Rebirth of the Evangelion
Pilot: Rei Ayanami
1100 hours
Rei kept her eyes calmly shut.
Sitting inside her Eva, Rei took her spare time to rest. Though she was used to lack of sleep, she wasn't used to continuous mental strain.
Ever since she had arrived on this new world, she had…a different status. Whenever she worked at NERV, she never made decisions. Day after day, she was told what to do and she easily obeyed. She thought herself that that was the best thing she could do.
When appearing on this planet though, she didn't have a choice. She had to make her own decisions based on survival. Even with Shinji helping out, it was much more stress than she had ever anticipated.
She was only getting used to thinking on her very own. Shinji had helped her with that,…and so had pilot Sohryu. Though it was because of the past occurences that brought her to this situation.
Rei began to feel sleep tugging at her.
FLASHBACKRei looked forward at the temporary commander stationed on an elevated platform. She was inside one of the supply buildings stationed under the desert. All around her, men and women stood at attention, awaiting their orders. Rei looked back towards the figure above her as he started to speak.
"The mission will commence when the signal is given. We can not give an accurate time since the target stopped inside one of our cities a few hours ago. It's approximately two miles from this position." He stopped so that a large hologram could be projected in back of him, showing a somewhat detailed map of the area.
The base she was in was thirty meters underground. There was a somewhat distorted road that ran overtop of it which connected to a big blue sphere some ways away from the base. She assumed that blue sphere to be the city the man was talking about.
"We do not know how much time we have, so you will have to be patient. Holes have already been dug, you will maneuver your units into them and the technicians and maintenance workers will hide you.
"Since we are in the middle of a desert, the only affective way of launching an attack they will not expect is beneath them. They would expect and attack inside the cities or 60 miles away at the mountain range. We should have the advantage, we will keep in constant radio communication with you. When we know the target is directly above us, we will issue the order and you will begin the assault, understand?"
All around Rei, a chorus of affirmations were heard loudly resonating against the walls. The sub-commander smirked slightly before turning around without a word, leaving the men and women to exit at their own accord.
As she began to turn and leave, her eye was caught by what seemed to be some residual image on top of the raised platform. She turned to look at the figure…
END OF FLASHBACKRei was woken up by the comm channel beeping. She stirred for a second before becoming completely awake in an instant. She mentally opened the communications channel.
"Elite?"
"Here." Rei replied nonchalantly.
"Target has begun to move, we expect contact in five."
"Roger." Rei replied again as unenthusiastically as before. Seeing as there would be no further orders, she closed the comm channel and rested her head back again. Her entry plug was colored orange since all of the systems were shut down. She looked at her wrist automatically checking the power reserves of the Eva: 4:26 seconds on full power was the best she could get now.
She sighed and decided to wait some more. The only thing she was concerned about was the ambush itself. Once the units came out of hiding, it would take a few moments to realign themselves, while the enemy would most likely spot the motion and begin firing immediately. She spent some time thinking on ways to counter this when her comm line blinked again.
"Elite?"
"Here."
"The target is above us, prepare for activation."
Rei acknowledged and straightened her body. She began a few quick stretches, as her body had already begun to seize up. Another thing she had noticed while on this planet, was that her body was becoming much stronger than before. She could only relate it to the fact that she was being forced to exist without constant exposure to LCL. Though, while she was in the entry-plug, she felt much more at ease.
"Target is almost directly over the base. Activate and release on my mark."
Rei was ready for this. She activated the systems and engaged the nerve connections. She went over a mental checklist of the systems before she was satisfied. She only had to wait for another 6 seconds before she received the order.
"Mark!"
Rei tensed her muscles and pulled herself out through the heavy sand. Even with a huge behemoth like the Evangelion, it also meant a bigger surface had to be uncovered. She managed to work her way upwards blindly for a couple of seconds before she was temporarily blinded by the brightness of the outside world.
She then noticed is was the sun plus a couple dozen missiles already heading towards her. Rei was about to act fast when her heart pace fell and she calmed somewhat. She was used to following procedure, so that was what she was about to do. This operation would be done by the books and orders she had learned from.
Rei calmly heaved Unit-00 out of it's hiding and had it stand up to it's full height. She took a few moments to adjust her eyes to the sun while the missiles exploded harmlessly off of her A-T Field. Though she found that the impacts were much stronger than regular JSSDF ballistics she had trained with, they still could not penetrate her defenses. Thus, she was unafraid.
Rei then assessed the situation. Her units were already engaged in combat with the enemy. The convoy looked like a long thick and somewhat flattened train. It extended for almost a kilometer, she judged. There also seemed to be 2 bigger and better armored vehicles stationed at the front and the rear. She assumed that was where the orders were being sent from.
Taking one more look around her, she bent the Eva down and dashed upward to the front of the convoy. Enemy Aries and Leos were at the sides, shooting at the incoming colonist forces. She merely ran over them or swiped them aside. She was fully concentrated on reaching her destination.
Just before she had reached her objective, her whole Eva vibrated intensely and she felt herself become weightless. Seeing the ground closing in on her fast, she quickly curled the Eva and it rolled and recovered easily on the ground, the sand cushioning it's impact. She looked around to see another huge missile coming towards her. These looked much more deadly: they were being dropped from quite a distance above her. To add to that, she could see that the explosion that had managed to throw her off-balance had ripped the convoy in 2. The crater was at least 100 meters in diameter.
Rei, now aware of the threat, rapidly flicked the controls and took out her prog knife. She stood in the center of the missiles line of fire for an instant, then she dashed forward, running underneath it and ending up directly in front of the vehicle she had seen earlier.
The minor detail she failed to notice was the gun turrets placed all over and around it. She almost decided to shrug, as they began to fire at her. Quickly, she brought the knife down on the top of it, then proceeded to cutting it apart from the inside. Only when it fell to either side in half did she feel satisfied and immediately dashed forward, to the other side of the convoy.
By now, the enemy forces were more than aware of her. As they saw her coming, the cleared out of the way fast, while still sustaining fire on her. She kept more of an eye above her though, making sure no more of the stronger missiles would catch her off guard again.
This time, she was completely caught off guard when the was about run past a truck that looked similar to an oil tanker. It detonated right in front of her and the blast knocked her out of her course. The Eva's momentum kept her forward momentum, but the blast knocked her sideways, onto the ground. She quickly looked up and judged she was only ¾ of the way to her next target. Suddenly, explosions errupted around her. She was confused for a few moments: she lifted her Evangelion up, but it's head did not break through the cloud of dust. Then she realized what they were doing.
She rapidly darted in a forward direction. She had ran for about 10 seconds when she broke through the smoke and she found herself to be moving in the opposite direction away from the convoy.
Rei began to get irritated. Turning around, she found more missiles and bullets heading her way. She was shocked that the colony forces were being badly outmatched. Most of the enemy forces were concentrating on her now. She began heading towards the convoy again, thinking as she went.
When she reached the convoy again and began heading back towards the target she had chosen, she had an idea. As she ran, she picked up the next tanker that looked similar to the one that had blown up. She then ran up to the command vehicle, pushing all the other threats away from her and waited for it to open fire.
It did, and she chucked the tanker like a grenade at the vehicle. The explosion blinded her momentarily, before smoke obscured her view. She waited patiently, then when the smoke cleared she got a clear view of a piece of wreckage lying on the ground.
Satisfied, she turned around to see if her plan was effective.
"Almost," she thought.
According to quick calculations, about 75 percent of the enemy mobile suits were immobilized. Suddenly, the battle odds had completely changed.
Ayanami though, sat inside her Eva, puzzled. She had assumed taking out the command would only put the troops into disarray, could it be that the other enemies were merely being controlled by these central structures?
She was faintly interested on how such feats could be done. Her interest died when she was hit in the back…again…by the same kind of missile…
Fed up, she decided to end the battle. She actually thought she could feel fatigue pulling on her…
A/N: I had a pretty long absence, so I apologize for that. Though, I made it clear earlier, that I will finish this tale. So, unless you're over 90 years old right now, you should live to read the end of it.
On another note, the next chapter is part 3, with Asuka's point of view. It should be coming shortly.