Months earlier
The ruined city of Cheyenne, Wyoming is silent ever since the cordycep outbreak that happened years ago. Hunters in the city are gone and left behind a lot supplies for other survivors for some reason. It is unknown what led them out though, infected in the area are in the low even the government doesn't know at the moment but some say its the fireflies that led them out of the city. Two pickup trucks arrive in the main road with the occupants getting out of it. The first one is Shinji Ikari who is the one you don't know while the same goes for his father, Gendo Ikari. The two get out of the car alongside another man who is bearded and is slightly middle aged alongside a girl with a ponytail and has brown hair.
"Alright Gendo." He said with a Texan accent.
"Were here looking for some fresh meat because its hunting season." The man advised with Shinji and his father nodding at him.
"Got you Joel." Gendo replied as Joel looks at his adopted daughter.
"Ellie, I want you and Shinji to hunt down some deer here. The reason why is because Shinji is inexperienced in hunting so I want you teach him, so here's this walkie talkie." Joel hands her a walkie talkie.
"Seriously Joel, he's going to miss on every food we find. You know Shinji complains a lot." She replied. The girl is right because Shinji was born in the dam and was treated in civilization.
"Now Ellie, just because Shinji is pampered doesn't mean he needs to learn. Someday he's going to be alone in the world and I want you to teach him, can you do that for me baby-girl?" Joel asks as Ellie rolls her eyes.
"Fine...Hey Shinjo, grab a rifle and a bow." Shinji is caught by surprise and he picks up a bow.
"And its Shinji." He corrected with Ellie sighing.
"Japanese names are weird...Lets move up ahead, deer mainly graze in the parks."
"O-Okay. Dad?" He turns to him.
"I'll be with Joel looking for food too." Gendo replied with his son walking away alongside Ellie. The pair walk in the destroyed streets with cars littering the place while they treat it as something they see everyday. Everyone knew about the great pandemic and how it may have started but children who are born in this age didn't care...All of them except Shinji. The boy always is enthusiastic about the artifacts of the previous world even an ice cream truck would stir him up or an old gaming platform. He spots an old comic shop.
"Hey, wanna grab something?" He asks Ellie.
"Sure." Ellie replied and they go inside the abandoned comic shop which is filled with old toys and other things. They open a cash register which shows that the shop was very popular to whatever people it attracted because its already full. Ellie looks at the figurines and they look very detailed and in fact they are mint. On the bottom is a box with a picture of ED209 from Robocop and contained a figure of the mech of Omnicorp. They continue to look at everything until Ellie stumbles upon a collection of savage starlight comics and even the movie of it.
"Holy shit...we just hit the jackpot!" She cheered as she grabs one of the comics and stuffs it in the bag while Shinji opens the ED209 box to see the figure in its still stable condition and puts it in his bag as well. He then finds a manga called Panty and Stocking which tells a story about two angels who have been kicked out of heaven so in order to get back, they must fight evil ghosts. He puts it in his bag.
"Shinji, I spot a deer!" Ellie advised as she loads her bow which he does in response. A deer is eating a patch of grass and it appears that it doesn't know that Shinji and Ellie is there.
"The honors." She lets Shinji get his kill. The boy aims his weapon at the deer. He lets go of the string and the arrow pierces through the deer but it doesn't kill it so Ellie finishes it off.
"Maybe next time Shin-man." Ellie mocked as he sighs.
"No need to show off." Shinji said as grabs the arrow from the dead deer.
"Come on, lets get this back to the truck..." He drags the deer back to where Gendo and Joel are. Shinji puts the fresh deer on the back of the truck and see's his father walking towards him.
"I see you have a nice shot son." Gendo commented.
"Ellie killed it, not me." Shinji replied.
"Oh..."
"You're disappointed in me aren't you?"
"No, just keep trying. Where did you hit it?" He asks him.
"Somewhere in the stomach..." Gendo places his hand on him.
"Son, that show's you're aim is improving somewhat." The older man complemented as they hop inside the car. Shinji notices that he has an old tape from 80's in the radio.
"Dad, I got a question." Shinji asks.
"Roll it." Gendo replied knowing that his son is curious about the past.
"Why do you have an old tape?"
"Well Shinji. Its because the lives we knew are gone and there's no way to bring them, we pick up what left of it and let it give us a reason to keep moving among the new pieces of our new life. This tape is among those pieces." Gendo explained.
"Wow..." They drive off in the sunset with Gendo inserting the tape as it plays yellow submarine by the Beatles. As they drive away in the sunset, Shinji feels like something isn't right and that they are being watched carefully. Little do they know, he is right. In the air is a scouting drone with the WILLE logo on it and intercepts him.
Tommy's dam.
The pickup trucks arrive to their designated location with Shinji and Ellie getting off them. Gendo and Joel drag their kills alongside Ellie and Shinji. He walks towards the shelter with a rather annoyed sigh but calms down as he see's his sister Rei Ikari and friend Asuka with her younger brother Taisuke, there's a rumor about the siblings being former hunters but its unknown at the moment if this is true or not. Mari is messing around with a rubic cube nearby.
"Seriously, what's the point of making these things?" Mari sighed as she throws it away with Taisuke picking it up.
"Its suppose to test you're minds reflexes I guess..." Taisuke replied to her as he cleans his silenced rifle as he gets ready to go to the shooting range with his sister. Asuka loads her high powered crossbow with a scope on it.
"Alright! Who wants to beat my record of hitting targets in under 30 seconds?" She cheerfully said.
"I do!" Taisuke raises his hand excitedly with his older sister smiling warmly. He aims his rifle at the target and they begin to move. The young Shikinami shoots the first one that was moving up towards him then the next two. More targets appear in front of him and he takes them out with some delay.
"How many seconds was that?" He asks Shinji who has a timer on him.
"33 seconds."
"Dammit!" He cursed. Up next is Shinji who loads his shotgun as he tries to beat Asuka with her record of shooting down all of the targets under 30 seconds. The targets flip up and he fires at them as it only hits two and one remains then he shoots it next. The next batch move in front of him as he guns down more of them.
"How many seconds?" Shinji asks Mari who checks the timer.
"That was...40 seconds."
Shinji sighs in frustration as Asuka chuckles in victory at her record of the use of her high powered crossbow.
"Better luck next time Shinji." She mocked.
"I think there won't be a next time..." He mumbles but Asuka hears it.
"Why's that?" The girl asks.
"Because I always miss. There's a reason why I favor a shotgun..." Shinji looks to the side in shame.
"Their clumsy and reckless." Asuka explained as Rei pats her brother in the back.
"Ellie beat you again? Come on bro there's always a next time!" Rei assured him as Mari and Taisuke shoot their rifles again at the targets. Rei and Shinji are very different people even though their related. Rei has good aim while Shinji doesn't and she knows how to hunt while Shinji knows slightly little of it. To him it was probably because he was born and raised in the dam and never got to learn early amongst the children who grew up in this world.
Asuka on the hand, her and Shinji don't consider each other friends. Just mutual partners because they shared the same opinions but different morals and even often got into arguments. Usually he would avoid Asuka but somehow finds himself meeting her again and he can't explain it. There was this once incident where Asuka threatened to shoot a kid who was part of the fireflies and attempted to get them on his side but that backfired when she knew that the fireflies would use the dam as a stronghold.
"Come on baka Shinji. Its getting late." Asuka advised as she walks away from him. Its curfew and they should get home fast now.
AAA Wunder.
Misato Katsuragi looks over the shots of the drone which gives them a confirmation that specimen BM-03 is here in this universe. The last time they met was when he opened a portal after pulling the lances from Lilith.
"It appears that Gendo Ikari has escaped here as well too." Maya hissed at the sight of the man smiling at the traitor of all traitors.
"Did you trace them?" She asks the intellegence officer.
"Yes. Their hideout is in a dam."
"Good. The operation begins at Thursday so be ready!" Misato ordered as (Rebuild) Asuka and (Rebuild) Mari nod to her.
"Were gonna burn that place to the ground..." (Rebuild) Asuka growled at the thought of that brat taking on a life of his own and forget everything that happened. So its time for a wake up call for him.
Tommy's dam.
Shinji lays on his bed thinking what had happened today.
"Am I really a survivor?" He asks himself.
