Creation began on 10-28-12

Creation ended on 03-11-15

Neon Genesis Evangelion

I Dream of Evangelion

A/N: After watching an old sitcom, I realized that nobody had done something like this before. First come, first serve. Let's do this, yo!

It wasn't every day that the fourteen-year-old Shinji found himself with time to go to the beach. It was mostly because his aunt and uncle told him to in order to get him out of the house to spend time with their son, and less of the fact that his grades were so-so. But the letter he received from his father, informing him, or rather, telling him, to come to this Tokyo-3 city, which he could really care less for because he wasn't as interested in the future as he demonstrated a questionable interest in the past. Myths and legends, in particular. This, second only to his interest in culinary arts, was looked down upon by his guardians, who stressed him to look into the future instead of the past, since he was going to the city of tomorrow to meet with his father. Of course, he could tell, immediately, that they were desperate to get rid of him, the son of Yui Ikari, the girl with a passion for science.

But he didn't care. Nobody ever did. For the last eleven years, he'd been looked down upon by, virtually, everyone, simply because of who his parents were and for his lack of interest in real things besides cooking. He even added this in a report he had done, and the teacher gave him a "B" for not taking the report serious. Sometimes, just sometimes, he wished that there was somebody that cared about him for him, that wouldn't chastise him, wouldn't exploit him, hurt him or even abandon him like his father had when his mother died when he was three. He just wished that somebody would be there for him when he needed them to be, and would give him kind words and encouragement.

"Why, after so many years, would he want to see me?" He questioned, and then tripped over something and fell to the sand. "Aaah! Aah…why me?"

He got back up, and saw what he had tripped over. It was some sort of rusted bottle that looked like it belonged to a museum or an art collection. Sand was caked over much of it, and it possessed a top that reminded him of artistic caps for cosmetic products. It made him think of mythology, but he couldn't recall what part of mythology it was. However, he couldn't let go of the curiosity of what might be inside the bottle.

I wonder what could be inside it, he thought, shaking the bottle, but it felt empty, yet it had a cap on it, meaning that there had to be something inside. Maybe if I remove the cap.

He pulled on the cap, twisting it until it suddenly came off the bottle. Smoke, black and blue smoke, came out of the bottle, causing him to drop it back onto the sand, backing away.

"When the bottle is opened by kind hands lost in the darkness," he heard a voice speak out, "let them know desires that can be fulfilled."

The smoke that escaped the bottle gathered in front of him and condensed on the sand, forming a shape that seemed humanoid. He expected the shape to be some sort of monster unlike any the world had ever seen, but as the smoke soon dissipated, he saw that he was mistaken. It was a rather-attractive woman, probably in her late-teens or early-twenties, dressed in flowing, black and blue clothing that reminded him of some of the type of clothing people wore in ancient times that had even survived to modern-day times, with long, flowing, amber-colored hair and purple eyes. She looked like she was of a non-Asian ethnicity that wore an outfit befitting those belonging to a harem of some sort. She was even kneeling in front of Shinji, her arms positioned in a prayer pose with a smile of untold gratitude.

Shinji, who thought he was dreaming, never expected to see a woman come out of a bottle before, and was surprised to see the woman approach him and kiss his left cheek!

"Thank you, Wagakimi (My Lord)," she told him. "You have set me free from my imprisonment."

"Uh, you're welcome," he responded, but then realized that she was speaking his native language…and she didn't look native to his country. "Wait a minute! You can speak Japanese?"

She knelt in front of him again and uttered, "Yes, My Lord. It has been decreed that whosoever releases me, I shall know their way of speech and inherit their tongue of language. This is Japan?"

"Yes. Who are you?"

Rising to her full height, which was a foot taller than Shinji himself, she expressed, "I am Pema, and I'm your genie."

Hearing that made Shinji gasp in awe; it wasn't every day that you hear someone tell you that they're your genie, which existed only in mythology.

"But…but genies don't exist," he responded.

"Nobody has seen vampires or werewolves, and yet they're real as I am, My Lord." Pema explained. "Uh, what year is it, by the way?"

"It is the year Twenty-Fifteen. Two-Thousand-Fifteen."

"Twenty-Fifteen, Anno Domini?"

"Yes?"

"I've…I've been sealed in my bottle for over five-thousand years, just as I was informed I would be."

Five-thousand years? Shinji thought, as the lore of genies was that they were thousands of years old, yet they often appeared humanoid or unattractive to the eyes of the beholder, but this one, Pema, was rather very beautiful…if he could ever admit it to her.

Pema then went and picked up the bottle she had been imprisoned in…and it began to look like time was reversing itself upon it. If Shinji thought it was ancient before, he now had to see it again because it now looked like a gift from the heavens themselves, glittery and bluish-purple, with some rubies and diamonds on the base of its design and some pearls on the cap and top.

"Pema?" He asked, wondering if she was going to leave him just because she found out she had been released after being kept in the darkness for over fifty centuries.

But Pema turned to face him…and handed him the bottle, speaking a small series of words that didn't make sense to him; they must've been of an ancient dialect that didn't exist any longer.

"Keep this with you," she told him. "As long as you have it, I will be by your side forever, My Lord."

He slowly nodded that he would keep the bottle. Then, even though he couldn't make heads or tails out of what had happened next, he was standing in front of his aunt and uncle's home with Pema.

"Huh?" He realized. "How'd we get here when I last remembered we were on the beach?"

"Oh, I just blinked us here," said Pema, who then blinked again, changing her outfit to resemble a blue, schoolgirl swimsuit of sorts with a purple skort covering the bottom half. "Is this okay, My Lord? It does seem like we're in the summer time."

Due to the fact that she didn't know that Japan had lost the other three seasons, Shinji was going to have to teach her in the ways of the world as far as he knew, but told her the outfit was okay. He took out his key and opened the door, seeing his aunt walking down the stairs, looking at him like he'd done something wrong, and seeing the beautiful bottle in his hands.

"Please, tell me you didn't steal that," she told him, which made Pema confused at her choice of words to greet her nephew. "And who is the woman beside you?"

"This is…a friend I made today," Shinji tried to lie; he couldn't just say that Pema was his genie to people that didn't believe in them or would probably desire her for unfair reasons. "This is Pema. I met her at the beach."

"He's such a gentleman," Pema added in, speaking kindly. "He helped me to cross the street and even sent away a man that was making a move on me. I was so impressed that I gave him my family artifact as a gift. It has brought me good luck in my years growing up that I believe it will grant him good luck, as well."

"Oh. Well, thank you, miss." Shinji's aunt expressed.

-x-

As he finished packing up for his trip to Tokyo-3, Shinji once more looked at Pema's bottle, wondering what she could do as a genie…and what she couldn't do. He accepted that she could change her outfit and was capable of transporting herself and him to his aunt and uncle's home, but what else could she do that was supernatural? He looked at his letter from his father and regretted ever opening it, thinking his father would say something kind to him, only to find it was anything but kind, along with the photo of this woman that was to pick him up when he arrived to the city.

"Shinji?" He heard Pema say his name, and he yelped in surprise.

"Aaahh!" He gasped, seeing her in front of him, dressed as she was when he freed her from her bottle. "Oh. Pema. Sorry. How are you?"

"I'm fine. You seem unhappy about something."

Shinji then noticed that Pema was sitting cross-legged, but was also floating four feet above the floor.

"It's my father," he confessed. "I haven't seen him in years, and now he wants me to come to this city, Tokyo-3, to see him. The problem is that we don't even know each other, don't talk to each other, and he's never said a kind thing to me after my mother died when I was three years old when he abandoned me. The last time I saw him was three years ago, but even that was a lousy time."

"Is he…truly awful from your point of view?" She asked him, wanting to know; for her, his opinion mattered above all others.

"Yes," he answered her, "he is awful."

"I want to know more about you, My Lord," she then said to him. "I wish to know whatever there is to know about you and your life, however large, however small."

"Why?"

"Because…I believe that we are so much alike. That I've probably been set free after so long just to meet you, and because you made a recent wish today…except I don't know what that wish was."

That's when Shinji remembered that he had made a wish while at the beach before he found Pema's bottle: He had wished that someone would care about him for him and wouldn't abandon him, that would want him around and give him kind words and encouragement.

"Well," he gave in, picking up her bottle again, "can we start with a little formality? You can just call me Shinji. Being called a lord is too uncomfortable to me."

"Of course, My Lord," she responded, but then corrected herself. "I mean, Shinji."

"Well…it all started when I was a little over three years old."

-x-

That was really the first time anybody ever truly listened to me last night, thought Shinji, recalling how he had told Pema about his childhood up to now, and she had listened without question, even crying at how cruel his father, aunt and uncle had been to him and holding him in a comforting embrace. And it was the first time anybody ever really wanted to know everything about me.

The last stop his train made was to this city, Tokyo-2, which seemed desolate, empty and without a single person walking the streets. He walked around for a while, but he saw nobody present, which made him wonder if the city was abandoned. Stopping, he opened his backpack and pulled out Pema's bottle, which he had almost gotten into a conflict over with his cousin, who wanted it only for himself, despite being informed that Pema gave it to Shinji and he alone was entitled to it.

"Pema?" He called out after opening the bottle. "I think it's safe for you to come out now."

Smoke came out of the bottle and formed into his genie; it would be a while before he would get used to her coming out of her bottle like this. She looked around the streets and then him, "Shinji, this place seems completely empty."

"That's what I believed, as well," he agreed. "The phones don't work, either. I tried to call the number my father left on the note he sent me, but I got nothing."

"I still don't see why you bother to even see him. Though, it's not like you can go back to your aunt and uncle again, either."

"They seemed happy to be rid of me, Pema. I don't blame them, of course. They never even told me to call them or write them, as if I wasn't coming back. And…auntie once said…that she wouldn't miss me at all if I was gone."

Pema held him by his shoulders and hugged him.

"I won't ever leave you," she promised him, feeling his arms wrap around her back. "Ever."

"Thank you," he told her, happy that she wouldn't leave him.

STOMP! Something shook the ground and them, causing them to react with some panic.

"What was that?" Pema asked.

STOMP! The something came again, louder and harder.

"I don't know," he responded.

Then, from around a large hillside, a giant monster appeared, attacking VTOL fighter planes. It reminded Shinji of the Gill-man, but bigger, with bones jutting out of his shoulders and chest, and possessing a red orb of sorts. It even seemed to feature bird-like qualities unlike any other creature he read about in mythology.

"Uh, Pema, couldn't you make this monster go away?" He asked his genie; they had gone through a lesson last night about what Pema could do as a genie…and what she couldn't do as a genie, as there were limitations set upon her before her imprisonment.

"I could try," she expressed, just as frightened of the creature as he was. "But where do you want me to send it?"

Shinji thought for a moment and an idea came to mind.

"Try Nevada," he suggested; last night, he'd also given her a crash course on the geography of the planet after the damage caused by Second Impact, which had reduced most of the state of Nevada into a wasteland with very few people.

"Okay," she agreed with him, but before she could cross her arms and work her magic, a blue car sped in front of them and a woman with purple hair showed up.

"Get in!" She ordered them, and Shinji grabbed Pema and hopped into the car; Pema would have to wait a while until she could do whatever she could.

They drove away from the battlefield as the creature continued to fight the planes that were shooting at it, but the creature was completely unaffected by the weaponry used against it; it like a wall of sorts was between it and the rest of the world. But once they were far away from the scene of great violence, Misato Katsuragi, the purple-haired woman driving the car, noticed that she had picked up one passenger too many.

"Okay, who's the chick in the harem outfit?" She asked Shinji.

"Huh?!" He realized that she was referring to his genie, who hadn't changed her outfit to fit in more with the ordinary crowd. "Oh, she's…my friend."

"I thought your father sent you a letter that said to come alone," Misato stated.

"Un-uh, his letter just told me to come," he corrected her. "It didn't say I couldn't bring a friend with me, and Pema and I have a good relationship."

Misato looked at Pema, the girl looked taller than Shinji, in addition to looking near his age group, but her appearance was clearly not of Japanese descent; there weren't many people of other races around Japan that stuck out.

"Pema?" She questioned, trying to recall where she once heard that name before.

"It's Tibetan for 'lotus'," the genie explained her name. "But I am not of Tibetan descent."

"She speaks our language?"

"She's very special," Shinji told Misato, but he didn't want her to know just how special yet.

-x-

The attempt to destroy the Angel with an N² Mine had failed utterly, and all of Tokyo-2 had been sacrificed to try and succeed. All that the mine do to the monster was singe its flesh and force it to grow a new face to replace the one that had been pushed to the side. When the result of the explosive assault on came back, command of the operation to destroy the Angel was transferred over from the JSSDF to the UN-controlled agency NERV.

"You'd better not screw this up, Ikari," said one of the generals to a man in his late-forties who seemed to possess a complete lack of respect toward his superiors.

"Relax," responded the man that was Gendo Ikari to the general. "This is what NERV exists for."

-x-

"…This place…is awful," said Pema to Shinji, as they followed Misato into the base of NERV HQ after being shown the Geo-Front.

"Yeah, Pema," he agreed with her, keeping a tight grip on his backpack, worried over the safety of Pema's bottle; he could've looked through the pamphlet Misato had given him earlier, but he decided against it, as it didn't really tell him anything he suspected he really needed to know.

They were about to pass through another door when a woman, probably in her early-thirties, dressed in a blue blouse, black skirt and stockings, a white lab coat and with faux-blond hair, appeared in front of them, bearing an expression of irritation.

"Captain Katsuragi," she uttered, and Misato seemed embarrassed by her presence, "why must you try our patience by getting lost around here? Do you realize we're short on time and personnel?"

"Sorry, Ritsuko," Misato apologized to the woman, "I still haven't got the layout of this place memorized yet."

Ritsuko sighed and then took notice of the fourteen-year-old boy and the tall girl beside him.

"Is he the boy?" She asked Misato.

"Uh, yeah," she responded. "According to the Marduk Institute, he's the 'Third Child'."

"And the girl?"

"She's his friend."

"I thought he was instructed in his letter to come alone."

"My letter only said for me to come here," Shinji defended his genie. "It didn't say I couldn't bring a friend. Beyond that, she's important to me."

"She don't look Japanese," Ritsuko stated, taking in Pema's features.

"If people are going to question my appearance, they're going to get dull explanations," Pema responded to the faux-blond, surprising her with her ability to speak their native tongue so fluently. "Why question or judge the way the gods made me? A person should be judged or questioned by their choices, profession and emotions, not their ethnic background and appearance."

Shinji nodded in agreement to what Pema said, though he had to disagree with her a little when it came to the appearance of his father, who was dark and cold.

Ritsuko couldn't find the words to defend herself against the genie's choice of responses, and instead led the trio to where they were supposed to be.

"Maybe I should've changed my outfit, Shinji," Pema suggested.

"No, it's okay. Besides, you look nice in that outfit." Shinji told her.

"Thank you."

-x-

"…Fuyutsuki, handle things here," said Gendo to an older man in a brownish-red suit as he left.

"His first reunion with his son in three years," the elder, Fuyutsuki, uttered, wondering how the boy had turned out.

-x-

"Does it really need to be dark in here?" Shinji asked.

"I can see just fine, Shinji," responded Pema, who really could see in the darkness. "There's a giant, horned demon up in front of us."

"What?!" He asked again, as the lights suddenly came up, revealing the creature that Pema had claimed to seen in the dark. "Aaahh!"

He backed away and held onto Pema's left hand.

"What is this thing?" He asked, demanding an answer.

Ritsuko and Misato were confused at how the girl could identify the behemoth in the darkness before the lights came on, but Ritsuko decided to answer the Third Child's question of what it was.

"It's the last card the human race has to play in the war against the Angels," she stated. "The synthetic lifeform code-named Evangelion Unit-01. Built here in secret."

"You made a monster in the image of the Baron of Darkness?" Pema asked her. "The very worst of the Four Barons of Hell because it is, essentially, the very Devil itself."

"Huh?" Misato was confused; she had never heard of any Barons of Hell.

"Is this…that man's work?" Shinji asked.

"Correct," they all heard a voice from behind the purple giant, seeing a man in black with orange-tinted glasses. "It's been a while, Shinji."

Hating the tone of his father's voice, Shinji responded, "Not long enough."

Gendo then noticed the girl that looked like she belonged to some harem of a tyrant or lord, wondered what she was doing here.

"You were instructed to come alone," he told Shinji, pointing to Pema, "so why is she here?"

Shinji was getting irritated with the same question being asked to him; if it wasn't the two women he just met today asking him why his genie was with him, it was his own father, of whom he was sure he wouldn't get along with, asking him.

"What is with you people?" He questioned. "Your letter said only to come to this city. Only to come. It didn't say to come alone or bring a friend. I chose to bring a new friend I met just yesterday. What's wrong with that?"

"Yeah, what's wrong with that?" Pema added, seeing the man and seeing the (extremely) minute resemblance that he had to her lord and master, but his tone of voice and emotional aura were all dark and twisted, like he had rotted away over time, both inside and out. "I've seen your letter to him, and nowhere is it written that he couldn't bring someone with him as company or as a companion. He's already been, pretty much, abandoned by the relatives you left him with that say that he is like you and your wife, which I don't see any comparison to at all. They didn't even ask him to write or call when he showed up here. I say it's all your fault because of your cruelty, your heartlessness."

Gendo hadn't expected some young girl that, even if he wouldn't admit it, looked like they had the beauty of a goddess, to speak to him like this. And his plan in having his son come alone (along with insuring he had no place to go back to) was to force him to do his bidding. But with this girl here with him, that would prove difficult…unless he got rid of her…right now.

"I'm afraid your…new friend…must be arrested for infiltrating NERV property," he told Shinji.

"If she's infiltrating, then I'm infiltrating, too," Shinji responded. "Now, why did you summon me here, old man?"

Before Gendo could even think of responding, the whole building started to shake a little; the Angel was right above their heads. And just then, several men in black suits showed up on opposite sides of the cage-like facility of Unit-01, raising their guns at the two children, more specifically at Pema.

"They certainly don't have proper ways to treat a lady," she told Shinji.

"No, Pema, they don't," he agreed with her.

"We're moving out," they heard Gendo say just then.

"What?" Misato gasped. "But Unit-00 is still out of action. Hold on, you mean…you're intending to use Unit-01 against the Angel?"

"There's no other choice," answered Ritsuko to her.

"But Rei can't do it," Misato expressed. "We don't have a pilot capable of handling this."

"We just received one," Ritsuko stated calmly.

With Pema's presence near him, Shinji seemed capable of coming to realizations faster than he used to when he was younger. The only reason his father sent a letter telling him to come here…was to simply serve him in a war he knew absolutely nothing about…against an enemy he knew nothing about.

"You people are crazy," he told them. "Let me see if I got this right: You send for me, after years of absence, tell me to come to a city I've never been to, to a place I know nothing about, just to fight a monster that I know nothing about? Are you demented?! Seriously, are you demented?!"

They must be demented, thought Pema, looking at the people surrounding the cage, looking at her master. This is no different from something I almost had to do back in my past…against my will.

"It took Rei seven months to synchronize with her Eva," Misato tried to reason with Ritsuko and Gendo. "A boy that just arrived wouldn't stand a chance against an Angel. He just got here."

"He just needs to sit in the seat," Gendo stated calmly. "We don't expect anything more than that."

"And our priority is to either halt and repel the Angel," added Ritsuko. "In order to do that, it's imperative that we have someone, anyone, really, that can synchronize to some extent with the Eva. Or do you have any suggestions in mind, Captain Katsuragi?"

Pema, who had listened to every word the faux-blond woman had said, decided to speak up with, "If that's what you say, then why didn't you get someone better-suited to handle your problem? Why don't any of you do it? Why Shinji, when he doesn't even know about anything that's going on here? It's like you (she pointed toward Gendo) deliberately, purposely, had him come here to fight in a battle he knew nothing about…and may not walk away from unscathed."

"Yeah, that's right," went Shinji, agreeing with Pema on what was stated. "Why, of all people, me?"

"Because there's no one else that can do it," Gendo answered.

But Pema, due to her unique circumstances, could tell a half-truth from a lie or a given truth whenever she heard one.

"You're only giving less than half of a truth," she told Gendo. "First, you say that this other person, this Rei girl, who can't do it on account of something we don't know about, and now you say that there's no one else that can do this. You're either being less than truthful…or you're being very deceptive and trying to cover up your problems instead of dealing with them precisely and carefully. Which one is it? Is there somebody else more qualified than Shinji…or isn't there?"

As the place shook again, the genie felt an aura that seemed similar to Gendo…and it was coming from…the Eva in front of her.

"We should leave, Pema," said Shinji to her. "If the jerk can't be honest…and admit that he's in the wrong, then that means he's been in the wrong for years and won't admit it."

Things were not going according to Gendo's plan. He needed Unit-01 to defeat the Angel…and he needed his son to pilot the Eva to do so.

"Fuyutsuki, wake Rei," he ordered the elder man on the comm.

"Can we use her?" He asked back.

"She's not dead yet. Bring her here."

Before Shinji and Pema could walk away, regardless of the men in black suits still aiming their guns at the girl, a gurney with another girl, about Shinji's age, was brought in. She was pale, had bluish-white hair, several bandages covering her, and wore a diving suit-like outfit. Her eye that wasn't covered in bandages was as red as blood, which reminded Pema of most of the darker parts of her childhood.

"Rei, our spare is unusable," Gendo told her. "You must pilot again."

"Yes, sir," she responded, though Pema heard something none of the others could hear; it was the absolute nothingness within her tone, like she didn't care about anything.

As the girl started to get up, pained by the effort it took, the place shook again, and pieces of the ceiling fell to the floor.

Pema looked up and saw some more pieces of metal fall from the ceiling and heading toward Shinji. She shoved him aside and allowed herself to become the target of the debris.

Crash! The debris fell on her and she fell to the floor.

"Pema!" Shinji gasped, getting up and running over to her. "Pema.

He grabbed the debris and lifted it off her.

"It's okay," she assured him as she got up, revealing not so much as a bruise or injury. "I'm fine."

"Aaahh," they heard the other girl, Rei, who was being helped up by the medical people present.

"Look at her," Pema expressed, pitying the girl. "She can't even stand."

-x-

As the Angel stepped into the heart of the city, something came out of the ground. It reminded the would-be invader of the almighty father of the Angels, but its appearance reeked of the almighty mother of the Lilin, and he despised both.

Then, the abomination took a step forward…only to fall down.

Sachiel, the Angel of Fish, unimpressed by the would-be might of this construct, approached it with the aim to destroy it so that it would not hinder him any longer than he had been hindered already.

-x-

Pema excused herself from the people on the command bridge to find the restroom, unwilling to watch Shinji get hurt. But once she found a restroom and locked herself inside a stall, she blinked herself out of the Geo-Front and onto a building nearby the Eva she viewed with some disdain for being modeled after the Baron of Darkness, as per her thought of being close to Shinji. She saw the Eva being picked up and its right arm grabbed by the creature the NERV agency dubbed an Angel.

He shouldn't even be in that demon, she thought, concerned for her master. He could die.

When she saw the Eva's arm snap, she knew that the line between safety and sacrifice had been crossed where it should've been drawn.

"When you return to the world that will have undergone immense change, you will also be forever changed," the man that entrapped in the bottle had told her before she was buried in the darkness. "You shall be bound to a fallen soul, cursed to do as commanded by a higher authority, for as long as you are damned. You, Pema, will be the Servant Beast of the Djinn, and bound to its faults."

No matter what is required of me, she thought, feeling different inside her body, I will do what I can to keep Shinji safe from harm.

When the Angel caused the Eva to undergo a head injury, Pema had disappeared from off the roof.

-x-

"Abort operation!" Misato ordered, fearing for Shinji's safety. "We have to rescue the pilot! Eject the Entry Plug!"

"We can't!" One of the female technicians declared. "We've lost all contact with the Eva!"

-x-

Shinji had lost consciousness within the Eva, feeling like someone had taken a hammer and used it on his head.

The Angel approached the fallen Eva, prepared to eliminate the hindrance, but then noticed something that wasn't there before.

It was some sort of humanoid that had an unusual stench that was more potent than the one the Eva gave off, with an elongated and muscular physique that its tattered clothing couldn't hide. There were whiskers on its greenish-blue face, tiny fangs and strands of black and white fur going down its back to its tail. Its eyes were both mesmerizing and scary; the right one was black while the left was white, as if symbolizing light and darkness, day and night. On its wrists were gold and silver shackles, indicating that it had been in some form of captivity for a time.

"Grr!" It snarled at the Angel, and placed its right claw on the Eva, triggering a large burst of fire to emanate around it.

Sachiel backed away as the Eva seemed to rise up from the damaged building and become covered in ancient-looking armor that was reinforced around the chest, the arms and legs.

"Grr! Hungry!" The Eva spoke up, its voice distorted and inhuman.

To be continued…

A/N: How's this for a first chapter? Cliffhanger! Until the next chapter! Peace!