Darling in the FranXX: The Reaper Squadron

Chapter 1: The Awakening

Ok, so I'm going to try this here. I originally posted this story up on Fanfiction.net and got a mixed reception so I am going to post this here and see how it goes. Please give your honest opinion on the story. Arigatō.

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The city looked much like the others that were scattered about this dying husk of a world. Streets cracked and broken, in some areas completely consumed by the sand. Buildings cracked and crumbling, some having fell already to the passage of time. What were once market stalls, were now nothing more than piles of woodchips. A rusted bicycle chain hung from a railing in front of the court house, the bike itself having broken free and fallen over some time ago. In the center of the city was an old clocktower forever frozen at a quarter till three.

Deep beneath the municipal complex in the city, there is a facility with pods stacked in a honeycomb formation. On one of the walls outside of the facility it can barely be seen the words Ark 03. Inside, the space looked like a large warehouse will several rows of the pods, although all but 6 were unlit. A layer of ice covered the floor of the facility making it seem like a large ice rink. Suddenly an alarm began to sound in the facility.

**Warning: critical failure of life-pods 7556-7562 detected. Releasing occupants and beginning wake up procedure**

A stream of steam began to spew forth from the life-pods before violently erupting from the pods, the doors being torn off their hinges and being slammed into the nearest wall. Six figures crawled out of the pods, tubes trailing from them as they exited the pods. All was quiet for a moment, before the tubes glowed green and then retracted off the bodies of the six figures, their bodies jerked as they were suddenly brought to consciousness. There was the sound of coughing and gagging before one of the figures said,

"Squad! Sound off!" The others replied,

"R-02, Crow, alive." said a gruff male voice.

"R-03, Raven, ok." Said a light female voice.

"R-04, Snake, fine." Said another male voice.

"R-05, Cypress, online" said a female voice.

"R-06, Owl, awake" said the last voice.

The six now identified figures began to get up off the floor and get themselves together. The first voice said,

"Next time I volunteer to be frozen, somebody smack some sense into me."

"Reaper, even if you knew waking up was going to be like this, you still would have volunteered to be frozen. I know you too well." Crow said.

After getting up and looking around Snake said, "Judging by all the ice, the cryogenics must have failed, but why no one else was released is still a mystery."

"Unfortunately, there is not much we can do about it now, they are in God's hands now." Raven said.

"First things first," said Cypress, "we need to find the way out of here and check the situation topside."

As the group began to move about Reaper asked,

"Owl, are you alright?".

"Yea, I'm fine just give me a minute." She replied.

"Hey, squad leader!" Crow shouted, "I've found the way out!"

"Understood! We're on our way!" replied Reaper while helping Owl up.

"You good?" Reaper asked. Owl nodded. The six met up at the entrance and began climbing the stairs to the surface. There was an elevator, but due to lack of maintenance and use it was no longer operable.

As they reached the surface and entered the sunlight you could finally see what they looked like. For the most part, they were all dressed the same, a full length black cloak with a high collar that covered the face up to the eyes although Reaper's cloak was a bit more tattered. Reaper was a Caucasian man, about 5'7'' with messy blond hair and a diamond ring on his left hand. To his immediate left was Crow. Crow was a 6'3'' black man with short black hair. To his right was Cypress, a Caucasian woman standing at 5'6'' with a body built like a gymnast. She had long brown hair that went down to mid back and two small ear piercings.

To Reaper's left was Owl. A rather short girl standing at only 5'1''. She was treated as the younger sister of the squad, but she can hold her own, sometimes even out doing Crow, who was the second-best fighter on the team. To her left was Raven. She was the shortest of the group, standing at 4'9'' but with a fiery temper to match her red hair which she kept in a high ponytail. Lastly to her left was Snake. Snake was the same height as Reaper, 5'7'' but was the brains of the group, he wore a pair of black rimmed glasses.

As soon as the squad got used to the harsh sunlight and saw the state of the city, the first words that came out of Reaper's mouth were,

"How long were we frozen?"

The rest of the squad couldn't help but think the same thing when they saw the decrepit state of the once proud city. Once they got over their shock Crow asked,

"Should we look for survivors in the city?".

Reaper shook his head. "If there were any the Klaxosaurs would have gotten them by now." Reaper turned toward the group and began giving orders.

"We are going to need supplies if we are going to last very long. Crow, Raven, check if the Reaper cache is still intact and collect the supplies from within. Once you're done with that search the east side of the city for anything useful. Snake, Cypress, you take the north side and Owl and I will take the west side."

"Yes, sir!" they replied.

"Meet back here in five hours, Go." He said, and each group split off to search their sector of the city.

Meanwhile just over the horizon, a large dome could be seen rumbling toward the ruins of the city. As the dome travelled, on the side of it words could be seen. Plantation 13.

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A/N: whew, done. Alright everybody, welcome to Darling in the FranXX: The Reaper Squadron. This is an idea that has been kicking around in my head since I saw the anime. Just to give you an idea as to where we are in the story, this chapter as well as the next take place between episodes 2 and 3. I will try to post a chapter a week but with work and school I make no promises. This is my first fanfiction, so criticism is appreciated, and flames will be used to roast marshmallows. Ciao!