Creation began on 05-13-21
Creation ended on 07-05-21
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Evangelion Malevolence: You (do not) have one shot
A/N: The title is influenced by the fact that three of the films that reboot the anime messed with their titles, as if giving hope and then lying about it. The same applies here; it feels like there's hope, except there isn't. Not in the way that is expected.
Because Godzilla had yet to reach Tokyo-3, the JSSDF still had operational authority to release their forces against the beast they hadn't seen in sixty-one years. This only allowed NERV the authority to prepare for the eventuality of Godzilla arriving to the city and devastating it, along with all that lived within it.
"…It's only as a precaution, Grandfather," Shinji heard Rumiko say to someone on her cellphone. "If Godzilla shows up in the city, you should be out of it. Head to Okinawa if you have to. Me? I'll be… I'll be at the shrine praying. I don't want to lose you, either, but this is only the worst-case scenario. I know, because it's Godzilla, it's a persecution of the masses. If this great beast can't be stopped, then…sacred blessings may count for nothing. Nowhere in the nation will be safe from him. You tell my parents and brother whatever you have to…and they should go there with you, as well. Yeah. I love you, too, Grandfather."
When she hung up, she turned to face Shinji.
"How long were you standing there?" She asked him.
"Long enough to want to know why you told him to leave the city while you were going to the temple," he explained. "At this rate, you should go with him and get out of Tokyo-3 while you're still able to."
"Shinji…at this point, I have to put my foot down and tell you straight up that I'm not leaving without you or anyone else that works at the shrine."
"Is that so?"
"It's either we all leave…or we might as well pick out our nonexistent burial plots."
"You are…unreasonably straightforward with me right now."
"Not as straightforward as I'd want to be with you."
Shinji sighed and hated his recent orders to get to the Eva, but there was at least one person in the Geo-Front that he didn't want to see harmed by Godzilla or any other creature.
"They estimate it could be eight hours before Godzilla reaches Tokyo-3," he informed her of NERV's prediction.
"That should give the people plenty of time to evacuate," Rumiko responded.
"Yeah, along with all of NERV's nonessential personnel, leaving a skeleton crew of at least one-hundred-fifty people or so."
"Including you."
"Again, if I could, I'd leave, too."
"I believe you."
Shinji didn't want to be the reluctant hero. He didn't want to be a hero at all; he didn't see himself as being heroic if he came from a family that was so dysfunctional that the majority of the people saw him as a waste of space. And yet Rumiko, despite not knowing him that much, found him to be more stimulating than the adults in NERV weren't to her.
"What's that under your left arm?" She asked him, noticing that he had something blue and white wrapped in clear plastic.
"My plugsuit," he replied. "Believe me, it's not a good look."
"Spandex?"
"You wish. Heh-heh."
Shinji had to admit, Rumiko was the only person so far that got him to crack a smile after a little laughter during these stressful times.
-x-
"…I don't understand how the girl can make him smile after most of the time when he's not here," Misato expressed to Ritsuko as they were watching the two teens through a surveillance camera, noticing that the Third Child seemed to get along with the girl better than he had been expected to get along with the First Child, which was a virtually-nonexistent relationship between the two Eva pilots.
"In cases of children that don't live with their parents or guardians in a difficult setting, the most natural thing they'll do when faced with adversity is to rebel against whoever they feel is out to control them," Ritsuko stated logically. "In this case, he's likely met someone he can relate to in a sense that he has nobody related to him that he can actually look up to and respect."
"So, because we're the people that he can't relate to, he rebels against our way of thinking during stressful times…and the girl is like his ally?"
"More or less."
"How much longer until Unit-01 is ready for deployment?"
"Fifteen minutes, but unless Godzilla's defeated before he arrives here, it's going to be a long wait, even for the Third Child."
"What about the JSSDF?"
"They just sent another squadron of jets to where Godzilla is currently heading in the Yamagata Prefecture: Nagai," went Shigeru to her. "ETA is twenty minutes."
"What are their chances of stopping Godzilla?" Maya questioned.
"Didn't the military stop it once before back in Nineteen-Fifty-Four?" Hyuga asked her. "They're bound to stop it again."
"Yeah, except that the media never stated how, exactly, they defeated Godzilla the first time."
That was true; the predecessor organization of the Japanese military never disclosed to the public how they were able to defeat a monster as dangerous or as nightmarish as Godzilla had been back in the middle of the previous century. Whether it was through a combination of bullets, missiles, or more manpower than they had right now, the people were kept in the dark on the methods used to kill the beast. Nobody at NERV even understood how the military had managed to achieve victory in such a critical period of their past.
-x-
The city of Nagai had seen better days since Second Impact, but because of the emergency broadcast that started in Akita, the place had been evacuated by the time Godzilla had arrived. This…and because the few minutes Godzilla spent trying to defeat Baragon, Anguirus and Varan had given the people more time to escape to another part of the country close by. But Godzilla didn't care much for this. Even an empty city was still worth destroying to punish the Japanese for the sins of the past.
"Grrraurgh!" He roared as he crushed through several buildings in front of him. "Rrrraurgh!"
Once this city was desolated, he would be one step closer to the location that served as the people's new capital of their arrogance. And once there, he would leave nothing but rubble in his wake of vengeance.
Screech! He heard the roaring of something in the air again and looked up to see several jets approaching him.
How the arrogant refused to know their place in this world and the next. The impending dread as they come closer to their demise as punishment for their ancestral sins.
-x-
Shinji hated this. There was no denying it. He hated being inside the Eva with every fiber of his being. Even the waiting period itself was awful.
Could this get any worse than it already is? He wondered as he sat in the Entry Plug. This isn't even an Angel, not that I care about that. But this is a monster that hasn't been seen since the fifties. This is a monster that is on a mission for the dead that are upset with the way the living have just forgotten about their losses after the end of the war.
"…So, this is what you put him through every time he's here?" Rumiko questioned Misato and Ritsuko as she saw Shinji on a monitor, looking irritable.
"Yes," Ritsuko answered her. "It's a necessity."
"Except it looks detrimental to him."
"Well, he hasn't been very cooperative since he got here," Misato informed.
"Would you be if you had to do this? At his age?"
Misato looked at her like she was more knowledgeable about Shinji than they should've been by now. It was like this girl knew enough about him that made her an intimate part of his social circle, not that it was much of a circle to begin with.
"Just how much do you know about him?" She asked the girl.
"Enough to know that he obviously hates it down here. But you already knew that, didn't you? You knew it the second you brought him here to see his father. It's no wonder he treats his time at the shrine as though it's a blessing from the kami themselves."
"Sounds like he knows enough to understand the intensity of the situation," Ritsuko suggested, expressing her opinion.
"Except that the situation has shifted from what he was told to what we understand from a guy that has tried to warn the people about this new threat that goes back to the aftermath of World War Two. Instead of facing an unknown enemy, you're facing an enemy that everyone treated as a myth meant to be forgotten about because it caused terror and suffering…and all we really understand is that the military defeated it back when people were struggling to recover from the war."
"And so far, we've seen some of what it can do to know that it doesn't seem like much of a threat that was expected."
"I'm sorry, it doesn't seem like much of a threat? Forgive me if I sound like I don't respect science and technology, but were you even watching what happened when it showed up in Akita? Did you not see how Godzilla just…shattered those buildings, breathed its atomic breath, sending all those people that were trying to get away back to their makers way before their time? Godzilla's not some minor threat you'll be able to take out and put behind you. He's a monster on a mission of vengeance to punish us for what our ancestors did…and he's clearly got conviction or whatever it is that drives him to do his duty. There's a reason he's called the King of Destruction. He's not taking breaks right now, he's not letting superficial injuries slow him down, and whenever he finds opposition in between himself and his objective, he will go to extremes to move them out of his way. If that's not a threat, then what makes a threat a threat?"
Inside the plug, Shinji had to applaud Rumiko for her sense of reasoning concerning Godzilla. The creature was a real threat to the nation, and the faux-blond woman had tried to consider it not so much of a danger when it was and they were waiting for it to show up.
Someone give her a medal, he thought.
"Oh, you gotta be kidding me!" He heard someone yell; his best guess was that Godzilla was not making it easy for the JSSDF to fight him.
"What's going on out there?" He asked.
"Godzilla's unharmed by the jets' missiles," Misato informed.
-x-
"Missiles are ineffective against Godzilla," a woman informed one one the generals in charge of the operation against the revived foe.
"Try hitting him from the sides or the back of the head," the general suggested.
"It's not going to make any difference," one of the pilots from the jets replied.
On the screens, the military personnel could see Godzilla's dorsal spines glow bright blue as he prepared to fire his radioactive fire breath again.
BLAST! He fired and destroyed three jets, followed by four more, and then four more, in rapid succession, in just two streams of blue flame.
"He took out the whole squadron," another general expressed in shock. "What the Hell is this thing?! Does anything harm it?!"
-x-
As the remains of the attackers fell from the sky, Godzilla resumed his course towards his next destination, undeterred any further by these pesky beings that were no longer a threat to his mission of vengeance.
"Grr," he growled.
-x-
As the threat of Godzilla's impending arrival inched closer by the passing minutes, the citizens of Tokyo-3 were ordered to evacuate to their predetermined safe zones. Within the last hour, the streets were crowded by vehicles packed with people and whatever they needed just to survive. It wasn't a panic whenever people tried to get into the city, but it was a panic just trying to get out when you were told that you needed to get as far away as you could from a creature that was of an astronomical size and could reduce entire cities to ruins. They had seen the news of what happened in Akita and what was going on in neighboring cities in other prefectures, and were aware of a threat they had thought was reduced to just a forgotten memory.
"…I don't know what's worse," a boy in a tracksuit expressed to a boy with glasses and a camcorder, "the fact that Godzilla exists…or that it's coming here and we have to get out of here before it shows up?"
"Both," said the camcorder boy. "A monster that has no compassion for people is a demon that has no qualms about killing humans."
"Come on, big brother!" A little girl told the tracksuit boy, pulling him by his left arm. "We have to get outta here!"
-x-
"Evacuation is forty-eight percent complete," Maya reported while Shigeru and Hyuga were monitoring the progression of Godzilla as it continued to advance through what remained of the Yamagata Prefecture after destroying Nagai and the squadron of jets.
"ETA for Godzilla to reach Tokyo-3 is now two hours," Shigeru replied.
On the screens, Godzilla suddenly stopped walking and stood still in the ruins of Yonezawa.
"What the… It just stopped," Hyuga uttered. "Godzilla just stopped moving."
"Why'd he stop moving for?" Misato questioned.
"Maybe it needs to replenish its atomic energy," Ritsuko suggested.
But Rumiko, looking at the monster that incited terror to many people across the nation, past and present, wasn't so sure that it was taking a break. It was the eyes. The way they just looked, without pupils and giving off the sense that he was a ghost brought back to life and was hiding something more terrifying.
Flash! She saw Unit-01 standing before Godzilla, and watched how the living embodiment of destruction spat its atomic fire at the purple behemoth, reducing it to half-melted pulp…and giving off a sadistic smile seconds later.
"Aaah!" She gasped.
"What's wrong with you?" Misato asked her.
"You ever get one of those feelings where it seems like something terrible just happened right in front of you?" She responded.
"Only you're not sure what it was? No, you must be crazy."
"She's crazy, and I work with her," they heard Shinji say, reminding them that his intercom was active. "What did you see, Rumiko?"
"I saw you facing Godzilla…and you don't win. It's not even a battle. It's an execution."
"Ugh! I can believe that."
"Is there anything you can't believe that doesn't make NERV look inadequate?" Ritsuko asked him right now, wanting to know.
"You want to hear it straight?" Shinji questioned.
"You teens are unbelievable right now."
"I wonder why?" Both teens replied, and soon after, Godzilla resumed its progress towards its new destination.
On the bridge above the Bridge Bunnies, Gendo looked at Godzilla and pondered if Unit-01 could defeat it…while Fuyutsuki had questioned an old soldier about the monster and received a response that bothered him to his core.
If the Angels don't stand a chance against Godzilla, nothing short of a miracle will stop it, he thought as all they could do was wait until the beast had entered Tokyo-3 limits and because subject to NERV's authority in order for them to use an Eva against it.
"I guess it doesn't need to take long breaks," went Misato.
"If this creature were like an Angel, I'd say it possesses an S² Engine, giving it unlimited energy," Ritsuko stated.
-x-
It was only for a few moments, but even that felt like an eternity. Godzilla had to stop in order to absorb the atmospheric radiation that still lingered in the air around him, replenishing his reserves after the fight with the military and the trio of beasts that stood in his way. Now that he was rested, he could resume carrying out the judgment of the Japanese, making them answer for their arrogance in forgetting the sins of their past. The place that would suffer immensely was within his reach.
-x-
"Hey, say Godzilla does show up in Tokyo-3," Rumiko asked Misato and Ritsuko, "and none of your methods are effective against him, what's to keep him from coming down here?"
"The city was designed to withstand attacks from Angels," Misato told her as they were in the hallway of Central Dogma where a vending machine was. "We're buried over a mile underground, and above our heads is twenty-two layers of fortified plate armor. It would take Godzilla a long time just to get through three of them."
Rumiko looked at her like she was advertising the ingenuity of the people that built this facility.
"You're not convinced because we're not dealing with an Angel, aren't you?" She asked the girl.
"As much as I would like to be, there's a limit to the success of human innovation," she told the purple-haired woman. "There are no absolutes."
"You'd be wrong to think that," Ritsuko reacted. "Everything down here is the result of fifteen years of trial and error, planning for the eventual return of the Angels and their intention to wipe out the human race."
Rumiko's right eyebrow raised up like something was clearly wrong with everything the faux-blond woman had said to her.
"Again, I can't believe in the success of human innovation at a time like this," the girl responded, "and a reminder: You're relying on everything against Godzilla, a creature that we don't fully understand, except from what the twin brother of me and Shinji's boss revealed, and he's not what any of you were expecting, meaning you can't guarantee that your resources will have any effect on him. And personally…this next question is my only concern: What are Shinji's chances of actually surviving inside that man-made construct against a nuclear fire-breathing dinosaur?"
That was a question neither woman expected to hear as Misato reached down for a canned coffee from the vending machine. And it was a question based off of concern, implying that the girl cared about the Third Child.
"The Eva should be able to withstand the presence of the creature's radioactive fire breath," Ritsuko informed. "We took every precaution when building it."
"Except that you built it to face something different, which never showed up, meaning you're reduced to rethinking everything. And I'm sorry if I sound out of line, but just looking at the way the Eva is in both aesthetics and form, it looks like an artificial demon based off an actual demon that had been encountered in the past somewhere."
Misato and Ritsuko looked at her and then at each other, like the teen was smarter than she seemed. Even though she was only stating her personal opinions and concerns about the limited possibility of success against a creature of vengeance, Rumiko had unknowingly been spot-on about the overall form of the Eva. Not a soul in the public had been remotely aware that the Eva was an artificial construct based off an organism discovered fifteen years ago before Second Impact occurred. If the world knew about this, they'd be met with ridicule much worse than what they were facing with the lack of progress against the Angels after it was confirmed that Godzilla had killed the ones they had been expecting to face.
"Some just say that it looks like a giant toy," Ritsuko replied.
"Yeah," Misato added.
Rumiko then went over the vending machine and selected a recently-installed selection of sandwiches and a canned coffee for herself.
"That right there, what you just said," she told them, "is utter BS. I've seen boys with action figures from popular franchises, and they look better than what you people made. Then again, that's just my opinion because I honestly don't know if the world will even remember the Eva if it does well."
She's like Shinji, they both thought about the girl. She doesn't have much faith in it, either.
Suddenly, the alarms went off.
"I don't like this," Rumiko uttered.
-x-
All they told Shinji was that Godzilla was ten minutes away from Tokyo-3 and that he needed to intercept him. Now, being catapulted up into the city above for the first time, all he could do was whatever he could do against a monster that was out to punish the Japanese people for what happened in the Pacific theater of conflict.
I have nothing but doubts about this, he thought as he reached the city surface after the place had been fully evacuated, seeing the dark speck of Godzilla from afar, unsure of how he was going to face a creature like this that wasn't an Angel…and a spirit of vengeance brought back to life to kill them. I'm praying to whatever kami are out there to hear me. I'm honestly not afraid to die, knowing that I'll barely be missed…but please, don't let anything bad happen to Rumiko and anyone at the shrine. They're the only good thing I have that's worth living for.
"Are you ready, Shinji?" He heard Misato ask him over the intercom.
"No," he replied, "but who is when they're about to face a living nightmare?"
"Just do like you did in the practice sims…and you should do fine."
Except this wasn't a simulation…and nothing was fine. This was wrong in more ways than Shinji cared to admit. There were no guarantees that he could fight Godzilla in an Eva, that an Eva could prevail against something it wasn't intended to face, not even a snowball's chance in Hell of him walking away from this in one piece. And this was mostly his father's fault; the guy that wanted nothing to do with him ever since he could remember being cast aside, called to a city he couldn't call his home, to work for an agency he couldn't associate with, and all to face a threat that was probably no longer a necessity for him to be around to face if Godzilla had a hand in making sure they never showed up, meaning that he spent time at an underground facility, in a building-sized robot or whatever the Eva was to these people that made it…and submerged in a foul-smelling liquid for hours…for absolutely nothing.
As the creature came closer, the Evangelion picked up a large rifle and took aim at it.
-x-
Hirotoshi Isayama stood over a frozen, underground lake deep within Mt. Fuji, looking to his left and right and two walls of ice that obscured what appeared to be two identical creatures.
"So many lives on the line, so little time to save them all," he sighs.
Suddenly, the ice in front of him cracked, indicating that the strongest of the Guardian Monsters had gained enough strength to emerge in due time.
To be continued…
A/N: Basically, even when everyone with the means to fire a shot at Godzilla, they can't really harm him, and even NERV will realize this. As for Shinji and Rumiko, their relationship development regarding NERV makes for an interesting train of thought in this scenario in which practically everyone around them in the Geo-Front have to wonder if there's anything that these two teens can believe in about what they're doing. And as for Fuyutsuki, how many of you suspect that he knows the truth about what happened with Godzilla in the past?