Title: Resistance
Author: Knife Hand
Feedback: Constructive feedback appreciated, flames unappreciated
Spoilers: None.
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Do not own Neon Genesis Evangelion. I would buy Rei but I am broke.
Summary: AU. After Second Impact and the ensuing wars, things settled down. The world was ready to get on with life, NERV was preparing to fight the Angles, and then THEY came, the Gentechs. Years later, amongst the ruins of Tokyo 3, those destined to fight the Angels face a different enemy, a more human one. No Eva's, No Angels.
" " denotes speech, ' ' denotes thought.
AN: since this world is so extremely different from Cannon EVA, some of the characters will be different from in the show. Asuka, for example, will be mellower, Shinji will have more confidence. If you don't like this, LEAVE NOW! You have been warned! I don't want flames of people bashing me for OOCness or any paring I choose to include. Also, Rei is not a Clone and bears no genetic material with Yui Ikari. She is not Shinji's sister, clone of his mother or in any way related to him in any way shape or form. I see Rei being a Clone in the cannon as a cop out and part of a series of events designed so that the creator can prevent any character having any true happiness in the series.
The sky paled in the East, releasing the choking darkness that night held on the once proud city of Tokyo 3. The once grand city, slated to become the new capital of Japan, was now a massive expanse of broken buildings, rubble and debris to rival Stalingrad at the hight of the fighting during World War 2. The bark of gunfire in a distant corner of the city broke the morning silence. Hours passed in stillness, until movement caught the eye of the hidden sniper, and the barrel of the powerful rifle moved in a slow but steady arc through the narrow, horizontal gap in the masonry. From the concealed position, on the fifth floor of a bombed out skyscraper, the sniper tracked the cause of the movement, switching the sight from night vision to optical for a better view against the lightening sky.
'A Gentech and a squad of troopers.' The sniper thought calmly.
Taking careful aim at the figure dressed in black armour with the visored helmet, the sniper exhaled slowly and squeezed the trigger. There was no echoing gunshot from the silenced weapon, no loud pronouncement that a Gentech, one of the genetically engineered soldiers that now ruled most of the world, had died. The black armoured figure simply fell, blood flowing slowly from the smashed visor. The eight troopers, the bulk and cannon fodder of the Gentech army, dressed in their plain grey uniforms, most of which were now splattered with blood, stood for a second completely stunned before they came to their senses and ducked for cover.
By the time the troopers moved, the sniper was out of the nest and moving away from the sight of the latest kill, heading carefully back to base, knowing that the dead Gentech would be a blow to the enemy's moral. The sniper's clothing blended in with the ruined city, camouflaged with shades of grey, brown and red, with the cloak covering her head and her face painted with matching camouflage paint. She moved carefully but easily through the massive debris fields and shattered buildings, her sniper rifle slung over her shoulder, but her hand resting on her sidearm. Slipping behind a half collapsed wall and crawling through a well concealed hole in another wall, the sniper emerged in a corridor made by a long earth wall on one side, a result of craters from a carpet bombing raid near the beginning of the conflict that had been reinforced, and the base of a building on the other. The roof of the corridor, on the outside, looked like the result of a fallen section of wall, however inside it was reinforced to make a stable roof. Walking quickly down the corridor, the sniper pressed an innocuous looking brick in the back wall, releasing the mechanism for the hidden door, which she entered before closing the door behind her leaving a seemingly normal brick wall. Switching on her flashlight, the sniper began the trek through the labyrinth of tunnels back to the underground base.
"Welcome back, Ma'am." One of the guards said as she passed a checkpoint. "How was the patrol?"
"Long." The sniper replied flatly, not pausing.
Emerging from the gate at the checkpoint, the Sniper was bathed in sunlight from high above, despite being underground. Before her was the Geofront, a large, open dome shaped underground cavity. High above at the top of the dome, large shafts, well concealed at the surface level, refracted sunlight down into the Geofront, and suspended between the shafts were huge banks of floodlights. Far below the majority of the floor of the Geofront was taken up with large fields of crops and grazing areas for livestock. Some small areas were set aside for recreation, along with herb and recreational gardens interspaced among the fields. One large area, several hectares in area, was set aside for a forest, both as a recreation area as well as for the oxygen producing and carbon dioxide purging capacity of the trees. A large lake, fully stocked with fish and used to irrigate the fields, resided in the centre of the Geofront, with a large pyramid structure next to it, which gave access to the vast expanse of the facility that resided below the floor of the Geofront, which contained housing, schools, gyms, training rooms, armouries and every other facility that the community needed.
Walking slowly, she swept back the hood of her sniper camouflage cloak, finally at ease after a three week sniper recon on the battlefield above, the sniper made her way along the path from the gate, located in the wall of the Geofront, towards the pyramid, occasionally stopping to talk with farmers and guards patrolling the floor. Pausing, she washed her face clean in a small pool. The war paint ran away to reveal slightly too pail skin, with mud and dust, used to darken her hair, washing away to reveal its natural light blue colour, her deep red eyes staring back at her in the water. She only saw the seasoned warrior, the veteran of years of fighting. In her mind, she was old, a grown woman years ago, she did not see herself as she would in other circumstances, a girl of sixteen, just starting to become a woman. She had killed Gentechs, she was among the oldest in the Geofront, she was on the Council. She was Rei Ayanami, and she was headed home.
"I'm back." Rei's weary voice came from the door.
Shinji jumped up from the large futon on the floor, dropping the book he had been reading, and ran to meet Rei. The minute he reached her, Rei lost consciousness, exhausted after three weeks of stress and virtually no sleep, consisting on energy bars and stimulant tablets. Shinji swept her body up as she collapsed and carried her gently to the futon, where he laid her down to sleep.
Shinji ran his hand through his dark brown hair and yawned as he gathered up Rei's weapons and equipment, which she had dumped by the door, and stored them alongside his own in a closet. The gunfire that Rei had heard at dawn was from Shinji and a platoon of his soldiers ambushing a large patrol of Gentechs and Troopers. The engagement had cost him five veterans, sixteen year olds; three regulars, fifteen year olds; and nine rookies, fourteen year old graduates of the training program. Combined with the twenty losses from other engagements throughout the night, that made a bad day. A real bad day.
Shinji returned to the futon and lay down beside Rei, wrapping his arm around her. Shinji looked at Rei's peaceful face, usually hardened by all that she had seen and done to keep the colony safe. Much had changed from the day, eight years ago, when they had met, although he had cared for her from the start.
The Gentechs had taken over most of the world and were poised to invade Japan. The government decided that all children under the age of ten would be evacuated to the Geofront; while the older children, and most of the adult population, would join the fight to protect the homeland. Several thousand of the best and brightest, along with a contingent of soldiers, would join the younger children in the Geofront. At eight years of age, Shinji had been lost in the sea of children, until he noticed a shy girl with blue hair and intoxicating red eyes. Over the first few days, they had formed a small circle of friends, but the core was Shinji and Rei.
Four months after the invasion began, Tokyo 3 was bombed and under siege. All the scientist, teachers, doctors and engineers in the Geofront taught all they knew to the oldest of the children and joined the fight. After six months the entirety of Japan, except Tokyo 3, was under Gentech control, with most of the surviving population conscripted into the Gentech army and sent overseas to fight. Time wore on and the adults, one by one, died in the battle raging above. As the number of adults dwindled, the oldest children, now twelve and thirteen (who had been nine and ten when the conflict started) joined the fighting. After five years of brutal fighting, all the original adults were deceased, but a training and education system had been well established.
Now, after eight years of fighting, Shinji, Rei and their friends were the eldest in the colony, and the leading council. Elsewhere, the Gentechs had conquered most of the world. Only Tokyo 3, areas of Canada, Siberia and a vast tract of central Australia remained unconquered. Unbeknownst to the defenders, the Gentechs could have easily nuked Tokyo 3 into oblivion, but they refrained for two reasons. The second was that the resisting nations still had enough nuclear weapons to turn the entire world to beaded glass, and they refrained from using them because the Gentechs could do the same. The first reason was because the Gentechs loved to fight, in fact they lived for it to the exclusion of everything else. If they ever did take over the world, chances were that they would then turn on each other til nothing lived on earth.
Consciousness came slowly to Rei, but the first thing she recognised was the warmth and the smell. It smelt like home, it smelt like Shinji. She opened her eyes and was staring strait into the deep blue pools that held his soul. Just as she saw herself as a warrior, not a child, she did not see Shinji as a sixteen year old boy, but as a fellow warrior and the man who held her heart.
"Morning." She said.
"Afternoon." Shinji replied. "You slept most of the day."
"Yeah, well I haven't slept in three weeks." Rei said, before pausing. "I missed you."
"Hey, let's get you something to eat." Shinji said, pulling Rei into a quick hug then leading her out the door.
They entered the nearest mess hall, which was the Academy's Enlisted mess, too hungry to walk to further to the Officer's mess.
"Attention, Generals on Deck." One of the Veteran Privates said.
"At Ease. We're just here to eat." Shinji said with a slight laugh.
Shinji and Rei joined the end of the que, refusing to move up to the front when other soldiers tried to move out of the way. When not leading patrols or on sniper recon in the city above, Shinji and Rei were two of the most important people in the military. Both were on the Council and both were Generals, but they were also the most highly respected officers in the military. Rei was head of the Sniper and Reconnaissance school while Shinji headed up the Academy. Between the two of them, they were in charge of the training one of the few fighting forces on Earth that can stand up to the Gentechs, and unlike most Generals, they still went out and faced the enemy.
Finally receiving their food, they went and sat at a table with a new batch of recruits, most of them having just turned ten, just come of age. The talk at the table quietened as they approached.
"So Mari, how are you finding the training?" Shinji asked.
"It's fine, sir. Tougher than I thought it would be." The recruit said nervously.
"Two things. Right now, you don't have to sir me, and if I remember correctly, Touji told you as much at the Christmas party last year." Shinji said in a friendly voice.
"Then as I recall, he turned around and threatened to beat you up if you went too hard on, or washed out his sister." Rei added.
"Figures. Dumb oaf." Mari Suzuhara muttered.
"True." Shinji said. "But a dumb oaf on the Council. So, Mari, introduce your friends."
Mari blushed and began introducing her friends around the table. Shinji and Rei, of course, knew who they all were, having gone over all the files for every intake, and even had a general idea who would be going for sniper, special forces and officer training. Despite knowing all this, Shinji had asked to get a more personal opinion on the recruits. Getting them to trust the 'Old Man' helped too, so two of the most powerful people in the Geofront sat quietly and listened to a bunch of raw recruits.
TBC…