Creation began on 07-12-19
Creation ended on 07-15-19
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Welcome to your Escape: Rogue
The list of Zoids was over two-hundred, each one of a different species, ranging from giant, mechanical mammalian models to members of the prehistoric eras, and Shinji was being made to pilot a handful of them in their most basic forms through simulations.
"Whoa!" He gasped, getting pummeled by three virtual Lightning Saixes while operating a Warshark, a Zoid that could operate on the ground as well as it could underwater. "I don't think I'm a Warshark person!"
Outside the simulation room, observing him, Nico had to agree with Shinji for the eighth time. Only eight different tests and each one had Shinji failing because he didn't fit with the Zoid he was using. It was a miracle that he lasted this long in the simulations, though; most would've quit after five different scenarios and Zoids. But Shinji kept going, kept trying to find compatibility with each Zoid in the global database, even through the most difficult of situations he was finding himself in.
"Let's give a modified Leoblaze a try," she suggested, patient with his lack of success and development in each scenario.
"Okay," he agreed with her, wanting so much to find the right Zoid for himself.
-x-
Standing outside in front of the Clover Team's hangar, a woman in her late-teens with long, flowing, lavender-colored hair that seemed to shine like light every now and then, dressed in a skintight outfit of blue and white with several pouches surrounding her waist and ankles.
"I don't know why this girl would want me on her team," she uttered to herself as she walked to the front door. "The last team I was with lost before we even made it to the Royal Cup."
-x-
"…How's he doing?" Drake Toros, an older teen of eighteen years, wearing tan khakis and a red shirt with the words "WE LOVE ZOIDS" written its front in black, with glossy, red hair and purple eyes, asked the woman wearing a blue yukata that Shinji had met the previous day when he arrived.
"Thirty simulations straight," the woman revealed, whose face was no longer painted up like a geisha's, revealing a dark-skinned visage with blue eyes and shoulder-length black hair. "Thirty failed attempts at finding compatibility with a Zoid, including ten modified ones."
"Geez, that's harsh. I would've given up after ten tries. Which ones did he try in the simulations, a Gun Sniper? Command Wolf? Pteras, even?"
"He even tried an Iron Kong and Deadly Kong, but neither showed him being compatible with them. Even with the simplest setting of each combat scenario and basic weaponry, Shinji isn't making this easy for Ms. Megumi to find the best Zoid for him, despite his own efforts to make the Zoids work for him."
"A man that can't sync with a Zoid," they both heard a woman say behind them in the hallway, and they turned around to find one in a skintight outfit with long hair standing in front of them. "That's a major insult to people that love Zoids on Zi."
"How'd you get in here?" The yukata-wearing woman demanded.
"Invited by your boss," the other woman answered. "I was surprised that she sought me out."
"She knows you by reputation," Drake explained, "and the fact that you were on a previous Zoid team last year that didn't make it to the championship. Maybe this time, things will be different for you."
"That's if I join this team, you mean? If you know who I am, then you know why I left the previous team."
"Whatever your reasons are for being called the so-called 'Vixen Warrior' are entirely your own," the woman in the yukata expressed. "We're still putting this team together."
Suddenly, the door to the simulation room opened and out came Shinji and Nico, the former looking disappointed while the latter confident that they would get results in due time.
"A little girl in charge of a Zoid team," they heard the invitee utter to them, getting their attention. "The Zoid Battle Commission must be trying something new this year."
"Valerie Axiom," Nico greeted the woman. "I see you've already met Drake Toros and Geisha. This is Shinji Ikari."
Shinji bowed his head to the woman, Valerie.
"Heh, a kid whose team is comprised of kids from different backgrounds," she stated. "It will be a miracle for you to achieve just one victory in the preliminary rounds. But why seek me out? Surely, you must know that I'm not very…impressive."
"It's not your past that made me seek you out, Ms. Axiom," Nico explained. "You're a good Zoid pilot, no run-ins with authority, willing to work with others, and you're looking to prove yourself. Are you up to joining my little band of…social misfits?"
Valerie looked at her and the three teens she was building into a team…and sighed.
"Just…don't mess with my Zoid or poke fun at my habits," she told them.
"Your habits can't be any worse than mine," said Geisha to her.
"You like to wear Japanese clothing and immersing yourself in their culture because you don't like your own very much," Drake uttered. "I don't like being labeled a modification fanatic just because I'm using the same Gun Sniper my grandmother used back in her day. We all have our issues…and skeletons in our closets we don't like to discuss with people."
"I don't want to be exploited by my father in some sick goal he has for me," Shinji shared with them. "There, I said it."
Valerie chuckled and asked, "Your old man's a maniac?"
"In a way, he is…if not worse," he answered.
"It's always the same, no matter which planet you're on. Whether you're an earthling or a Zoidian, we have the same issues with our predecessors. There's no such thing as a perfect parent anywhere."
"You got that right."
-x-
"Nico Megumi," went Fuyutsuki as he read the file on the little girl that hacked the MAGI for their information and gave it to Shinji when she met him on Zi. "She's the only daughter of Faye Megumi and Burt Kaizer. Apparently, her parents are going through a divorce that's taking them a while and they don't want to drag her into their drama, so she's taking time away from her mother's to practice Zoid team construction and management. A child prodigy with an advanced degree in Zoids, her priorities as a team manager is to ensure the team members and their Zoids are in top form and that they get along. Another part of the job when recruiting new members that don't have Zoids of their own is to test their compatibility with them to see which one is the best one to use. With Zoidians, the people that live on Zi, it's not as simple, but with earthlings, it's more challenging because they've never been around Zoids as much as Zoidians have."
"So, even if Shinji did join a Zoid team, it'd be a while before finding the right Zoid for him to use," said Ritsuko, as she was also evaluating the information they had on Nico. "Are we certain that Zoids can't sync with people like the Evangelion?"
"Zoid technology prohibits the use of linking people and Zoids together through any body system. The consequences of any group found doing such would be severe."
"So long as the boy can't be paired with these mechanical abominations," Gendo expressed as he looked at three pictures on select Zoids on his desk in his office, "he is useless to the girl."
"But if the girl has a schedule and a deadline to meet, she'll likely begin trying to test him with various models to find the one properly suited to his needs."
"How many Zoid models are there?" Ritsuko asked.
"There are over two-hundred, ranging from reptilian to mammalian. Regular people from Earth take longer to obtain a Zoid than Zoidians, people from Zi. But their technology is vastly improved so that they can go through simulations faster than down here, depending on the person going through the simulations."
-x-
"I apologize if it's taking longer than expected to find the right Zoid for me, Nico," said Shinji to the girl as they walked through the hangar's open space for the Zoids.
"Don't be," Nico responded. "As the manager, making sure the newbies have the correct Zoids compatible to them comes with the job. I'm not expecting anything except your best when out there on the battlefield against the other Zoid teams when we get there. So, we have thirty-five tries and thirty-five failures. So long as you're still willing to try to find the right Zoid, I'm willing to help you until we find it, whatever it is."
"Thank you."
With Valerie now a member of the Clover Team, the latest Zoid in the hangar was a modified Geno Saurer, different from its basic design; the majority of its guns, including the one of its head, had been removed and replaced with reinforced armor of the blue coloration and a pair of Buster Claws. It stood next to the antique Gun Sniper and Geisha's Fire Phoenix.
"Why do you think Ms. Axiom's Geno Saurer was modified down?" Shinji asked Nico.
"Power, but in a different variation," she suggested. "Its most powerful weapon is its Charged Particle Gun, located in its mouth. It's so powerful that it requires anchors on its feet in order to keep it in place to prevent recoiling."
"Whoa… That sounds like a very dangerous weapon to put into a Zoid."
"It's a heavily-restricted weapon, legal only in the Zoid battles. Using it anywhere else without a justifiable reason guarantees you a fifteen-year prison sentence or suspension from future Zoid competitions. Nobody today wants to risk either penalty due to possessing such a weapon in their Zoid. We can trust Valerie not to use it anywhere except on the battlefield against the enemy team."
"Okay. Just making sure that…"
Shinji's attention was relocated from the conversation regarding Valerie's Geno Saurer as his eyes were directed to a Zoid he hadn't noticed before in the obscured section of the hangar, barely illuminated because of the dim lighting on the ceiling. It looked like one of the liger-type Zoids, but something about it gave it a mysterious appeal, with its armor being predominantly purple with a green trim at the edges of its legs.
"What's that Zoid over there?" He asked, pointing to it.
"Oh, you mean this old Zoid here?" Nico responded. "My mother calls it Liger Rogue."
"Liger…Rogue?"
"My parents bought it off a dealer before I was born. The guy couldn't get it to work with him when he had it, so he sold it for half the price of an Elephander. At first, my father felt like it was just a modified Blade Liger, but its configuration matches no other liger in the Zoid database, modified or basic. Even he couldn't pilot it. I kept wondering why they didn't just get rid of it if they couldn't use it, but it might just be a rare Zoid. But because nobody can pilot it, that makes figuring out its abilities, if it even has any, difficult to ascertain. Even repair, modification and maintenance work isn't an option because it's never seen combat."
"It looks like a combative Zoid."
"Maybe, but that's only in terms of its appearance. A Zoid that can't be used has no value to a Zoid team, different from a Zoid that one doesn't want to use, like Geisha's Fire Phoenix."
Nico walked away, but Shinji stood there, looking at Liger Rogue a while longer. There was just something about it that made him want to observe it for some reason.
"Liger Rogue," he repeated.
-x-
"It's only been a day-and-a-half since your son relocated to Zi," Fuyutsuki reminded Gendo. "It's not like NERV even has any contacts there that can keep tabs on him."
"I'm working on that," Gendo responded; his intention was to send a handful of people to Zi with the orders to monitor the Third Child and then find an opportunity to capture him and bring him back to Earth where he could be forced to pilot the Eva.
"That might be easier said than done, Ikari. Any Zoid team that has been formed with the set number of people to participate in the battles is recognized by the Zoid Battle Commission, for better or for worse. Each team is registered and each team member is entitled a chance to win the status of Class S and prize money. The Royal Cup used to be held once every four years, but now it's every year. The only restriction is that the Zoid participants that won the previous year aren't permitted to participate the following year. If the team Shinji's on wins the Royal Cup, even if he only participated a handful of times, he'd still be the equivalent of a small billionaire."
"These Zoids and this tournament to see which team makes it to the top is irrelevant to what we're doing here. NERV exists to defeat the Angels, and to do that, we need pilots for the Evas."
-x-
That's strange, thought Shinji as he left his room and ventured to the hangar to look at the Zoids. Is it…is it looking at me?
Liger Rogue, unlike the other Zoids present in the hangar, seemed to give the impression of being able to watch you, despite not moving an inch. Not even Geisha's Fire Phoenix gave that impression, and it was capable of independent motion because she wasn't using it in battle.
Shinji then walked towards Geisha's combat Zoid that she intended on using against other Zoid teams, a customized Storm Sworder with blue highlights. He had to count the list of Zoids this place had just to keep from forgetting; so far, there were Geisha's Fire Phoenix and Storm Sworder, Drake's Gun Sniper, Valerie's Geno Saurer, Nico's Gustav and the Liger Rogue. While there was the belief that they had a Whale King around for longer distances, Shinji had yet to see it, and as far as he knew, there was no Hover Cargo, either.
"Why is it so hard for me to pilot any Zoid in a simulation?" He asked himself aloud as he walked over to Valerie's Geno Saurer.
"Rrraurgh!" He heard a growling sound, and turned to look at Liger Rogue.
It still gave the impression that it was looking at Shinji, despite never moving…until he saw the Zoid's head tilt down.
"Haarh!" Geisha's Fire Phoenix went, surprising Shinji because he thought it was asleep, spreading its wings. "Haarh!"
"Rrraaurgh!" Rogue growled, and part of its head opened up.
"Haaaurgh!" Fire Phoenix continued, looking at Shinji, and then making a pointing gesture with its left wing, at Rogue.
"What?" Shinji questioned, confused, looking at Rogue. "You… I'm supposed to get inside Rogue's cockpit?"
"Haaaurgh!" Fire Phoenix shrieked, now gesturing with its head towards Rogue.
These two Zoids probably engaged in conversation when nobody else was around and this was the first Shinji was seeing of Zoid communication between two different Zoids. He slowly walked towards the liger and watched as it lowered itself to give the boy easier access to the cockpit. Its interior was similar to the one used in the simulator, sleek with straps (Shinji had been informed by Nico that sometime after her parents had bought the Zoid, her father complained about the previous design of the seat using a mechanical harness instead of the models utilized by most other Zoids that made it easier for the pilots to function, so they had it swapped out for a compatible model), even the seat itself looked like it was made for a luxury vehicle and not a war machine.
"Nice," he expressed, climbing into the cockpit and sitting down. "This actually feels good."
Rogue closed up and several screens popped up in front of Shinji, giving him a visual of the world outside the Zoid.
"Scanning," a female voice uttered as green light shined around Shinji as the screens were reduced to just three, allowing Shinji a view of everything on his left, right and front. "Scanning… Initiate reconfiguration for new user data interface. Welcome to the Liger Rogue, Shinji Ikari. Are you ready to begin?"
Shinji was surprised to hear the voice inside the cockpit ask him such a question.
"Uh, yes, please," he answered, and Rogue rose back up to its full height of fifteen meters. "Whoa… I'm inside an actual Zoid."
Rogue then moved forward, walking towards the hangar door.
"Authorizing departure," the voice uttered again, and the hangar door rose up, letting the cold air inside the building. "Take off in three…two…"
"Huh?!" Shinji went, and then Rogue ran out of the hangar. "Aaaahh!"
The Zoid was moving at an accelerated pace that it had covered forty kilometers and was still running, as if getting a feel for the terrain and adjusting to its new user.
"This is so not like in the simulator!" Shinji gasped, gripping the control handles on his left and right side. "Where are we going, Rogue?!"
To be continued…
A/N: There you have it! Shinji has a Zoid of his own, but has to handle the immense power it displays before he can be a true member of the Clover Team. And how do you suppose everyone is going to react upon waking up to find that both he and Liger Rogue aren't at the hangar?