Disclaimer: I own neither Evangelion or Stalker - Oblivion Lost. They are both products of their respective creators, Gainax, and GSC.
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Synopsis: It is the year 2017. The Angels are completely gone, the fate of SEELE unknown. In the year 2015, the JSSDF, or the military of Japan, attacked the NERV complex underneath the ground, hoping to stop NERV from initiating Third Impact. What no one anticipated though, were the arrival of nine SEELE Evangelions, using dummy plugs. Upon their arrival, the Commander in Cheif of the JSSDF notified the government, who came to the conclusion that no single action is too much to stop Third Impact, and that nuclear weapons should be used immediately. In the fire that consumed Tokyo-3, nearly 40,000 people lost their lives, including 200 NERV employees, and 3,000 JSSDF soldiers. The world being tense as it was in the realm of international politics, the nuclear strike on Tokyo-3 was enough to light the spark that launched the worlds shortest war. World War 3. The entire thing lasted no longer than two hours, but in that time, every nuclear power in the world, launched their entire arsenal at targets they deemed necessary. Naturally the major power such as the United States, China, Russia, Germany, Japan and others were completely devestated.
Now, two years later, the children once charged with fighting off Angels, are now fighting for their very lives, in area's called "Zones" around the world. These Zones are places that have exhibited extraordinary unknown anomolies, including deviations in gravity, plant-life, and wild-life. Zone #4, Tokyo-3, is the place Asuka Langley Sohryu calls home, and has occupied herself by becoming a "Stalker". Someone who ventures into Zones, and recovers radioactive, or other abnormal artifacts to sell. Needless to say, its a dangerous job.
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Evangelion - Oblivion lost Chapter one - After the bombs fell
The land stretched out before her. Young in her years, decades old with wisdom of the world that used to be a cradle for Human civilization. An epic bid and struggle for power had led the Human race into a spiral of self-destruction that would never be rivaled again, because there was nothing to build upon. All was destroyed. Asuka Langley Sohryu had come to know lonliness for a long time, it had become her travel companion, not something to be feared or loathed, but accepted. At least that's what she told herself.
Trudging through an area of Tokyo-3 riddled with pockets of radiation, and gravitational anomolies, she was tossing bolts and screws in front of wherever she walked, hoping she wouldn't be so unfortunate to stumble upon a gravity well. A quick glance around what used to be the apartment building she called home, told her that there were numerous gravity wells strewn throughout the wreckage, metal support beams bending under their own weight, multiplied maybe even a hundred times.
Life in Tokyo-3 had become difficult. People no longer held eachother as brethren, but as enemies. If you were to spot anyone else in Tokyo-3 chances are if you let your guard down they would sooner slit your throat than nod in greeting. The girl, wearing military fatigues, combat boots, and kevlar vest emblazoned with a N.E.R.V. patch, sat down on a block of concrete seperated from a falling building long since settled, and brushed off the smaller chunks of rock, metal and glass. Taking care to keep her weapon, a simple semi-automatic .223 caliber rifle, resting across her legs while she sat back and drank heftily from her water bottle.
Her sigh carried on the wind, whispering of a paradise lost, of a time that she loathed when it was in its prime, but now wished for with all her might. She wished to see her friends again, most of whom parished in the nuclear fire that consumed the world, just before an event called Third Impact happened.
Third Impact, in a nutshell, would have ended the world for humans. In order to prevent this event from being precipitated, the Japanese Government decided to fire nuclear weapons upon its own soil, missiles hitting Tokyo-3, Kyoto-2, Osaka, and numerous other cities around the country where Evangelions were being expirimented with. Asuka was unconcious, and protected inside what was left of her Evangelion.
She remembered the terror, the pain when she awoke. Knowing she had been disconnected from her Evangelion, she no longer held a phychic link with the massive bio-mechanical behemoth, but her body was still badly damaged. Her arm was completely gone, the LCL assisting the natural course of decomposition, to remove her arm completely from her body from just above the elbow. Blood saturated the liquid that gave life to the Evangelion pilot.
Staring at the reddening sky, the former pilot's thoughts drifted back to where it all began. Back to when she thought she was going to die. In the battle she had fought that fateful day against SEELE's Evangelions, they had stabbed her with a copy of Lancea Longinus, the lance used to pierce Jesus Christ. Even so, the damage inflicted on her Evangelion, was imprinted onto her, her eye liquidating and mingling with the LCL around her. Her body was instantly ripped from its normal consciousness into a state of shock, and she screamed outload, unable to deal with the pain any other way, futily tugging at the controls of her Eva.
AT field shattered, senses overloaded with drugs that the Entry plug automatically injected into her to keep her conscious, and to dull the pain, she was having trouble making sense of things. Her vision became a hazy fog as SEELE's minions proceeded to rip her Evangelion apart, limb to limb, tossing her plug aside, where it sunk into the lake in the middle of the Geo-front.
Alarms sounded, and everything was covered in a red fog of blood and alarm lighting mixing in the LCL. The plug had warped, and twisted, the world was spinning. She looked at her hands covered in blood, and saw them slowly melting away, gathering in a pool of sinew, and tissue on the floor. Her nerve connection with the Eva had been completely severed. She knew what this meant but still could not figure out yet the effect it had on her. Without the connection being properly shutdown, extreme brain damage can be incured on the pilot. She couldn't move her legs. Panic overwhelmed her, as screams came over her communicator, screaming bloody murder. "Shockwave approaching!!.... static Whats going on?!... Unde.. Russia has... ICBM... fallou.. Tokyo-3 is completely dev..."
The transmissions continued until she had lost consciousness some ten minutes later. Asuka knew what was happening. She was glad that she seemed submerged, or covered by something. By the time she was drifting off, the communications network had gone silent, as did the plug, except for the loud rumbling she both heard and felt, no doubt from the nuclear weapon exploding, not a kilometer overhead on the surface...
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Halfway across the wasted city, another contemplation was taking place as well. As Shinji Ikari awoke, to greet the evening sky, he cursed, knowing today was going to be a bad day. Rather night, consider he had slept well over the time he was supposed to wake. He had shacked up in an apartment building, one of many hundreds around the city, but also one of the many fewer still standing, and hospitable. He was no fighter, by nature, so it did not take long after his escape from the radioactive hell of the NERV Geo-front to find companions he could band up with in the Zone.
Carrying with him small amounts of food and various provisions thought needed in a radioactive landscape, such as a geiger counter, and irradiation medication, he set out into what was left of Tokyo-3 two weeks after the attack, sheltering in the entrance to NERV Central which was built out of concrete, ideal for stopping Gamma rays. Wandering through the streets he was horrified by the things he saw. People, alive and dead were strewn about the city streets, and in the rubble that used to be skyscrapers and other commercial buildings, burned head to foot completely, mercilessly. Every now and then he would stop, and share his water with people who could no longer move on their own, too burnt, and too irradiated. As darkness fell, he had taken to side-streets, and less-traveled areas once he had noticed people in good health stealing from those wounded and dying.
Eventually, he came across a completely empty apartment building, about 5 miles away from NERV Central. He walked towards the building, a sense of foreboding coming across him. Shinji looked up, and noticed that all the windows on one side were shattered, and he hoped it wasn't the same on the other side. Entering into the lobby, he pushed the door aside and it easily fell off its already greatly damaged hinges. A pungent smell of blood and urine greated him upon his first step into the large room. A chandelier hung precariously from now only one of its hinges, hanging at an odd angle, ready to fall. Shinji made sure to step aside.
Walking to the service desk, he yelled out, "Hello! Anyone here?" hoping for some sort of answer. It came quickly. "FREEZE!!" A voice boomed out from behind him. Shinji didn't turn around, but held his hands up above him, feeling the slight bulge of the automatic pistol in his windbreaker. It did some measure to calm him, but nonetheless terror welled up in his throat. He gulped hard, forcing his fear down. "I just want a place to stay, no need to be alarmed I'm quite harmless."
Upon inspection, the man lowered his guard, asking Shinji things like, what was his name, where he came from and other information. In turn, Shinji learned that the man holding an automatic rifle, an M4a1, was named Hitachi, and he was with the Tokyo-3 Municipal Police. Upon the collapse of local and national government, he grabbed what he could from his precinct, like Shinji, and set out into the Zone.
Presently, Shinji was among people he had come to know as family. There was Maya Ibuki from NERV there, Hitoshi the Police officer, Misato Katsuragi, and a few others whose names he could not remember. They all stayed on the fifth floor of the building, levels above and below damaged to the point of being un-liveable. At night they would barricade the stairwells to keep themselves safe, and they would sleep in shifts, two people being on guard, with rifles at the top of the stairs throughout the night.
Tonight though, Shinji knew it was his turn to head out and find clean water. Though their supply hadn't run out, you can never have enough water, especially under Nuclear Fallout. Shinji leaned out of his balcony, observing the wreckage that stretched as far as the eye could see. A literal graveyard of civilization, the finest creations of man were laid out before him, gutted, and burnt.
A sigh escaped his lips, wishing things hadn't turned out the way they did. The way his friends had been killed, the way everything he had come to accept had been completely destroyed. The way... the way... the way his first love had been killed in front of his very eyes. He tried as hard as he could to remember her face, but couldn't. Even her name eluded him for a moment.
Two years had passed since the apocolypse, and many walks of life from that time were forgotten. Not because it had been a long time, but because it had been hard. Shinji was nearly at his wits end. He no longer had anything to live for. But...... Asuka... that was it. Yes that was her name. Asuka Langley Sohryu, second child, pilot of Evangelion Unit02, who fought bravely, effectively, and ferociously.
In Shinji's eyes she had won. He saw her destroy all but one of SEELE's Evangelions. That one had caught her off guard, it cheated. The distraught boy looked down over the rusted railing, a symbol of modern Japan, rusted and broken. Then something happened.
Something that caught his attention and provoked a response deep within his consciousness. The sun had crested below a group of clouds, sending beautiful rays of red and orange across the shattered city. Eyes squinted, Shinji looked down again, smiling, he proceeded to climb on top of the flat railing. The decision came without warning, almost so quickly that Shinji didn't even believe it was he who made it. "Forgive me Misato.." he whispered onto the wind, allowing it to carry his near-silent prayer to the heavens. He closed his eyes, and raised onto his toes, preparing to jump.
"Shinji? What are you doing?" The voice came as a shock, so much in fact that it made him fall. His voice rose in panic, as he fell backwards onto the balcony, narrowly missing a rusty, sharp metal chair. He thought to himself how much worse that would have been than jumping. "M..M..M..M..MISATO!! I was just admiring the view, you scared me!" Visibly shaking, he hoped the ploy would work, secretly knowing it wouldn't. Her face instantly drew itself into a frown. "Why don't you come inside. The view is just as good from there." She paused. "By the way, I'm going with you into the Zone. Hitoshi told me that water is becoming more and more harder to find so you and I will actually go towards the geo-front tonight. Hitoshi found us some lead plates he fitted into our kevlar, it isn't an anti-radiation suit but its better than nothing. Right now he's putting them into our camo so get your ass in gear and eat something before we go."
The surprise was evident on her younger companion's face, and he held back nothing in expressing it. "You said that I should never go there, that the last time you went you were sick for like two weeks, and had been exposed to like 200 rads." Her face twisted into a smile, one he knew well. "That's why we're bringing that stash of hotdogs!" All Shinji could manage was a sigh at the lame and inappropriate joke.
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-Tokyo-3, eastern sector, Industrial park A-
Asuka had been walking for a few hours now, heading inexorably towards NERV central, hoping to find something of value this time. Her last few excursions into the Zone had taken much of her supplies and much of her mental well-being to make it in and out unscathed. Last time Asuka went into the Central zone, she was attacked by wolves, though they weren't anything like what they were before the war. Some had grown to nearly twice their size, ranging anywhere from the size of a house cat, to a full grown Bull. She knew the dangers they presented, able to rip her in half with one bite. She barely escaped in her last encounter.
Excited to go back, she was not. Pulling the visor down from her helmet as she saw the sky in the east start to glow, she broke into a run towards the edge of the Zone, trying to get as far away from the epicenter before this week's "Blowout". If you know what the blowout is, it is something to be feared, and fear was the driving force for her sprint over dead bodies, and strewn debris covering roads and sidewalks everywhere. The roar was slowly building in her ears and for once she thought she might not make it.
She knew it was foolish to head into the Zone this late on a wednesday, but she had heard a rumor of a particularly sought-after artifact in her vicinity. Now it may cost her her life. The visor was shielding her eyes from the constant glow growing in intensity, and moving fast towards the Zone. She had to pass underneath that cloud of death.
Ducking into a building she knew to have a basement, since she had traveled this way before, she jumped into the ruined building, walls only about 2 feet high, enough for her to jump and clear them. Sweat pouring over her body, panting hard mostly from fear rather than fatigue, she nearly jumped completely over the stairs leading down into the black basement. Without skipping a beat she went to the corner of the room, and using all her might she grabbed a large sheet of Steel she had stashed here. It was about five inches thick, thick and heavy enough to stop much radiation.
Leaning it against the concrete wall she dropped her rifle, and made herself as small, and as tight as possible in her quickly constructed steel lean-to. Then it happened. Even in the basement, the room lit up as if in daylight. The roar was deafening as radioactivity burst into the sky. Asuka shut her eyes against the light and silently recited Hail Mary.
Around the city, mostly in the Zone, those unfortunate enough to be caught in the blowout fell to the ground, clutching their bleeding eyes and ears simultaneously throwing up liters of blood, as over 5,000 rads of Gamma rays coursed through their body, instantly liquifying their vital organs, and causing severe Nervous System damage. Most were dead instantly, the unlucky ones survived for about five minutes.
Nodding with a grim sense of knowledge, Asuka knew tommorrow would be busy, as she searched the Zone for the bodies. The dead couldn't defend their belongings, and the first one to a dead person claimed them.
Yes... tommorrow would be a good day.
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A/N: Phew! This story didn't take too long but I hope it came out well. Im sure any post-apocolyptic fans, or wanna-be scientists will notice that I took great liberties in the reality of Nuclear Fallout. This was done on purpose, I did actually spent a few weeks surfing the web looking for information on the effects of Radiation and other related subjects including techniques to counter-act R-Sickness. So before you tell me "Blowouts" don't really happen, or that complete physical mutation wont occur in animals within 2 years if at all. I already know. I had to balance the Character's ages, and the setting. Now.. some clarification:
Zones: Area's where the nukes fell, basically "Ground Zero". Many unexplainable phenomenon occur here.
Stalkers: People who venture into Zones to recover artifacts, or other trinkets to sell in small communities outside the Zones.
Blowout: Happens once a week in the Tokyo-3 Zone (#5). Sky lights up very bright, unsheltered organisms experience extremely high, 90 fatal doses of radiation.
Rads: Units to measure exposure to radioactive materials. 50-100 rads makes a person sick, but 99 non-fatal. 300-400 50 fatality after 30 days. 600-100 100 fatality after 14 days without intense medical care. Never recover. 1000-5000 100 fatality after 7 days. Only treatment is pain therapy. 5000 rads Immediate disorientation within seconds, death immediate, or around an hour or two.
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Next Chapter: First Blood
The sky had lost its sickening red hue the following morning. The two Stalkers, Misato and Shinji, walked cautiously throughout the wreckage, looking for any bodies to salvage after yesterdays blowout. Catching sight of one Shinji called to Misato and she came running. Looking down on the body, it had definately died yesterday as blood was still pooring out of the girls mouth, down her cheek slowly gathering into a small pool underneath her head. Shinji knew her as Yumi Xiang, a classmate he had spent his time in the Tokyo-3 school system with. Sensing the shock in the boy, Misato told him to investiate a building adjacent to their position, about twenty feet away. He obeyed, with sorrow in his eyes. Misato simply donned plastic gloves pulled out of a pouch on her belt, and turned the dead girl's head to the side, ripping an earing out of her right ear.
Shortly Misato had gathered what she could, anything they could keep without getting radiation poisoning themselves. No food, just money, or anything else of value. The woman looked down on the child, knowing she was someone's daughter, feeling a pang of sadness for them. She laid a poncho on top of the girl, lowered her head for about five seconds, then made a motion over her head and chest resembling a cross. Her reverie was interupted by a loud howl, almost inhuman, but Misato had heard it before. Shinji's head popped out of a second story window. "MISATO!! RAIDERS!!!!!"
The boy's guardian turned completely white, motioned the boy down from his perch, and clutched her AK-47 close to her chest.