Creation began on 06-29-20
Creation ended on 02-02-21
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Infinity Redemption: Buying Time, Burning Space
A/N: A memory of watching the Green Lantern film motivated this chapter after such a long time updating this story.
NERV was facing a crisis right now. They were about to face a second Angel on its way to Tokyo-3, and the only pilot they had to face it was too injured to pilot the Eva against it. The Second Child was still in Germany and there was still no trace of the Third Child and a search for the Fourth Child was on hold.
"I guess we don't have a choice but to send Rei out in Unit-01," Misato told Ritsuko as they monitored the Fourth Angel.
"No, we don't have a choice," the faux-blond responded.
Above them and the rest of Central Dogma, Gendo and Fuyutsuki had to wonder how NERV was going to deal with this matter since the boy they had expected to be here to resolve the issue was not here to pilot Unit-01…and would unlikely be found and convinced by any of them to return and help ensure mankind's future.
Even if we had time to find him, I doubt he'd be persuaded to pilot again, Fuyutsuki thought as the Angel vacated the ocean and was now hovering over the land as it made its way towards Tokyo-3. He has been through worse before he was here and refuses to go through this again.
Where are you hiding at a time like this? Gendo wondered after Rei was informed that she would have to pilot the Eva again. We need you here and you're not here! You go to an orphanage where your illegitimate daughter was taken to, and you take her away along with several other orphans that have no future.,. What are you thinking? Where are you hiding? What are you planning on doing?
-x-
"…It's really impressive," Sister Rosetta expressed, seeing Rumiko in possession of the Time Stone. "How do you feel?"
"Fine," Rumiko responded; after coming into possession of the stone, she felt better. "No side-effects or strange feelings or anything of the sort."
"Every stone's different, but each one chose us for a reason that is unique to each of us," said Shinji to them. "What do we do now?"
"We should try walking around," Rumiko suggested. "We're not in Japan, so we should be able to enjoy a little walk down the street."
"There is a small market down the street from here where we get salt, pepper, paper and other things," Sister Rosetta informed them. "We're low on salt and pepper."
Shinji and Rumiko looked at her and wondered what she was asking of them to do. Even if they did do an errand, they only had foreign currency, nothing that could be spent in a land with a different language and used a different form of currency. And neither one had been educated on financial aid when it came to traveling to different places out of your country of origin.
"This small market have cameras?" Shinji asked her.
"One camera, and it's for the back of the store," she answered. "It's a small neighborhood with few people that shop here. The bigger supermarkets won't even come here because they put profits over people."
"That's terrible," Rumiko admitted; she had heard of this happening in Japan, but she didn't expect it to be the same in the US.
Suddenly, their Infinity Stones started glowing.
"What's this all about?" Shinji wondered.
"Souls somewhere in danger," Sister Rosetta understood her stone. "There is a threat over in the country where you two and your children once resided. Some sort of…monster."
"An Angel," Shinji suspected. "It's probably heading towards Tokyo-3."
"The same Tokyo-3 that you left after realizing that your mother inadvertently left you the Space Stone?" Rumiko questioned.
"Yeah."
Both women could see that Shinji had a look of feeling obligated to go back to that place where he met his father after years of separation and estrangement. The very thought of going back to where a paramilitary group operated with very little to almost nobody unaffiliated with them knowing how close they came to being killed because they whitewashed the media so they couldn't hear about the previous Angel that showed up. How the fear of getting back into the Eva was a fear he didn't want to repeat after realizing what his parents had done and how far they were willing to go, regardless of what other people believed. It was enough to drive anyone crazy, and Shinji and Rumiko had already been through some craziness that could last a lifetime for any of them.
"The Infinity Stones are the most powerful objects in existence," Sister Rosetta told them. "How they're used by whoever has them is up to the individual in question, making their potential virtually unlimited."
"With the Time Stone, one can manipulate temporal phenomena in an instant," Rumiko stated. "But being careless with it can lead to temporal distortions, creating unstable branches in time, spatial paradoxes, time loops without end."
"But the Space Stone… I just use it to go from one place to another. I have never done anything beyond what I did to that guy that night at the orphanage."
"Your ability to use the Space Stone is limited due to your way of thinking," Sister Rosetta told him. "You're not a combative soul, so your actions with the stone are mainly in relocating yourself and others to other places. The only time you ever relocated someone that was cruel to others was that very same night you went to get your children out of that place. However, you can do greater feats with your stone so long as you possess the strength to see it through to the end. Space is strong in and of itself because it is everywhere. Those that believe that space is a finite thing are wrong. Space on planets, on islands, continents, in towns and cities, those are finite, but in the air, in the darkness, among the stars, it is infinite. You can go anywhere, put anyone or anything anywhere else you choose."
Shinji looked at his pendant holding the Space Stone, knowing that he had the power to do something with the Angel, but he felt like he would be putting his daughter and Rumiko and her son in danger if NERV were ever to know what he possessed.
"Does anyone have a mask I can borrow for a while?" He asked.
"We have some papier-mâché masks made from last year," Sister Rosetta revealed. "We were celebrating Halloween and honoring the children that were unable to enjoy the holiday."
"Do any of them cover the whole face?"
"Yes."
"I'll come along with you," Rumiko told him.
-x-
As she was placed into the Entry Plug, Rei still felt pain in her innards as the LCL began to fill the plug. The Third Child wasn't here, the Second Child wasn't here, and the Fourth Angel was mere minutes away from attacking the city. The JSSDF was trying to attack the Angel, but their weapons weren't making any dent in the Angel's AT-Field.
"ETA is now eight minutes out," Shigeru informed Misato.
"Terrific," Misato sighed, seeing the Angel on the screen as it hovered over the wilderness on its way to Tokyo-3, unfazed by the hail of rockets and missiles the JSSDF were wasting against it. "Prepare to launch Unit-01."
The next thing those in Central Dogma noticed, the Fourth Angel…disappeared.
"What the… Where's the Angel?" Misato questioned.
"It was right there," Hyuga responded.
"The blue pattern's no longer present, either," went Maya. "It's like the Angel was never there."
Not even Gendo Fuyutsuki could understand where the Angel had vanished to. This wasn't expected to happen at all.
"Review the footage," Gendo ordered Ritsuko.
"Yes, sir," the faux-blond responded.
-x-
One Minute, Ten Seconds, Final Solution
It was barely a plan, but neither one wanted to risk being seen by any cameras or people. Even with papier-mâché masks modeled after a cat and rabbit, Shinji and Rumiko didn't want to stay on the tallest building in Tokyo-3 for too long.
"Even from here, that thing's ugly," went Rumiko, wearing a blue mask modeled after a rabbit, looking out at the Angel. "Was the other one just as ugly?"
"The first one was a nightmare," Shinji, wearing the black cat mask, responded to her. "This one looks like a squid without the tentacles. Are you ready to do this?"
"Whenever you are."
"Let's do this, then." Rumiko raised her hands to her Time Stone as it generated its dial-like rings around her wrists. "Let time come to a halt now."
Suddenly, a greenish sphere enveloped Shinji and Rumiko, and the world around them turned black and white, as if placing them into an old film version of their universe. The world had frozen, with they themselves the only ones active. Even the Angel had become inactive.
"Your turn, Shinji," she told him.
He raised his hands to his Space Stone as it generated a blue aura, which then flew over towards the Angel. The plan was simple, but it required the both of them; Rumiko would halt time, allowing Shinji to relocate the target to a different space in the universe…or worse, just relocate this Angel right into the gravitational pull of the sun where it would burn away. But Shinji wasn't sure that destroying the Angels was the right thing to do after coming to accept that the Space Stone granted him the power to go anywhere, be anywhere. And being a pacifistic soul, he wasn't as violent as he believed he needed to be to protect the people he cared about, so he didn't feel that murder was necessary.
"Daddy, even a place far from here would make anyone out to hurt us find it difficult to overcome," Shado had told him when he and Rumiko explained that they had to leave out the church for a short while. "But you're not a cruel person. You don't cause pain for the sake of pain. If there's a monster out there, you can just put it someplace where it can't hurt anyone. Just doing that would make you a hero."
And if sending this Angel to some galaxy far from the Milky Way ensures this world's continued existence, then it's a lesser evil I can live with, Shinji accepted, looking for a galaxy that was too far away for any human to reach…and just as far for any monster to navigate throughout without a compass, map or homing instinct of some sort. Goodbye, Angel.
The Angel was sent through an enlarged portal, relocating it to a barren planet within the chosen galaxy that was on the far side of the universe unknown to mankind. Through this method, NERV couldn't use their Evas or coerce anyone to fight a creature that they barely understood.
"Okay, Rumiko, let's get outta here," he told his friend.
"First, I must allow time to resume," she uttered, and the Time Stone ceased its actions on her command, letting the events of the present pick up where it left off, the black and white returning to full color. "Take us back to our children, Shinji."
He opened a portal back to the church and they walked through it as it closed behind them, making it seem as though they were never in the city to begin with.
-x-
"…The Angel just disappeared, sir," Ritsuko informed Gendo in his office after the footage had been reviewed from every possible angle. "We can't locate it."
"The JSSDF are reporting the same thing," Fuyutsuki told him. "They saw it approaching the city…and then it wasn't there, anymore. It's like it just disappeared into thin air."
Gendo would have to inform the Committee about this turn of events and they would not be pleased to hear that an Angel just appeared…and then disappeared. They would demand a logical explanation…and NERV would be expected to have one, no matter what.
Where does an Angel just disappear to? He wondered.
-x-
"…So, you sent a giant, squid-like monster to a different galaxy?" Toya asked Shinji after he and Rumiko returned to the church. "And Mommy stopped time? For real?"
"Ask her," Shinji responded. "I was there, and it was like being in a black and white film."
"All I did was stop time," Rumiko stated. "It's not something I'm proud of, really. To be in charge of time is no different from being responsible for you, Toya."
"Time isn't a kid, Mommy."
"No, but the Time Stone is, Toya; I have to protect it and you from a bunch of people that may want to either hurt you or take you away from me."
Shado looked at her father and noticed that his pendent was tucked under his shirt, same as Rumiko with her Time Stone.
"You have to keep them safe from whoever might desire them for unreasonable acts?" She asked her father.
"Yeah," he answered. "It's not an easy thing, being the keeper of something that is just as invaluable to me as my daughter and friends are."
"Danger travels only if those that are versed in the knowledge of the Infinity Stones desire them," went Sister Rosetta. "However, as any information on any one of the six stones is scarce at best, they can be easily mistaken for simple stones that are colored."
"Even if viewed as gems, they can attract the wrong eye," Rumiko expressed; she had read about how certain types of jewelry, despite not being worth much like most other objects, only those ruled by greed or jealousy could stoop at desiring the stones to sell for whatever price they could get for them. "Being inconspicuous, undesired, is better when out and about around people."
"Yeah. Nobody wants to be sought after simply because they walk around with an Infinity Stone in their possession. Still, the Soul Stone tells me that you two should be proud of what you did in Japan, saving people from being sent back to the deities they believe in. You were able to prevent many, unnecessary deaths today, something not many people are able to do. They may manage to prevent the death of any one person or even a handful…but never always more than that. Even if nobody else knows."
"That's not entirely true, Sister Rosetta," went Shado to her. "We know. We know. Toya and I. We know what our parents did."
That put a smile on Shinji's face, hearing that bit of praise from his daughter.
"Thank you, Shado," he told her, and she smiled back.
Suddenly, Rumiko's Time Stone shone for a second and her eyes had a subtle glow just like the stone did.
"Rumiko?" Shinji spoke.
"The Time Stone just told me something important," she revealed. "I don't know anything about the Reality Stone, except when it was found…and when it was last seen."
-x-
"…Ikari," went SEELE 01 to Gendo during the meeting over the failed mission to defeat the Fourth Angel, "we are not impressed with not knowing anything about the status of the Angel. Also, we are not impressed that the JSSDF had no explanation of where it went, either."
"The reviewed footage showed that it was on its way to the city," Gendo explained to them, "and it disappeared a second later."
"Is it possible that this Angel possessed camouflage capabilities?" SEELE 07 questioned.
"No. Even if the Angel had managed to hide itself from visual perception, it couldn't have hidden itself from scanners. The blue pattern of its AT-Field just vanished."
"And what of the Geo-Front?" SEELE 02 asked.
"The Geo-Front is on high alert in case it does return."
But SEELE was not feeling assured that their scenario was being protected from the second coming of the Angels. They had demanded absolute certainty when implementing the Human Instrumentality Project, and there was no certainty over the whereabouts of the Angel. And not knowing anything did nothing to give them any sense of assurances that they needed.
-x-
There was nothing here on this strange, barren world the Fourth Angel found itself on. Sure, there were trees, mountains, rivers and deserts, but it was devoid of any sort of life like its own. And the atmosphere was like a poisonous fog; if it had to guess, as much as it was similar to the Earth, this place was not Earth…and not suited for any organisms like itself or the Lilin. Wherever it was, the Angel was unsure of how it got here and how to return to where it used to be and continue its agenda; the gravity here was also heavier on its body, as it was practically struggling just to levitate eight feet above the ground. And the sky…was green.
To be continued…
A/N: Not the exact plot I had in mind for this chapter, but it works for now, as I can't remember the original idea. And who else can think of a better way to dispose of an Angel than with an Infinity Stone or two? And NERV and SEELE are stumped by what happened! Until the next chapter, everyone.
