Welcome to your Escape

by Traitor of All Traitors

He doesn't want to see his father, and he doesn't want to be in Japan. He just wants to be somewhere else for a while and fit in with people that want him. On the day he's supposed to meet his father, Shinji Ikari gets a different offer that allows him to do just that. Enter the world of Zi, home to the Zoids, and waiting for him is one that will bring out his chance to defy all.

6. Parental Guidance

Creation began on 10-02-19

Creation ended on 01-07-20

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Welcome to your Escape: Parental Guidance

A/N: How far can anyone go to call themselves a parent and truly mean it? How far should any parent go to install a sense of acceptance in their children? And how far will any parent go to make their child do as they're told or expected to do?

It had been five weeks since the match between the Clover Team and the Muscles Team…and the latter team lost to the former, which disappointed Gendo because that was a second victory for his son to ensure that he remained on Zi, out of his reach. Not only had the Zoid team the boy was on had won two victories against an opposing team, but now they had a total of five victories against five teams, enabling the Clover Team to move from Class "C" to Class "B", a major shift from the small rewards they gained from the initial class ranking. And his son was gaining the same degree of recognition as the rest of the team he was on, and mainly due to his occupation as the pilot of this Liger Rogue ever since it got its armor upgrade from looking like Unit-01, an Evangelion that he doubt the boy had even seen a picture of, to its blue and silver appearance, which made the Zoid look better in the eyes of the public that watched it in the four previous matches it participated in.

"What a bummer, though," he heard one of the female personnel members say to someone else in the hall as he returned to his office. "It seems that with each passing victory against other Zoid teams, his profile gets filled out with more history from his past than his present. His very childhood is…was completely unfulfilling. It's no wonder he chose to leave the planet to join the Clover Team. I'd want a more-fulfilling life where I matter to someone that gives a damn, too."

"There's this that was more present," a male member of the personnel responded as they evaluated the background of the Third Child's Zoid pilot profile. "His father tried to order him to return to Earth, but refused to answer why he wanted him back, even when he had plenty of time to simply come out and explain his reasons that the kid was already made aware of because the Clover Team's manager, Nico Megumi."

The two personnel members turned to look at Gendo, who looked back at them.

"He could've told his son why he wanted him here, but just stressed that he needed to return to pilot the Eva," the woman resumed.

"Yeah," the man expressed. "But his son refused him; if he couldn't just explain to him why he wanted him here, then there was no point in listening to him."

"If this were my kid, I'd just tell him why I needed him here."

-x-

Shinji was taking this simulation quite well, despite it being designed to test his focus on three different opponents using the same Zoid with three different configurations that hadn't been seen since the days of legendary Zoid pilot Bit Cloud.

"How long has he been in this simulated scenario?" Valerie asked Nico, who was monitoring Shinji's vitals during the whole program.

"Four hours straight," the little girl told the young woman. "He was impressed by how there were other Zoids in history that were, more or less, one of a kind because not many people have either seen or manufactured them. He and Liger Rogue are up against Liger Zero Jaeger, Schneider, and Panzer."

Valerie went wide-eyed and expressed, "THE Liger Zero Jaeger, Schneider, AND Panzer?!"

"Yep."

"How is he supposed to contend with all three of the best configurations of the Liger Zero? Each version was a force to be reckoned with."

"I don't expect Shinji to best all three. The simulation is merely to test his focus on which one to deal with first as the situation progresses. Each version of the Liger Zero focuses heavily on just one of three benefits their configuration allows: Speed, offense and defense."

In the simulation, Shinji was traversing the canyons where all three Liger Zeroes were lying in wait for him to make a mistake.

"Where are you?" He wondered aloud, looking at all three directions in front of him where at least the Jaeger and Schneider could come at him.

WHOOSH! He heard something behind him…and jumped to the left!

Something blue and blurry ran past him.

Liger Zero Jaeger, he thought as he got back up and pursued it. Maybe you'll lead me to Schneider or Panzer.

-x-

"…So, he's in this Class "B" now, and we're still waiting for the next Angel to show up," Asuka stated to Kaji as she finished another round of synchronization training with Unit-02. "He's just living it up on Zi, training to win a tournament while we're on Earth trying to stop a catastrophe from happening. What do the people that don't know who that idiot is think they're playing at, looking at him like he's some sort of hero for piloting a Zoid?!"

"The people don't know about the Angels, Asuka; therefore, they don't know about him, except for what they know about his father and his background," Kaji told her as they walked down the hall to the cafeteria. "The more anyone reads his profile and observes his prowess in Zoid matches, even just the five he's been in so far, they see someone that wasn't having a positive life in Japan and no longer desired to be here, just wanting to be somewhere else for a while. In a way, Zi was the perfect getaway."

"And his father just…refused to tell him anything about what he already found out about from Nico Megumi, who hacked NERV's computers and took all the information that brat would ever need to know what was going on…and he made his choice to reject his old man out of spite."

"From what I've been able to scrounge up from the JSSDF, some of their latest combat strategies for dealing with an Angel may only involve minor use of an Evangelion, particularly the use of the AT-Field, focusing primarily on the use of their N² weapons to waste each one."

"What?! That's ridiculous! It's like I'm only good for one thing around here!"

"Well, they did defeat the Fourth Angel three days ago."

It was true, the JSSDF discovered the Fourth Angel as it emerged over Japanese waters, and defeated it using the same strategy deployed against the Third Angel along with an N² bomb dropped from the sky. This resulted in the Angel's AT-Field being unable to protect it from such a contained explosion that minimized the damage to just a small patch of ruined land. The two wins against the Angels alone left the UN pondering if NERV was going to be both a waste of time and resources.

"So," went Fuyutsuki to Gendo in the latter's office, "I take it none of this was either the scenario of the Committee or your own scenario, Ikari?"

"There hasn't been a scenario for anyone ever since the Third Child failed to show up the day the Third Angel appeared," Gendo retorted mildly. "The Third and Fourth Angels were supposed to have been defeated by Unit-01, not the JSSDF. Even if we have Units-00 and 02 and a Fourth Child on standby, everything is moot without the Third Child being around to do as intended of him, which is to pilot the Eva and face the Angels."

"Ikari, best not to forget…it was your choice not to tell him what he already discovered when he got to Zi. It was your choice to send for him to come here, just as it was his choice to say no. Maybe Ms. Megumi made it easier for him by having him far away from you so as to lessen the blow you would make during that call between here and there. Even if you had influenced him to return, there was no guarantee that he'd even pilot the Eva after learning everything we had kept on the MAGI."

"It is at this point irrelevant…until he does come back. His Zoid team needs only to lose five times in a row in order for him to be forced to return."

"But the chances of any opposing Zoid team putting up a chance of defeating the Clover Team he's on are very slim. Some people that watch the matches actually want your son's team to win this world cup that gives the Class "S" status to Class "A" Zoid pilots. And, as treacherous as this may sound…I want to see him win, as well, meaning I want to see him continue to defy you."

Gendo felt disrespected by this discovery from Fuyutsuki; as much as it was important to have the Third Child pilot the Eva, the sub-commander wanted to see him continue to persist in being a Zoid pilot. It was an insult to what they were trying to achieve here.

-x-

Even in a simulation, it felt like the new armor of Liger Rogue was getting pummeled by missiles and lasers. And for Shinji, he was getting the Liger Zero Panzer survival experience head-on. Even with the heavily-armored Zoid being stationed by a large rock formation, the Panzer was no pushover due to its firepower.

Even if I move closer, the Schneider will be by to attack me, Shinji thought as he felt the shaking of his simulation cockpit cease; the Panzer had stopped firing missiles and was probably reloading or cooling down to prevent overheating. That means only one strategy can be employed right now: The Jaeger becomes the priority target.

With his Zoid recovered, he ran to his right, moving away from where the Panzer was, just as it started firing missiles again.

Panzer uses short-range missiles with a limit of thirty meters. If I was within the thirty-meter range, I just have to run a few meters to escape the range limit.

Outside the simulation, Nico and Valerie were engaged in further conversation.

"…So, his parents really are awful people," Valerie sighed as Nico had explained to her how she came to choose Shinji over half the global population of Earth's teenagers that were better or worse than he was in piloting a Zoid. "They just wanted to exploit him to operate a cybernetic organism they modeled after a creature they had discovered underground? And it actually connects with a person's nervous system?"

"Yeah," Nico told her. "What's worse is that they're only doing these horrible things to their son and the world because they believe in a prophecy the public is unaware of. They acted based on the so-called prophesied day this being called Adam was to awaken. They woke him up prematurely, after some time was spent experimenting on him with human DNA, and he was made to explode, triggering a series of cataclysms that ruined most of the Earth. They called this madness they caused Second Impact, keeping up appearances with the whole meteorite concept that causes a major calamity to a planet. But what they're really after is an artificial apocalypse worse than the one they unleashed fifteen years ago. Something they call the Human Instrumentality Project, which they believe will save the human race. But my father and I know for a fact that this isn't the way to save anyone. You can't deliberately destroy the world in order to save it. You can't kill people and say that they'll be saved from a fate worse than death, either. If you can't find a way to save everyone that doesn't require such disastrous methods, then you don't deserve to save anyone, no matter who they are, be it your parents, your siblings, not even your friends or a complete stranger."

Valerie looked over at the simulation cockpit and had to be honest with herself and Nico about what she thought about Shinji just now.

"It's probably a good thing you got him away from Earth, from his family, if that's what you can even call those people," she expressed. "Just looking at him and judging him by his personality and lack of a proper upbringing by responsible parents, Shinji's not worthy of any position where he has to be responsible for the fate of everyone. That's no hero. That's not even a messiah by any standards. That's just a live puppet forced to play for a cruel puppeteer that wants the world to bend to their will."

"If Shinji were outside the simulation I put him in to train his focus, he'd probably agree with you," Nico gave her opinion. "It's just as you said when you first arrived here. There's no such thing as a perfect parent."

"When I said that…I was…"

"Hey, hey, I'm not judging you. We all have skeletons in our closets we wish we didn't have. We're not perfect…and will never be perfect. People as a whole can either accept the flaws of its individual members…or reject them outright. As an individual, I choose to accept the flaws of those around me…until they no longer affect me. Still…it gives you and Shinji something in common with one another."

-x-

Even with a clean bill of health and about to participate in the reactivation test of Unit-00, Rei Ayanami had received barely any information about this absentee Third Child that people were talking being elsewhere. She once asked Gendo Ikari about him, and even he barely explained anything beyond his expression of how "that brat refused to listen to an order he was given and might as well have renounced his humanity". This indicated to her that whoever the Third Child was and wherever he was, it was causing NERV some undue stress in a sense. The only other people she felt she could answer were the sub-commander or Captain Katsuragi, as they would probably know more and explain more.

"Captain Katsuragi," she spoke, getting the woman's attention while in the halls, "who was the Third Child that was scheduled to arrive at NERV, but didn't?"

This question left Misato slightly puzzled; she had expected the First Child to have been informed about the Third Child's current status like the Second Child had been informed, but the fact that she was asking her about him led her to wonder why she hadn't been informed.

"The Third Child is… Well, officially, he's Commander Ikari's son," she explained to the albino girl, "but unofficially, his lack of presence here is due to his relocation off-planet by a young girl named Nico Megumi, who recruited him for a team she had been putting together for a tournament that happens every year now. The boy was approached with the offer to join her team in addition to information on why his father wanted him to show up here, and he accepted. This was all on the same day the Third Angel had attacked and was defeated by the JSSDF. Commander Ikari was informed later that same day that his son wouldn't be here, and was later contacted by Ms. Megumi and the Third Child, who chose not to return to Earth after being informed of why his father wanted him here…because he wouldn't tell him personally why he wanted him here, despite Commander Ikari telling him that it was a matter of survival of the human race. Personally, I believe Commander Ikari should've just told his son why he wanted him here; the fact that the boy was informed shortly after leaving the planet to the other side of the Milky Way implies that he had no knowledge whatsoever of NERV or the Eva, and being told to arrive the same day an Angel attacks, it just raises certain questions and demands certain answers most people don't know how to answer. If this is true, then he had absolutely no previous experience piloting the Eva if he was expected to face the Angel."

"But…if he had no previous knowledge of NERV, why would Commander Ikari want him here?"

"Most of the personnel suspect it was to train him or gamble with our future if we were to face the Angel that day. Unfortunately, the JSSDF was able to defeat the Angel with their N² weaponry so we were not needed to deal with it, allowing you to recover from the Unit-00 incident further."

This was quite a discovery for Rei. To find out that the Third Child was Commander Ikari's own son, who likely had no prior knowledge of any of this, of NERV, the Angels or the Eva, and then to be approached by another person with an offer that promised him information regarding the reason his father wanted him here…and then choosing to leave the planet over aiding to protect the human race against potential extinction… It was no wonder why Commander Ikari was upset that the Third Child wasn't here, but if he wasn't informed or even trained to pilot the Eva, then there was no point in recruiting someone during an attack where there was no time to even receive basic training to face an Angel.

"Rei," went Captain Katsuragi to the girl, "you don't even know what he looks like, do you?"

"I do not," Rei answered simply.

-x-

Most likely suffering from frozen errors, the Liger Zero Jaeger was down in front of Shinji's Liger Rogue, which had defeated it with a carefully-timed Strike Laser Claw attack.

"One down," he uttered, "two to go."

"Rrrrraaurgh!" He heard the roaring of the Liger Zero Schneider as it came his way, utilizing its Seven Blade Attack.

Show no fear, Shinji, even in a simulation, he thought as he waited for the last moment to get out of the way. Wait for it. Wait for it.

The bladed Zoid got closer and closer towards him until, just at the last moment, Liger Rogue dodged to the right; if a Zoid came at you at high speed and you timed it just right, you could avoid getting tackled because they couldn't make hard turns.

Take the shot! Shinji told himself as his Zoid turned and shot three laser shots at the back of the Schneider, taking out its hind legs, crippling it.

On his screen, he received an alert that the Schneider was damaged, leaving only the Panzer left to defeat.

"Time to finish this," he uttered as he ran back towards the large rock where the Panzer was stationed, leaving the Schneider where it fell.

"…Talk about your legendary Zoid getting pummeled twice in a simulation," Valerie spoke as she and Nico followed Shinji's advance through the training program. "He took out the reconnaissance and offensive variants, leaving only the defensive one left. Are you going easy on Shinji through the simulation?"

"Barely," Nico told her. "This is the medium-hard setting. Shinji's just learning fast due to having Liger Rogue's data installed into the simulation program. And we're learning about it as we go on."

"And he was dead in the center of all fourteen-year-olds on Earth that were better or worse? He's actually close to bordering on being one of those special protégés that have an advanced degree of value, almost like you do."

"That's only if I piloted a Zoid with combat qualifications. I had to tinker with my Gustav sometimes just to make it a mobile panic room of sorts against anyone that might try to put a hit on me or anyone with me."

"Heh-heh, someone putting a hit on you would be the equivalent of picking a fight with someone with the juice to level the threat."

"If you don't mind my asking, Ms. Axiom, why are you estranged from your family? Your profile only states that you left because of a personal reason, but it never went beyond that. I respect your right to refuse to answer, though. I'm just curious."

Valerie sighed and responded, "Similar to Shinji, my parents, my entire family…aren't right in the morale department. The concepts of right and wrong…don't sit well with their personal objectives. I almost fell right into their great design, but, unlike them, I had to go and develop a conscience about everything they were doing…and ended up needing to get away from them before they pulled me into something I couldn't get out of on my own. My fear of being anything like them swelled into an anger…and the anger swelled into a hatred, and despite the distance I've tried to put in between them and I, the hatred I have for them…has caused me some suffering because some people tend to find out about my relation to them. I have done nearly everything I know I can and will do to keep from being anything like them. Even adopting the behavioral traits I've demonstrated for the last three years, hence my indoor indecency."

Although Nico knew that Valerie was beating around the bush because she didn't want to say everything about her family, she accepted this as the truth and wouldn't question it further. Everyone's reason for not being with their parents or guardians was entirely their own, including her own reasons for being away from her parents while they were settling their divorce. She found herself wondering now why people invented the move to begin with; if some adults in a stable relationship were able to get along with one another, why sever the bonds between them that the gods made between them? And she knew there was still love between her parents; any time they did have an argument, it was usually settled through conversations over confrontations, and her mother was usually the one that raised her voice over something…with her father being the type that saw no point in yelling unless it was to find someone lost in the darkness or when danger was near.

"Why are your parents splitting up?" Valerie asked her.

"They just…need to be away from each other for a while," Nico explained. "Like, five years away from each other. Nobody did anything wrong…but…relationships need to be tested and measured. They need to be made to endure a trial period of separation that determines what will become of them in the future."

"It sounds like your parents still love each other."

"That's the thing. They do still love each other."

THUD! The simulation cockpit fell to the ground and opened up, revealing Shinji with a smile of exhilaration on his face.

"I had to climb the rock," he told them as he got out of the cockpit. "The Panzer never saw my surprise attack from above."

Nico and Valerie chuckled at Shinji's success at defeating three variants of the Liger Zero.

-x-

"…So Commander Ikari received a message from Shinji?" Misato asked Ritsuko, who was informed by Kaji, despite not wanting to know anything, as they sat around in Central Dogma, two days later, following the successful reactivation of Unit-00.

"Yeah, but I wouldn't call it much of a message," Ritsuko informed her. "He's aware of the gamble that his father made against him, but he's made sure that he'll be insured in the likely event that he's forced to return to Earth."

"What do you mean, he's insured?"

"If his father has a Zoid team opposing the one he's on win five times in a row, Shinji will have no choice but to return to Earth. But Shinji, apparently due to his time in an environment that has been conductive to his personal growth and development, has made a double-edged sword of sorts in case this ever happens. He intends to expose his family's dirty laundry to the public if the Clover Team ever loses five consecutive matches. That way, even if Shinji does come back, he won't let his father push him around."

"What sort of dirty laundry could his family have that he's threatening to exploit if he's forced to come back here?"

"Something his father certainly doesn't want the people to find out about, so I'm assuming that Ms. Megumi, when she hacked the MAGI for information she gave to Shinji when he joined her team, found some things that could serve as leverage against Commander Ikari."

"So, Shinji actually made a threat against his father? That's showing major disgust towards family ties."

"What family ties? You saw his record. Even his aunt and uncle could care less about him if his own father wouldn't tell him anything he asked to know, despite already knowing. In a way, even if Shinji did come back, he doesn't really have anywhere to go, no place to actually call home. As rebellious as he might be right now, he's had no positive influences up until he met this Nico Megumi girl that offered him a choice that let him get away from the entire country and the planet itself. Lacking parental guidance affects people differently."

Misato was no stranger to a lack of parental guidance or a positive influence growing up; her own father had devoted himself to his work instead of his family…and she hated him for his decision. It wasn't all that different from how Shinji seemed to hate his father enough to refuse to return to Earth and pilot the Eva, even if not doing so meant the end of the human race. People, especially young children that hated their parents or guardians in some way due to no positive role models or maturing in a friendly environment…would often resort to methods meant to inflict personal harm onto them.

"Maybe it's not such a good idea to try and get him to pilot the Eva," she expressed.

"Try telling that to his father," Ritsuko challenged her. "They're both stubborn and persistent."

"Well, what's the status of Unit-00 now that it's reactivated?"

"There are still some feedback errors in its performance."

"So, even though it works now, it's still not combat-ready."

"Yeah. For now, Rei will have to pilot Unit-01."

That appeared to be a sound strategy, to have Rei pilot this particular Eva, despite the fact that it was the Third Child that was supposed to be piloting it. All anyone could really amount the deviation from the original operation that got shot to Hell because of either mismanagement of information or completely deliberate disinformation…was due to one's lack of involvement and another's disinterest in fighting in a war with an enemy they didn't fully understand.

Beep! Misato's cellphone went in response to a text message from someone.

"For the next one, you should use a decoy instead of the real deal," it read on her screen.

-x-

Because he was such a solitary person, Shinji had never been around social gatherings or invited to places where young people mixed and mingled. Most of the time, he didn't even understand why anyone his age would go out at night and either cause trouble or run loose. But here he was right now, sitting on the left leg of his Liger Rogue, on a wide street big enough for Zoids to walk or run down, watching Valerie talk to a doorman of some building. All he'd been told by Nico was that Valerie may have a contact among the people that used to participate in past Zoid matches going back decades.

He then saw Valerie walk away from the doorman and sat on Liger Rogue's paw with him.

"Your contact is in there?" He asked her.

"Yeah," she answered him. "Zara Winder, AKA, Straightedge Epyon, is the Zoid pilot to know in the underworld of Zoids. He has his fingers in just about every bit of information on the current teams or soloists that goes through here. If there's anything about any teams being hired to face ours because of your father, he's our best source of finding out."

"What kind of man is this…Straightedge Epyon?"

"He's a former champion of the Royal Cup twenty years ago. His favorite Zoids are the Raynos and Rayse Tiger. He likes to spend his days cruising on the ocean and his nights managing his nightclub, Night Ligers. This is his building."

"Oh…and now we just wait for him?"

"And now we wait for him…or one of his errand boys."

"Okay."

As they just sat there on his Zoid, Valerie turned to face him, seeing that he was uncomfortable for some reason.

"What?" She asked him.

"Nothing," he responded. "I just… I've never been out anywhere at night with anyone before. And it's…hard to picture you being part of the night crowds here."

She chuckled as she says, "Yeah, well…uh…when I left my family, I tried to fit in wherever I could to forget about them. It was actually here where I was introduced to club dancing."

"Three years away from home…and you don't know if anyone's been trying to find you?"

"I don't consider myself a priority to them. I'm a runaway, Shinji, a black sheep, someone that couldn't take the pressure of what was expected of me."

"That's hard for me to see after seeing how skilled you are as a Zoid pilot. What I mean is, you have a family that I didn't have in the positive sense, parents and siblings, a home…and you leave it all behind because of something that happened."

"I guess wanting to do things the honest way appealed to me more than achieving victories in matches that were rigged in unforgivable ways. That and the adequate respect afforded to those that participate without a hidden agenda."

"I'm guessing they did something to piss you off real good before you left."

Valerie decided that she couldn't beat around the bush with Shinji; if they were going to continue working together on the Clover Team, she might as well have told him why she wasn't with her family and why she had the habits she exhibited.

"Actually," she started, "my grandmother lent me her Command Wolf when I was getting my Geno Saurer modified to function without the unnecessary guns and having the Buster Claws installed. It was a nice one, too, all chrome-plated and everything. I swear, when I took it out for joyriding in the canyons that stretched for miles, that Zoid…that Zoid could fly."

"Sounds like a really impressive Zoid," Shinji praised. "So what happened?"

"Okay. It was two days before the modifications were finished for my Geno Saurer and I was out joyriding again at night where there was nobody around. And then…I get pulled over by a Pteras belonging to Zoid Traffic Patrol, pretty much the equivalent of Earth's highway patrol units or traffic police. I stop the Zoid, the man in the Pteras asks me to climb out of the cockpit, and I do what is instructed of me and like all the other law-abiding citizens of Zi. Then he starts scanning the Command Wolf for alcohol, drugs, recreational or otherwise, you know the usual routine that police often do. But I don't drink or use drugs stronger than over-the-counter painkillers, so I thought he was going to call it a night…but I ended up being wrong. He finds something in the Command Wolf that's not supposed to be there, some sort of illegal mod that enabled it to have a chamber inside the tail, which I didn't know about at all and…there was all this blood in there."

Shinji looks at her with an expression of concern.

"It was…everywhere, like someone had taken a beating in there and it didn't go well," she continued. "The next thing I know that happens, I'm getting my face slammed against the leg of the Command Wolf, the guy's about to read me my rights, despite the fact that I'm confused about this hidden chamber in my grandmother's Zoid, wondering why she would have something like that in it. But before he does anything else, he takes a look at my Zoid piloting license and reads my name: Esborrany. Valerie Esborrany. Then he asks me if I'm in any way related to a man and woman named Bruce and Katrina Esborrany, and when I explain that they're my parents…the look of fear on his face when he looked at me… He drops my wallet…and just takes off in his Pteras. He didn't even report what happened that night to his superiors. I couldn't understand why back then, why he was so damn scared of a fourteen-year-old girl with a name."

Shinji wanted to say something, but he wasn't sure what to say to her.

"I mean, he just leaves me there, and I'm standing there, looking at the blood in this hidden chamber that's not supposed to be in a Command Wolf, trying to figure where the Hell it all came from and who it belongs to," she kept going. "I go home, I return the Zoid to my grandmother…and I confront about it…and she tells me…it's nothing I need to be concerned about. A week later, I'm digging into my parents' old things, and I find this picture of a seven-man group called the Committee of Seven, and a man whose name was Charles Esborrany, my paternal great-great-great-grandfather…and he was a member of this syndicate called the Backdraft Organization. There was also a plan that was in-progress, something about bringing the Backdraft Organization back to take on the ZBC all over again. I took the photo and left a note to my family saying that they were no better than the people that failed to overthrow the ZBC…and left. After that night…and what I discovered…I couldn't deny what sort of monsters my family were…and I guess I couldn't live with it, either."

Shinji sighed at this discovery. Now he wasn't sure what to say to Valerie. What could he say to this young woman that had discovered that her family was a bunch of people that were descended from a member of a criminal organization that had tried and failed to overthrow the Zoid Battle Commission? How could he respond to a woman that had run away from home just to escape her dark legacy?

"Maybe part of the reason I partake in sanctioned matches where there's no cheating permitted…is because I'm still trying to find justice in my own way for whoever it was that was in that hidden chamber," she finished telling him.

In a way, they were similar in why they left the lives they had led in the past. He left because his parents were up to no good that would spell undesired disaster that stemmed from a disaster they and a handful of other people deliberately caused long before he even took his first breath of life and spent the last decade of his existence on a miserable path that was going nowhere except to a metaphorical Hell in the remains of a world that might as well have been Hell…and she left her family because they were trying to follow in the footsteps of a criminal organization that one of their ancestors was affiliated with…and she couldn't live with the shame of being related to them…just like how he couldn't live with his own shame of knowing that his own parents tried to manipulate him right from the start, just to do something that they couldn't.

"But…you got away from them," he finally spoke up, "and you're not a bad person, Ms. Axiom. You're not a bad person at all."

"Thank you, Shinji," she responded, grateful of him to say that.

To be continued…

A/N: At first, I wasn't sure if the title was going to make sense to the readers, but then I realized that some of the characters could be as they were due to what the parents did or are. Out of the characters in this chapter, only Nico Megumi appears the most stable due to her parents not being out to change the world or ruin it, still able to be civil towards one another, even being involved in their daughter's life. Valerie's background, I got from the short-lived television series Birds of Prey, in case some of you never saw that show. How many people find out they're related to criminals and want nothing to do with them, willing to do whatever to show they're nothing like the people that came before them? And with Rei, there was some doubt that she'd be in the loop on what happened and why Shinji wasn't present. There might even be some doubt that he's aware of her unless she was included in the information that Nico gave him. Peace.