Creation began on 08-26-18
Creation ended on 08-27-18
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Hope from the Sky: New Strategy
The Garrison members were stunned at the sight of the aircraft carrier and a large patch of land being levitated in the air by the Evangelion as it returned to Paradis.
The carrier was safely deposited back into the water a good distance from the island without stranding it against the ground and the patch of land the Eva was on was deposited into the water beside the island, merging it together so as to allow it and the Eldians taken from the internment zone of the Marleyan city of Acier to step onto the grounds of Paradis.
"So, this is Paradis," said a man that got off his knees and stood in front of the Garrison members that came by with a young woman with blond hair dressed in a regal gown. "Who are you?"
"I am Historia Reiss," Historia introduced herself. "I am the Queen of Eldia. Welcome to Paradis Island, everyone. Welcome."
They saw the massive Titans that seemed spread out across the edges of the coastal line of the island, but none of them made any attempt to snatch up the people or devour them. In fact, these Titans just remained still as statues.
"The Titans aren't moving," a little girl uttered, pointing to one in front of her parents. "They're not going to hurt us?"
"No, child," answered Ymir to her as she and Kaede stood beside Historia. "They're our protectors against Marley's forces, should they ever come here."
Kaede walked up to the people that Shinji brought here, recognizing them as some of the ones she was able to reach out to through the power of the Founder, and bowed her head to them.
"I am sorry things went down the way they did for you back in Marley," she apologized to them.
"You're the girl that my grandmother and I saw when we were in the internment zone," a young man expressed, pointing to her. "You may have actually saved us when your boyfriend showed up in Acier."
An elderly woman beside the man, using a cane to support herself, bowed her head to them and said, "It's only the few that chose to remain, the ones that did not want to be saved…that we have regret over. Nobody is perfect. We understand that now."
Seconds later, when the Eva returned to the building being used by the Survey Corps as a makeshift base of operations, the plug extracted and Shinji vacated it. He gasped as he breathed in the fresh air, feeling relieved…but also feeling very saddened. Of course, he had every right to feel that way; nothing went at all the way he had been hoping they would, unable to implement what he had believed were sound strategies to avoid conflict between the Eldians he supported…and the Marleyans he couldn't help but now pity for their obsessive hatred.
"Shinji," he heard Eren's voice as he and his friends came over and saw him climb down the plug to the Eva's left side. "How were you able to do that?! I mean, you raised a big patch of the ground right out and pulled the carrier out of the water like they were toys! And those wing-like things that appeared on the Eva's back, they were like that shield you used against those Titans my brother sent against us! When were you able to do any of that?! It was…it was amazing."
Shinji looked at them as he fell against the Eva to the ground and responded, "Just like with Kaede…it just…happened. I don't know how I was able to do any of it, only that I did it."
"You don't look so good," Mikasa expressed her current opinion about him.
"I screwed up everything," he explained. "If seeking peace with Marley wasn't an option, I was to exhaust their weapons with the Eva so that whatever threat they were against all of you would be mitigated to a degree. But then the Angel appeared…and messed with my head a little. I may have put all of you in jeopardy when I left myself vulnerable."
"Even so, you did what you could under the circumstances of the situation," went Armin to him. "None of us were expecting another threat from your world to show up. None of us were even expecting Kaede to be able to reach out to that many people when she did."
"I think I was her first attempt, albeit unintentionally. We were able to see each other in our dreams. And when I was being attacked by the Angel…she reached out to me again…and told me she would try to reach out to the Eldians on Marley, all of them. I was at a low point in the situation, feeling my own hope slowly turn to despair, even though what I saw happening in my head wasn't real."
"What do you mean?" Eren questioned. "What did that…that thing do to you?"
"It wasn't what it did to me; it was what it showed me. The very opposite of hope is despair, and what was my despair was each and every last one of you… Kaede, Historia, all of Paradis…gone. I don't want that to ever happen."
-x-
"…With our alternative plan no longer viable, we'll have to come up with something entirely new," Erwin informed Historia on the carrier. "I fear that war may be our only option to dealing with Marley."
Looking down at a map of Marley and its geographical distance from Paradis, Historia sighed and looked at Shinji and Kaede.
"I need to hear from you two," she told them, valuing their responses above all others. "Kaede, you were able to reach out to our people across the globe, and Shinji, you were able to bring a portion of them back to Paradis unscathed. Do you believe that war is only option?"
Shinji and Kaede looked at one another before they inhaled a new breath of air.
"If they're dead set on their hatred against us," Kaede responded, "we may not have any other choice but to fight them…but maybe not all of them."
"And not without harming the Eldians scattered across the globe when we can simply relocate them now," Shinji added.
"It's not possible for this carrier to travel all over the world to gather all the Eldians you reached out to," Levi revealed; the carrier was massive and still had plenty of power after centuries of disservice, but traveling all across the oceans of Marley-dominated lands was questionable.
"Question," went Hange to them, raising her left hand to them.
"Yes?" Historia allowed.
"Can Ms. Sogen reach out to specific locations that have Eldian people in internment zones?" She asked. "If we knew where each of the internment zones full of Eldians was located within Marley, then we could have Shinji go there as fast as possible and bring them here. We'd be able to avoid losing our own people while preparing to deal with theirs."
"If we could do that, we could actually turn the tide against the Marleyans in more ways than one," Shinji believed.
"Yeah, they wouldn't be able to turn them into Titans, anymore, whether they're intelligent or mindless," Ymir stated one possibility. "They turn us into Titans to either punish us or exploit us as expendable soldiers, but that makes them dependent upon us to have their Titans."
"Even if they only had a handful of them, they'd be at a disadvantage," Kaede added in on the option, "and Grausam Zanki's benefit to them would be useless."
"There's one other advantage we may have against them that's their flaw," went Pixis, adding in his belief. "It may be our greatest edge against them."
"Which is?" Historia asked him.
"The Eldians from Marley that have been in their wars know more about them than we thought we did, their degree in technology and what they use as weapons. I've spoken with the veterans, and what they divulged has been quite the update."
The next ten minutes had Shinji looking at the written notes given by the former slaves and war vets of Marley's military…and based on what these people had either seen being used or used themselves, the Evangelion pilot got the feeling that things were as reversed as they were warped with Marley.
"Based on the descriptions and workings of some of these things," he revealed to them, "Marley's military factions all use the same weapons people from my world used during World Wars One and Two and the Cold War. And these…biplanes, they're not stable or effective as fighter jets became over the years of trial and error. They could only stay in the air for a few hours before being forced to land and refuel. And their firearms…they're prone to feed jams and tank cannons have to be reloaded each time shells are fired. None of these would impede the Eva. Some may halt a Titan to a degree, but if this is all accurate, that means that Marley…is more technologically stunted than Paradis once was before everything changed."
"Marley's stunted?" Hange questioned. "Wait, you're saying that their technology's poor?"
"Yes, and this is based on what we've been able to find in the city and the knowledge that is being returned to you. If I had to draw a comparison between Paradis and Marley, there wouldn't be any comparison because you guys are more advanced."
Ymir then took out something that she claims she found during a wandering in the unchecked parts of the city and asked Shinji if he'd seen anything of the sort before.
Shinji's eyes widened at the object Ymir had found. Not only had he seen something just like it before, but it seemed impossible to think that Paradis had something like this, even after centuries. But there it was in front of him.
"Ymir…that's an iPod," he revealed. "It's a device that stores and plays music."
"This little thing plays music?" Ymir questioned, holding it up in front of everyone in the room.
"Plays music, has a calendar, has a clock feature to tell you the time of the day, pretty much what it was built to do at the time. It went out of date after the people that made it started making other versions based off the original design. Amazing, though, even though these devices were made ages ago here, they're still advanced. It's as though Paradis fell through a black hole for a long time and just pops back into existence."
"And Marley knew nothing about these advancements in technology," Kaede expressed.
"If they had known about these pieces of technology, they would've raided the city a long time ago before they used the island as their dumping ground for condemned Eldians," went Erwin, sharing his belief. "They probably ignored the city like it was a bad omen."
"If so, then we have the advantage, and it's not just defense," Shinji reminded them. "We have music, electricity, alternate energy sources, developments that would've taken years to create that we don't have to waste doing now."
"Knowledge is power," said Hange and Pixis.
"Yes," Shinji accepted, "knowledge is power."
-x-
"…With the bulk of Acier's Eldians gone, the city's, more or less, stripped bare of having to deal with these unwanted minorities," a soldier informed Calvi of the Marleyan city's current status. "What are your orders on the Eldians left in the internment zone, sir?"
"For now, we do nothing about them," Calvi declared, but then realized something. "Check for Grausam Zanki, though. He was living in the internment zone temporarily. We still require his services utilizing the Eldians left."
"Yes, sir," the soldier responded and left with four others to check the internment zone.
"Damn that thing," Calvi muttered. "The next time we see it, we have to eliminate it. If it's an ally of the Eldians of Paradis, then that makes it an enemy of Marley."
-x-
With the relocating of the Eldians Shinji and the Survey Corps brought back to Paradis being settled within the districts of the former Walls until further notice, there was time for planning new ways to deal with the Marley situation and research into what was in the coastal city that was booming with new activity. This also allowed for the Survey Corps to relax for the time being until a new course of action was planned. So far, the plan to relocate the Eldians from within the internment zones they were placed in all around the conquered lands of Marley was a primary operation to minimize the potential casualties that were to be expected.
"Will you be okay, Shinji?" Kaede asked after she was returned to her cell in the dungeons by the Garrison members tasked with doing so.
"I'll be alright, Kaede," he assured her; he had been to a therapist for what happened and the conversation had helped a bit. "I'm not…entirely over what that Angel showed me…but I'll get there over time."
"That's good to hear. You're at your absolute best when you smile."
"Thank you, Kaede."
He reached through the bars towards her with his left hand…and she came over and grasped it with her right hand.
"Your hope helped to overcome my despair," he told her.
"It's only because you gave me hope," she reminded him. "So long as you're in my life, I will always have hope for all of us."
"I love you, Kaede Sogen."
"I love you, Shinji Ikari."
It was crazy to even do it, but Shinji needed a kiss from her right now, and pressed his face against the bars as much as possible. This put a smile on Kaede as she pressed her lips against his, kissing him.
Together, we will give the Eldians around the world hope, she thought, and they broke off their kiss, and put an end to the hatred and despair.
"I'll be back as soon as I can," Shinji told her as he turned to leave.
"I'll be here waiting for you," she assured him as she turned to lie down on her cot.
-x-
"…So, you're aware that we're grateful that you weren't among those turncoats that betrayed us, Zanki," Calvi informed Grausam that evening as the Eldian traitor was sitting in front of his superiors.
"No disrespect, General Calvi," Grausam expressed, "but the only way I was ever going to leave with those disgraces to existence was as a corpse. I chose Marley over Eldia. It's a choice I'd make again in a heartbeat. My loyalty is to you."
"That's all we needed to hear from you," Commander Magath expressed. "Your service to Marley makes you an invaluable ally."
Grausam nodded his head to the men in control of the military factions that protected and fought for Marley.
"However," Calvi had to say, "you understand that if we lose any more Eldians, we'll be at a disadvantage if that thing ever returns, which means your services will be required more than ever now."
"Yes, sir," Grausam understood. "There has been a variation of the Jaeger Serum I've been developing for over a year now that could prove to be useful to you if desired, a way to temporarily bestow the power of the Titans to a Marleyan."
"If that were possible, wouldn't we be poisoned by such a serum?" One of the soldiers questioned. "Or get sick and die later?"
"I wouldn't let those happen to any of you. It's only a theoretical attempt at allowing Marleyan soldiers the ability to become Titan Shifters for a short period, based on a blood transfusion with the Jaeger Serum infused."
"Eldian blood, you mean?" Magath asked him.
"Yes."
"If something like that were possible, even just temporarily, that would make their blood invaluable, possibly more so than they currently are right now."
Of course, if it was within the realm of practicality, all Grausam required to see if it was possible…was a Marleyan volunteer to try his serum on…and the blood of an Eldian. If he could prove it was possible, he'd bleed an Eldian dry of their blood to mix with his Jaeger Serum. Research specimens, that's all the Eldians were to him. Just research specimens he cared nothing for and would tire of the second they became useless.
To be continued…
A/N: Now, it seems to be a race against the clock for Paradis and Marley to come up with their new courses of action against one another. Who will strike first?