Creation began on 03-11-24

Creation ended on 10-29-24

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Evangelion Malevolence: The Path to Survival

"Haaaurgh!" Ghidorah cackled as the stone fragment from his statue allowed him access to a portion of his true strength that made him a force of nature.

"Rrrraaurgh!" Godzilla roars as he has no idea what to expect from the golden menace this time.

Shine! Ghidorah's body lit up like a shining star, lighting up the darkness around him.

"Amazing," Shinji gasps, and sees the three heads of the golden hydra expel electrical bolts from their mouths. "Amazing."

The bolts, an extension of his weaker attack, enhanced by the access to the unlocked portion of his true strength, hit Godzilla with as much force as he dared to unleash, causing as much damage as he could against his enemy.

"Rrrrrraaurgh!" Godzilla roars as he feels the sting of the bolts cascading across his thick hide. "Grrrrr!"

"Haaaaurgh! Haaaaurgh!" Ghidorah cackles as he flies over and fires his bolts again, sending them across the water and amplifying the surges against Godzill as they flow towards his head.

"Rrrraaurgh!" Godzilla shrieks, growling at the golden hydra. "Grrr!"

"Oh, this is intense," Misato states as she and the battle raged on between Godzilla and King Ghidorah, with the former unable to blast the latter in the air with its atomic breath so long as it was flying at a safe enough distance.

Ghidorah fired his bolts at Godzilla again, but something was off this time; Godzilla seems to no longer be affected negatively by the electrical discharges and most of it was being redirected to the dorsal spines on its back.

"I don't like this," went Rumiko to Shinji.

Shinji looks with concern as Ghidorah continues to fire his bolts at Godzilla, seemingly unaware that they weren't doing any further harm to him, instead just having most of the energy redirected to his back as the golden hydra flew down to get closer. But Shinji feels as though he has seen this sort of behavior from somewhere before. It was something about energy and containment issues. Still, he had to put his faith in King Ghidorah; if the Guardian Monster was here to save them, he had to believe that there was a reason for this method of attack.

"Rrrrrraaurgh!" Godzilla roars as King Ghidorah closes in on the beast of vengeance, hovering over the water so as to not go in again.

"Haaaaaaurgh!" Ghidorah cackles as he fires his bolts once more, surrounding Godzilla with electrical discharges that were being channeled to his back. "Haaaaurgh!"

Then Godzilla's dorsal spines start to glow with their blue signature, shrouded in the golden-yellow electrical energy of Ghidorah's bolts. With a sadistic expression that was almost like a cruel smile, Godzilla unleashed his atomic breath upon the golden hydra, which had no time to retreat from the attack!

BLAST-BOOM! An explosion of red and yellow fire spreads across the air over Godzilla that lasts for only five seconds, followed by a small shower of bits and pieces of what used to be King Ghidorah.

"Rrrrrrrrrrrraaaaurgh!" Godzilla roars in triumphant victory.

"King Ghidorah," Shinji utters in disbelief over this turn of events.

-x-

The survivors in the Geo-Front were in disbelief over what was witnessed. Not only had Godzilla defeated the golden monster that had stood against it in defense of the homeland of the people that killed it over two-thousand years ago, but Ghidorah had been the last Guardian Monster that stood in defense against Godzilla. This left Japan at the relentless brutality of Godzilla's vengeance against them. Not even Fuyutsuki could believe this was happening, and there was nothing any of them could do to change this.

-x-

The flames in the air weren't dissipating over Godzilla. In fact, they appear to be growing larger in the air…and shifting.

"Graaaaurgh!" It roars as it assumes a form, sporting strange ears and a horn. "Grrrrraaurgh!"

"What the… Baragon?" Shinji questions as he and the others see the first Guardian Monster that faced Godzilla in the air, and beside it were the other monsters that it called upon to fight the beast of vengeance. "Varan? Anguirus?"

With Varan on its left and Anguirus on its right, Baragon got Godzilla's attention.

"Rrrraaurgh!" He roars, confused by why he was seeing these fallen fools.

The fires shift as the three slain creatures disappear, replaced by…two different creatures, one of dark fire and the other of bright fire, with large wings.

"Iiiiieee!"

"Rrrrraurgh!"

"Mothra? And Battra?" Rumiko says, confused.

"Rrrrrrrraurgh!" Godzilla roars again, and the two burning shapes disappear, only to be replaced by…the creature he had just killed this evening.

"King Ghidorah, too?" Misato utters.

"Haaaaauurgh!" The fallen hydra cackles as it flaps its wings.

Then, the amalgamation of fallen deforms and flies toward Godzilla, passing right through its torso in a brilliant display of light.

"It's like he's…absorbing them," Shinji says as the light disappears, and Godzilla turns toward them. "Oh, no."

Moments later, Godzilla descends into the water, looking like he was struggling to stay buoyant.

"Rrrraaurgh!" He roars as his head goes under. "Rrrraurgh!"

Shinji and Rumiko look to one another, confused by what was happening in front of them.

"Maybe they needed to be killed before they could defeat Godzilla?" Rumiko suggests to him.

"Maybe…or maybe it has something to do with energy," he also suspects. "Maybe they needed to be absorbed by him. Ghidorah kept hitting him with those bolts, but it looked like he was absorbing them."

"Like Ghidorah was trying to overpower Godzilla by charging him with energy?"

"Yeah… Maybe Godzilla has a limit to how much energy he can expel or hold inside him. Maybe he's like a rechargeable battery that can't hold so of a charge any longer much because of its wear and tear limits. If he absorbs too much…"

"It could cause problems."

-x-

The energy of the Guardian Monsters Godzilla had been forced to absorb was affecting him, as if the primary three beasts, in addition to the three auxiliary beasts, had gathered together in death and were still fighting against him. Except now, they were fighting him from the inside, and were trying to keep him underwater.

Japan might've bought itself a small reprieve for the moment, but Godzilla was pure vengeance, and he would let nothing and nobody stand between him and the retribution the nation had brought upon itself and its people for the lost souls of the forsaken.

Shine! Something caught his eyes and was coming closer towards him, at his face.

-x-

Yomiko Mafune was not an irrational woman, but after discovering that Godzilla had returned to wreak havoc upon the nation for the first time in over half a century since its last encounter after the end of Second World War, all or most sense of rationale had been thrown to the winds in favor of survival. And so, with just a D-03 missile attached to her mini-sub, she took aim towards the creature's mouth.

"What are you doing, Mafune?!" She hears her name being uttered on the intercom. "No! Stop! Abort! Abort!"

But if she stopped now, there may be no next time…and Second Impact had ruined her past by taking away from her the things that mattered to her. Her brother, her mentor, her best friend. All she had was right now, and if she didn't do it now, she would never get another chance to do so. It had to be now.

Godzilla opens its mouth…and she drives her sub into that deep darkness.

Gulp! She hears the thunderous sound of a swallowing being successful.

Oh, great, she thinks, going further down to the depths of the beast's innards. But this is the way it's gotta be.

The silence feels like an eternity before she considers that she's traveled deep enough to pull this off…and pulls the trigger with the fate of the nation resting on the shoulders of people like her. As she feels the sub release its D-03 payload, all she could do now…was pray she was successful and that this nightmare would end.

-x-

Shinji, Rumiko and the others present made it back to Sendai's shoreline as the sun started to rise in the distance, signifying the new day. It was any guess to why Godzilla hadn't surfaced since the submergence caused by the souls of the Guardian Monsters, but they didn't take any chance that it was only temporary and he would soon surface again.

Rumble! The ground shook as the ocean water began to bubble in front of them.

"Aw," Rumiko whines.

"Damn," Shinji adds in, as the water exploded into droplets in front of them as Godzilla resurfaced in front of them, looking irritable.

Unlike the first encounter, Shinji had never seen such a beast this up close before, and now that he was just a loose end of NERV's with no Eva to pilot, he didn't realize how unfortunate he was right this moment. But if he had to go out today, just being next to Rumiko was enough to make his final seconds bearable.

"Grrr," Godzilla growls, his head shaking slightly as a whirring noise could be heard by the Japanese people down below in front of him. "Grrrr!"

Squelch! The left shoulder of Godzilla had something burst from it, tearing through the soft tissue membranes that had been exposed from the earlier attack by King Ghidorah.

Boom! An explosion came from the same place as the whirring sound had come from, momentarily harming Godzilla.

"Rrrrraaurgh!" Godzilla roars in discomfort.

"She must've did it," went Misato in realization. "Yomiko Mafune. She fired the missile from inside Godzilla."

But it doesn't seem to do much more than just leave a small, gaping hole in the behemoth that came to take revenge upon them for what their ancestors did in the last World War, and he looks down at them as his dorsal spines begin to glow blue.

"Shinji," Rumiko utters.

"I hope we meet again in the next life," Shinji tells her, holding her left hand.

"Likewise," she replies, closing her eyes.

He closes his and just waits for the outcome to end.

Misato can only hold Pen-Pen and pray for the death to be quick and painless.

Godzilla was now charged with atomic energy and ready to deliver the final blow against these bystanders. Once he was done with them, he would go after the rest of the nation's people and do away with them all. He thrusts his head forward, opens his mouth…and lets them have it.

Blast! The atomic energy was released, but not from his mouth.

Misato gasps as she sees the energy being expelled from the open wound on Godzilla's shoulder!

"Quick!" She yells at the teens, who open their eyes and see the energy escaping the monster's gaping wound. "Run for it!"

They didn't need to be told twice, and quickly run as fast as their feet could take them away from Godzilla's presence.

Godzilla stops firing, sees them fleeing, and charges up again to try and fry them to nothing more than a memory to be forgotten about. He thrusts his head forward at them, opens his mouth…and receives the same result, only worse than the first attempt! Somehow, because of the wound in his shoulder, he couldn't fire his atomic breath! It would just flow out the wound instead of out his mouth!

"Grrrrr!" He growls as he keeps trying to shoot out his mouth as the tiny pests flee for their meaningless lives. "Grrrrraaurgh!"

He lost his balance and fell backwards into the water, sinking down towards the abyss! A cloud of red surrounds him; blood from his wound was now seeping out and spreading across the water as it slowly dilutes. And within the blood…a small vessel moving away from him. It was that vessel from earlier, the one that he swallowed; somehow, that thing was the reason he was unable to carry out attempts to incinerate those worthless pests! But he wasn't done yet, not by a long shot, and he still had the power to carry out his vengeance!

-x-

By a short miracle, just narrowly avoiding the nuclear radiation Godzilla emitted from within his body, Yomiko escapes from the belly of the beast and quickly makes a break for the surface that was just inches away now. On one of her screens, she could see Godzilla looking towards her sub, its blank and soulless eyes centered on her.

You won't get me, she thinks as she watches him open his mouth again, primed with nuclear energy the likes she had never seen before, and then closes her eyes.

-x-

Something was wrong! His body wasn't holding the power like before! He tries to resolve it, but he feels as though his body is breaking down! He feels his limbs falling off as his head shakes beyond his ability to perceive all things around him. In front of his eyes, a serpent with eight heads appears, shrouded in blinding light, and says something that doesn't agree with him in the slightest.

"You…have failed," the heads say to him.

-x-

BOOM! Something big underwater explodes, sending thousands of gallons of saltwater into the air, raining down on the world.

"Whoahhh!" Rumiko yells as she and Shinji fall to the ground.

"Aaaurgh!" He groans as he reaches for her left hand. "The Hell was that?!"

"Yarp!" Pen-Pen goes as he slides across the ground in front of them.

"Some kind of explosion!" Misato expresses as she runs for Pen-Pen and scoops him off the wet ground. "Oh…my… Look at that!"

Shinji and Rumiko turn around and look up, seeing a towering cloud in the shape of Godzilla…ripped to pieces.

-x-

"Hey!" Hyuga shouts out to those left within the NERV base. "Godzilla's gone!"

"What do you mean, gone?" Ritsuko demands.

"The radiation levels that it gave off have disappeared! I mean, disappeared! It's gone!"

Ritsuko comes over to his monitor and sees what he's talking about. She sees that the last recorded radiation spike was centered in Sendai…but then it disappears, leaving only minute traces of radiation. Not enough to indicate potential danger, but just enough to leave the location it was last seen in to be in need of nuclear waste disposal. But as for Godzilla, there was no trace on any tracking system they still had access to.

There was nothing on any seismic monitor, infrared tracker, radiation tracker, bioelectrical tracker, not even a person with binoculars. It was as though…the monster had simply vanished without a trace.

"What do you suppose it means?" Ritsuko asks Fuyutsuki.

"I don't know," he replies, just as confused, wondering if Godzilla disappeared…or just died.

-x-

People look at the cloud that represents Godzilla falling to pieces…and some child survivors take it as a sign that the monster that wanted to kill them all was itself dead. What else could they do but believe the beast was no more? The military fought back against it, along with other monsters that showed up to protect them, even to the death, and they managed to beat it in the end. Until they could obtain proof or some evidentiary confirmation that Godzilla was indeed dead, nobody was going to tell any child that the nightmare was not over yet.

Splash! A submarine surfaces from the ocean and a hatch opens up to reveal woman.

It was Yomiko Mafune, a little worse for wear, but alive.

"Commander Mafune," she hears her name being called over her radio, "do you read?"

She holds it up and presses a button on its side.

"Loud and clear," she responds.

"We lost track of Godzilla. We're unable to confirm its location. What happened down there?"

Sighing, the woman replies, "Godzilla self-destructed from trying to fire his heat ray. Blew itself to bits. It's sushi."

"Copy that. Good job."

She looks over at the shore and sees some people watching as her ships drifts closer and closer. Once it was revealed to the nation that Godzilla was dead, people would be able to breathe a sigh of relief that the nightmare was over. But the cost was still high; the human casualties were below a million and several towns and cities were destroyed. Some families were destroyed, some lives were crippled, and people were uncertain of how to rebuild from all of this. It was like Second Impact all over again, only this time it was limited to just Japan.

But people were adaptable. People could and would rebuild. They would find a way to persevere, to get through this. One way or another, they had to; Japan had seen its share of devastation caused by war and Second Impact and managed to rise from the ashes…and would do so again.

-x-

Ring-ring-ring! The phone inside the temple rings, and Itsudatsu Isayama answers.

"Hello?" He asks.

"Itsudatsu?" He hears Rumiko's voice. "It's Rumiko and Shinji. Godzilla is gone."

"Are you two alright?" He asks her.

"We're fine…for the most part."

"What do you mean?"

"Everyone loses someone, even those we don't expect to lose. Although…I think I'm lucky I didn't lose someone I actually care for."

"I tried to contact your parents earlier…but… I am sorry for your loss."

"Thank you. We should be heading back to the temple as soon as we can."

"Take your time. We're not going anywhere."

He hangs up and sees everyone else that works at the temple looking at him.

"Rumiko and Shinji are alright," he tells them.

"What a relief," one of the men, Fujima, utters. "They went after Godzilla and survived. That's crazy and reckless. But they survived."

"It couldn't have been any worse than that crazy story about a professor that some people claimed was the one to have enabled the military to kill Godzilla," says a woman that works at the temple.

"You're referring to Prof. Daisuke Serizawa, aren't you, Kanami?" Itsudatsu questions.

"Yes, him," the woman replies.

"Except that some of the people that did know him claim he was the mind behind the first Godzilla's defeat by the military. He died shortly before the first Godzilla in Nineteen-Fifty-Four. A man scarred by things far worse than a war between people from different walks of life that can't agree on even the simplest of things."

"Well, your brother seems to idolize him a bit, sir."

"Not idolize. Respect. Two different things. I doubt we'll hear from him again, though."

"Why?" Fujima questions.

"Hirotoshi doesn't broadcast his personal problems, but he was already living on borrowed time. Cancer. Late stage."

The temple employees bow their heads to him, and he smiles. Then, he turns back to the counter where the three statues representing the Guardian Monsters had stood, now a pile of rubble after each creature died and returned to their slumber, recovering until it was their time to return and defend the homeland once again. And maybe next time, now that they had seen the people that they had been brought back to defend against such an unforgiving force of vengeance, they will return as true protectors, dedicated to not just the homeland, but its people, too.

Thank you, he thinks.

-x-

Misato wanted to thank Yomiko Mafune personally for helping to defeat Godzilla, but she and the others had to keep their distance from her for the time being. Because she had gone inside Godzilla, with only her submarine as a mediocre form of limited protection, there was a risk that she had been irradiated from such a degree of exposure. Unlike the rest of them, her exposure was likely extreme. Still, this distance was simply a precaution.

"You did it," went Shinji to the woman that had stood between them and certain death. "You saved the nation."

"It wasn't only me," she tells him as they all stand on the abandoned sidewalk overlooking the the ocean. "It was everyone else involved. The military…and the Guardian Monsters."

So long as it kept him out of the undesired spotlight of having to be a hero of sorts, Shinji was content to accept this notion. He was content with someone else being the hero rather than himself…and he would find a way to move on with his life…as it was now his life to live. With his father facing his own difficulties that were his own fight against dying, he was effectively on his own now; whether his other relatives were alive or not, Shinji wasn't sure…and he had his doubts that he would even care one way or the other, as the Ikari name was not something he was remotely proud of in any fashion. He needed to live his life the way he could accept it, not the way any other person that could claim they knew what was best for him on how to live it.

"So…what now?" Rumiko questions him, and he turns to his right to face her.

"We rebuild," he answers her. "We rebuild, we make do…and find a way to move past all this."

"Yep."

Maybe it was already sinking in for Shinji. Maybe it hasn't sunk in yet. Either way, Rumiko, after the short amount of time she has spent with Shinji…just didn't want to see where she would likely be without him. Maybe she was just afraid of being alone without someone she knew or trusted in her life, or maybe she was just having difficulty with her emotions after learning that her parents and elder brother were dead, but she knows she cares about this boy that didn't have anyone in his corner that was blood…and just wanted to mend both their wounded hearts.

To be continued…

A/N: This isn't the end of the story yet. There is some more to come. And I need to know what you readers expect to see in the end.