do if worse comes to worst."
"Because the last thing anyone wants is to be a party to a bunch of depraved cogs of an immoral system that tries to justify every twisted thing that it does," she answers her. "Not everyone has the will to take lives. Not everyone has that drive or should have to cross that line. It causes too much conflict, external and internal. People get haunted by ghosts, not just the disgraces of their past. And if Godzilla comes here, after he destroys every other city along the route he's taking…how many people will have been killed by the military…or your agency…just because you want to see the next day? Not just by Godzilla?"
Nobody seemed to want to answer that question.
"Yeah, I thought so," she told them. "Morality can be a bitch sometimes, but it's always the right kind of bitch."
She then left out the chamber. She found Shinji banging his forehead against a wall.
"Maybe you should just quit," she told him.
"You have no idea how much I'd do that in a heartbeat," he responded as he looked to her. "What is with these people? How arrogant must they be? I doubt that what the military is even going to attempt will even work against Godzilla. I mean, if he was affected by the nuclear bombings that leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki over five decades ago and survived when he attacked the first Tokyo, then what chance does an N² explosive have against him? The devastation will probably be worse than what he's done right now."
Rumiko didn't argue over that assumption. They had just discovered that monsters truly exist in the world…and people were either trying to flee from one…or fight back against it with whatever weapons they had. Personally, she, like Shinji, had her doubts that the JSSDF could effectively dispose of Godzilla. Even if they used five N² explosives, all they'd do is ruin the landscape around the great beast. In the end, she had to consider that humans were just as frightening as Godzilla was right now.
"Say, why did you really choose to come with me here?" Shinji asked her.
"I… You're not the only one with trust issues regarding people you don't really know, Shinji," she answered, even though that was only half her truth to why.
"I trust you," he told her.
-x-
"What do we know about that girl with the Third Child?" Gendo asked Fuyutsuki as they had observed the conversation in the hall between the boy and the girl.
"Nothing," he answered him; the girl wasn't listed as a candidate from the Marduk Institute and therefore not a pilot candidate for the Evangelion program like several of the other candidates were. "She's not listed as a pilot candidate due to her birthdate being before Second Impact."
"I don't like not knowing anything about anyone that seems to involve themselves in the pilots' inner circle."
"Except your son's inner circle isn't so much a circle if he has nobody to hang with. We don't even know who he associates with at the temple. As far as I can tell, it seems as though the girl just…likes the boy."
But Gendo, he found this to be a distraction or annoyance; even if the feeling was mutual, they had no time for relationships in a war for humanity's future. Worse was that he didn't like how the boy refused to submit to those that knew better than he did.
"At this rate, if Godzilla is responsible for the defeat of several of these Angels, it's unlikely that the Evas will ever see action," Fuyutsuki stated.
This left Gendo feeling like the kami had planned this from the beginning, to see him fail at achieving his goal over all else.
"Why can't you just quit?" The girl asked Shinji.
"Have you ever met these kind of people that, even with subtlety, make it seem like they will not accept a refusal from someone?" He replied. "They're like that. As much as I want to say 'no' to them, I feel threaten if I try to."
"That's just immoral, Shinji."
"Name one agency that considers morality, Rumiko."
"If I could do that, Shinji, I'd be the first to go to Heaven with you behind me."
"Heh. Heaven. If we gotta go back there this year, I can ask the kami why I was placed into a family of awful people."
"At least you can see some positive in all this negativity."
-x-
Godzilla climbed out of the cave-in and looked around for Baragon, but had no clue as to where that creature was hiding. And then, looking up, he saw several small planes approaching where he was…and sensed an imminent threat from them.
"Grrr," he growled, and his spines glowing bright blue, and then he fired his atomic breath into the sky.
Blast! The planes were obliterated, one after another, and the threat was neutralized.
-x-
"…He totaled all seven jets," Misato uttered, "all of which were carrying an N² explosive. Unbelievable."
"I guess he really is unstoppable," Hyuga stated, relieved that the helicopter that was reporting what was happening in Semboku was still filming and broadcasting it across the televisions with a connection the newsfeeds. "If he's smart enough to know those jets were carrying explosives, then he knows that people are going to be out to get him."
To be continued…
A/N: Godzilla destroying the jets was a combination of what he did in GMK and how he reacted in Shin Godzilla due to having something described as a phased-array radar; he saw those jets and knew instantly that they were a threat to him and destroyed them. In this story, there should be more to Shinji's disinterest in being at NERV, and discovering how immoral certain types of people are when faced with an adversary they can't reason with and their willingness to sacrifice people that should at least have a chance to escape doesn't sit well with him. And then Rumiko in this incarnation, there's something of a relationship going on between her and Shinji, but it hasn't gotten that far. If anything, they're just starting. And how did you feel about the minor scene with Asuka and Kaji?