Prologue: Fall From Grace
Disclaimer: Evangelion is owned by Hideaki Anno and Studio Khara. RWBY is owned by Rooster Teeth. No monetary gain is intended from this work.
Author's Note: This story was inspired by the first chapter of VentXekart's great story titled Shinji Ikari and the Girls of RWBY. Go give that story some love, y'all.
One other thing to mention is that as much as I enjoy RWBY, I have to change some things around for anything to make sense. Some changes are minor, some major. Thoughts and critiques are welcome.
Author's Note: IMPORTANT UPDATE! If you read the first 5 chapters before 3/14/2024 you might want to reread them. Chapters 1-5 have been reworked and fixed.
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Shinji Ikari was not a person who led an easy life.
Case in point, he currently sat huddled in the fetal position inside a 40-meter biomechanical war machine that had itself been consumed by the "shadow" of a floating zebra-striped sphere monster. If that wasn't bad enough, he was also running dangerously low on oxygen.
Evangelion Unit-01's life support system had lasted 16 whole hours without power, but now it was starting to fail. The LCL inside Unit 01's entry plug was starting to become unbreathable. The thought of suffocating had earlier terrified poor Shinji, but now there was only numb acceptance. All his panicking had done was deplete his supply of breathable LCL quicker and exhaust the boy to the point of slumber.
Once the unfortunate pilot surrendered to the siren's call for sleep, the bizarre dreams began. He and a younger version of himself had quite an interesting chat in a train car. The tiny Shinji was slowly trying to probe its way into his thought process. Halfway through the interrogation of the Third Child's psyche, a deep growl sounded out from nowhere and everywhere at once. As soon as the growling stopped, the dream was over, and the young pilot awoke to see that his time in the land of the living was coming to an end very soon.
He glanced at the remaining emergency power.
'Only about 3 minutes of life support left…' He thought groggily.
His earlier introspective journey with the inquisitive seraphim made his thoughts begin to wander. What was he doing here? Why him? Where did it all go wrong?
Shinji hated piloting but stuck around for the fleeting chance that his Father might care about him. Piloting Eva made others like him, so he stayed and fought on, despite all the fear and pain the purple goliath brought him. But he knew this was inevitable. His pessimistic nature wouldn't let him entertain the idea of any other option that wasn't his eventual death in combat. And now his thoughts were proved right, he was going to die alone in the entry plug.
Maybe he should have refused to pilot. Piloting Unit-01 had only brought pain. Not just to him, but to those around him as well. After all, it wasn't Sachiel that had put Toji's younger sister in the hospital.
And the people he piloted for brought him pain too. It had always been that way for him, ever since his Mother's death and his Father's subsequent abandonment. People treated him like a tool. Something disposable. Something to be used and thrown away when they were done with him. Only after he moved to Tokyo-3 had things begun to change. How ironic was it that the thing he despised doing the most had brought him the closest to people.
Before his time in the fortress city of Tokyo-3, he had nothing. It was just him and his sensei. Shinji's old guardian had raised the boy since he was three years old but the relationship between the two was somewhere between totally indifferent and frigidly cold.
He definitely preferred Misato.
Misato Katsuragi was the closest thing he had to a mother or older sister. She cared about him more than anyone else in his life, and they'd become almost like, dare he say, a family. Her way of life was somewhat strange to the boy. At work, she was all business, but in her off time, she was almost more childlike than Shinji himself. At times, it felt like he was the one taking care of her and not the other way around. Not to mention the fact that she drank too much.
He still had lingering doubts about the woman. She was his guardian as well as his superior officer. Caring for him was part of her job, she'd said as much the morning of Shinji's parent-teacher conference. She'd also told him that she had joined NERV to avenge her father, who had died at the hands of the First Angel during Second Impact. Was that all Shinji was to her? A convenient tool for her revenge? Most likely. He desperately hoped he was more than that to her.
His thoughts drifted to the other people he'd met since he arrived in the city, the first of which was his schoolyard pals. Toji and Kensuke were the first friends he'd ever had, and they were the best friends he could've asked for. It was ironic. In the beginning, Toji had originally hated his guts for putting his younger sister in the hospital. The jock quickly changed his tune once he saw the hellish reality of what piloting Eva was like. After the battle, Toji insisted Shinji slug him to make things even. And thus, their friendship began.
For some reason, the terrifying incident hadn't deterred Kensuke from wanting to become an Eva pilot in the slightest. The glasses-wearing boy was always pestering him about the latest news at NERV, especially anything related to the Evas. Shinji wondered if Kensuke would still be his friend if he wasn't a pilot. Shinji sadly didn't think so. It was Eva that had brought the three together, and Shinji wasn't exactly someone who stood out from the crowd.
Besides, everyone else at school lost interest as soon as they realized he wasn't the charming, gallant hero they'd expected. Not that he minded it. It was a return to normalcy for the lad. He was used to being ignored by his classmates. Shinji got to fade into the background, as he had ever since he began his education. Seen but never acknowledged.
Although Shinji was good at being quiet and keeping his head down in the classroom, he had nothing on the bizarre enigma that was Rei Ayanami. Rei had fought side-by-side with him, but the two couldn't exactly be called friends. Rei's icy personality (or lack thereof) made connecting with her difficult.
Not to mention the time he went to bring her a replacement I.D. card and wound up seeing the girl naked, which made conversation with the albino more than a little awkward for Shinji. But after she smiled at him after Operation Yashima, Shinji found interacting with the red-eyed girl to be easier. And although they were on friendlier terms now, they still weren't proper friends. Rei never hung out with him, and their conversations were still limited.
But despite all that, Shinji had acquired a slight crush on the quiet bluenette. He'd never admit to it to anyone, of course. They'd all tease him mercilessly, especially Misato. He wished he could have seen her smile one last time. One last quiet conversation before he met his end.
If he had that chance, perhaps he could summon the courage to ask her why his Father had chosen her instead of him. He didn't want to let jealousy sour his relationship with the lass, but it was hard sometimes. And in his final moment he refused to let that jealousy sour his memories of Rei.
His thoughts kept drifting through the people he'd met throughout his life, and his mind landed on the clinical chief scientist of Project E, Dr. Ritsuko Akagi. Dr. Akagi seemed to be the textbook definition of someone who was overworked. She was polite enough when they spoke to each other, but it was rare that they talked about anything that wasn't related to Eva.
The only time the woman showed a spark of life was when she discussed something related to the MAGI. The Third Child gave her the benefit of the doubt since she was Misato's friend. Anyone who was a friend of Misato at least got a few points in Shinji's book.
He let out a small chuckle at Misato's other "friend", Ryoji Kaji. Shinji didn't know what the deal between those two was, but what he did know was that Kaji could push Misato's buttons in ways no one else could. It was a funny sight to behold. Usually, he was the one getting teased, so it was nice to see the tables turn on his purple-haired guardian every once in a while.
In all seriousness, the Third Child didn't quite know what to make of his guardian's old college boyfriend. The man radiated an aura of suaveness and coolness without even trying. Maybe that was why Asuka liked him so much.
Speaking of Asuka, of all the people Shinji had met in his life, Asuka Langley Sohryu confused him the most.
Aggressive, haughty, and proud was the image she gave off to everyone she met. Asuka was always the center of attention. At first, Shinji had thought the redheaded pilot hated his guts but there were times when she could be quite friendly. Well, so long as he didn't accidentally piss her off. The redheaded German's temper was legendary when angered, which, unfortunately for Shinji, was far too often. But then again, there were moments when she'd smirk, take his side, and crack jokes at Misato's expense if Misato teased the lad too hard.
Not to mention, they'd fought several battles together, and he'd risked his life to save her from the fires of Mount Asama. He didn't think the flame-haired foreigner was a bad person, she just confused his depressed teenage mind to no end. Soon after she arrived, Shinji found that he'd also developed a crush on Asuka despite her attitude toward him. He paid it even less mind than his crush on Rei. There was no way a girl like her would want a wimp like him. She had made that explicitly clear.
And then she'd gone and goaded him into his first kiss.
He hadn't known what to do, so he merely stood there while she pinched his nose and initiated the failed lip lock. After it was over, she ran to the bathroom and loudly rinsed out her mouth. Who kisses to kill time anyway? Asuka did, it seemed. Did that mean she liked him back? No, that couldn't be, she was head over heels for Kaji. But then, did she really only kiss him to kill time? He didn't want to think about it anymore. Giving himself hope for a possible future together with Asuka in his current state was too painful to bear.
His thoughts drifted to the man who had raised him for the past ten years, Markus Vincennes.
Markus Vincennes was a practical man who had cared for young Shinji efficiently, but not in a way one could consider loving. The middle-aged American was a former English teacher who had come to live abroad in Japan about a year after Second Impact. He taught the boy everything and provided everything that a child needed after the young boy had been placed into his care, but had done so in a detached manner. He taught Shinji how to cook, clean, and play the cello well enough, but held no real affection for the lad. As long as Shinji got passing grades at school and didn't get into trouble, Markus raised no fuss.
He had apparently known Shinji's parents in some way, though when the boy asked how this came to be, he received no answer from the blonde-haired man. Shinji often wondered why Markus was tasked with rearing him and one night, he overheard the man talking to himself in a drunken stupor about how "that bastard Gendo" was the reason he couldn't even see his little girl anymore.
The only time Markus ever showed a glimpse of the man he was before was when he was teaching Shinji the English language. His eyes would light up slightly when Shinji mastered a particularly difficult word or sentence. Markus' tutelage of the language had made Shinji quite proficient in what had now unofficially been labeled Post-Impact Japan's second most used language.
If Shinji had his way, he would've simply given it the minimum effort like he did for all other subjects, but Markus insisted that he "speak it as well as Yui did". Knowing his Mother had spoken English helped grease the boy's wheels and learn the language properly. It came in surprisingly handy when Shinji arrived in Tokyo-3. There were more foreigners who spoke English living there than he'd expected.
Finally, Shinji's thoughts settled on his Mother and Father. He couldn't remember much about his Mother at all. Hell, he couldn't even remember her face. His Father had destroyed all her belongings and every picture of her. Doing so had helped in demolishing Shinji's memory of her. He liked to think that she had loved him before she passed away during the lab experiment that people had alluded to being his Father's fault.
And finally, there was his Father.
The relationship between the male members of the Ikari family was complicated, to say the least. Gendo Ikari left his son at a train station for Markus to pick up no less than a week after his wife's passing. Shinji saw the man once a year on the anniversary of his Mother's death, and never any more than that. Eventually, Shinji stopped going to visit his Mother's grave. It had been three years since father and son had last seen each other before being reunited on that fateful day when the Third Angel attacked.
But a happy family reunion was not to be. Gendo had told his son to pilot the Eva or leave. That wasn't what the lad had expected from his Father at all. Why had he been tasked with such a tremendous burden? What was worse, if he refused, an injured Rei Ayanami would've had to fight in his stead.
Shinji couldn't just stand by and let someone so gravely hurt go into battle. He knew that she likely wouldn't survive while he stood a better chance of winning against the Angel, even if he had no idea what he was doing.
And maybe if he fought, his Father might finally acknowledge him for once. Maybe if he did well enough and lived through the battle, they could be a real family again. As time went on, that goal seemed more and more like a pipe dream to poor Shinji.
His Father wanted nothing to do with him. The two barely interacted. What did Shinji ever do to deserve such treatment? Why had his Father sent him away? Wasn't he good enough? Why did his Father smile at Rei and not at him?
Eventually, Shinji had very slowly begun to accept the fact that he and his Father's bonds could never be mended. And then it happened. After Sahaquiel's defeat, his Father praised him! All the pain and suffering he'd endured while piloting Unit-01 had been worth it!
Maybe his Father didn't hate him after all. At the end of the day, Shinji still didn't know what to think of his Father. He wasn't sure if he loved the man or hated him.
He'd never get the chance to figure it out. Time was up.
'Only about 30 seconds left before the system gives ou-'
BOOM! BANG! BTOOOM!
His thoughts were interrupted by what sounded like massive explosions coming from seemingly everywhere. A series of shockwaves rocked the plug, and the Third Child was nearly thrown from his seat. A fearful scream erupted from his lungs as he held onto the control yokes for dear life. The numbing calmness he'd felt suddenly vanished, and sheer terror flooded his veins. He had no idea what was going on outside the plug. There wasn't enough power left for him to even activate the external cameras.
He grew more alarmed when a monstrous growl came from the Eva itself, momentarily drowning out the muffled explosions outside. He heard metal groan and creak as Unit-01's jaw restraint snapped and a deafening roar echoed from within the cyborg's throat. The biomecha's scream was so loud, Shinji instinctually covered his ears to prevent himself from going deaf.
Shinji was no stranger to Unit-01 moving on its own. He'd been told Unit-00 and Unit-01's onboard AI was old and experimental, making the Evas unstable. Shinji didn't believe a word of that excuse. He'd seen what lay beneath the armor.
It made it easier for Shinji to sleep at night, thinking of the biomechanical titans as mere robots. War machines that obeyed their pilot's mental commands like puppets on strings. But Shinji knew what they really were. The Evas were monsters, no different than the Angels were. Just because they had cybernetics didn't mean they were under humanity's control. Robots didn't bleed when they took damage. Robots didn't roar like wild beasts.
Shinji didn't know how humanity could even create such monstrosities.
His terror skyrocketed to levels he didn't know were possible when he barely heard the familiar sound of Unit-01's neck armor unclasping. Wait a second... was Unit-01 about to eject the entry plug?! He began to hyperventilate, depleting his low oxygen levels even further.
As his mind began racing a million miles a minute, a voice rang out from the darkness.
"Shinji… remember this. Anywhere can be heaven, so long as you're alive. I love you…"
He was too scared to even attempt a response. Who was talking and where was it coming from? He was the only one in the plug. Suddenly, Shinji lurched forward in his seat as the entry plug was violently ejected from the Eva. For a handful of seconds, he couldn't hear himself scream over the apocalyptic sounds around him. And then suddenly all noise from the outside ceased. Shinji could no longer hear any explosions. He had little time to process this before the entry plug rattled upon smashing into a series of objects outside before impacting hard against something.
His head struck the plug's center console, and everything went dark.
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EARLIER
The Third Child didn't know how close to reality his earlier train of thought was.
The Evangelions were indeed monsters. Creatures cloned from Angels and infused with cybernetic augments that let humanity control them, not that Shinji could've known that part. Only a select few individuals in the world knew of the Evangelions' true origin. The thing that set Evas apart from all other life on earth was the need for a soul to be artificially inserted into them instead of being born with one like all other lifeforms.
Among the Evas, Unit-01 was especially unique. Unlike all other Units that had been cloned from Adam, the First Angel, Unit-01 had been cloned from the Second Angel, Lilith. The soul that had been imprisoned inside of its core belonged to none other than Shinji's mother, Yui Ikari. Everyone thought the young scientist's disappearance during Unit-01's Contact Experiment had been a tragic accident, but in reality, that couldn't be further from the truth.
Yui had planned the whole thing.
Being the daughter of a Seele member essentially granted the woman whatever she would have wanted in life so long as she kept her mouth shut about their plans for Human Instrumentality. She never subscribed to the Council's view of humanity's future, and the old geezers had always been suspicious of her. Yui knew the Seele Council couldn't be stopped. She was just one woman and they had the entire world at their fingertips.
That was why she created a plan for her own version of Instrumentality after her father's death. Her Father had kept their attention at bay whilst he was alive, all the while desperately trying to change her mind about Seele's Scenario. She wasn't swayed by any of the man's attempts to convince her it was for humanity's own good.
Especially not after finding out about that… thing Seele consorted with. Finding out about that creature was the last straw. She prayed that it never laid a finger on her son.
Seele turned their full attention to her after his passing, barely a year after Second Impact. She knew she had to work fast so Yui made herself invaluable to them by spearheading Project E. Once Unit-00 had been completed and the old men knew how to build and maintain Evas, Yui knew they'd once again consider eliminating her.
After some espionage by her old college bestie, Mari Makinami, it was revealed her paranoia was not unfounded. They would soon send someone to kill her. Seele took zero chances when it came to their precious Scenario, so Yui went forth with phase 2 of her Scenario. She became the sacrificial lamb for Unit-01. She'd be out of Seele's spotlight and be able to directly help humanity in the coming war with the Angels.
Once Yui had become Unit-01's surrogate soul, there wasn't anything anyone could do about it. Humanity needed Unit-01 for the coming fight against the remaining angels. Seele couldn't just destroy the first viable core for an Eva. Unit-00 may have been completed at the time, but it was still lacking a soul to power its core.
Being trapped inside Unit-01's core was a strange experience. It was almost like being asleep while she was awake. She couldn't feel her body and had no way of communicating with people outside the Eva. Yui could barely perceive things outside of the Eva through its eyes when it had no power. However, when millions of watts of electricity flowed into the mighty cyborg, Yui could see quite clearly and regained her other senses, but had no control over them.
That's where Shinji came in. Being the surrogate soul for Unit-01 could only be described as being the middleman between its body and mind, one-third of the three essential things needed for a fully functioning Evangelion.
And now that she was bound to the Eva, she would never be free of it. Her eternal imprisonment was a sacrifice she willingly made. The woman believed wholeheartedly in her Scenario. And after it was all said and done, she would become a reminder of humanity's accomplishments. She would live on long after the earth, moon, and stars crumbled and turned to dust. She would be proof that humanity existed.
Plus, she had faith in her husband to raise their son right. Yui had never wanted Shinji to become an Eva pilot, but Evangelions could only be piloted by those who had a strong link to the soul inside the core. It was his unfortunate fate.
Yui had no way of knowing, but the strong link of a pilot to the soul did not just extend to feelings of love and positivity. Hatred also seemed to work just fine in the case of Unit-00.
After her absorption, she waited patiently for Shinji to begin his pilot training. And she waited, and waited... and waited. What seemed like eternity passed with not even a glimpse of her precious boy. What she did see was something out of a nightmare.
Instead of her son walking around the Eva cages, she'd often see a little girl with light blue hair. Originally she didn't pay the child much mind once she realized the young lass was Unit-00's pilot, but when the girl got close enough to Unit-01 for Yui to see her blood-red eyes and an exact copy of her face reflected on the young pilot was when the horror set in.
Just who and what was that girl?!
When next Yui saw her little boy, he wasn't the small bundle of happiness she remembered, but instead a depressed teenage boy who desperately craved his Father's love. What happened to her baby boy?! Yui received the answer when her son entered the entry plug and began synchronizing with Unit-01.
The woman was able to peer into her son's mind and was furious at what she saw.
Instead of raising their son as he should've, Gendo cast Shinji off on her old friend Markus. She wondered what had happened to the man. The Markus Vincennes in her son's memories looked like a husk of his former self. She saw no memories of his wife, Marguerite, or their baby girl, Maria, anywhere inside her son's mind. And, more importantly, why had Professor Fuyutsuki let this happen?!
Her Sensei was the one person she'd told about her Scenario, the one person she thought she could trust! He was supposed to make sure things went according to her Scenario!
Her plan to give her son a life that was his to choose freely once the Angels were defeated had been completely derailed. As smart as she was, she never could've predicted her former Sensei's cowardice or her husband's fear of getting close to his own son.
And now the one who had paid the price for her miscalculation the most was her baby boy.
Her husband was so lost in his devotion to her and his fear of intimacy that he forgot what was most important. She knew Gendo had problems connecting with people and was afraid of what was to come when she announced her pregnancy to him. But over time, he seemed like he'd gotten better at connecting with people throughout their relationship. He'd even started playing with Shinji and smiling more around the house before the Contact Experiment.
Maybe Gendo would've been a good father if she was still around to help guide him, but she had no time to reflect on what if's right now. Right now, she had to get Shinji to safety.
But protecting her child while trapped inside an Evangelion was no easy task. For she wasn't alone inside the Eva. Deep within Unit-01 lay a primal force Yui had dubbed "The Beast". The Beast, as Yui had figured out, was a jumbled mess of raw animal instinct that Unit-01 possessed in place of true consciousness. When her son synched with Unit-01, his mind and soul were open to her and the Beast. She acted as the bridge between the two. The Beast moved the Eva's body, Shinji commanded it what to do with his mind, and she was the translator that sent those commands to the Beast to carry out. Together they formed the holy trinity that allowed Unit-01 to move.
The Beast took a liking to Shinji almost instantly during their first sortie, feeding on the boy's pent-up rage and sadness. Together they made the sync rate clock in at an impressive 41%. The hardest part had been convincing the Beast to help her save Shinji and the blue-haired girl from falling debris before he first got into the plug.
Getting the Eva to move with no power source was a whole other level of difficulty. Without the abundance of voltage flooding into Unit-01 via power cable, the Beast entered a sort of dormant state akin to an animal undergoing hibernation. To move without power was to awaken the Beast from its slumber and give it full control of its body. This process took an incredible amount of energy from both the Beast and herself, and they could only hold a berserker state for so long.
Right now, though, the Beast was being unusually active. It was trying its damnedest to move Unit-01's body, but the Angel of Night was draining their energy somehow. For the past 16 hours, the Beast had grown angrier and angrier at being trapped inside an enemy.
The eldritch monstrosity was currently messing around inside her son's mind. What was it trying to do? What was it hoping to accomplish? Yui was furious at the Angel's intrusion. This thing would not hurt her son. The Beast echoed her sentiments.
The Beast had seen enough of this pesky insect that tried to invade its pilot's mind. It liked its pilot. They had slain many foes together, and it would likely never see battle again without him. It decided it would protect the boy when its surrogate soul asked it to. It tolerated its surrogate soul but greatly preferred its pilot.
Its surrogate soul lacked the capacity for violence its pilot did...
Yui gathered her will and commanded the primal mind to drag the invading Messenger's consciousness straight to her. If this being was able to communicate with her son, perhaps it could be convinced to let them go. The Beast's mind flowed into her son's brain and snatched the Angel with a metaphysical snarl.
By manipulating their AT Field, the duo forced the Angel's consciousness was violently removed from the Evangelion entirely. Without Leliel keeping him trapped, Shinji soon awoke from his slumber.
It was time to save her son. With the Angel's mind gone from the Eva, the two felt their power grow.
She tempted the Beast to achieve a Berserker state with the promise to soon brutalize the pesky intruder. The Eva's emerald eyes opened and a quick look around revealed a white void filled with a mass of buildings, cars, and various other objects the Twelfth Angel had consumed. She had seen much the same through her son's eyes when they had been synchronized hours ago. Leliel may have been a Dirac Sea but it was still an Angel. And there was a single constant that all of Adam's spawn shared, their single weakness.
After a few long seconds of searching, Unit-01 spotted its target. And not a moment too soon. Shinji was running dangerously low on oxygen.
In the distance, a large, red sphere floated aimlessly amongst the debris. It seemed like forcing the creature's mind back into its body had caused its core to finally appear. Unit-01's pupils contracted as the Beast prepared itself for jaw restraint groaned slightly in protest as it attempted to open Unit-01's mouth.
It took nearly everything Yui had to stop it from breaking the restraints. No need to scare her baby any more than he already was. Yui and the Beast warped the AT Field to propel the Eva forward. As they soared towards Leliel's core, Yui and Beast's minds had only one thought. It was time to send the Angel of Night back to God.
Before they could reach the core, their AT Field detected movement coming from above. The Eva craned its massive neck skywards to see a series of dark-colored specs quickly hurtling towards it. As the specs got closer, Unit-01's colossal emerald eyes widened in surprise when Yui realized what was coming toward them.
The dots above them were N2 mines! Just a single N2 mine had all the explosive power of a nuke without the radiation. The 'sky' above Unit-01 was littered with them. There must have been hundreds of them! If she didn't do something quickly, her son would die here in this endless void.
In a flash, the Beast's bloodlust faded and it entered a state of pure survival instinct, a state Yui echoed. The two forced Unit-01 to retract its AT Field from its expanded state and morphed it into a bubble around the Eva. The orange sphere flickered brightly with the familiar octagonal pattern as Yui and the Beast willed the AT Field to become stronger. This was the strongest Field they had ever produced and Yui prayed to any God listening that it held out.
She could feel her son's terror when the first of the mines impacted the reinforced AT Field. After almost 20 seconds of a nonstop barrage by the explosives, Yui knew she had to do something. The AT Field was beginning to crack under the sheer destructive power of all remaining 992 N2 mines in existence.
Yui thought about trying to dissolve Shinji's physical form and pulling his soul into the core with her. He had a much better chance at survival that way. As long as there was LCL nearby and he had the will to come back, he could return to physical form. Evangelions could only trap one soul but could bring in others to their core. She had designed them that way.
But sadly, it wasn't possible. Shinji's synch rate wasn't nearly high enough to even begin to attempt such a risky maneuver. In his hysterical state, Shinji had unknowingly shut his Mother out of his heart. She was running out of options to save her son.
Yui could barely make out the screeching cries of the Twelfth Angel over the thundering explosions all around her. That's when she noticed it. Pockets of color began opening and closing everywhere inside the Angel. If not for the Eva's absurd ability to change its body under extreme stress, Yui wouldn't have even been able to see past the overabundance of light flooding into Unit-01's eyes.
If she could, Yui would've gasped when a space several meters wide in front of Unit-01's chest seemed to shimmer and warp until space tore and displayed an image of a snowy cliffside with moonlight streaming down from behind the tear.
She noticed a small figure cloaked in red on the cliffside, but she hadn't had the time to get a clear look at it. Unit-01 quickly swung its gaze back to Leliel's core. A spiderweb of cracks was slowly forming on the red orb.
She then understood what was happening.
The Angel was dying, and in its death throes, was quite literally tearing reality apart. Considering its body was a Dirac Sea, it meant that this creature was ripping apart spacetime. Its physical body did technically count as a different dimension, after all. She'd studied this type of thing during college but didn't think she'd ever encounter it up close.
Yui didn't want to do this, but she was out of options. If she wanted to save her son's life, she was going to have to send him through the hole in front of Unit-01. And she needed to do it right now. The size of the rip was already beginning to shrink rapidly like the others outside the AT Field.
The Beast let out a deep growl in acknowledgment of her decision before finally snapping the jaw restraints and bellowing out an angry roar. Its pilot was going to escape from this horrid place! It hoped that he survived long enough so they might slay more foes together one day.
When they willed Unit-01's neck armor to reveal the entry plug, Yui could feel Shinji's fear greatly intensify. Yui could feel him starting to hyperventilate. The scientist gathered her strength, bid her son farewell, rotated the Eva around so its back faced the cliffside, and ejected the entry plug through it.
Seconds after the entry plug soared through the hole in space, it closed.
'Good luck, Shinji. Be safe…'
The AT Field cracked further, and the stream of N2 mines wasn't slowing down. Another tear in space easily thrice the size of Unit-01 opened up to the left of the Eva, just outside of its protective bubble. When Yui looked into it, she saw the blackness of space dotted with bright, white stars twinkling in the distance. Not an ideal place to go but it was either this or be blown to smithereens.
The Beast and Yui saw their chance to escape and took it.
They quickly dropped the AT Field's spherical shape and used its power to blast the Eva toward the emptiness of space as fast as possible with a swing of its colossal left arm. The N2 mines' concussive force helped propel the giant toward its destination through the portal. However, Unit-01 did not get to safety unscathed.
Much of its armor was melted and charred a smoldering black. Its left arm had been blown completely off at the shoulder. And its legs were also missing several small chunks of flesh.
Yui didn't care though. Her boy was alive, that was all that mattered. She didn't know who the person standing on that cliff was, but she hoped they could help her boy find his way back to Major Katsuragi.
She had seen memories of the woman constantly floating through her child's head, and she knew that he was safe in Misato Katsuragi's hands. She genuinely cared about Shinji and would take good care of him. A job that should have been her husband's.
The Beast agreed with Yui It did not know where its wayward pilot had been sent. What it did know was that it was very tired now.
With her job done, Yui followed the Beast's lead and the two drifted into a deep slumber, comforted by the dreams of seeing Shinji once more and the soft glow of starlight.
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Thus Kindly, I Scatter
These were the words engraved into the stone underneath the name Summer Rose.
A figure, clad in red, stood before the grave as moonlight cascaded down from the heavens. Silver eyes stared down at the words, longingly. Young Ruby Rose had seen these words many times during her visits to the cliffside where her mother's spirit supposedly rested. It was hard to believe it had been over a decade since she had seen her Mom.
Not that she had any memories of the woman. Summer had set off on her final mission when Ruby was very young. But despite only having pictures and secondhand stories, she missed her mother dearly.
A gust of icy wind caused the girl to pull up her hood and wrap her bright, red cloak tighter around herself. She kneeled to brush away some snow that had gathered on the gravestone. Her hand lovingly caressed the stone for a moment before she stood.
The girl let out a sigh. She never knew how to start these one-sided conversations.
"Hey, Mom. Sorry for not visiting sooner, I was studying crazy hard for the test in Dad's class this week." Ruby explained.
A couple of seconds of silence passed as the young lady thought of what else to say.
"So… I turned 14 last week." She said quietly.
She paused as if waiting for the gravestone to speak, before continuing.
"Yang and Dad went all out for the party. They decorated the whole house! Yang even managed to get Zwei to wear a party hat! I don't think he liked it very much." Ruby giggled.
The smile fell from her face.
"I invited the gang from Signal but they never showed up. Everyone said they were busy that day." She shrugged.
"I get it though. Everyone's got stuff going on… like they do every year. I just… I just really thought someone might finally show up this year." She frowned.
Her eyes then lit up.
"But Uncle Qrow made it though! I didn't think he'd be finished with his mission in time but he made it!" She exclaimed happily.
Ruby beamed with excitement at the memory of her Uncle surprising her with a giant bear hug after he'd snuck up on her. After his arrival, the real fun began. Ruby had quickly dug into the strawberry cake her Dad had baked for her after she'd blown out her candles and made a wish.
After that, it was time to open her presents. Her Dad had gotten her a nice new pair of red-colored headphones to replace the ones that had recently broken. Her sister had gotten her Ultimate Ninja Showdown 9. Ruby then proceeded to thrash everyone at the game once they'd all sat down to play it. And last but certainly not least, Uncle Qrow had gifted her a top-of-the-line cleaning kit for Crescent Rose.
The beaming smile faltered.
She loved all her presents. But when the party was over and she lay awake in bed, there was only one thing she truly wanted for her birthday. It was something she wished for every year but never got. It was something Ruby knew she would never get.
"I wish you could've been here…" She whispered.
"I understand why you had to go but I still miss you more and more, every day." The girl continued.
"Everyone else misses you too. It can be rough down here without you sometimes. I know that somewhere out there, people needed you… but we needed you too." The reaper remarked.
Ruby shivered slightly as bad memories of her childhood resurfaced. For a few years after her Mother's death, Taiyang had lost himself to his misery. If not for her Uncle Qrow, she wouldn't know what would've become of their family.
She stared skyward for a moment. It was a beautiful night. Living in The light of Remnant's shattered moon calmed her heart and the young Huntress-in-training found herself able to smile again.
Now if only she could get her Uncle Qrow to stop drinking. It would take a monumental effort. Some might say it would take an act of God to make the man quit. Ruby grinned as a thought hit her.
"I know it's probably a lot to ask but maybe you could send us an angel!" She joked.
She snorted slightly at her joke.
"Yeah, the nicest angel you can find. I'm sure whoever it is runs Heaven could spare just one! Maybe if we had an angel, Zwei might finally get morning walkies on time when it's Yang's turn to walk him!" Ruby laughed.
Just then, the young girl felt her scroll buzz and removed it from her jeans pocket. It was a text from her Dad telling her to get her butt back home.
Ruby pouted slightly. She just got here! She had more she wanted to say to her Mom but it would have to wait until next time. Her leisurely stroll up to the cliff took longer than expected. She'd make sure she got to the cliffside quicker next time she visited at night.
'C'mon, Dad, it's only 9 and it's the weekend!' She mentally griped.
She fired back a quick text telling him she was on her way and placed her scroll back in her pocket. Ruby knew arguing with her father was pointless. He was as stubborn as a mule. If she wasn't home soon, he, or worse, Yang, would come and drag her back.
"I have to go now, Mom. I'll come back soon, I promise." She stated.
Ruby placed her pointer, index, and middle fingers against her lips and gently kissed the digits. She knelt once more and placed the three fingers on her mother's gravestone.
"I love you…" Ruby whispered.
She rose to her full height and turned to begin her journey home. She'd barely made it ten paces before when it happened.
The light of the moon behind her began to fade as darkness overtook the cliff.
She paid it little mind. It wasn't as if there were no clouds in the sky that night. In fact, her walk up to Summer's grave was quite dark.
Ruby nearly jumped out of her skin when she felt something tug on her cloak. The red reaper dashed forward with her Semblance before spinning on her heels, unfurling Crescent Rose from its magnetic holster on her back. Her eyes scanned the cliff for enemies, expecting to see the familiar black form of a Grimm. To her surprise, there was nothing. It looked the same as it did when she arrived minutes before.
The red-headed girl took a cautious step forward and jumped again when a lock of her hair lifted into the air. A rush of what felt like static electricity coursed through her body, making her shiver. Her jaw dropped as her gaze tracked her hair and stared skyward.
In the sky above her mother's grave, hovered a huge, pitch-black sphere. She aimed her scythe at the shape and prepared for battle. Was it some sort of Grimm? Ruby had never seen anything like it before.
The sphere floated, unmoving. Its surface shimmered with darkness, entrancing her. All around Ruby, small objects began to lift off the ground and float towards the sphere. Sticks, rocks, and the very snow that lined the ground had all disregarded the laws of gravity. The girl felt a small force tug her body toward the sphere.
'It's manipulating gravity!' She realized.
Ruby's finger inched forward onto Crescent Rose's trigger as she prepared to fire, but movement from the shape stopped her. All of a sudden, a white spiral pattern appeared on the thing as it began to rapidly shrink in size. The gravitational pull it exuded increased so much that the young Huntress-in-training was forced to slam her scythe's blade into the ground to keep herself on the ground.
A constant sound like muted thunder began pouring from the object, and a myriad of collected objects violently swirled around the sphere as it shrank. Ruby grunted as she endured the storm, her cloak and hair blowing wildly in the wind. This wasn't good. She had to think of a way to get out of there without being sucked into the air.
Her thoughts were interrupted when the spiral pattern on the sphere expanded until it became pure white. Ruby gasped as a large object came sailing out of it. As soon as the object had completely left it, the circle shrank even faster until it seemed to blink out of existence, the loud booming sound disappearing along with it. The objects the sphere had collected inside its gravity field all fell over the cliff into the forest below.
But Ruby paid the minor debris little mind. Her attention was focused on whatever it was that just came flying outwards over her head. The object soared over the cliff's small clearing, smashing into the nearby treetops as it flew. Four jets of flame erupted from its sides, slowing it down.
Ruby watched it continue on its arc, barreling through treetops as it went. It continued falling until it was out of sight. A thunderous crash and a slight tremor signaled its impact. She could steam and smoke billow up into the night sky.
Ruby only managed to get a glimpse of whatever it was, but it looked like metallic. Was it an airship? What should she do? Last she checked, airships didn't randomly appear out of weird things in the sky. Maybe someone used a Semblance to send it through? She'd overheard her Uncle Qrow telling Yang about how her biological mother's Semblance could create portals to those she'd bonded with. Could the sphere have been a Semblance similar to that?
'If that's the case someone could be hurt!'
Her eyes widened at the thought and she took off, sprinting into the woods toward the crashed object. If someone was in trouble, she'd be there to help them! It's what Huntresses do, after all.
It's what her Mom would've done.
The trail of destruction leading into the forest made the supposed airship very easy to track. As she got closer, another gust of freezing made another shiver go down her spine
The scent of blood was heavy on the wind. It felt like a bad omen.
Ruby activated her Semblance and ran even faster toward the crash site. She leaped over fallen trees and around bushes to her goal. The cloaked girl skidded to a stop when she reached a recently made clearing, steam and the fading embers of several fires obscuring her vision.
Ruby flared her Aura and willed Crescent Rose to morph into its sniper rifle form. She crept forward cautiously, scanning left and right for any potential threats. Through the steam, she could make out what looked like a large, metal cylinder of some kind.
She strode up to the cylinder carefully. It looked to have been white originally but much of the paint had been scratched off. Several large dents lined its sides but it miraculously remained intact. A large boulder had pierced the object's rounded front, and out from the damaged hull leaked an amber-colored liquid. When the liquid touched the snowy ground, its heat began to melt the snow, adding the rising steam. The whole thing reeked of blood.
Ruby gulped nervously as she circled the object. Whatever this thing was, it wasn't an airship.
'What is this stuff?' She wondered as she gazed down at the pool of liquid.
She fought off the urge to touch the stuff and kept circling the object. Within a few seconds, the cylinder cooled and the steam faded enough for Ruby to notice a small hatch on its side. A hatch that was barely hanging on. The girl pulled out her scroll and switched on its flashlight app. She held Crescent Rose tightly in one hand and slowly crept forward.
'I knew I should have put a flashlight mod on Crescent Rose!' She scolded herself.
She reached the opening and shone her scroll's light inside. The only thing at the bottom was the tip of the rock that had pierced the strange, metal tube. She swung her light around towards the top and gasped at what she saw.
At the top of the cylinder rested an odd-looking console and a large seat. And sitting in that seat was a person! A boy who looked to be around her age, garbed in a skintight white and blue suit with hints of red and black. He sat with his head slumped forward, dark-colored hair obscured his eyes from view. Ruby gasped as she saw the blood leaking down his cream-colored skin onto his shoulder, and chest.
The redhead threw all caution to the wind upon seeing the blood and clambered inside the hatch. Her boots hit the bottom of the tube with a splash of orange liquid, and she waded up to the boy. She grew more alarmed when she noticed he wasn't breathing. Ruby began remembering what she'd learned in Signal about how to give CPR as crouched down and lightly shook the boy's shoulder.
"Hey! Can you hear me?! Are you okay?!" She asked.
The boy reacted by jolting awake before turning his head and violently expelling more of the weird liquid from his mouth. He coughed loudly for a few seconds before sluggishly raising his head to look at her.
It was at that moment that cobalt met silver for the first time.
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That's a wrap for chapter 1 of the reworked chapters. Gonna be doing a theme for each chapter title from here on. I wonder if you guys will catch each one.
