Creation began on 10-18-14

Creation ended on 10-24-14

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Different from You

A/N: We've all either read of, thought of, or even suggested of the different possibilities of how to portray Shinji Ikari with a different past to reshape his present and future, whether it was putting him with relatives that actually care, having him find something ancient or some other supernatural talisman that grants its holder power beyond their imagination, or even just having him find a different love interest that would spend time with him and help him move on with his life. But what if, like some cases of actual events that occur in real life were to happen to him? What if, despite his age, he showed some maturity that seemed almost beyond what other teens his age would display in the world of Eva? Here's something that came to mind just a while ago today. Here's to another prototype story in my multiverse of Evangelion with different scenarios and characters for bringing irregularity and hope to those that have none.

The police found him as soon as they got hold of the ransom demand that was put on his life, but they weren't able to prevent the threat that was placed on him if the ransom wasn't met within a given timetable. While he wasn't harmed in a physical sense of the word; he still had all his fingers and toes, there were no bruises on his wrists or back, and he didn't lose any blood was deprived of any food or drink, but young Shinji Ikari had been abused by at least one of his kidnappers in a way that no child should ever be harmed. He was taken to the hospital, but he couldn't talk about what had happened to him, no matter how much the police questioned him about it. They just wanted his testimony on the kidnappers and his abuser to make their already-hard case against them even harder, and he was at the age where he qualified to bring his kidnappers and abuser to justice.

"This feels good, doesn't it?" He had been asked, wanting only to forget that moment locked in time.

His face had been on the news, but after six months of trying to put his three-day capture behind him, the police came back to his aunt and uncle's home to reveal something they felt the boy had to know.

-x-

Four years later

Sometimes, Shinji was glad to be away from his aunt and uncle. They rarely, if ever, showed any actual consideration towards him for his maturity in the four-and-a-half years following his capture and experience. But the police decreed that he had a right to know what happened, regardless of opinions or laws.

"They're going away for a long time, but he should know what happened after that night he was assaulted," one of the police had told his aunt and uncle.

"We're sorry," went an electronic, female voice to Shinji over the phone, "but the number you're trying to reach cannot be reached at this time. Please, hang up and try again later."

He sighed and hung up the payphone, and then looked to his ward.

A girl, between three-four years of age, with short, ebony hair and pale eyes, dressed in a blue skort and a green coat.

"Call didn't reach out?" She asked him.

"No, I'm afraid it didn't," he answered.

"Bad?"

"No, but not good, either. It looks like we're walking."

"But my feet hurt."

Shinji lowered and allowed her to climb onto his back, and he grabbed their two bags and started walking away from the train station they were at.

-x-

"…Of all the times I had to lose track of him, it had to be today," went a woman with purple hair, driving a blue Renault A310, going over the lack of surveillance on the subject she had a file on.

"It's not my fault you overslept this morning," went a female voice on her cell phone.

-x-

It was a quiet walk for Shinji and the girl. The town itself seemed empty, so there was no one to bother them. It allowed for the boy to be alone with his thoughts while the girl acted as his unheard companion, trying to make sense of things in the present that weren't in the past.

"They called her Fuyona," his uncle had told him, "because that's what she'll always be: Unwanted."

"That's not true," Shinji had told him in response to this revelation. "It will never be true."

Fuyona to those around them, but to him, she was Shado, his shadow, in one way or another. Plus, it seemed better to be his shadow than to be unwanted just because of the circumstances that was always between them and the unrest of the past.

The next thing he knew…fighter jets flew passed them over the buildings and toward a large creature that looked like it was from some other point in time that was long gone.

"What is that?!" Shado questioned, pointing to the monster.

"I'm not sure," he responded, fearful at the moment.

Suddenly, a blue car swerved in front of them in between the giant creature as it was being assaulted by the VTOL jets.

"Get in!" A woman ordered them, and they obliged.

They drove away from the town as it became a battlefield.

-x-

"…Conventional weapons are useless," went a cold man dressed in black to an older man dressed in grayish-brown.

Then, on a large series of holographic monitors, the creature that was attacking the small city was engulfed in a ball of fire that took the whole settlement with it. Or so the people wanted to believe.

-x-

"…Ow…my head," Shado groaned, having hit her head against the back of the front passenger seat that Shinji was in.

"Are you okay, Shado?" He asked her, looking back to check her head. "Looks like a bruise."

"What possessed you to bring a little kid with you?" The purple-haired woman asked.

"Don't yell at him, please," Shado told her, which caught her off guard to be spoken to like that. "He has done nothing bad. Yelling at him is bad, which makes you bad."

"It's okay, Shado," Shinji told her. "To answer the question, I couldn't leave her alone. My aunt and uncle, they'd just love for me to try."

"Your aunt and uncle? You mean, she's not your cousin?" The woman asked.

"I'm his ward," Shado expressed.

"His ward, hmm? Doesn't he seem young to be acting as your guardian?"

"It happens," Shinji expressed.

-x-

"…Fuyutsuki, handle things here," the man in black said to the elder, as control of the situation had been handed over to NERV.

As he left, the elder man expressed, "His first reunion with his son in years."

-x-

Being shown the Geo-Front and NERV HQ, Shinji and Shado were led through the base by Misato, who seemed reliant upon a map to find her way around the building. The little girl was being held by Shinji because he didn't want her walking too long.

"Captain Katsuragi," they heard a new voice in front of them as they neared an elevator.

It was a woman, dressed in a white lab coat, a black skirt and stockings, and a blue blouse. Her hair was bleached blond and she had a mole under one of her eyes.

"Hey, Ritsuko," Misato greeted her.

"Why must you try my patience?" The woman, Ritsuko, asked her. "You do realize that we're short on both time and personnel?"

"Sorry," Misato apologized. "I haven't memorized the layout of this place yet."

The faux-blond woman then looked at Shinji and Shado, wondering why a little girl was with Misato and the boy.

"Is this the boy?" She then asked.

"Um, yes," Misato answered. "According to the Marduk Institute, he's the Third Child."

"Why is a kid with him?"

"He wouldn't come without her…and he couldn't leave her alone."

Shado just held on tighter to Shinji, who responded in turn by holding onto her tighter.

"Very well, then," Ritsuko expressed. "This way, please."

They followed her down the hall.

Why would he want to see me? Shinji thought, wondering why his father sent a letter that, more or less, demanded that he show up to see him. Whatever the reason, it can't be anything short of reconciliation.

Ritsuko led them into a dark room and turned on a light, revealing a large, purple face with a horn.

"Aaaahh!" Shado gasped, turning her face away from the giant head.

"What is this?" Shinji demanded, both fearful and angry.

"This is the last card our species as a whole has to play, our last stand against the Angels," Ritsuko declared. "The synthetic construct codenamed Evangelion Unit-01, built here in secret."

"And I'm guessing that this is that man's work?"

"Correct!" Shinji looked up and saw his father behind a lot of thick glass. "It's been a while, Shinji."

Shinji frowned and responded, "You got a lot of nerve."

Shado turned to look up at Gendo, and immediately turned away; she found both the man and the giant head scary.

"Listen carefully to what I'm going to tell you, Shinji," she heard the man say. "You're going to ride in Unit-01. You're going to fight the Angel."

Shinji looked at Gendo, and then at Misato and Ritsuko, and responded, "No."

"If you don't, then we're all dead," he told him.

"But it took Rei over seven months to synchronize with the Eva," Misato expressed. "A boy that just arrived has no chance!"

"He just needs to sit in the seat," Gendo told her. "I don't expect more than that from him."

"I won't do it," Shinji repeated, wanting his response heard hard by his old man. "You can't make me."

-x-

The Angel, once it had regenerated from its injuries, had entered Tokyo-3, ever-more determined to locate the source of a colossal disturbance in the balance of life and wisdom.

-x-

"…If you don't do it, then the human race will be destroyed," Misato tried to convince Shinji, as he walked away down the hall with Shado.

"My concern isn't everyone," he told her. "My concern is Shado. I don't have the luxury of being worried about people I just met or don't know."

Shado looked at Misato and held on tighter to Shinji, which made the purple-haired woman confused at how this girl could seem so attached to the boy.

"I've never seen or heard of anything that seemed so ludicrous before in my life, and that man expects me to do something after showing up?" Shinji continued to her. "If I knew the only reason he sent for me was just to exploit me, I would've been better off on a boat with Shado heading for the States to start a new life where people don't know you or try to bother you."

"Would you at least try to pilot the Eva?" She suggested, which only made Shado lock her hands around Shinji's neck, as if worried that he might be taken from her.

"He said 'no'," she expressed to the woman. "He doesn't want to do what you ask of him. You can't make him."

"Why are you defending him?"

"You shouldn't make people do what they don't want to do for you. That man is bad. That lady is bad. People that hurt you are bad."

"And he'll hurt a lot of people if he doesn't stop the Angel."

Shinji stopped walking away, sighed, and then turned around to face Misato.

"You have no one else more qualified to do this?" He asked her.

"Our initial pilot was injured in an earlier test and our second pilot is on the other side of the world in Germany," she explained.

Then, seeming like he had no alternative, Shinji went, "I'll do it this one time. Then we're gone."

Misato accepted his decision, but Shado worried that he was making a mistake.

The girl feared for his safety, that he might not come back, that she would be left alone.

-x-

As the Angel wandered into the center of the city, it sensed something new coming towards it.

Suddenly, the ground in front of it opened up…and revealed a massive humanoid that resembled what had been taken long ago…but stunk of what it despised for an unexplainable reason.

-x-

"…Shinji, I want to try walking for now," went Ritsuko over the intercom inside the Entry Plug to Shinji. "Just think about walking."

Walking, he thought, though his thinking was hardly focused solely on walking. Baby steps.

The Eva lifted up its right leg…and brought it down in front of the left leg.

Walking, walking, he continued, making the Eva take another step forward…but then the cybernetic behemoth charged toward the Angel.

What?! Stop! Stop! Shinji thought, but the Eva wasn't listening, and it slammed into the Angel, sending it to the ground. "Ouch."

The Angel then kicked the Eva off and send it several feet away, landing on its back.

"Shinji, get up!" He heard Misato say to him, just as the Angel approached him and grabbed his left arm. "Get outta there!"

Grip! The Angel pulled on his arm, causing him pain.

Shinji heard someone saying that he wasn't in any real harm, but what he was feeling in his arm right now seemed real enough.

SNAP! He soon heard and felt a break in his limb, but didn't find it in to scream out in pain.

The sight of the Angel looking at him, almost piercing into his very soul, exploring his past memories was enough to frighten him.

SMASH! The Angel had punched a hole into the Eva's head, right through the right eye, sending it flying backwards into a building where it fell, bleeding out a blood-like substance from the open wound in its head.

-x-

"The head is damaged!" Shado heard someone say. "Extent of damage is unknown!"

"We're having trouble maintaining activation!" She heard someone else say.

"What about Shinji?" Misato asked.

"We can't confirm if he's alive or dead," a man explained, and it made Shado worry like there was no end to this madness she found herself in.

"That's it. Abort operation. Pilot safety is our top priority. Eject the Entry Plug!" Misato ordered.

"We can't!" A woman told her. "We've lost contact with the Eva!"

"What did you say?!"

The sight of the damaged Eva meant nothing to the girl, but the fear that her companion inside of it was hurt or worse frightened her.

"Get out of there," she uttered, her voice tone rising. "Daddy, get out of there!"

Misato, Ritsuko, Fuyutsuki and Gendo all looked at the girl, unsure of what they heard just now.

-x-

"Daddy, get out of there!" Shinji had heard Shado shout out to him, and came to inside the Entry Plug.

I can't leave her alone, surrounded by strangers, people that would just as turn her away than to help her. I'd be no different from him, and I am not him. He thought, trying to get the Eva to move.

The cybernetic behemoth's other eye flashed back on as its jaw broke open, revealing red, metallic teeth inside.

GROWL! The Eva acted up, and then charged toward the Angel a second time, this time slamming into it with enough force that it pushed it backwards and into a building.

SMASH! The building crumbled down to its foundation, causing dust cloud to build up, and then Unit-01 grabbed a piece of debris and started slamming it down on the Angel's core.

"Iiiiiieee!" The Angel shrieked, grabbing onto the Eva, and then reshaping itself into a deformed ball and entrapping the enemy behemoth.

-x-

"It's gonna self-destruct!" Misato gasped, and the Angel consumed the Eva, along with a small portion of the city, in a ball of white light.

When it faded, some of the buildings had minor flames…and the Eva itself was walking away from the explosion, searing with small burns…until it fell to its knees and collapsed.

"Life signs confirmed," someone said, "from both the Eva and the pilot."

Misato sighed in relief, but then turned to look at Shado, whose presence raised some serious questions that required answers to.

Shado looked at her…and stepped back against a nearby wall, fearful of her now.

Ritsuko and Gendo also looked at the girl, wondering what her relationship to Shinji was really based on, as they heard her say something that seem unlikely.

"Shado, did we hear this right?" Misato asked her. "Did you just call Shinji…your daddy?"

-x-

Feeling slightly weakened, Shinji awoke to find himself facing an unfamiliar ceiling, which he found the least of his concerns now that he was conscious. As he rose up out of bed, his first thought was to find Shado and leave, feeling that they had overstayed their invite. But his feet felt weak, causing him to wobble each time he took a step toward the door to the room.

The door suddenly opened…and Misato stepped in.

"You're awake," she expressed, though Shinji gave her a frown that was clearly a sign that he didn't trust her as far as he was willing to throw her. "We have some questions that you need to answer."

"I thought I stopped the Angel last night," he uttered to her. "It wasn't easy, but I held up my end. Where's Shado? What did you do with her?"

"She's fine. She's with Ritsuko and your father."

"You left her alone with him?!" Shinji yelled at her.

"We needed to confirm something about you two," she tried to explain, though Shinji approached her and then moved her out of his way to leave out the room. "Wait! I can explain this!"

"I have to get her," he expressed. "We have to leave. Now."

"Now, hold on a moment," Misato tried to stop him, grabbing his left arm. "Shado called you something that you need to explain, because we're confused by your relationship."

"I don't owe you any explanation."

"Then why did she call you something that puzzled everyone after you got hurt? Why did she call you her daddy?"

Shinji stopped resisting and stood against the wall in the hall, looking at her.

"It's not something people can either accept or understand, because it's complicated," he told her.

"Then make it simple," she responded.

"She's my daughter."

"So, uh, what, you two play house or something?"

"No. I mean it literally. She's my daughter. My blood."

Misato tried to see it on his face, that he was just joking around and the girl that came with him was just a cousin…but nowhere on his face was a sign of humor. No, this boy's look was as serious as his tone was when he declared that he would deal with the Angel, but leave afterward.

"You're serious?" She asked him.

"As cancer and diabetes are serious and hard to beat," he answered.

-x-

"…She ran right into the ventilation shaft right after she saw the syringe," Ritsuko explained to Misato and Shinji when they arrived into the room Shado was taken to in order to draw blood to check her genetic background. "We've been unable to flush her out."

Shinji frowned at her and said, "She's a little girl, not a pest."

"And your daughter?" She asked.

"He's serious, Ritsuko," Misato told her, just as Shinji lowered onto his knees and crawled into the ventilation shaft.

"Shado," he called out to his daughter. "Shado?"

"Daddy?" He heard her daughter say in response to him, crawling out of the shadows further ahead of him. "Is that you?"

"Hey," he greeted her with a smile as she got closer and held him in her arms.

"That lady with the needle, she was going to hurt me, so I hid," she explained why she was in the vent.

"It's okay. I'm not going to let her or anyone stick you with a needle that doesn't help you. Come on, let's get out of here."

They slowly crawled out of the vent, though Shado was hesitant with both women so close and Ritsuko near with surgical tools until Shinji made her back away.

"Why can't you just swab people for their DNA?" He asked the faux-blond woman. "It's less invasive and painless."

"But blood can tell us more," she defended her use of syringes.

"Nobody's putting needles in Shado," he defended his child.

"How can you have a daughter at your age?"

"Not here…and not in front of Shado."

So they returned to the room Shinji had been placed in and left Shado in order to have some privacy to explain what had happened years ago.

"You ever heard about that kidnapping and ransom demand that was almost five years ago?" He asked the women.

"Yeah, a ten-year-old kid had been taken by three petty criminals," Misato explained.

"It was me," he revealed.

"And the girl?" Ritsuko asked.

"My daughter with one of my kidnappers and the only woman that was present before the police came and found me."

"You were raped?"

"Yeah."

"But…if your rapist went to prison, then how…"

"She had Shado in prison and died a month later," he cut her off. "I had put what happened that day behind me when the police showed up at my aunt and uncle's and explained that Shado was my daughter. They wanted nothing to do with her, but I didn't give them that option of turning her away."

"You mean, you wouldn't let them get rid of her?" Misato questioned.

"They didn't have any right to decide what was going to happen to her without my knowing. They never cared much for me, so their dislike of her was an extension of their dislike of me, just because she was mine."

"But ten-year-olds can't look after children," Ritsuko expressed, being against his decision to be a father when his own father wasn't. "You had other options."

"Yeah, and I refused to consider them," he told them. "I'm willing to admit that I have flaws, that I don't have it all together to look after her by myself, even taking an after school job in order to make my daughter happy, but I accepted this personal belief I had after my first year with her, that despite all the awful things I've been through, she is the only good thing I ever did in my life…and I wouldn't regret the choices I made to be with her."

-x-

"…This is quite the discovery," went Fuyutsuki to Gendo in the latter's office. "Your son was raped, and his rapist had his child and died in prison."

"And he's taking care of her," Gendo expressed, clearly uncomfortable with this revelation. "This wasn't supposed to happen."

"Unexpected things will always happen, Ikari," Fuyutsuki told him. "And this is one of them. Your son has a daughter, and he views her as the most precious thing in his life."

But Gendo could care less about his son's child. What mattered was the benefit NERV received from the deployment of Unit-01 with a compatible pilot, and Shinji and Rei were the only ones compatible with the purple behemoth. If Shinji was unwilling because of other obligations, then he needed to find a way to remove the distractions that were present.

-x-

"What now, Daddy?" Shado asked Shinji, as her father put on his shoes.

"I'm not sure, sweetie," he responded, "but we'll find out when we leave."

When he secured the laces, he led her out of the room and down the hall, looking for the elevator. He could've found where he was to sign out first, but he wanted to get his daughter as far away from his father as possible. Also, he suspected that he was going to get weird looks and gossip rumors from the people here, which he wasn't looking forward to at all.

"Shinji Ikari," he stopped at the voice of Ritsuko Akagi, coming from around a corner in the hallway, carrying a clipboard with her.

"What do you want?" He asked her.

"Commander Ikari would like to see you," she answered.

"Well, I don't want to see him," he told her. "I have nothing to say to him, and I'm not interested in hearing anything from him."

"It's only to discuss the possibility of you staying in Tokyo-3 and joining NERV for an extended period. There are still more Angels to attack in the future and…"

"No! No way! I'm not doing it again! Never again! Forget it!"

Shado held her father's left hand and went with him past the lady, wanting to leave before trouble came.

They made it to an elevator and waited for it to arrive. But when it did, the little girl noticed the very same man that was her father's father, and cowered behind Shinji to avoid her.

Shinji looked at Gendo, who had a cold look on him, knowing that there was truly nothing to say between them. The man had disregarded his responsibilities as a parent, something that the boy, a young parent himself, refused to disregard because his child needed him, and he wouldn't become anything like the man in front of him, deciding long ago that child abandonment wasn't an option or an alternative solution when in a situation that seemed to have no way out.

"Daddy," went Shado to Shinji, "let's take the stairs. I don't want to go in the elevator with that man."

Shinji bent down and picked his daughter up and then walked away, agreeing with her to take the stairs, since the elevator seemed like a bad choice so long as Gendo was in it.

Shado then noticed Gendo stepped out of the elevator…and started walking down the hall behind them.

"Daddy," she whispered, "he's following us."

Shinji stopped and turned around, seeing Gendo was indeed behind them in the hall, and then walked faster to get away.

"Is he still behind us?" He asked her.

"Yes," she shuddered, holding onto him tightly.

When Shinji found a staircase, he went around a corner and placed his daughter on the ground behind him; if his father was indeed following them, he wasn't going to give the man the satisfaction of frightening them.

"Try and keep quiet," he instructed her, and then pressed against the wall.

A shadow appeared…and Shado saw Gendo entering the staircase!

Shinji frowned that he was following them, and then lifted his left leg and landed a blow right into Gendo's crotch area.

"Aaurgh!" Gendo groaned, not expecting such an assault, and fell to his palms and knees.

SWAT! Shinji then dropped his right arm on the back of Gendo's head, sending him to the floor.

"Don't follow us," he told him, and then picked up Shado and ran up the stairs.

-x-

"…Do you really think that Commander Ikari intended to harm the girl?" Ritsuko asked Misato, discovering that Gendo had been assaulted by his son and left the Geo-Front.

"It could've been a misunderstanding," Misato responded, "but judging from Shinji's fear of Shado being left alone with him, I'd say he had every right to believe his father was a threat to his daughter if he followed them. I mean, why follow them to the stairs when the elevator is much quicker?"

"He did want to talk to him about joining NERV, but turned the suggestion down. Is there any sign of them in the city?"

"No. Shinji must be a speed freak or something, because they're not in the city. They must be a mile or so outside it."

"Where could they possibly go? How far could they possibly get?"

"Shinji did say that if he knew the reason to why his father wanted to see him, he would've taken Shado to the States and stayed there. He could try getting them there right now."

-x-

Less than two miles outside Tokyo-3, Shinji carried Shado on his back as he continued to walk toward the next town. He had actually assaulted his father and got away with it, told him not to follow them and survived the encounter, protected his child and managed to leave the city.

"Daddy?" He heard Shado speak to him.

"Yes?" He responded.

"Will there be any kids my age if we make it to the States one day?"

"I'm sure they'll be dozens of kids your age, Shado."

"And snow? And fish? And opportunities?"

"All of that and more."

"Daddy?"

"Yes?"

"I love you very much."

"I love you, too, Shado."

-x-

Within the core of Unit-01, the resident soul had replayed the memories of the last person within the Entry Plug, discovering all that had happened to the child since its displacement from existence. How the boy had been kidnapped in the hopes of obtaining a generous ransom in return for the safety of said child. Disgusted with the discovery that the boy had been raped by a woman old enough to be his mother…and later having his daughter before dying in prison. Both proud and saddened by the boy taking responsibility as a father to a child young enough to be his baby sister or cousin when his aunt and uncle wanted nothing to do with her, just because of who he was.

Fuyona to those around the girl, as it was written on her birth certificate, but to her father, she would be Shado, his shadow in a world with limited light.

Shinji, thought the soul of his displaced mother, Yui Ikari, I am sorry.

While she had some hope that she would see him and her granddaughter again, she also had the hope that they were as far away as possible, away from the hurt, the pain and everything. Tokyo-3…and much of Japan, for that matter, didn't seem like the proper place to raise a child that not many people wanted because she was born to a former preteen without parents and a female pedophile that had tried and failed to obtained fast cash. But the memories of her granddaughter from her son's perception would suffice for her; Shado reminded Yui of Shinji when he was little, so innocent and unaware of what was going on in the world in the present.

"I love you, Daddy," Shado had once told her son, just as she was going to sleep one night.

"I love you, too, Shado," Shinji told her, going to sleep beside her; he kept her close whenever possible to avoid her being lost to him.

Yui felt like she had shamed them in a way. If she had known that Shinji would be kidnapped and then raped, she would've stayed with him instead of participating in the experiment to bond with the incomplete Evangelion at that time. If she knew Gendo would abandon their son the instant she was gone, she would've taken preventive measures to ensure that Shinji was taken care of properly. If she'd known that…that things were going to happen the way that they did, she would've never did what she did all those years ago.

She had wanted to bring about a bright future for all of mankind, but instead, she found Shinji trying to give Shado a future where they could be happy and free. It made her want to cry for them.

A/N: What do you think of this? As far as it's to my knowledge, no story like this has ever been conceived before. Please, review it and let me know what you think of it. Should it be continued? I'll leave it as an in-progress story for the foreseeable future, but I may have future ideas for this story.