Creation began on 10-01-19

Creation ended on 03-31-20

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Hope from the Past: Get to work

It had rested long enough and needed to do its duty that it was unable to do thousands of years ago. Its previous awakening was rather premature, but it was to stop a threat to its resting period that was needed to adjust to the current state of the world. But now…now, it was time to return to the world and serve the will of the lost civilization that made it with the hopes of eliminating the threat that they were partially responsible for unleashing on the world when they were dealing with a previous threat. Even if it was all that was left of the ancient protectors against the original protectors that became torturers, it would carry out its mission, regardless of the dangers presented…to ensure a future free from the shadows of the past's evil.

-x-

"What's going on here?!" Fuyutsuki heard one of the men yell as the atoll started shaking, moments after the mural…just fragmented into pieces and fell into a pile.

"The water!" Hiroko screamed. "Run to the water!"

He climbed out of the hole the mural had been in and ran towards the edge of the atoll. Jumping into the ocean water along with dozens of others that were running, Fuyutsuki swam back to the boat whilst the atoll started crumbling.

"What in the name of creation is going on here?!" One of the other men gasped.

Hiroko, also in the water, made it to the boat first and climbed out, throwing over life preservers and ropes so that the others could get back on.

The atoll sank into the water, leaving bits and pieces of debris and tools floating around.

Thud! The boat moved for a moment as something moved underneath it.

-x-

"…The atoll just disappeared?" Ritsuko questioned Fuyutsuki, two days after he returned from his time at sea.

"It made no sense," he told her, looking at his notes salvaged from the atoll. "What we found on the atoll…was nothing like what was seen before."

"Some of us think your atoll was what defeated the Sixth Angel. What we can't understand is how, though."

"An Angel defeated by an atoll? That's too crazy to believe."

"What we saw happen to the Seventh Angel was just as crazy. Instead of being dispatched by the Evas, it was… It was eaten up by a bunch of strange, flying creatures."

"Strange, flying creatures?"

"Twenty of them, ravenous. They were like demons. They had scales and teeth and could shoot light from their heads."

Fuyutsuki then had to go confirm something with Hiroko, leaving the Geo-Front.

-x-

"…How can they charge so much for fish?" Hiroko asked as she looked at the price tags on several fish selections in the local market.

"We eat more fish than beef, I'm told," she heard a young man say to her as he walked by with a shopping basket full of packaged beef pieces and small tuna. "The tuna's cheapest here."

"Thank you, sir," she told him. "You shop here often?"

"Yes. My guardian's often at work, so she can't shop all the time. Plus, she can't cook to save her own life."

"You cook for who you live with?"

"Better me than eating instant."

"Yeah, I guess that's true. Hey, that's an unusual trinket you have there."

Looking down at the magatama-shaped bead wrapped around his left hand, the young man responded, "Uh, thank you. I found it a while ago. It took me a little time to clean it, though. It was covered in dirt and rust."

Hiroko then suggested, "You should add some beads to it. It looks like it could use some prayer beads, give it a sense of companionship instead of being alone."

"Thank you."

Then, Hiroko noticed something else about the bead that she didn't notice earlier, but it resembled the beads that she and Fuyutsuki found on the atoll. The boy then left the store after purchasing his items, leaving Hiroko to wonder whether or not to tell Fuyutsuki about the bead. She then reached into her purse and pulled out the bead she had taken from the atoll, seeing the resemblance it had to the other bead.

Could they be the same? She wondered.

-x-

"…So, what if the next Angel appears and those things decide to show up again and turn it into an all-you-can-eat buffet?" Asuka questioned Misato as they, Shinji and Pen-Pen were eating dinner that night.

"We're working on that possibility," Misato told her, picking up her beer can.

"I think if it comes to that, those creatures are equally as dangerous as the Angels are, but they chose to go after the Angel instead of the Evas," went Shinji as he refilled his bowl with rice and fried broccoli. "Why would they choose to eat the Angel…and ignore the Evas?"

That's something even Misato wanted to know. If those creatures weren't Angels, then it was likely they didn't see the Evas as a threat…or just didn't see the Evas as an adequate food source, meaning the Angels, or at least the more-organic-looking ones, were a greater target to feed off of than the cybernetic Evas. And if those creatures could grow bigger just from eating enough of the Angels' hide, then they could be just as big as the Evas or Angels themselves. Who knows how dangerous they could be against the Angels if they were out looking to eat them? This would likely make the Angels more hostile towards them than with humanity.

Ding! The doorbell rang, catching their attention.

"Were you expecting someone over and forgot, Misato?" Shinji asked the woman.

"No," she answered him, "I didn't invite anyone over."

Shinji then got up and went to answer the door.

"Probably Kaji looking to see me," Asuka suggested.

"You wish it was him," Misato told her. Please, don't let it be him.

"Uh, Misato," they heard Shinji in the hall, "Mr. Fuyutsuki's here."

"Huh?!" Misato and Asuka gasped; they didn't expect to know that the sub-commander of NERV was here.

-x-

Eating what bits of whatever they could find in the wilderness, the twenty creatures that had attacked and devoured the Seventh Angel had managed to grow larger until each was at varying heights of between either thirty-five or forty meters.

"Rrrraaurgh!" They shrieked at the night sky, satisfied with their current fullness…until they needed to eat again.

-x-

This was disturbing to have Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki and his friend over, and part of the reason they just showed up unannounced was because the elderly man's friend, Hiroko, the same woman that Shinji had met at the market, wanted to see his magatama bead again.

"You two came here just to see that lousy bead he found?" Asuka questioned, finding it pathetic that anyone would take interest in some stupid trinket like that.

Hiroko, who was sitting in the living room where they currently were, reached into her purse and pulled out her bead.

"We found a dozen of these beads on the atoll we were investigating," she explained, and Shinji saw that it was identical to his.

"Maybe the thing we saw attack the Sixth Angel was the atoll you were investigating," he suggested to them.

"Yeah, it's likely so," Fuyutsuki agreed with him. "I only brought ten of them back to NERV for research purposes."

"What were you able to discover?" Misato asked him.

"They're made of a metal that doesn't exist on the periodic table."

"A new kind of metal?" Shinji questioned.

"The comma shape may have some relation to medieval Japan. Unfortunately, the metal it's made of is another mystery. They seem to have some connection with a tablet we found on the atoll that shattered when the atoll did."

Hiroko then took out a few pictures of the tablet and a copy of the translated characters that were inscribed upon it before shattering.

"You were able to translate what was written on that thing?" Asuka asked them.

"Yeah," Hiroko answered her. "Since there were characters to compare the runes to, it wasn't that difficult. It's confusing, however. Even though it was translated, we still don't understand what it means."

Misato looked at the translation and read it to herself.

"'The last hope, Gamera. We bestow him to the cradle of time.'"

Shinji peeked at the translation and uttered, "'May he awaken with Gyaos, the shadow of evil.'"

"That's all that was written?" Asuka asked.

"Yeah," Fuyutsuki answered. "We don't really understand it."

"It sounds like a prophecy," Shinji suggested.

"Do you really believe in prophecies?" Hiroko asked him.

"Not unless they're positive. Otherwise, why believe that things, such as fate and salvation, are written in stone."

"Sounds like you're not a big believer in such concepts. What do your parents think?"

Shinji sighed and expressed, "My parents are dead, ma'am."

"That's rough."

"Technically, my father is still breathing, but due to the fact that he's always at work and we don't have a relationship, for all intents and purposes, he might as well be dead."

"Oh… Kozo here didn't mention to me that Gendo Ikari was your father. Honestly, I don't see any resemblance between you two. I mean, you look like a gentle, sensitive fellow, and your father is…well, anything but a man that should talk to someone about himself instead of keeping to himself."

"Yeah, it'd be nice if he actually spoke about himself."

"Why does it seem like your father isn't a good person?" Asuka asked, curious.

"He never has anything nice to say," Fuyutsuki admitted, "about anyone or anything."

The redhead then looked at Shinji and merely shrugged. In her mind right now, it sucked to be him if his own father was not a good person, whether he was the leader of NERV or not.

"Gamera, Gyaos," she sighed, returning to the translated tablet inscriptions. "Who or what are Gamera and Gyaos? The last hope? The shadow of evil? It all sounds farfetched. And those beads you found? Maybe they're made of orihalcum or something."

"What? Ori…" Hiroko questioned, confused by what she said.

"Orihalcum," Asuka repeated.

"You actually believe in that phony, Atlantis belief?" Misato asked her.

"No, I found that word in a fiction novel that Shinji here reads."

"That's my business, Asuka," Shinji defended himself.

"That's a possibility," Fuyutsuki suggested. "Such a metal wouldn't exist on the periodic table, but Atlantis… The beads coming from there would be impossible."

"Why is that?" Shinji asked him. "People keep insisting that the fabled continent sank into the ocean eons ago."

"It sank in the Atlantic Ocean, hence its name Atlantis," Misato stated. "Their mysterious atoll was found in the Pacific Ocean, where we were when the Sixth Angel attacked."

"Yeah…"

"Hold on a minute," went Hiroko, putting down the photos of the tablet, "now, if such a place known as Atlantis truly existed, or even better, the lost continent of Mu, then who's to say that the story could've spread across the world, in various versions? Maybe they are made of orihalcum. Maybe this ancient civilization that made the beads was the background source of the myths that are Atlantis and Mu."

"You mean to suggest that the atoll we found, the very same one that attacked and defeated an Angel that attacked the fleet we were with…might've been related to some ancient race of people?" Asuka questioned. "That someone went and made it? Made an atoll, just like that?"

"Maybe," Shinji suspected. "How else do you explain how something covered in debris…was able to kill an Angel at sea? Or better yet, how a flock of strange creatures were able to kill an Angel you split in half…and get bigger with every bite they took of it?"

"Strange creatures taking a bite out of another creature?"

"They looked like demonic bats on a feeding frenzy," Misato stated.

"Demonic bats… Did they have scales and teeth, make a terrible screeching sound?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I think those are the same creature I saw on an island when I was attacked by them."

-x-

Now rid of the debris that covered its body, Gamera rose from the ocean depths, ready to fulfill his duty and rid the world of his ancient enemy, the revived Gyaos, before they could pick up where they left off and destroy all life on the planet.

To be continued…

A/N: There is more to come in the future.