Creation began on 09-23-23

Creation ended on 09-24-23

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Evangelion: Dark City

A/N: Who's to say that there was only one? Anything as unusual as a race of beings able to do anything are sure to be unable to stop at only one.

As I look up at the night sky, I think of the reason for why I am doing what I do, thought a woman with a triangular facial structure and a pageboy hairstyle, walking over the streets of the city below her on small walkways. In the beginning, there was only the darkness of what hid within it…and then they came. The Strangers. It turned out they were a race as old as time itself, but unlike the race that I had studied, they were not an ancestral species; they had been around since the very beginning. Their civilization had mastered many different forms of science and technology, including their greatest achievement: The ability to manipulate physical reality through willpower alone, changing anything into anything else, all by means of thought. They called this power "tuning". Unfortunately, they were dying. Despite their vast power, their entire race was in decline, and so they had to abandon their world, seeking a cure…for their own mortality. They thought they had found the best hope of their survival on a small world in the farthest corner of the galaxy. Our world. But when they arrived, they were enraged. They were unhappy with what they found, for it was a world without the impressive sense of infinity that they had expected from a large number of people. And before they ever arrived…they had found me…and found the cause for their disappointment. They needed people for their hopes of survival, and the world they found only had two of them, something which they deemed insufficient. In the end, I found myself forced to accept a new fear.

"This Human Instrumentality Project…will not suffice," one of the Strangers told her after they forced her out of the Eva, restoring her to her former form. "And this…false being…does not suit our goal, either. You will fix this mistake you helped to create."

"And what if I don't…or can't?" She dared to ask.

"We have a long time to learn from your mistakes," they responded, and she wished she hadn't questioned them.

Their mastery of longevity was unquestionable, the woman continued as she stopped on a rooftop to look at the people below. I had no choice but to do as they wanted, and every time I tried to refuse, they made my life worse than it was already when they destroyed the Evangelion. The aftermath of the Human Instrumentality Project was reversed for the most part, but the devastation that caused the oceans to shift into the substance that was the blood of Lilith was not resolved. Humans were restored, but they were not the same. The ones that had more awareness of what befell them were angry that a handful of people were responsible for them losing their lives, their stability, their faith in humanity or even their loved ones. This didn't matter to the Strangers; their goal was one of survival, not the concerns of the people they looked to for their salvation. In the end, even though people returned, none of them felt they could trust anyone the same way again. And they all knew who was at the center of the fiasco, but due to their inability to look past the hurt, my son became a scapegoat, forced into hiding before the Strangers took over and changed everything. They made everyone forget about the past, but at a horrible price. And to this day, the people have no idea of what is going on. This is my penance; I'm the only one they permit to keep such knowledge of the horrors that befell them all…and it cost me more than I ever thought I could lose.

"I have seen his past, and it is nothing but hurt," another member of the Strangers had told her. "Even with his world mended halfway, even with the return of people he dared to call what you call friends, all he seems to understand…is suffering. Suffering. It has become such a factor in his existence that it allows him no success of any other sort. What you and that man did to him…has left him irrecoverably broken. We have no use for a broken human."

And it was true, as far as they were willing to divulge. My son was broken. Although they could find a different remedy, they were merely a different solution to a problem that had no place in their design, so they made me choose for him his fate: Death or absolution from his life of suffering. But neither choice was one hope for him. My perception of hope was different from theirs, and they gave me little time to decide; I had to choose what was to become of Shinji. I had no further say. I chose absolution from his life. I chose…to let him go. Even though I didn't want to, it was the only option to give him because he was so broken.

"You let them do this to him?!" The woman that had once looked after him yelled at her when she was being taken away by the Strangers. "You're the one that caused this to happen! You! You caused this!"

And in the end, I couldn't afford the luxury of letting go of my sins. Not like everyone was forced to let go of their past.

The sirens and music blaring drowned out all but the thoughts that were running rampant in the minds of the people as they went about their daily lives.

In a place where I have no choice but to aid in their experiments, it's only a matter of when they decide that I'm of no further use to them, she thought as she looked at her watch, seeing that it was almost midnight. And so it begins again.

At the stroke of midnight, the city went quiet. Really quiet, like all the people in it had just stopped whatever it was they were doing to take a moment of silence. All except for this woman that was forced into the service of the Strangers. Her name is Yui Ikari, and her actions carried repercussions that continue to affect the world she lives in.

-x-

"Aah!" A young man gasped as he came to inside a bathroom, finding himself in a tub full of cold water. "Aah…"

He climbed out of it and staggered to a sink nearby, nearly falling due there being no covering on the tiled floor. The mirror was covered in condensation, so he wiped it off to see his face. But his face…was something he didn't recognize. His blue eyes and dark hair were not a contrast to his pale skin, but there was something missing that he couldn't see in any way he could comprehend.

Who…am I? He wonders as he looks down at a stool and sees some clothes folded on top. Are these clothes mine?

He dressed up in them and stepped out of the bathroom into a small bedroom. He was dressed in dark pants, a dark undershirt and a white dress shirt, making him look like he was a school student. There were a pair of shoes nearby on the floor and he went over to put them on. His confusion didn't clear up in the slightest; he wasn't sure what he was doing here…and he couldn't remember anything.

Where am I? He questions as he goes to a window, seeing only some buildings that he didn't recognize. What is this place?

Ring-ring! A phone on the bed rang, and he picked it up, his finger on the screen and answered it.

"Hello?" He utters.

"You need to get out there," a female voice told him. "You're probably confused, don't know anything, including your name or where you are, right?"

"What? Who…who are you?"

"Someone that once knew you," they told him. "Please, you have to get out of there. You're in a hotel room, and you have been framed for an armed robbery and homicide. There are men coming for you, and they'll be there within five minutes. You have to get out of there. Please, trust me!"

The call disconnected, and the young man was even more confused about what was going on. But he felt the woman's voice was genuinely telling him something he needed to believe, and he picked up a dark blue jacket and left out the door into a hallway.

Ding! He looked down the hall to his left and saw an elevator coming up, occupied by three men.

He quickly ran down the other end of the hall and found a staircase. Running down the stairs as fast as he could, he reached the bottom floor and exited into a lobby. Walking to where the front entrance was likely to be located, he noticed that the people scattered around were asleep.

What time is it? He wonders as he goes over to the front desk and looks at a clock, seeing that it was eight minutes after midnight. But…it doesn't feel like it's after midnight.

He walked out of the lobby and onto the sidewalk where he walked down to a crosswalk. It looked as though the people within the cars were also asleep.

What is going on here? He wonders as he crosses on a green light.

To be continued…

A/N: Put quite simply, this is set after End of Evangelion and combines its aftermath with the mystery of Dark City, but there's going to be more in store than how it went in Dark City. The idea just came to mind by random thoughts running around in my head.