Creation began on 08-18-24

Creation ended on 01-01-25

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Different from You: First Day

The biggest company in Bubble Town, and probably the biggest company in this world when it comes to robots, was RobixCorp, somewhere Shinji would have a basic job as an errand boy. Basically, his job simply requires him to move small things from one level to another level at random times.

"So, you're the new guy?" A woman of nineteen years, with short brown hair asks Shinji as he and Shado stepped inside the building.

"Uh, yes," Shinji responds.

"What brings you to Bubble Town?"

"A new start."

"I've heard worse than that."

Despite the fact that Shinji was technically younger than other people that work at RobixCorp, the only thing that was likely to get him unwanted attention was the fact that he was a teenage parent to a small child. Not one of the best examples of starting fresh in a new dimension, but Shinji had to adapt to a new environment to do right by his daughter, and most people today were virtuosos in the field of robotics, meaning Shinji had to be able to achieve at least the level of a basic amateur; his past knowledge of the Evangelion, which was limited to just piloting it, was not going to help him do basic tasks.

Shado, being a child, would have to spend her time in the daycare; she was fortunate, being a four-year-old, which made her the eldest of the children present.

"So, where were you two before Bubble Town?" The woman asks Shinji.

"Overseas," Shinji claims, which was not a complete lie; Japan was overseas, just not the one they were from.

"Well…welcome to RobixCorp. I hope you love it here."

"Thank you."

"Thank you," adds Shado.

-x-

NERV was facing a dilemma following the aftermath of the loss of Unit-01. The Committee didn't care much at all about the loss of the Third Child or his bastard child, but the loss of the Evangelion reduced NERV to just two Evangelions that were actually operational. What was worse for the paramilitary agency in the aftermath of the Twelfth Angel attack was the lack of pilots due to the revelation that the Third Child was viewed by some as an omen of sorts with few to no other relationships beside the one with his daughter. This resulted in NERV having to look elsewhere for a replacement pilot for Unit-03.

"…They all refused?" Ritsuko Akagi hears Ryoji Kaji say outside her office, and the faux-blond woman turns to face the unshaven man.

"Apparently," she responds, "public knowledge of the Third Child and his daughter from before the Jet Alone fiasco made a lot of families and teenagers think twice before considering that NERV is worth their time. One of the students from the school that the Third Child was sent to was also hostile towards him due to the death of a sibling and two friends of theirs. Instead of being where the boy could be monitored away from his daughter, it ended being the place he was almost beaten to death by an angry youth in full view of the public."

"The same public that did nothing to stop the beating because they knew who Shinji was only because they heard of his father and the woman that kidnapped and assaulted him?" Kaji questions; he had been familiar with the discovery and was disgusted by the people's attitude towards Shinji and Shado.

"In their defense, the Third Child wasn't exactly cooperative in the time he was here," Ritsuko claims, which wasn't a complete lie.

"It wasn't like he had a choice when he got here the first day. It was during an Angel attack, and from what was seen, heard and spoken, the kid had no knowledge about why he was brought here to begin with by his father, and the only reason he piloted the first time was to keep his kid safe so they could leave afterwards. It was the sub-commander that later convinced him to stay and pilot again, something that clearly had repercussions."

"Even so, he spent less time training to pilot the Eva and most of his time with his child as a distraction. He rarely ever left their apartment by himself except to shop for groceries or walk around at night by himself."

"For some people sometimes, the night is its own version of daytime where people live by a different set of rules. It still puzzles me as to why he was never informed before any of this with the Third Angel happened. Why it seemed like the majority of the agency was completely unaware of the fact that he had a child, too. It's like they were both the least known about with NERV because of Ikari himself."

"Commander Ikari had his reasons."

"Most rumors state that he has only contempt towards the both of them."

Ritsuko couldn't deny this fact; it did seem as though Gendo hated his son and granddaughter for simply existing, and there was no understanding as to why this was so. Still, it didn't change the fact that NERV was unable to recruit a replacement for the Third Child after the Twelfth Angel attack, and the Dummy System was not completed yet. Nowhere near it.

"From a psychological standing," the NERV-appointed counselor informed her and Gendo once after the Fourth Angel attack, "Shinji Ikari clearly suffers from unresolved abandonment issues that are only amplified by the fact that he has a child of his own who's dependent upon him. Right now, this little girl gives him a sense of family that he feels was taken from him when his mother died and his father up and left him. She gives him stability and purpose by simply being involved in his day-to-day life. And as for the girl, Shado, she only understands to a limited degree that her mother hurt her father before her birth, and understands to a degree that her existence is viewed by some as being an omen, but is comforted by the fact that her father wants her around and is not the least bit neglectful in raising her. Their attachment towards one another gives both of them stability and peace in what can be seen as a chaotic world you have forced them into. Put quite simply, the father and daughter depend on each other just to get through each day in a place they are unfamiliar with and can't imagine surviving it because of other people they see no reason to trust."

"And if we were to separate the two?" Gendo had asked upon learning this.

"You would just be ruining these two, sir. The father, despite his circumstances, can't revert back to life before his kidnapping and assault by the mother of his daughter…and the daughter is too attached to her father to form any other attachment with an actual adult. And most childless people these days prefer a baby, not a toddler of four years. Anyway, these two are simply too attached to each other to cope with a separation of any duration."

Shinji and Shado were too dependent on each other to function independently, and Gendo found their relationship, despite its familial nature, to be a hindrance to his now-broken scenario. In honesty, he resented their relationship due to how Shinji refused to echo what he himself had done to his son to his own daughter, who needed him as much as he wanted her involved in his life. He saw the little girl as a distraction and undeserving of the boy's time…but in another instance, he resented how the girl resembled her father when he was little (and, indirectly as a result of her relation to Shinji, how she resembled her late paternal grandmother). It had also mystified him to no end on why anyone, a kidnapper among them, would choose Shinji out of any number of children…and do what they did to him that resulted in his own legacy being brought about.

As he sits in his office, Gendo looks at the two photos of his estranged son and illegitimate granddaughter from before the Twelfth Angel incident…and feels that he has no other choice but to accept that these two were just gone and unlikely to return, even if they were still alive and found a way to come back from wherever they were.

-x-

"…You've been quiet all morning, Shado," Shinji informs his daughter during the lunch break they had. "What's wrong?"

"Daddy…everyone in the daycare place had a 'roobot'," she tells him, and was upset about this. "I don't 'utterstand' (understand) why."

"Well, sweetie, this is Bubble Town. There's more robots than people here than anywhere else, and just about every person living here has a robot or two."

"But we don't."

That was a truth Shinji couldn't fault her for. They had only just moved here and were adjusting to their new surroundings. And personally, some of the people at RobixCorp had been asking him the same question after meeting him: "What kind of robots do you own?" It was practically an omen of sorts for anyone not to have at least one robot, but the thing of it is that neither Shinji or Shado could just get one without knowing what it was capable of (and Shinji, being a parent, would want the robot to be safe for his daughter to be around) and getting into the town's tradition like everyone else here.

Shado then notices a robot walk past her father and she, and looks up at Shinji with a concerned expression on her face.

Shinji gives a small smile as best he can; it would be a while before either of them would be adjusted to living in such a new environment that was different from the previous one they had difficulty amalgamating into. If they were forced to live in this new world they were stranded in, he had to try and keep his promise to Shado above all else, that he would never pilot the Evangelion again or let someone like his father try to separate them. He was content with being in a different world where there were no giant monsters or a need for giant robots to be piloted by people his age, but the only thing he really wished for in their new predicament was stability; neither he nor Shado had anyone beside each other to call a friend, something they both needed at a time like this.

To be continued…

A/N: Happy New Year, people!