Creation began on 03-04-24
Creation ended on 03-15-24
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Welcome to your Escape: The Scenario is Ruined!
SEELE was not happy with the turn of events. Then again, they were never happy with anything if they felt a certain order was not being followed by anyone that they saw a use for to do their dirty work. It was only because NERV and the Evas had a role to play in certain operations against later Angels that the paramilitary agency was still in service, but the mere fact that Gendo, back when he was in charge, kept trying to recruit his own son, who up and left the very planet to visit one on the other side of the Milky Way for some foolish tournament after failing to show up in Tokyo-3…that made the council of wannabe masters of the universe concerned that their order had been compromised. Worse than this was the fact that Gendo, back when he was in charge of NERV, had no knowledge of the MAGI being hacked for information by a little alien girl that wanted his son to join her motley little band of contestants for the tournament they were participating in. But when they hadn't heard from their contact within NERV in the last few days, they became overly concerned about what was going on.
"…He has failed to report in again," SEELE 03 informs the council. "This has become a pressing concern for us."
"The Angels are being dealt with in a timely matter, but as of late, the next Angel that was set to appear…has not," SEELE 10 reveals. "Not only this, but recently, Ikari left to planet Zi to join the Zoids Royal Cup as a soloist."
"Why would he do that?" SEELE 07 asks.
"Isn't it obvious?" SEELE 02 responds. "Ikari is vindictive towards his son because he feels like he abandoned him when he needed him to pilot the Eva for him, and is using his participation in the Royal Cup to exact revenge for his refusal to cooperate with him."
"We don't have time to support such nonsense," SEELE 01 declares. "Ikari is of no concern to us now. Leave him to his pathetic pursuit of vengeance. Whether he succeeds or fails is on him. What else is there to discuss?"
"As of late, almost thirty percent of the Earth's global population has managed to relocate to Zi," SEELE 12 expresses. "It's mostly those from the low-class population centers. People from the Philippines, refugees from war-torn parts of Russia, Israel, homeless nobodies from the States that have managed to scrape up what they could. They're leaving in droves in order to find a better life on an alien planet known for its cybernetic fauna and not looking back."
"If it's just thirty percent and people from the lower-class, it is of no concern."
"It will become a concern if it keeps rising. It isn't just the matter of the Angels that have forced people to relocate elsewhere. It is also the crime rate of countries with little to no help from the local law enforcement to resolve the issues that worry the common folk everyday. Some people that work at hospitals getting mugged going home every night, children caught up in turf wars, lack of opportunities to pursue, which is why they're leaving any way they can."
It was getting to the point where Zi had become the refugee planet for people from Earth looking to start anew, and Earth, due to Second Impact, had lost much of its land due to environmental degradation and violent warfare, prompting certain people to abandon the planet in favor of one that still had plenty of land to live off of and a horde of opportunities to choose from. While such concerns didn't really matter to the SEELE council, it could've been an issue as time went by and they started to lose their manpower that couldn't be replaced by mere machines.
"Where are we on the Human Instrumentality Project?" SEELE 09 questions, wanting to change the subject to something more meaningful to these individuals.
"When Ikari was in charge," said SEELE 05, "it was two percent behind schedule. With Fuyutsuki being in charge, it might be the same with him."
-x-
Even if he wanted to, Fuyutsuki knew there was no turning back after the destruction of the Adam embryo by Misato Katsuragi. And later that same day, he allowed for the destruction of Lilith in Terminal Dogma, rendering the Human Instrumentality Project nullified and hopefully putting an end to the Angels they had yet to face. As he sat in his office, he worried about the consequences of the Committee finding out that Adam and Lilith were no more, not to mention the reason being a hope that the Angels would just stop coming to attack the city.
"If they find out about this," went Ritsuko to him as she stood in front of his desk, "it will be your head on their platter for going against their goal."
"At this point, so long as the Angels stop," he replies to her, "I'll have to live with that fact."
"That's if the Angels stop," she reminds him, doubtful of this happening.
"And what will you do if they do stop?"
That was something Ritsuko hadn't thought about. What was she going to do after the situation with the Angels ended? The way she initially understood it, there was no way that anything was going to be the same after all the Angels were defeated, as the use of the Evas and the MAGI were so woven into existence that there was no way anyone would ever want to stop using them for anything, even likely willing to wage war for them. But nothing was going the way they had been intended by Gendo before his son up and left the Earth…and it was all because of an alien that resembled a little girl that saw interest in him for her Zoid team over the others teens his age that were significantly better or worse than him…and probably didn't regret her choice in the end. That alone said something about how much everything changed since the day the Third Angel arrived to attack the city.
"What is there to do if this all ends?" Ritsuko asks him.
"Moving on," he tells her. "Who knows? Maybe I'll relocate to Zi myself and see if they need a metaphysical biologist instructor there."
"You can't possibly be serious about that."
"It's only a possibility. That's what the future is all about: Possibilities."
"And do you believe it's possible that the Third Child…that Shinji Ikari…will win in this Zoid tournament that he's in on Zi…and walk away with a cash prize that sets him up for quite a while…or that he'll just live on that planet?"
Fuyutsuki sighs and expresses, "Yes, it's possible. If he knows the truth behind everything he wasn't being told about from his father…and that the only reason he was asked to come here was to pilot the Evangelion…he will most certainly want to do anything that makes it so that he doesn't have to return to Earth. It's not easy to run away if you have nowhere to go, but once you have a destination, it's only a matter of going and doing whatever it takes you to survive on your own. And nobody lives with difficulty so long as they have someone willing to aid them."
As much as she wanted to question it, Ritsuko found herself unable to argue over that belief. It was questionable to see Shinji functioning independently away from people on Earth, but the mere fact that he wasn't the only human currently on Zi made it unusual to even understand how he could live on a world that was, while similar to what existed on Earth, fundamentally different from what he did know in the past. Unless he received some sort of basic education prior to showing up on Zi. Ritsuko had never once been to Zi, but based on what she did know about the planet, it was atmospherically identical to Earth, with the major difference being the culture was scientifically more advanced than what she knew, including the Zoids. From what she could understand, Zi had cars and trains that moved through magnetic levitation.
-x-
Nico was doing her routine maintenance check of her Gustav, just to get her mind off the fact that Gendo Ikari was now in the competition to win the Royal Cup. Sitting in the cockpit as she waited for the diagnostic check for the Zoid Core to be completed, she stretched her arms and yawned; she had been at this for an hour now.
Knock-knock. Someone outside the cockpit knocked, and she checked the internal cameras to find that it was Shinji.
"Yes, Shinji?" She asks him through the intercom.
"Lunch is ready," he tells her.
"I'll be out in two minutes."
"Okay."
She gets out of her seat in the cockpit and opens the hatch to vacate the Zoid.
"Have you been…keeping up to date on your father?" She asks him.
"As he's now in the tournament, there's no other choice but to keep up to date on him," Shinji answers her. "We're all keeping each other informed. None of us want him to win."
"Terrified of him?"
"Of winning?"
"Of the fact that his primary Zoid is a Death Stinger, one of the most dangerous Zoids ever made and to have ever been legalized by the ZBC to participate in the Royal Cup."
"Of course, I'm terrified of him. We're all terrified in our way. But I refuse to let his dislike of me keep us from doing our best to win. For me, it's still the first time I've ever been a part of something that actually gives me happiness. I have never been happy for most of my life. My father may be using the tournament as a form of dealing with a one-sided vendetta, but I'm trying to move away from the past that he…makes uneasy because he won't move past the fact that he failed me…that both my parents failed me…and that I want to move past them and their desires and focus more on my own interests."
"And what are your interests?"
"I'm still working on them."
"Well, if it's any consolation to what I know about people's concept of time and space, now that you have a considerable degree of space between yourself and your relatives, you also have the time to develop your other quirks, whatever they are."
"Many thanks, Nico."
Shinji then looks over at Liger Rogue on the far end of the hangar where the other Zoids were and could only imagine the actual danger there would be facing a Death Stinger in the future.
"Yo!" They both heard Geisha yell as she ran out onto the hangar floor. "We just got a battle request from the Matthias Team!"
"The Matthias Team?" Nico questions; the Matthias Team was another Zoid team that recently obtained Class "A" status and were striving to keep it by facing other Zoid teams. "When do they want to face us?"
"The day after tomorrow."
"I'm game," Shinji expresses.
"Then let's get ready for them," Nico tells them.
-x-
Crash! A Zaber Fang fell in battle against the Death Stinger…and Gendo smiles wickedly as he bagged himself another win in his fight against the five Zoid teams he was up against to enter the Royal Cup.
"Regroup!" A woman inside an Iron Kong yells to her teammates as three Iron Kongs backed away from the Death Stinger.
"This is madness!" A man in a Lightning Saix ran across the field and fired at the Death Stinger. "How'd someone like this guy get his hands on a Zoid like this?!"
Gendo took aim at the Lightning Saix…and fired at it with a laser.
Boom! It exploded on the ground and sent the Zoid flying away, likely damaging its operational system, keeping it from going any further.
So, this is how powerful a Zoid is when a compatible pilot is in it, Gendo thought as he had beaten all but two Zoid teams left to compete in the Royal Cup.
While all but admitting to not having a taste for it, Gendo had to admit to himself that he was certainly enjoying the power this Zoid was affording him. And each time he defeated an opponent, he imagined that it was Shinji that he was facing. Even at this very moment, just enjoying the thrill of hurting him for his betrayal.
I won't let you win, he thought, charging up his CPC to finish the job. Cowards are always useless in anything required of them.
Remembering the rules and regulations of his participation, Gendo kept the energy output of his CPC at three percent; because it was significantly stronger than the kind you'd see in a Geno Saurer or the Berserk Fury, he was only allowed to use his own at levels of fifty percent or less. Any higher, and he would be disqualified from the Royal Cup. But even at three percent, it would be enough to end this minor feud.
"Get back!" The woman inside the Iron Kong yelled, and the remaining Zoids tried to move away from the Death Stinger.
Blast! It fired its Charged Particle Cannon and Gendo let the chips of fate fall wherever they were going to, watching as the remaining Zoids were able to avoid the beam directly, but the resulting shockwave was sufficient to damage them still.
The dust cleared and all five Zoid teams were on the ground, the pilots shaken from the fury of the attack.
"Battle over," the Judge reported and declared. "The winner is…the Death Stinger!"
Gendo had done it. He had defeated these five Zoid teams to gain entry into the Royal Cup. It was only a matter of time before he faced Shinji and showed him the error of his betrayal.
If I can't have what I want on Earth, I won't let you have what you are after here on Zi, he thought with grim fury.
To be continued…
A/N: Well, SEELE is screwed, NERV is hoping that the Angels will cease now that Adam and Lilith are gone, the Clover Team is preparing to face another Zoid team, and Gendo has secured his spot in the Royal Cup and his shot at revenge against Shinji. What else is going to happen?