Creation began on 11-24-19

Creation ended on 09-17-20

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Potential Paradise: What are we left with?

A/N: How does NERV reflect after the defeat of the most recent Angel after they were unable to do it themselves?

What barely constituted as a skeleton crew at NERV HQ had to wonder what was the point of persisting against the Angels when all they had was one Evangelion pilot and the Evangelion program no longer seeming to be a sound strategy when the last Angel was defeated by the use of advanced nanotechnology that came from a colossal space station that was older than any city currently in existence on the Earth. Some that still had the option of relocating to the space station were considering doing so, but Gendo had this look on his face that was like a warning threat; if any one of them made such an effort to leave the base and the city, he'd probably make their lives miserable in any way he could. And those that couldn't find sanctuary or simply refused to relocate were wondering how they could fight back against the Angels when they were unable to do their job effectively due to being dependent upon children to pilot the Evas. With minor exception of how the UN saw this debacle ending in favor of the planet living to see another day until the next Angel showed up, NERV was, in its own way, shown up by a rival that received the credit for doing the impossible.

"We need the Dummy System operational as soon as possible," Gendo informed Ritsuko in his office. "We cannot afford another mishap like this one to occur."

"Except we can't proceed any further with the Dummy System's programming development without the First Child," she told him. "We can't rely solely on her last recorded synchronization data without further evaluation."

They were in a bind, and Gendo blamed Shinji for all of the problems they were facing, even though he had some involvement with the latest Angel's defeat.

-x-

Three days had passed since the last Angel showed up at Geo-Front, and the people aboard the colossal space station didn't have to fear what had happened, since they weren't on the planet when it happened. No, all they needed to concern themselves with…was how they were going to spend their days. The absence of their presence on Earth was of no consequence when they didn't have to concern themselves with the feeling of the end of the world.

Shinji, as he and Rei walked down the street on the urban areas, saw no signs of trouble. It made him happy to see the people here happy.

"What are those people over there doing?" Rei asked Shinji as she saw some young adults all performing the same series of slow moves on an open space in a park.

"It's tai chi," he explained, seeing the beauty of such ancient art. "They're practicing it to stay healthy. It's…beautiful."

"You've never seen it before?"

"I have, I just… I've never really taken the time to notice how beautiful it is."

And with that, Shinji really just wanted to enjoy what was here as opposed to what used to be on Earth a long time ago. There was beauty, understanding, acceptance and people forming new bonds in a familiar setting that was different from the previous settings they resided in. And there was order, too; the drones across the space station took notice of everybody and made sure that whatever levels of conflict that might've existed here were resolved without the need for further violence that just led up to a loss of life.

Rei stood there and continued to watch the people do their tai chi some more. It was really a beautiful scene of people just doing an activity that they normally did without the feeling of dread looming over their heads. Even as other people went by them, the two teens continued to watch for a while, just enjoying the sense of peace that was.

-x-

"NERV was unable to deal with the Angel," went SEELE 11 to the other council members. "It was defeated by three machines built upon a form of nanotechnology."

"How is that possible?" SEELE 03 demanded.

"Who knows what sort of technology the Third Child has access to on his space station?" SEELE 08 suggested. "The giant machines took on the form of machines from media franchises, indicating that they can be made into whatever form the user desires."

"But how did nanotechnological constructs manage to defeat an Angel when only the Eva was intended as the only weapon capable of penetrating the AT-Field?" SEELE 10 questioned.

"We're to believe that the nanotech is capable of advanced adaptation, to the point where it can mimic the properties required to project an AT-Field."

"We have access to the footage taken within the Geo-Front," SEELE 01 revealed. "We can review it in order to see what had transpired."

"Again, Ikari has failed to handle this issue," went SEELE 07. "Even if we have lost nothing in time and money, the reduction in personnel and manpower cannot be replaced. Practically most of the planet's more promising population has relocated to his brat's space station with no intention of returning."

"We'll likely have to handle this matter ourselves," added SEELE 12.

"We can't deal with this matter discreetly," SEELE 01 told them. "The space station is larger than our entire solar system, second only to the very eyes of God himself. If we make even one wrong move against Ikari's son, he will know and likely resort to measures for which we have no defense against."

-x-

A week went by and Unit-02 was repaired for the next Angel attack, should it ever come, but Asuka was not feeling chipper about it. She had gone around Tokyo-3 and found nothing but the people that were evaluated as being unfit to live on Shinji's space station, mainly ex-cons and women that had committed prostitution sometime ago. And it was not like they would care if word got out that she was one of the Eva pilots tasked with saving the human race from extinction; as far as any of them were concerned, most of the planet was already heading towards extinction and only the chosen few were granted sanctuary on a colossal, state-of-the-art version of Noah's Ark that the planet could probably fit in the center of.

"…No, all I'm saying is what are we left with now that most of the country's up there?" She heard a man say to another man, pointing up towards whatever much of the space station was visible during the daylight hours. "They practically went to Heaven and left the rest of us to rot in Hell on Earth!"

She couldn't fault them for that. Most of the world's coastal edges were underwater, one of the polar regions was annihilated, leaving only minute pillars of salt behind, and various plant and animal species were things of the past. Heaven was practically above their heads while they were left on Earth with very little of anything…and the worst part was that most of the people that left didn't take much of anything but their clothes and sentimental possessions with them. But if Asuka had to try and see a bright side to what Shinji had done, it was the way he dealt with Earth's population issues; the reduction of people on the planet had drastically reduced the pollution emissions caused by driving a legion of vehicles everywhere, and there were fewer people to feed.

"…Until the world leaders decide they want the kid's space station for themselves," the other guy responded. "Some see it as power incarnate…and some dead relative the kid never heard of decided to give it to him. In a sense, this relative gave the boy power over the people, and the people originally in control of the world are unhappy with their power shift."

"It's not like they can just ask him to hand it over. I heard the kid's father wanted him to do that out of spite towards him, and that's why the kid left."

Asuka decided to return to Misato's apartment and try to call Hikari, assuming the girl took her phone with her when she left the city with her family.

Stupid Shinji, she thought.

-x-

It was only because he worried for some of the people still on Earth, not because he feared what his father might do. Keeping minor tabs on NERV through their surveillance systems allowed Shinji to keep watch over Misato and the others while they were in the Geo-Front; he wasn't going to eavesdrop on them as they went to the bathroom. So far, it seemed like everyone was doing fine, excluding their concerns regarding the next Angel. He decided to send a text to Misato's phone.

"The next Angel that comes, I'll help you." The text read before he sent it to her phone.

"You're worried about them, aren't you?" He heard Senkensha ask him as she appeared in front of him in his room.

"Yeah," he answered. "Did you ever… Well, did you ever have problems like this before?"

"My largest problem was making sure that when I had this space station built from a salvaged planet, the animals were unharmed. In truth, none of my past problems were in any way similar to the ones you're currently facing. Your father is among the handful of people that will go to great lengths to take control or prove that he is right about everything that is and isn't."

"Uh…can we hack the MAGI from here?"

"We can. You were able to prevent the MAGI from accessing the supercomputers here. Why?"

"I'm suddenly curious as to what those scientists down on Earth were hiding in that oversized construct that looks more like some hard drive that takes up more space than necessary."

"Knowledge, information, or maybe just a few secrets that they decided nobody else was supposed to know about."

"I'll be honest, I never understood why some people say that knowledge is power."

"People have a drive to obtain wisdom from those that came before or after them. It usually becomes a desire to obtain the most useful information. Without information, people can't do something they believe is worth doing, like building a building, or a car, or a city."

Shinji scrolled on his desk and started searching for the MAGI within NERV HQ. Whatever information that supercomputer possessed, he just wanted to know what made the Eva such a requirement against the Angels, why Second Impact happened, and why only those his age could pilot the Evas. If he understood why, then maybe he could come to terms with why some people seemed to value it over much of everything else.

-x-

"…So…how are things up there?" Asuka asked Hikari, managing to get in touch with her friend up on the space station.

"Things are peaceful," her friend stated. "Even the teachers are easier to tolerate, especially the one that keeps going on and on about the aftermath of Second Impact. Now, he tells us about the history of how the original Tokyo was founded."

"Really? That's, uh…really great to hear."

"What's happening down there? I've been watching the news and listening to the radio, but it doesn't seem like anyone is saying anything not related to the space station, like an earthquake or a storm or a celebrity shooting. They just keep talking about the space station and Shinji's defection from NERV and how he is making the governments of the world look bad."

"Well, he did remove the majority of the planet's immigrant population from the detention centers, making the Americans look like they can't afford to give asylum to even one illegal alien that might be a political terrorist."

"Except not every immigrant is affiliated with any group of terrorists. Some are just people that have been driven out of their homes and made to find a new one in a new land with more restrictions and regulations put on those that don't fit in. But Shinji changed that when he got this place. If anything, the world governments should be thanking him for taking the majority of the people that just wanted a place to call home."

"That's not how the world works. They need to either follow the rules or be deported back to wherever it is that they belong."

"I can't agree with that belief, Asuka. There's a saying known as 'do as you please', and it's something that people often find difficult to commit sometimes."

"'Do as you please'? Meaning Shinji did as he pleased regarding who to let on his space station and before that, he decided to relocate himself up there. He even decided to leave us behind in favor of whatever life he could have there."

"It's not easy to commit if you're by yourself, Asuka."

"Define 'easy'."

"Nobody enables you unless they see a reason to, for better or for worse. I found it a bit odd for a relative of Shinji's to enable him to do as he pleases posthumously…and generations after the fact…but that's the thing about life. We don't know who's out there leaving things to other people, past or future."

"And while he's up there with all of you, he left his relatives down here…and I can get why he did so. I thought he had issues with his old man, but it turns out that everyone in his family seems to have resentment towards him. His own uncle wanted to know why a distant relative they never heard about left him something like this when he feels his own family deserves it after having to watch him for most of his life. It's no wonder he has issues; everyone in his family has…never really put in the effort to know him."

"That is also a fact of life; every family has at least one person that's viewed as a sort of black sheep."

After a little more back and forth, Asuka hung up and sighed at how difficult life on Earth was becoming because of Shinji's antics…and how Shinji's life up there was probably becoming stressful to varying levels because of certain people from his past.

"We looked after you!" She recalled his uncle say in a voice message. "We deserve the space station more than you ever could!"

"The longer he does as he pleases, the more he puts us all at risk," she recalled his father declaring due to his continued disobedience towards him and other forms of authority.

"He gives the evaluated a choice," Kaji told her once. "They can live on the space station all they want and they can come back to Earth whenever they choose. He's not some dictator."

In the end, Asuka had to conclude in her own opinion that, while Shinji practically had a paradise full of people that were in need of a new life above the heads of everyone left on Earth, he had nobody in his family circle up there. His family and he were estranged, his father saw him as a loser of sorts for leaving, his aunt and uncle felt like he didn't deserve what was left to him and him alone, and other parts of the world labelled him as a sort of criminal that violated every rule that existed. She wasn't sure how he could show his face around without some sort of blowback against him for his decisions.

What are we left with? She wondered.

-x-

Gendo really hated his son for his decisions made against everyone that had authority. Worse was his resentment towards him for refusing to return to NERV and pilot the Eva, send the people back to their countries or detainment centers, enabling the world governments to state they were doing "good" work. Because the Dummy System was no longer capable of being worked on without Rei's presence, this made NERV's sole defense against the Angels the Second Child and Unit-02; the Marduk Institute couldn't locate any potential candidates that were able to pilot the other two Evas and the two in the States had yet to be transferred. And it wasn't like he could contact his son; it was somewhat of a rule to never contact the one you hate the most directly if you could contact them through a proxy…and he wouldn't contact his son, even if the world was coming to an end.

Ring-ring! His phone rang, and he answered.

"Ikari," he spoke.

"Ikari," a male voice uttered to him, "there is no other way to resolve this matter that you caused with your son. In the next seventy-two hours, anyone with your kid on that space station is going to be reduced to a memory. Do you have anything to say in defense of your son?"

"I do not," he responded, and the call disconnected. "If that is his fate, then that is his fate."

To be continued…

A/N: Talk about crazy. What do you think is going to happen next? And how many of you think that Shinji is keeping tabs on his father's calls?