Creation began on 11-14-20
Creation ended on 09-28-21
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Welcome to your Escape: Enter the Eva Team
A/N: At first, I was going to have it say Enter the NERV Team, but then I realized it didn't have much of an impact that it was supposed to.
"…Shinji? Valerie? Drake?" Nico's voice cried out over the intercom to the three Zoid pilots as the young man inside Liger Rogue groaned as he zoned in and out of consciousness every few seconds, finding himself upside-down in his Zoid's cockpit, looking up or down at a large, humanoid figure in armor.
"Ah…" He groaned, trying to keep his eyes opened. "What…"
"Shinji! Valerie! Drake!" Nico's voice intensified over the intercom. "Please, respond! Are you alive?! Respond!"
But Shinji passed out again; he could barely stay awake…and he didn't know why right now.
-x-
Ten minutes ago
It was supposed to be a match against another newbie team trying to make a name for themselves like the Clover Team was doing. There didn't seem to be any irregularities over the combatants; everyone's Zoid was authorized, the pilots were legitimate participants, and the weather was clear of hazards. As Nico and Geisha watched from the safety of the former's Gustav, the Judge for the match crashed onto the ground in the desert and rose from the crater, looking forward to the match beginning. They were still in Class "A"…and wanted to keep it that way until the Royal Cup began in another six months; after a record of eighty-seven wins with only a single loss, nobody in the Clover Team wanted to add another insult to their metaphorical injuries.
"So, Earth really sent a Zoid team of their own?" Geisha asked Nico as they watched on the monitors their friends and adversaries.
"Yeah," Nico answered. "It would seem that Shinji's father is extremely adamant on him returning to Earth so that he can exploit him."
"But doing that would cause more problems than solutions, wouldn't it? The whole end-of-the-world thing for the human race, right?"
"That's right. But every culture on Earth has their own version of how their world ends, and every one of them often depends on someone being exploited to cross a line that doesn't need to be crossed for any reason. This version of the end of the world for Earth is dependent upon Shinji being setup to suffer immensely. No suffering, no end of the world, and nobody too dangerous or greedy can get what they want out of this atrocity."
"The power of deviation at its most impressive."
"Deviation requires there to be an elemental factor of choice, of chance, to invoke the power of free will and alternatives. People can be drafted into a war over something, but what if those drafted had aspirations on how to end the war without spilling a single drop of blood? What if someone wanted to walk away from the conflict before it began and do something else, like become a painter, a doctor, an engineer and so on? What did you want to be before any of this?"
"Traditional Asian culture expert with a fondness for the Japanese. Yourself?"
"I want to be one of the greatest Zoid pilots of my generation when I reach my teens."
Out on the field, the Liger Rogue, G-Rex and Geno Saurer stood in direct opposition to the enemy team's Zoids, a trio of military-camouflaged Blade Ligers. Because they had some experience with them in the simulations and from previous encounters, the Clover Team knew how to get around these Zoids and overcome them. But as the Judge entered the codes for the battle to begin, something had changed.
"Ready…fight!" The Judge declared, and Valerie made the first move.
Blast! Something struck the Geno Saurer as it took a step forward, knocking it over.
"What was that?!" Valerie yelled. "Who shot at me?!"
Drake looked over from where the shot came from…and saw something he'd never seen before.
"What is that thing?" He questioned.
Shinji looked over…and soon wished that this was nothing more than a dream. The being that attacked Valerie's Geno Saurer resembled the Evas he had seen in the files Nico had given him to study after he arrived on Zi. Except this one was white and had no face with which to look at.
"That's an Evangelion," he uttered. "What is it doing here?"
"This is bad," went Nico. "Suspend the match! There's an unauthorized obstacle interfering!"
"Warning! Warning!" The Judge declared as the Eva marched towards them. "This is a sanctioned battle and you aren't authorized to be here! Warning! Warning! Failure to leave will result in severe consequences!"
However, the Eva, if it even had someone operating inside it, kept on advancing towards the two Zoid teams. Since Nico declared a suspension of the match, the Clover Team wasn't facing the opposing team and the Judge decreed a violation, the match was on standby. There would be no match until further notice.
The Eva raised its arms up and brandished a rifle.
"Oh!" Shinji gasped, and Liger Rogue moved out of the way before the Eva opened fire on them.
Unfortunately, the Zoids didn't move fast enough; the Eva fired three following bullets at G-Rex and Liger Rogue, knocking them down before they could move further out of the way, causing substantial damage to both Zoids.
"Emergency! Emergency!" The Judge alerted, contacting the Zoid Battle Commission. "An unidentified intruder has violated a sanctioned Zoid battle! Emergency! Emergency! Zoid battle violated by unidentified intruder!"
Blast! The Eva fired a bullet at the Judge, reducing it to pieces!
In his Zoid, Shinji, sporting a bloody gash on his forehead due to hitting his head against the front of the cockpit, found himself upside-down with a concussion, watching as the three Blade Ligers fled before the Eva could shoot them. He then lost consciousness as he saw the Eva turning around and leaving the scene.
Damn it, he thought.
-x-
Present
Even with a first aid kit for their injuries, Nico still needed assistance for the Zoids and called her father for help, who brought over the Whale King and a crew to assess the damage done to the three Zoids. It was still displeasing to know that the match could've ended in their favor once it began, but an Evangelion, something that wasn't supposed to be on Zi to begin with, interfered and attacked only the Clover Team without any provocation. The prognosis for the three members of the team were minor injuries; Drake had a dislocated right arm that was popped back into the socket of his shoulder, Shinji had a concussion that some bed rest would take care of, and Valerie had a dislocated left leg that was reset. However, the damages to the three Zoids were another story.
Drake's G-Rex had two bullet holes and some severed wires under its armor.
Valerie's Geno Saurer had sustained moderate damage, losing much of an arm and its Buster Claw system.
Shinji's Liger Rogue had the least damage, but because of its body configuration, the bullet that hit her almost damaged the Zoid Core, requiring delicate surgery to remove the lodged bullet without risking further harm to the core.
"So much for another win before the Royal Cup began," Drake sighed as he was given a cup of warm tea by Geisha. "Whoever sent that thing just opened up a can of Organoids."
Since Shinji was asleep, there was no need to explain what that actually meant, as it was just a Zoidian idiom that was the equivalent of the Earth idiom of a can of worms or Pandora's Box. As the Evangelion was a construct from Earth, someone from the third planet of that section of the Milky Way had violated the rules of the ZBC, using an unregistered organism that had no place in a Zoid battle.
"We're going to have words with NERV," said Burt Kaizer to them as he sat beside his daughter in the room they were using aboard the Whale King. "It's perfectly legal to create your own Zoid team, but to bring something like that thing into the mix is taking the system we've relied on for generations and disrespecting it."
"Daddy, how soon can the Zoids be repaired in case that Eva comes back?" Nico asked her father; as she was still the one in charge of managing the Clover Team, the complete restoration of their Zoids was her responsibility.
"It'll be about a week to repair the Geno Saurer," he revealed, "five hours to repair the G-Rex…and two days to repair Liger Rogue."
"I wish I could just hit the guy that shot my Zoid and knock their lights out," said Valerie, upset over the damage done to her Zoid. "My Geno Saurer's my baby, man. It's all I have."
"Your Geno Saurer's a lucky baby, then," Burt told her. "The Zoid Core was unscathed. Even if the body had been completely destroyed, so long as the core survived, it could be rebuilt."
"What are the chances that our opposing Zoid team was involved in that Eva attacking us?" Geisha questioned.
"With a name that echoes a paramilitary organization's abomination, the chances are both slim and none," said Nico. "They didn't even do anything, but I doubt those Blade Ligers were just for show. Daddy, permission to hack into the MAGI for secret information again."
"Permission granted, Nico. Just do one thing."
"Name it."
"If it turns out that NERV was behind that crazy stunt, expose them to the world. Expose them to the media, to the world leaders that don't support the paramilitary agency, even to a bunch of loonies that'll listen to the truth for five minutes."
-x-
Opening his eyes, Shinji, still feeling like he had a headache, rose up and looked out a window on his right side and saw the world below.
"Whoa… Where am I?" He wondered, noticing that he had an IV drip in his left arm. "A flying hospital transport?"
"We're on the Whale King, Shinji," he heard someone tell him, and he looked across the room he was in, seeing a woman with light green hair and blue eyes. "You're in the trauma sector. You suffered a concussion after your attack by whatever attacked you."
"It was…an Eva," he explained. "It was a weapon my parents made during my childhood. They…they wanted me to pilot it against creatures they called Angels before I got here. My guess is that they had one sent here as a form of spite."
"Well, if this was associated with that Zoid team you were unable to face because of its unprovoked attack, then the ZBC will have a field day with this intel."
She was sitting and got up to give him his privacy. Once it was confirmed that Shinji was conscious, she would inform the rest of the Clover Team whilst he got his bearings together.
As Shinji got up and held onto the IV pole and used it as a crutch until his leg strength returned in full, he walked out of the room and into a large hangar where he could see several people at work on three of the Clover Team's Zoids, which looked in worse shape than their operators probably were right now. His Liger Rogue being hoisted up by some chains, Valerie's Geno Saurer being placed onto a large platform where its arm and Buster Claws laid, and Drake's G-Rex being worked on right now. This reinforced just how much he wanted nothing to do with his parents or their agenda. The less he had to do with NERV, its predecessor agency GEHIRN, the Evas and the Angels, the better.
"You're finally awake," he heard Nico say to him as he saw her and the others walking towards where he stood. "How do you feel?"
"Like an undesired piece of my past on Earth came to Zi and inserted itself into what we do," he answered her. "Who got the worst of what happened to us?"
"Valerie's Geno Saurer," went Geisha. "Liger Rogue and G-Rex got the least damage, but all three are out of commission until they're repaired."
"Of all the times this had to happen, it had to happen just when we were going to face a new Zoid team that was going to be an easy win if they were newbies."
"The Eva Team," said Drake, "probably just for show if they barely knew how to operate their Blade Ligers with the exception of just walking around."
"Not a good way to carry out a gamble that was intended to force one of your own to return to Earth if your team was beaten five times in a row," said Nico's father to them. "I wouldn't even consider this a loss for y'all. The ZBC will be upset by this turn of events."
"If they want to face us again, they can't go doing things like this," Valerie added. "There are consequences that they can't fathom that will tarnish their world."
"How bad is this?" Shinji asked.
"Bad," Nico expressed.
-x-
"…That was messed up," Misato said, setting her tablet down and wondering why NERV had a Zoid team and an Eva on Zi, only to have an Eva attack the Clover Team.
"An Eva on Zi may very well put all of Earth in a bad position with Zi," went Fuyutsuki as he walked away from the command center in Central Dogma.
"It wouldn't cause Zi to declare war on Earth, would it?" Maya Ibuki questioned.
"If that Eva killed the Zoid pilots, we'd most likely be in for war," he explained, "but Earth bringing an unclassified weapon to Zi, operated by someone linked through their central nervous system, and then attacking a registered Zoid team without any provocation…is the equivalent of kicking a hornet's nest or poking a sleeping dog; you're just looking to pick a fight with someone you're not supposed to."
This was bad. As NERV was the one that had authorization to send a Zoid team of their own against the Clover Team, this left them on the hot seat for the repercussions if the Eva was responsible for killing any of the Zoid pilots, including the Third Child, the one their leader was obsessed with getting back here to pilot the Eva against the Angels.
Beep! Several tablets used to watch the Zoid battles received an update on what was happening on Zi.
"Well, this is some good news," said Maya to them. "Nobody in the Clover Team was seriously injured. The bad news is that the Zoid Battle Commission will be looking into the owners of the Eva Team and suspending their activities pending a formal investigation into their understanding of the rules and regulations of any future Zoid battles."
"But the Eva Team didn't do anything," Kaji stated.
"If it's proven that the Eva was affiliated with the team, it will be considered as an act of intimidation against the Clover Team and count as a warning against a subsequent usage of an unregistered weapon that has no place on Zi."
-x-
"…Zoids aren't like Evas, Ikari," Fuyutsuki told Gendo, expressing his dislike of what occurred in the disgrace of what happened on Zi. "They'll be lucky if they have just bumps and cuts from being shot at by a rifle."
"It's not as though the Eva was intended to actually harm them," Gendo replied, unconcerned with what happened. "It was intended to cripple them."
"Except even if you do cripple them, we don't have any authority to harass any of the Zoid teams. And even if you managed to damage your son's Zoid beyond repair, it wouldn't affect the fact that he was picked by Ms. Megumi to be part of her Zoid team…or result in his participation being nullified. He wouldn't return here unless it was of his own volition…and he may not now, even if his Zoid is damaged beyond repair."
"If it keeps him from being involved in these petty battles, there's nothing for him to do."
Beep! The tablet on Gendo's desk lit up with an alert.
Gendo picked it up and accessed the alert, frowning at what was in the update.
"I take it that something has happened?" Fuyutsuki asked him, seeing him slide the tablet over.
"The Zoid Battle Commission is demanding an audience with NERV regarding the Eva as an unregistered and unauthorized biomechanical behemoth," he revealed.
"Failure to respond will result in the Eva Team being suspended from future battles."
-x-
"…Were you able to find anything?" Shinji asked Nico as he found her on one of the sofas in the common room in the hangar late in the night with a laptop on her lap.
"Everything that I didn't look into in the information I gave you relating to NERV and your parents," she replied. "NERV is German for the actual word 'nerve'. Its predecessor organization, GEHIRN, is German for the word 'brain', and both were made to serve an organization called SEELE."
"Which is German for another word?"
"Yeah. The soul itself. Whether they're backed up by erstwhile head honchos from Germany or just took their names from the German words because of the way they sounded, it would seem that this…SEELE is the primary source of NERV's resources like the Evangelions. Unfortunately, it looks like NERV's supercomputer, the MAGI, is full of so much disinformation that it'll be five more hours before my defragmentation AI straightens everything out."
Shinji had gotten himself a cup of water and sat in a chair adjacent to the sofa Nico was on.
"Was there anything you could defragment so far with your AI?" He asked her.
"Just that it seems the Evangelion Series has had over a dozen dead-ends in making them function properly. The first Eva they call Unit-00, the prototype, isn't an original. Not literally, that is." She revealed.
"What do you mean by that?"
"You know how the people here on Zi have Zoids like Blade Ligers, Gustavs, Whale Kings or Storm Sworders? None of them are original; each Zoid is just a detailed copy of the original model our ancestors either found, researched and developed back in the early generations of warfare and imperialism. Their only sense of originality is in their preference of weapons and aesthetics, varying from one person to the next. Basically, Unit-00…is a copy of a previous version of the Evangelion GEHIRN made…and just happens to work to a degree that benefits NERV and its purpose for facing creatures young people have little to no knowledge of."
"How many copies were made until they got it right?"
"Almost one-hundred-twenty-seven."
"Oh."
"It's trial and error, Shinji. Not everyone gets it right the first time around. The one that works properly gets the most attention and refinement and the ones that don't get tossed aside and forgotten about. After which, they copy the working prototype and refine the next model further, removing the flaws perceived by its makers or adding in more features to make it more efficient in any use it was intended for. Following that is mass production, where they make lesser versions of the refined version for commercial use."
Shinji couldn't deny that he was getting a lesson from someone that knew more than he did and how to explain about it and made no point in withholding sensitive information. Even the number of Evangelions that were intended for use by NERV was to be shared with him by Nico. It was a nightmare to learn that the Evangelion Series, that is every Evangelion ever made by the people behind NERV and its SEELE backers, was not truly intended to fight the Angels…but to alter the current world that the people of Earth understood…and how he was intended to be the decider of people's fate, akin to a sacrifice, the fallen hero archetype. And he hated how that was intended to be his fate before she chose him to join her team on Zi; it was like no matter what he did for anyone on that third rock from the sun, nothing he did would make anyone actually give a damn about his actual wellbeing, his personal feelings about what he discovered.
"Oh, primeval times," Nico sighed, her eyes widening at what she saw on her computer screen.
"What is it?" Shinji asked her.
"That Eva that attacked y'all… It doesn't correspond to anything NERV builds, which probably explains why it didn't have a facial structure like the ones they already had on file."
"Meaning NERV didn't build it?"
"That's a possibility. It could've been SEELE, but that doesn't explain yet what model Eva that one was…yet. Was it another experimental unit? A production model? Or just something they slapped together while they were putting together their own Zoid team?"
Shinji drank his water and pondered the same questions as Nico did. The Evas were just these crazy constructs that only a handful of people knew about…but the rest of the Earth was kept in the dark about. Even if they did know everything about them, it wouldn't do them any good to distribute that dark knowledge if there were people out there that were reckless and unpredictable in what they did every day. Individuals were unpredictable on their own most of the time, but as a group or whole, people were just as unpredictable and often careless.
"Can you send this information to whatever media outlets there are on Earth?" He asked Nico.
"I can," she answered. "Since NERV had a hand in this debacle, I can expose them to whoever is out there listening. You do realize that once I do this, whatever society exists on Earth will likely tear itself up with this revelation of what the Evas were intended for."
"Even if it tears itself because of this discovery, so long as the intel is out there, NERV should lose more of its credibility and people will lose faith in their ability to deal with the Angels with the discovery that Tokyo-3 isn't some city they can live in without consequences."
Nico sighed heavily and nodded her head in understanding and acceptance. She also had a promise to keep to her father once she discovered what NERV had done. Once she found this information, she had a responsibility to make sure it was used to expose NERV of its foul play. She still had a little over four hours before her defragmentation AI accessed the remaining information from the MAGI, but once it did, she would send it all across the planet…with a personal message to Gendo.
"If NERV still wants to serve as an extension of your father's attempt to force you back to Earth, they have to follow the rules and not be a presentation where every Zoid must be a demonstration of their pilot's skill set."
"After this, I think I can forget all about that gamble if it's been ignored or violated."
"It's still only five consecutive times he has to have you defeated in order to win the gamble. We don't make it easy for anyone, even wannabe runner-ups."
Shinji yawned and got up to return to his room.
"Don't be up too late," he told Nico as he left her alone.
"I once stayed up until the sun came up," she told him. "I can do this for two days as long as I have coffee available."
-x-
"…Nobody in the ZBC is happy that an unclassified and unauthorized biomechanical weapon was sent from Earth to Zi, as it violates many of the regulations set upon the Zoid teams when they started allowing men and women from Earth to join sanctioned battles to showcase their abilities," Samantha Toros explained to Misato and Ritsuko. "It's legal to have a Zoid in your possession in a battle, but any biomechanical construct that requires a connection to the pilot's nervous system is prohibited. It crosses a line that cannot be overlooked more than once. If the Eva Team wishes to compete in future Zoid battles, this…Evangelion…must not be used like some secret weapon against any opposing teams if you fear defeat or because there's someone on the opposing side that you feel is not worth losing or protecting."
"We didn't know that an Eva was being sent to Zi when we made a Zoid team of our own to face the Clover Team," Misato expressed; in truth, she didn't know about the Eva, just the Zoid team, having picked one of the pilots to participate herself after learning which Zoids NERV would be using to face the Clover Team. "This was a surprise for me to discover."
Even if Ritsuko were to lie about knowing about the Eva, it was still to reflect poorly on NERV.
"Fortunately, the Clover Team won't be looking to sue for foul play at this time," Samantha informed the women. "However, if this Eva is used again, regardless of its owners' intentions, your Eva Team will be disqualified from future Zoid battles and anyone affiliated with NERV removed from Zi until such a penalty sentence is fully served."
"Wouldn't that also mean the Third Child would be removed from Zi?" Ritsuko questioned.
"What Third Child?" She asked.
"Shinji Ikari."
"No, this wouldn't apply to him. He didn't officially join NERV when Nico Megumi recruited him, and he has made a conscious decision to refrain from returning to Earth until the Clover Team completes the Royal Cup, which is still three months away from being reached."
It seemed the Zoid Battle Commission had their own regulations regarding people that had been intended to join other agencies from the start and how they operated or made choices that went against the will of others. And it was true; because Shinji didn't officially NERV at the time the Third Angel was set to attack, he wasn't obligated to whatever claims NERV or his father had to say that he was affiliated with them. Whatever befell NERV, he was exempt from it.
"How can we be certain that the Clover Team won't pursue legal action against NERV?" Misato asked Samantha, needing to know that much.
"Miss Megumi is the one in charge of the team. She has the first and final say in any matter that revolves around the team, its members and Zoids, and right now, her priority is the wellbeing of both team members and their Zoids. It'll be a week to repair all three Zoids that were damaged. Thankfully, the pilots were unharmed severely. But make no mistake. Should this happen a second time, the consequences will be severe."
It was mere luck that this occurred after NERV had dispatched the Eighth and Ninth Angels, both of which had been a major nightmare for the JSSDF because the former was a massive bomb and the other had taken control of an experimental robot that had been intended as an alternative to the Evas used by NERV due to the drawbacks they currently possessed. Even though NERV had resolved the issue, Commander Ikari still believed that they could've done better if his son had been involved, regardless of the difficulties. The guy never exhibited any other emotion regarding his son besides the contempt he had towards him for leaving the planet in favor of a silly competition on some other planet he knew nothing about until a few months ago when he didn't show up when he supposed to. No, there was nothing but contempt and disappointment directed towards the boy.
"Out of curiosity, what happens to the Zoid team that wins the Royal Cup on Zi?" Ritsuko asks.
"The last seven Zoid teams to win it have been settling their issues and doing what they love," Samantha explained to her. "When you convert Zi currency into the currency used on Earth, it can be anywhere from eighty-million to twenty-billion or trillion, depending on the number of team members that make up the team that wins the Royal Cup."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," went Misato, "you're saying that if that boy and his team won the Royal Cup, he'd be the equivalent of a billionaire or…trillionaire?"
"Give or take?"
Both women from NERV were left stunned by such a discovery. Even if the boy was part of a larger group of Zoid pilots, so long as he was in the group that won, he'd still be considerably wealthy and likely to move away from his relatives that give him no respect or acknowledgement of his very existence. But even though he hadn't won anything yet, the mere fantasy of him winning was enough to make the two suspect that he'd just walk away from his country, along with everything else, and do whatever he wanted elsewhere because he wouldn't have to be reminded of who he was related to. And mainly because someone younger than he was gave him a shot to rise up and be part of something bigger than himself, and he took it.
"You do realize that you can drive yourselves crazy over thinking about something that hasn't happened yet, do you?" Samantha questioned these two. "My son is on the same team as your boss' son, and even he hasn't won the Royal Cup yet. Don't misunderstand me, I am rooting for him to win just as much as Ms. Megumi wants the Clover Team to win, but there are other Zoid teams out there that want to win, too. For some, victory in the Royal Cup means a path to the good life. For others, it's a path to stability. And for those like Ms. Megumi, it's the opportunity to showcase their ability to bring a group of nobodies together and turn them into people that get to be more than just people from different walks of life. So…these Zoid battles are more than just a form of entertainment for the masses. They're a booming exhibition to show off what the individuals involved are capable of when they get an opportunity to show some measure of their own skill behind the seat of a biomechanical animal."
-x-
Every other hour or two, Valerie came into the repair section of the hangar to monitor the repair work of her Geno Saurer. It was one thing to do so while other people were doing the repair work, but it was another thing to do so while her expression was one of frustration and tension. This, of course, was so that the men responsible for putting Geno Saurer back together again understood the significance of her devotion towards the Zoid.
"You do realize that they have been putting Zoids back together again for as long as either of us have been alive, right?" She heard Nico say to her as she turned to face the little girl, holding two canned coffees in her hands. "They know what they're doing."
"I know that they know what they're doing," she replied, accepting the canned coffee from her right hand, "but it's like I said. My Geno Saurer's my baby. After I left my family, it was all I had left of my past and my moving pavement towards the future. With everything that has happened so far…and everything that has yet to happen, I can't just…exchange it for another Zoid or discard it because of this disgrace of a hit by some mediocre Zoid team that did nothing to show their worth and had an illegal ace in their hole."
"Illegal, yes, but that Evangelion was not what I considered an ace in their hole. If the Eva Team, or any other group, for that matter, uses it a second time, they risk disqualification and other repercussions. Though, personally, I'd rather not guess on what the other repercussions could be if they crossed the line again."
"The last thing I need to see is a new war caused by group of adults who behave like ill-mannered children that throw tantrums simply because they don't get their way all the time."
"If that were to happen, war would be just another game to play…and the only actual losers would be those that can't see the difference between who's right and who's wrong."
Both women could understand this as a truth due to the fact that Zi had been the epicenter of several wars and each of them a bloody theater of conflict where lives were either lost or maimed, both Zoidians and Zoids. It was always hoped that they would never see a new war for as long as they lived.
"You should get more Zoids in your later years," Nico suggested. "At least two or three more."
"That's what some people keep telling me," Valerie replied.
-x-
Although it was the Committee that built the Evangelion that was sent to Zi along with a pilot candidate, it fell on NERV using it against the Clover Team, so it was therefore NERV's fault and they would face a future penalty if the Eva was used again. This left Gendo fuming over the warning he received from the ZBC; NERV was allowed to continued their occupation on Zi with their Zoid team, but if the Eva was ever used again while still there, the Zoid team would be disqualified and the ZBC would do all that they could within the legal limits of their authority to ensure that NERV would be liquidated if any more foul play were to occur.
"If you have a problem with the fact that your son was chosen by Nico Megumi, then you should abide by the gamble you implemented in order to regain him," Samantha had told him before she left the base after explaining the details of NERV's restrictions placed upon them by the ZBC. "Five consecutive wins against the Clover Team will force them to let go of Shinji Ikari and return him to Earth, but only if a team representing your interests can do so five times. And even if you do win, there's very little doubt that whatever it is you expect him to do for you will happen if he returns. He's been in an environment that has changed his view of things, around people that come from different beginnings that he can associate with and don't cast their personal judgment on him based on the specifics of his past…and his superior on the team he's affiliated with encourages his development and doesn't have any ulterior motives beyond seeing what he is capable of when given an opportunity to be more than what was either expected or anticipated of him to be."
Sure, Gendo tried to state that while the UN had their little deal with the Zoid Battle Commission to recruit young people from Earth to participate in these ridiculous game battles, rules, laws and regulations were meant to be bent or broken, but the woman stated a different opinion that exceeded his own.
"Not the rules and regulations made by the ZBC. Everyone has to follow them, and those that don't will be subject to the full penalty of the law, both Earth's and Zi's. If you don't like it, you can always walk away and forget why you're so interested in doing this. Plus, it's not like your son said 'no' when Ms. Megumi presented him with membership on her Zoid team."
And it was true; Shinji could've refused and returned, but he didn't refuse. He accepted after Nico gave him knowledge that he wasn't supposed to have, knowledge that would've thrown him off, mentally and emotionally, making him difficult to manipulate. And in the end, Shinji made his choice to reject his father and his agenda, choosing a competition over a war when Gendo refused to answer his questions and tell him the truth, a choice that continued to reverberate to this very day. While his son became a celebrity due to his involvement in the Zoid battles, the social media had raised many questions on why he was chosen to participate when there was nothing special about him, as claimed by several when they took his background into consideration; despite being the only child of two scientists, Shinji was, more or less, an orphan that his own father walked out on after his mother died and his other relatives gave him no acknowledgement of his own worth as a person.
"Even his aunt and uncle didn't care that he left the planet to join a Zoid team, so long as he never comes back to them," someone had written in a blog post one time. "In retrospect, the kid has nobody to come back to, even if he loses everything in this venture he was invited into being a part of. No mother, no father, no siblings, nobody. There's nothing worse than a nobody that has nobody to return to."
A nobody with nobody to return to. That was who Shinji Ikari was on Earth. He was a nobody…and didn't have a single person in his life worth returning to if things went sideways. And as Gendo looked into his son's Zoid pilot profile, he read how Shinji did come to his own realization over this disgraceful variation of the truth; even he understood that, as someone whose own father was absent from his life after the death of his mother, he was an orphan with no familial ties of any value, and therefore no home to really go back to.
"I stopped having a home after my mother died and my father up and left me with people I didn't know," Shinji had written in his profile. "All I had before I came to Zi were the reminders of my past and its flaws. A kid with no dreams or ambitions. If I ever make it big in this new future for myself, I may never want to return to Earth, and if there comes a chance that I'm forced to go back to that ruined sphere, I won't make it easy for people to know me as that man's child or some scapegoat."
It was another reminder that Shinji was aware of the gamble against him and how much he refused to be a pawn in someone's game.
Forget the rules, Gendo thought, looking at a new picture of Shinji in a setting that was different from the desert terrain the battles took place on. What is this?
Shinji was in front of a large sign that read, "Silva City Historic Zoo", with pictures of various animals that used to exist on Earth before Second Impact.
They have zoos on that planet? Gendo wondered.
-x-
They had ranked up considerably before coming here, as Nico was reminded that Shinji had never been to a zoo to see any animals that used to reside on Earth in the past, and because they were still waiting on the remaining Zoids in their team to be repaired, the girl in charge of them brought them to Silva City that had the largest zoo by far, encompassing more than twenty blocks. She had to admit, Shinji looked like a kid ready to tear up a Christmas tree in search of his presents, looking at the various animals he had never seen before. It was nice to see him smile and enjoying a recreational pastime that not many people got to enjoy unless it was here. Elephants, zebras, sharks, whales, tigers, bears and penguins, just about every species you could find on Earth was what you could find on Zi.
"I think Shinji's reaction is the most childish one here," said Geisha to Nico and Valerie as they saw Shinji looking at the monkeys. "I don't think I've ever seen him this cheerful to see animals like this before."
"He's a child of Earth born after a calamity that the previous generation orchestrated," Valerie stated. "He and a bunch of people from his generation never got to see these kinds of animals. For him right now, this is like a miracle, just to see these amazing creatures that we no longer see in the wild. Remember when he saw the anaconda?"
"I thought Drake would crap his pants after seeing such a large snake. I didn't think Shinji would press his face against the glass with morbid curiosity."
"And then he saw the actual liger that wouldn't have any metallic elements in its aesthetic appearance," Nico added. "He gained a better appreciation towards biological animals and their biomechanical counterparts."
In a different part of the zoo, Shinji was looking at the crocodile habitat. He really enjoyed being able to see these magnificent creatures that lived alongside the Zoids. There wasn't a day that he ever had a doubt on wanting to come back here at another point in time and just enjoy himself.
If I win the Royal Cup alongside the rest of the team, he thought as he reached into his bag of popcorn to eat it, I may look for a place on Zi to live.
To be continued…
A/N: I don't know when the next chapter will be, but expect there to be another battle that's actually a battle.