Title: Messing With The Scenario
Author: Knife Hand
Feedback: Constructive feedback appreciated, flames unappreciated
Spoilers: All of Neon Genesis Evangelion (just covering my basses)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Do not own Eva. I would buy it but I am broke.
Summary: AU. One interpretation of the series where Shinji has a backbone. Set in 2017, because the Angel attacks are delayed for two years.
AN: Major deviation from Eva Cannon. Timeline elements ignored. Characters are OOC for the series. If you don't like this then stop reading now. You have been warned.
AN2: In this Rei is not a Clone and she is not related to Shinji in any way.
" " denotes speech
' ' denotes thought
(Tokyo 3 High School)
"…and after restoration, Germany was one of the first countries to reaffirm their membership to the UN. The major motivation for this was the remembrance of the events of the 1920's and 1930's where a single charismatic leader convinced the German people that they were destined to rule Europe and nearly destroyed Germany." Hans said, finishing his talk.
The class clapped in response. In the almost two months since Shinji had led that first class, the teacher had been 'sick' quite often. In fact it was generally believed he had been either given another class or fired. Shinji taught many of the classes himself, including pre-Second Impact history into the curriculum. Other members of the Regiment spoke on their own Country's history and recovery from the Second Impact, giving cultural perspective that the class had never considered.
"Any questions?" Shinji asked, leaning against a desk.
Several hands raised, and Hans began answering the questions. After a few minutes, Shinji felt his pager vibrate on his belt. Looking at the display he interrupted the student asking another question.
"Attention. There is an emergency. Major, report back and get the Regiment ready. Lieutenants with me. Hikari, get everyone else to the shelters. Stay safe, and remember, tomorrow we start on Ancient Rome." Shinji announced.
The last comment got a cheer. The Colonel, The Major and The two Lieutenants marched through the school corridors, and all the students instantly got two messages from the set of their faces. Stay out of their way and get to the shelters. As soon as they reached the parking lot, Hans jumped in the Humvee they had brought from the Regiment Motor Pool, and speed out of the parking lot.
"Five, four, three, two, one." Shinji started counting at the first sound of a squeal.
As he said one, the blue Renault squealed to a holt directly in front of Rei, Liz and a smirking Shinji.
"Let's go." Shinji said calmly once everyone was in.
(Streets of Tokyo 3)
Unit 01 held the pallet rifle loosely yet firmly in its hands as Shinji scanned the map provided by the Eva's HUD. He was standing inside the elevator building he had launched into, it's door open in front of him. Rei and Unit 00 were approaching from his three o'clock, where the street elevator she had used was located, while the Angel was moving up the road on Shinji's left from six o'clock.
"Shinji! What's the matter with you! Move out!" Misato's voice came screaming through the radio.
"Calm down, Captain, and let the grownups deal with this." He replied before cutting off reception on the voice circuit to Central Dogma.
"Rei. I'll engage in ten seconds. Catch it in a crossfire." Shinji ordered.
"Yes, sir." Came Rei's quiet response.
"Rei, what did I say." He mock chided.
"Sorry, S…Shinji."
"That's better."
Unit 01 swept into action, the pallet rifle and half of Unit 01's head came round the corner and began firing bursts into the Angel. The Angel, looking something like a floating sausage, reared up its front end, and extended two glowing tentacles from protrusions in near the 'front' of its body, as Unit 01's rounds began to slam into it. Reeling from the impacts, which caused insignificant damage, the Angel began to advance on Unit 01, when another volley slammed into it from the street to its right. Unit 01 slipped back behind the shelter of the building.
"Save it, Rei. Rifles are useless. I'm gonna take it hand to hand. Back me up." Shinji ordered, dropping the rifle and engaging his Prog-knife.
"Rodger."
The hail of bullets stopped, and Shinji waited, watching the shadow of the floating Angel's approach. When he judged the Angel to be almost level with the corner, Unit 01 took a step back, sprinted at the corner and a second before entering the crossing street, jumped and grabbed hold of the wall of the hollow building. With its legs in the air, the grip on the building radically altered Unit 01's trajectory, causing it to whip around the edge of the building, crumpling the guide rail and cracking the wall, and its feet to crash into the Angel with bone crushing force, assuming the Angel even had bones. Regardless the impact threw the Angel back over twenty meters before it managed to recover. Unit 01 charged at the Angel, however it wove a defence pattern with its tentacles that Shinji was unable to break through with a short weapon like the Prog-knife.
Shinji fell back to the elevator building, taking temporary cover. Looking around he had a spark of inspiration.
"Rei. Distract it, I need thirty seconds."
Hearing the order, Rei began to get the Angels attention by firing volleys into it as Shinji worked busily. Twenty six seconds after he ducked behind the building, he emerged again. In his hands was his makeshift weapon. He had hacked off the other guide rail from the building, and had secured his Prog-knife to one end, the rail crushed till it held the knife securely, then fastened with wiring. Wielding the improvised Naginata, Shinji managed to cut the Angel several times, in what amounted to fairly substantial wounds, while dodging the whip like tentacles. Not without incident, however. The Angel managed to punch one of its tentacles through Unit 01's right shoulder, and the slice off the bladed end of the weapon. Unit 01 was tossed down the street, the force of the impact shattering the connector on the umbilical power supply.
As the Angel approached the prostrate form of Unit 01, intent on dealing the final blow, a blue and white blur emerged from a side street and crashed into the floating form. Unit 00's initiative ceased quickly, and Shinji could hear Rei's cry of pain as the Angel jammed both of its tentacles into Unit 00, causing the blue and white mecha to stumble back slightly. Rage clouded Shinji's vision.
(Regiment Base, Tokyo 3)
Corporal Michelle Stevens stared in shock down the scope of her Sniper Rifle, as she lay on top of 'Tower 1', one of the buildings the Regiment had retrofitted for their base. Along with two other snipers, she had been assigned to watch and relay the events of the battle, and her assignment was to watch what some had nicknamed the 'Giant Purple People Eater' that held the Colonel.
'Oh Shit.' She said into her throat mike. "Colonel's gone Berserker."
She had heard the reports from the other snipers on Lieutenant Ayanami's ineffective charge and how the Angel responded, and she watched as Unit 01 charged down the Angel, jumped on its floating form, bringing it to the ground and began pummelling it into submission, unmindful of the injuries it sustained in the process.
Michelle had been present the only other time the Colonel had gone berserk, when Katherine Byron had died and he had made that suicidal charge into a heavily fortified bunker, and was saved only by the quick actions of Major Soyru. A call from one of the other snipers brought her attention back to the battle.
(Streets of Tokyo 3)
"Shinji!"
The soft voice on the radio made him pause in his effort to make the Angel pay. An eighth of a second after the call, the head of the now destroyed improvised Naginata blossomed in the Angel's 'neck' as Unit 01 looked up. Shinji saw the battered Unit 00, half leaning against a building and its Progressive Knife flying through the air towards him. Snatching the weapon out of the air, while giving the Angel a short right to the 'face', he activated it and drove it deep into the Angel's core, which after a few seconds cracked and the Angel went silent. Only then did Shinji notice his battery gauge and its flashing ten second countdown.
"Well, that was fun." He said sarcastically before the plug went dark.
(NERV Headquarters)
Shinji let the water run over him, let it wash the LCL along the tiled floor and down the drain in the centre of the row of shower heads. He ignored Rei, who was showering three nozzles to his left.
'I wonder what happened' he asked himself, finally turning off the shower.
He walked out of the shower area and into the locker room, drying himself with a towel. Liz was sitting in the middle of the room in her BDU's with an icepack on her left hand, which was red from having hit Captain Katsuragi unconscious, Liz had just missed the perfect shot to the Captain's jaw as the purple haired woman was having a mild hysterical fit in the middle of the battle, mostly from feeling helpless after Shinji had cut off her transmissions. Shinji reached into his locker, retrieved his dog-tags and began dressing in his BDU's.
'A four minute gap. One second I was on the road, the next Rei was throwing me her Prog-knife. What happened in those four minutes.'
TBC.
