Shinji's New Deity: It's all Greek to Shinji. [Episode 160600]

When people pray a god is always borne; brought into the world to wield great power – for good or for evil.

“Please, help us,” implored a feminine voice as the supposed god and his companions emerged from the swirling disorientation.  “If anyone’s out there, I implore you.  We need a god!”

“Did you hear that, Leader Ikari?” Rei asked.  “It sounded like a pure prayer.  It seems that we’ve arrived at the right place.”

“It’s coming from over there,” Shinji observed, then reached out and pulled them over the buildings towards some kind of monument.

“Oh!” an excited Asuka gushed, “it looks like these people have prospered and built a magnificent city.”  In truth, it wasn’t much at all when compared to Tokyo III, but compared to an abandoned village on a deserted isle it seemed to Asuka like civilisation incarnate.

“It looks all Greek to me,” Shinji remarked offhandedly.

“Very droll,” Asuka groaned.  “Still, these Grecian villas do have a certain elegance!  I’m so going to enjoy ruling over these people.  Oh!  We’ll put a palace over on those hills overlooking the city there, and…”

“Something appears to be happening over there,” a calm Rei understated, as Shinji pulled them over throngs of panicking people.  Dust clouds were gathering over the hill tops.

“Oh, thank you for answering our prayers, Great One!” prayed the young woman at the base of a monument.  On seeing the light glowing from Shinji’s body she had knelt in supplication.  “We desperately need your aide.  The Aztecs have overrun our armies and are attacking the city.  Our defenses are gone and we cannot stop them.  Unless you help us, we’re all going to die!”

“Uhm.  Okay.  I’ll do my best,” Shinji vowed with less than inspiring confidence.  He really had no idea what he was going to do.  A massive Aztec army had just burst over the hilltops and was streaming down towards the defenseless city like an unstoppable human avalanche.  Catapults lobbed flaming pitch soaked boulders at the dwellings, and the howling horde waved their spears and rattled their shields in time to their fierce battle cry as they drove the people before them.  “Why is there never an Eva when you need one,” Shinji protested as he made useless hand gestures at the brutal onslaught.  “Come on, come on, and bring a fireball on line…”

The woman looked up towards them, then stared at the glowing boy god in frank shock.  Clearly she didn’t seem at all inspired by his obvious lack of confidence and ability.  “So, this is it then?  We’re all going to die!”

“Probably,” Asuka agreed cheerfully.

“Quickly, Leader Ikari,” Rei suggested mildly, “there are people trapped inside those burning buildings.”

“Right,” Shinji decided promptly.  At least he knew what to do about that.  He’d had enough practice tossing trees across the island to be able to just yank people up into the air, fling them across the city, and deposit them safely.

“Excellent work, ‘Boss’,” Asuka sneered.  “You’ve dropped that villager into the vortex. …and there goes another one.  God of Idiocy!  What the hell are you doing to our people?”

“He’s putting them out of reach of the warriors,” Rei remarked.  “Don’t forget our worshiper, Leader Ikari.  We may need her latter.”

“But, but, the beautiful city,” Asuka wailed as villager after villager flew into the swirling mists and vanished.  “You can’t just abandon these beautiful villas to these brutes.  Hey!  Look at what they are doing now!”

“They’re killing our people with … barrels?”  Rei blinked in puzzlement.  Rolling barrels down the slope seemed a somewhat odd way to go about war.  “How strange … and oddly effective.”

“We need revenge!” Asuka asserted aggressively.  “Hey, Shinji, pull that fence out of the way and rein barrelly death upon those Aztecs over there.”

Shinji did so.  “Wait… did you just say ‘barrelly death’?”

“Hey, whatever works,” Asuka shrugged as the released barrels tumbled over the barbarian troops.  “Never mind that now.  Look, you can use that torch to set those bales of hay on fire and roll them onto that platoon creeping up from the shore!  Reign fiery death down upon them!”

“Huh?  Fine...”  Shinji just shrugged and did as he was told.  “I guess it beats just tossing rocks.”

“Oh!  Can you do that too?”  Asuka clapped gleefully.  “You can use that never ending pile of rocks over there.  Handy that!”

“Now what’s happening?” an exasperated Shinji demanded as the ground began to quake.

“Look,” Rei cried with unusual emotion.  It sounded almost like not-bored-indifference.  Her arm swept out and pointed up to a mountain top where a massive figure was gathering glowing power in its hands.  “That Creature up there is performing some kind of ritual.”

“It’s summoning a volcano!” Shinji cried in alarm and panic as the ground heaved up in the middle of the city and spewed lava.  “Can it do that? That is so unfair!  I totally don’t think it should be able to do that.”

Asuka grabbed him by the toga and growled demonically, “stop whining, ‘Boss’.  Send our creature up there to kick its arse!”

“We don’t actually have a creature,” Rei reminded her angelically.  “Not at the moment, anyway.”

“What can we do?” a panicking Shinji demanded as his hands flailed about uselessly.  “I can’t seem to get a grip on that monster.”  He tried tossing a rock, but seriously needed to work on his aim.

“We must save as many people as we can,” Rei countered with the calm voice of reason.

“We need to get out of here,” Asuka disagreed.  “But… yeah, grab as many people as possible on the way so we can build up armies and come back here for to get revenge!”

Under Asuka’s stern oversight, Shinji got back to work immediately.  He hurriedly plucked people off the streets, where they were running in circles, or out of the burning houses where they were screaming and shouting in blind unreasoning panic.  Not one of them, it seemed, had a clue about defending themselves – nor even getting out of the way of the onslaught.

“Oh, no,” Asuka swore.  “That Creature is summoning another volcano!  We need to get a Creature of out own, and soon.  We’ll raise it, care for it, feed it, and train it to battle!”

“Your influence appears to have faded, Leader Ikari,” Rei observed softly as Shinji’s force-grabs started to falter and fail.  “We can’t save any more people…”

“So, let’s get out of here, ‘Boss’,” Asuka ordered.  “Come on!  Move out!”

The tribe emerged from the vortex and stumbled into the deserted city center.  Shinji and his “consciences” drifted above them and surveyed the area.  Rei drifted serenely along on her little cloud, while Asuka fluttered beside him and complained.

“Excellent work, Leader Ikari,” Rei praised.  “Now we have enough people to settle the town.”

“Yeah, yeah.  These guys survived,” Asuka observed, “but think about all those who didn’t!  They’re toast now, thanks to our ‘All Mighty Boss’.”

“That’s hardly fair, Demon Soryu-Langley,” Rei countered. “It’s not Leader Ikari’s fault that he ran out of power.  Look at the edge of the village.  The green ring you see is now the extent of his influence.  He can only affect things inside the village.  We need to encourage these people to build.  The more impressive the village, the more our influence will spread, and the more powerful Leader Ikari will become.”

“We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us,” Asuka bemoaned.  “This place has got nothing on that magnificent city we left behind. Naah-thing!”

“It already has a storehouse and some fields,” Rei commented.  “That’s a good start.  There’s plenty of timbre with which to build, and that looks like some ore that we can mine.  There’s even a pen for our creature… if we ever figure out how to get one.”

“So, uh, where do we start?” Shinji asked.

“You need to put these bums work,” Asuka ordered imperiously.  “Look at them, just sitting around!”

“They appear to be praying, Leader Ikari,” Rei observed.  “Perhaps we should see what they need?”

People began waving and cheering as the light of Shinji shone over them.  They chanted, “… we need food … we need homes … we need food … we need to breed … we need food … we need wood … we need porn … we need food … we need ore … we need food … we need to go to bed … we need food … we need to go wee wee … … we need food!…”

“It appears that the people have desires,” Rei remarked redundantly.

“Oh, thank you, Mighty One,” the head worshiper groveled.  “Thanks to your intervention, the People are safe in this pleasant land.  But the storehouse is empty and we need supplies to begin building new homes if we are to survive.  Please, Divine Being, won’t you lend a hand?”

“The nerve!” Asuka huffed.  “Who do they think they are, making demands of us!?  Can’t they do anything for themselves?”

“We really should help them get started,” Rei advised.  “Perhaps, Leader Ikari could harvest grain from the field and squeeze trees into timber.  It will impress the people.”

“Nah.  Forget that!  Shinji, just pick up one of those slackers and turn him into a ‘disciple’. Put them to work for us!”

“Uh, and just how do I do that?”

“In the game you simply placed a villager next to a field, a tree, or something,” Rei reminded him.  “They should take it as divine inspiration and become a disciple.  Although this isn’t a game anymore, it’s worth a try.”

“Uh, okay,” Shinji decided hesitantly, “enie, meanie, minie…”

“Just pick one already!  God of Idiots!”

“Yo!” exclaimed the selected tribesman as he flew into the air, zoomed over the landscape, then landed gently on the shore.  His clothes turned into a raincoat and galoshes, and a rod miraculously appeared in his hand.  “Oh, thank you, ‘Great One’,” he muttered sarcastically.  “Why couldn’t you have just given me a fish to eat?”

“Hey, now!  Show a little respect for the ‘Boss’,” Asuka rebuked.  “Besides, you know what they say?  ‘Give a man a fish and he eats today, but put him on fire and he’s warm for the rest of his life!’”

“Ah ha-ha, right you are, Mighty One,” the suddenly nervous fisherman bowed suddenly and backed towards the water.  “Fishing it is then!  By your command!”  He bowed politely, bowed once again, tripped over and splashed around, then waded out and began fishing in earnest.  A soft aura surrounded him, clearly indicating his new status as a disciple fisherman.

“Huh! Did he hear me?” Asuka gaped as Shinji lifted them back towards the settlement.  “I think he heard me.”

“So it would appear,” Rei observed.  “Still, now we know it will work, Leader Ikari, and it looks like we’ll need more disciples.”

“Yeah,” Asuka agreed.  “Get to work, ‘Boss’.  Let’s see.  We’ll need some disciple farmers to harvest that grain, some disciple foresters to cut down those trees, some disciple builders to erect some homes, and some disciple breeders to, uh, do whatever those kinds of people do...”

“In order to reproduce, a male and a female need to copulate,” Rei informed her.  “This involves…”

“I know how it works!” Asuka screamed.

Rei cocked her head and considered the furiously blushing Asuka for a moment.  “Are you certain?  I’m sure Leader Ikari and I could arrange a demonstration if you wish?  I understand it is very pleasant.”

Asuka fluttered around, looking with satisfaction at all the work going on – mostly.

Shinji had inspired about a dozen of the tribe’s men into working fields, forests, and mine, or were busily erecting villas along the roads he’d traced out.  He’d also put half a dozen of the tribe’s women to work on … the other matter.  She wasn’t too happy about that, but over all things had begun going so well.  The disciples worked with slavish devotion; and the other villagers eventually got a clue and started pitching in with their own half-arsed efforts.  So it was all rather pleasing, except for one nagging detail.

“Boy, these villagers sure are slow at building,” Asuka complained.  “And the field workers are literally watching grass grow.  It looks like it will take months before their will be another harvest.  If it weren’t for the hunters and fishermen, the tribe won’t have any dinner.”

“Well, this is taking place in real time,” Rei observed calmly.  “So the buildings will take days to erect rather than minutes, and babies will take years to grow up rather than hours.”

“I don’t remember any hunters in the game either,” Shinji agreed (though there had been herds of animals for the creature to munch on).

“Whatever.  Shinji, hurry things along with some of that god building stuff,” Asuka ordered, “or we’ll never get our temple done.  Besides, these people need our help… because they’re so stupid.”

“Look, Leader Ikari,” Rei exclaimed mildly, “our worshiper appears to be trying to attract your attention over by the pen.”

“She’d better not start making more demands,” Asuka muttered, “or I’ll just have the ‘Boss’ here turn her into a breeder slut.”

“Great One, the People are worried that the cruel Aztecs will find this island paradise and we have no army to defend us here.  But according to the legends, every god has a Creature to aide his people in times of need.  I’ve studied the rituals left in this ancient ruin and I believe that I can perform a summoning ritual to call a small one into your service from the mythical ‘playground of the gods’.”

“Alright!  At last, a Creature!” Asuka exclaimed.  “We can wreck a lot of havoc with one of those, ‘Boss’.  Let the Aztecs come!”

“A Creature can also help gather resources from outside your influence, Leader Ikari,” Rei reminded them of the non-violent uses.

“Yeah, yeah, it can do lots of things,” Asuka agreed.  “But first… we need a Creature.”

“We need a Creature,” people began bleating.  “We need a fierce tiger!… We need a gentle cow! … We need a majestic penguin! … We need a noble lion! … We need a loyal sheep! … No, the sheep sucks! … We need an intelligent ape! … We need a swift cheetah! … We need a fleet zebra! … We need a mighty wolf! … We need a peaceful koala! … We need …”

“Alright, already!” Asuka snarled and cowed them to silence.  “Sheesh, the people sure can be demanding, ‘Boss’.  Now, let’s get summoning!”