Creation began on 11-25-13
Creation ended on 11-28-13
Neon Genesis Evangelion
A New Cause: Meeting and Understanding
A/N: Know your enemy and ally.
She was running in the darkness. Yui couldn't understand why, but she was running in the darkness of an environment that looked like a city overtaken by a massive network of trees and vines, wearing the Plugsuit she had on during the Contact Experiment.
Neigh! She heard the sound of a horse nearby, and turned around to see what she could've been running from, and then wishing she hadn't turned to see at all. Neigh!
It wasn't the fact that it was a type of unicorn like the ones from mythology, or that it had eyes that looked like fire wrapped in bone-white flesh, but who was riding atop it. She never imagined seeing Shinji, looking as he did prior to his death, but without the blood and gore that covered him, wielding a sickle and frowning at her.
"Ha!" He howled, pulling the reins of his horse and approaching her.
"Oh!" She gasped and resumed her run.
Whatever the reason for this, Yui could only suspect that her son's ghost was remedying a factor he left undone in life and deciding to eliminate other loose ends, her in particular. As she ran down a narrower street that was occupied by a network of dead trees, the neighing of more than one horse could be heard, which made her know that there was more than one horse behind her. She wanted to turn and see who, other than Shinji, was chasing her, but she was afraid to. Who knew what was chasing her to the ends of this place?
It was a good thing she chose to keep running, for Shinji wasn't alone now. On his left was a man atop a red horse wrapped in ancient armor; he was wearing gray and red armor, looking just as ancient as the armor on his horse, and a helmet modeled after a demon's, with three horns and spikes on the top and sides, respectively. This man wielded a massive sword of fire as his weapon of choice, as though the time this man came from was a dark and violent point in the medieval ages.
On Shinji's right was a horse that looked whiter than his own, without the horn and with the same eyes of fire, and running as gracefully as any horse that came before it ever could. Atop it was a man dressed in white robes, a hood masking his face, wielding a large bow that looked like it was spawned from his right hand, armed with an arrow.
The fourth horsemen, on Shinji's far right, was atop a black horse, almost as thin as a skeleton, but still full of vitality in a weird way. The rider looked as young as Shinji did, but thinner than he did, just like his horse, dressed black clothing that looked like rags with stitches sewn into the sleeves and legs, wearing an oversized gauntlet on his right arm, like the ones on Shinji and the rider of the red horse, but with a different engraving. This boy looked like he belonged to a foreign country or culture that existed centuries ago before it went extinct.
When Yui reached a dead-end on the road, made possible by the dense thicket of trees that was in front of her, she turned to see them, and could've sworn this was something out of the themes of religion. Her son's ghost was atop a pale horse, wielding a sickle, the guy in white robes wielded a large bow atop his whiter horse, meaning the one Shinji was one had to be a pale horse, the rider of the red horse wielded a sword and the rider of the black horse was skinny like twigs. She knew the mythology of the Four Horsemen enough to know that they meant the end of the world. Based upon the sight of the pale horse, the Kama sickle gripped in her son's hand, and the other three men beside him, Yui saw that Shinji was the most feared member: Death incarnate.
"We," she heard him speak, his voice being louder and filled with a strength she hadn't seen in him when he was alive, "are the new way to the healing the world needs."
Then, she saw him hurl his sickle at her! The blade glistened in what little light there was in the darkness around it.
SLASH! The quickness of the slicing, the splattering of blood in the air, and the falling of a feminine form filled the ends of the night.
-x-
"…Aaaahh!" Yui gasped, awakening from her slumber at her desk, scattering several papers onto the floor. "…Aaah…aah… Oh…"
After agreeing to continue her work on the Evas for SEELE, she had gone on to perfect the power source behind the biomechanical behemoths, though the work behind their cores was still work in-progress, as it was not possible to create artificial souls just yet. But she still managed to find time to look at Shinji's drawings and doze off. Unfortunately, her dreams were nothing more than nightmares, and the latest one was more horrifying than the previous one. She thought it was a sign of Shinji coming after her…if he had truly come back from the dead, and to kill her.
Still, the drawing she got before she left the institution that he was in for most of his life, it has left her wondering when (and if) he would make the choice to come after her. He left her for dead when he was alive, and didn't even try to come after her after he had killed Gendo, instead just calling it quits after he considered his goal fulfilled. Whatever his reason for coming back now, she was sure it would involve her, one way or another.
"…Ikari?" She heard a man behind her at the entrance to her living quarters, turned to see a man in a black suit, holding a folded, black dress.
She sighed, having remembered that a week after meeting her father again for the first time in over ten years, he succumbed to his renal failure because he couldn't get a kidney off the donor registration system as a result of being the grandfather of a serial killer with a large body count. After the revelation of Shinji's escape from the NERV paramilitary organization, combined with every failed attempt to control or eliminate him, her father, Yuma Ikari, had to live with the unlikely possibility of living past sixty-seven years old, and died from his advanced stage of kidney cancer. Yui was also mildly devastated because they never reconciled, not after all that she did…and didn't do.
"How long?" She asked the man.
"Forty-five minutes," he answered her, handing the dress over to her. "Your brother is being escorted to the funeral already."
"Thank you."
After the man left her, she went to her bathroom to change.
-x-
"…Sometimes, I think you give them a little too much freedom," went a man toward a woman that was tending to flowers in a garden on an uncharted island that was miles away from any modern-day locale. "I mean, I trust in your decision to have them be the ones alongside myself to do what needs to be done, but I worry that they'll be…uncooperative in the long run, especially Death. He's likely the most unstable of us lost souls."
The woman, the very same that was encountered by the souls of Shinji and Mako, a mysterious individual that sought them out to do the world some real good, looked at the man that accompanied her from time to time, had just planted a new seed for a tree that wouldn't grow until years later, and rose to her feet.
"If we have no free will, no individual minds, no sense of identity, how can we cooperate with each other in our own time?" She asked him. "And to control any one of you…would be to play the role of a puppet master, which I can never be. I've no choice but to trust each of you, especially Death, and your individual judgment for the fate of the planet and the lives at stake. There's no form of coincidence, even casual coincidence. The Angels arriving and staying in the cities they are sent to, you all being brought together to aid in the cause, myself for wanting to undo the despair that was caused long ago…and made worse fifteen years ago. Call your current formation whatever you will: Destiny, fate, fortune, even. It was inevitable from the very beginning. Of course, anyone else could've taken your places…but would you want them to?"
"No," he told her. "I need to be the one that does what I do, and not just to keep others from suffering any more than they already have, even if I haven't made them suffer for whatever faults they might've done to me or to others just yet. There isn't a soul, in this life or the next, that can do what I can…or understand why I must do so."
The woman placed a comforting hand on his clothed shoulder and removed the hood that masked his face, revealing a scarred man's face with hazel eyes and gray skin. His expression seemed conflicted between anger and pained, with his left eye sporting a series of claw marks over his lids. He looked like he was in his early-thirties.
"You've been with me the longest, so whatever you do, I trust you to be whatever you have to in order to do, but know where your line is drawn, even when with the other three, and you will need them…just as they will need you, whether they know it or not." She told him, tracing over the claw marks on his eye, and she turned toward a cove carpeted with wildflowers. "They are coming. You should go introduce them to each other. All four of you need to be acquainted with one another, since you will be working together as much as you do separately. They've not met their newest member…and they need to know they're not alone in this cause."
The scarred man nodded and replaced his hood and walked over toward his horse, a beautiful stallion with the whitest fur and hair you ever saw before.
Rrugh! The horse whined a little as his owner climbed atop his back and grabbed the reins. Neigh!
He rode the stallion to a small cliff and waited for the others to arrive. From atop his horse, he could see a ball of fire approaching the cove and over the surface of the ocean water. He recognized the approaching presence of his fellow man he'd known for a long time.
As the fireball got closer, it took the shape of the red horse and its master, the knight that was from New York. They reached the shore and remained there. The knight got off his horse and shook off his soreness from the hour-long travel he took having to find this island.
"It's good to see you here, Knight of the Restorative," the white stallion's owner greeted the red horse's.
The knight looked up and responded, "Likewise…uh, oh, wait, I don't know what your Restorative nickname is. As far as I know, you don't have one, seeing as you like to cast aside the unnecessary."
"We've been around since before people decided to ravage their lands with bombs that made soil sterile and turn lives to memories," the white stallion's owner expressed. "Must we really speak of nicknames when we already know each other enough to know that they're unnecessary?"
"We cast aside our original names when we chose to be what we are today," the knight expressed, and then jumped up toward the cliff, landing beside the robed man. "Or have you forgotten that my original name, as far as I'm concerned with my life before this half-life state of purgatory, is only a memory that I'd rather not have remembered, since my past ended on a violent note."
"Yet, you're the only one I know that's held onto his position for as long as I've held onto mine. I doubt that anyone could be anything like us. Conquest and War."
"Conquest, the Poison Master, and War, the Violent One."
BOOM! Something large and fast burst from the water and hovered in the air above their heads. It looked like it belonged in the water, but its color was too dark to tell.
SLAM! It fell to the ground beside them on the cliff, resembling a large, turtle-like serpent creature from the deep sea, with red eyes and large fins and flippers for limbs.
"Grrrruargh!" It growled, just before a dark smokescreen surrounded its form.
When it ceased, the creature had disappeared, replaced by a thin, black horse…and a young man dressed in rags that looked stitched up over time, with a large gauntlet on his right arm.
"Am I late?" The boy asked them.
War seemed confused by this boy's question, since he had never met this kid before, so he didn't know how to answer him.
"No, Famine," went Conquest, answering him. "No one's late…nor are they early. They arrive, precisely, when they intend to make their presence known."
"Famine? He's Famine?" War questioned, viewing this as an informal introduction. "So, there was one with that name and designation, and I didn't know?"
"There's a new Death, as well," Conquest explained further, "meaning that the four of us have been brought back together for the first time in too long a time."
"And where is he?" Famine asked.
"He should be around shortly," Conquest answered.
"I'm already here," went a new voice to the three, and they looked beside Famine's horse, seeing the white horse that resembled a unicorn…and its rider, accompanied by a see-through, floating infant.
"Okay, that's creepy, even for me," War expressed; normally, they'd each be able to sense the presence of one of their own, but this guy gave no warning until after he spoke up. "Is he him, Conquest?"
"Yeah, he's the new Death of the Restorative," the robed man introduced the former Shinji Ikari, who then got off his horse. "How long did it take you to find us here?"
"I just let my horse lead the way," Death answered him, softly petting the head of his mode of transportation without looking at her. "So, who's who?"
"In the same order of which the horsemen we get our names from, but not associated to causing the end of the world and such, I am Conquest, the Poison Master," Conquest introduced himself, and then pointed to War, "and this is War, the Violent One."
"Violent, not a tyrant, even though I probably should be," War expressed, making sure Death understood it right."
"Famine, the Great Hunger, also known as the Starvation," Conquest continued, introducing the boy that seemed to be Death's age at the time of death.
"Nice to meet you," Famine told Death.
"And you yourself, Death of the Restorative, are Death, the Endgame," Conquest identified Death himself. "It looks like we're a fitting quartet."
"Conquest, War, Famine, and Death," Death made sure he knew who was who, pointing to the robed man, the knight and the boy in rags, respectively before pointing to himself.
"The Four Horsemen of the Restorative," went Mako, addressing the four by a different identity. "Four lost souls tasked with saving the world instead of destroying it, something the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse would do for their masters."
Death then raised up his right arm, revealing his identity on his gauntlet.
"Then, it looks like we will be working together," Death told them.
Famine then raised up his right arm, revealing his own gauntlet, with his name engraved upon it.
"I didn't accept this state of purgatory for the world to suffer more than it already has," Famine expressed, "even if it does before we can heal it."
Then War and Conquest did the same with their right arms, revealing their status as members of the Four Horsemen of the Restorative.
FLASH! Each member saw a scene that was to come to pass: A giant of a diamond-like creature appearing in a city that wasn't one of the major ones, but carried a feature that made it stand out from the previous cities. There was some sort of structure shaped like…an incomplete circle coming out of the ground, forming a sort of gateway.
When the vision ceased, all eyes were on Famine, as though it was his turn to do something.
"War made sure New York was cleared out," Conquest expressed, "and Death had emptied out Tokyo-3 before he became Death. I got the city after yours, Famine."
"We should be drawing straws for something like this," Famine complained, and climbed atop his horse. "I mean, I don't fill out as much as you guys do."
"Do you even know know how to fill out?" War asked him.
"Easy, War," Conquest warned him. "He might not look it, but even Famine can be dangerous to people that pose a threat."
Famine's horse then turned back into the creature it had been prior to arriving on the island, and jumped into the water.
"I'll accompany him," Conquest sighed, "just in case he needs assistance."
As he got on his horse, Death and his twin looked at War, though Death was the only one capable of giving facial expressions that demonstrated some sort of dislike.
"What?" War asked.
"That was unnecessary," Death told him. "What you said to Famine. So…you should consider yourself lucky that you're a horseman and not a mortal."
The teenaged twin then walked away, leaving the knight with the infant twin.
"He's right," Mako told him. "You shouldn't underestimate a person…nor should you overestimate a person just because they don't seem like a threat to you or some other person or group. My brother encountered a similar situation when he was alive. Our cold tyrant of a father from that live thought my brother wasn't capable of such murder, and found himself facing a person he never thought would be able to cause him trouble the size of the city he died in."
"Your brother's a legend in my perception; what he did in ten days' time, it took me years to do in my previous life before this one as a horseman… Back then, being able to live up to my family's expectations was all that mattered to me…until my own mother caused my own demise."
"Are all the horsemen victims of family-related sins?"
"I wouldn't know. Not every horseman speaks of their past. I'm not the first horseman to be War. I'm the tenth incarnation of War. With each succeeding member of each horseman designation, comes the formation of a different gathering of the Four Horsemen of the Restorative. Even one or two horsemen changing out of the quartet means a different group altogether."
The infant nodded in acceptance and then disappeared. After which, Death, feeling that he needed no further reason to stay after meeting the other three horsemen, took his horse and ran off.
-x-
People ran in the dead of the night as the newest Angel appeared in St. Louis, Missouri of the United States. Nobody ever expected a city not so dense in population to be invaded by a massive, diamond-like creature that made a noise like a chorus on massive megaphones. And as it floated above the tallest buildings, atop the Gateway Arch, Famine, eating a burrito stuffed with everything a burrito has in it, watched as the smart people were leaving and would know safety, leaving only the fools that chose to stay behind for him to deal with.
Neigh! His horse neighed, and he gave the rest of his burrito to it.
"I guess while we're here, we should eat all that we can, while we can," he decided, and saw some fires breaking out within the city as Ramiel positioned himself where he felt he needed to be and wait for everything else to fall into place.
The Angel's chorus-like vocalization felt like a song of salvation at the end of the world.
A/N: Here's the third chapter until after Thanksgiving. Please, review it and tell me what you think. If it's too short, I apologize, I just wanted to get it out there. Peace out!