Antiheroes of Eva: Natural Selection
Antiheroes of Eva: Natural Selection
Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the property of Gainax. The Lizard is the property of Marvel Comics. I claim no ownership of either series and am not affiliated with them in any way. This story is not intended for profit; it is an entertaining diversion, both for the author and the readers.
Chapter One: The Origin of Species
An unfamiliar ceiling.
That was the first thing that Toji Suzuhara, fourth Child of NERV, had noticed upon awakening in the sterile, Spartan white room. He squinted his eyes against the harsh light, barely lucid, unable to hold onto a single stream of thought. A faint pressure around his mouth and lips, combined with his laboured breathing, made some part of his brain register that there was an oxygen mask on his face.
He felt tired, for reasons that escaped his scrambled mind—almost as though he'd been awake for a year, doing…something. Somewhere. Somewhat?
A fuzzy blob shifted slightly in the corner of his eye. He frowned, and let his head fall to the right so that he could have a better look at whatever it was.
A large mass of whitish-green, with a bit of tan and a small patch of brown; behind it was a solid block of grey. Slowly, the image became clearer and more distinct; the indecipherable mass became a hospital bed, while the grey object revealed itself to be a collection of gently humming machines that emitted frequent soft beeps. And lying in the bed, breath mask on his face and hooked up to a ventilator, was someone that Toji belatedly realized was—
"Shinji…?" he rasped, his harsh and dry voice grating like sandpaper across his parched throat. The very sensation filled the jock with nausea, and he struggled valiantly to swallow the bile threatening to shoot up his oesophagus. To save himself further pain, he voiced his thoughts within his head: Why's Shinji sleeping beside me?
There was some part of him that realised he should be concerned about his friend, but the best he could manage in his tired state was mild curiosity; presently, he was more interested in the fact that his eyelids seemed to weigh a thousand pounds, and that keeping them open was causing his eyes to dry rapidly. All in all, he decided, it was a rather unpleasant feeling. So he let the offending folds of skin drop, sparing his poor eyes from further exposure to the stinging air.
In spite of his lethargy, the boy had managed to gather his wits about him—enough to begin wondering where he was, at any rate.
Where am I? The answer eluded him, although he was almost certain that he knew what it was. There was definitely something familiar about this room; the beds, the masks and the machines all struck a chord in his mind.
It was one of those…things. The place where sick people go to get better and the old people go to die, or something like that. Now what were those buildings called again…?
Oh yeah. Hospitals.
A flash of memory flitted through his brain like a ghost—a smiling girl, no older than nine, with hair the same colour as his own and an impish grin on her face. She was looking up at him from a bed much like this one, looking as cheerful as if Christmas had come early in spite of the casts on her right arm and both legs.
Arm. Leg.
Through the haze that had settled over his mind—must be some kind of painkillers—Toji could feel an odd numbness in his left arm and left leg. His brows beetled in confusion. Did I fall and break them, or something? He wondered, shifting slightly to put his weight on the other side.
Something throbbed twice—once at his shoulder, the second time just under his left knee. Unable to ignore his fatigue any longer, he drifted off into a fitful sleep.
And as his subconscious danced in the dreams of a sinister train at sunset, the throbbing continued at the spots where the surgeons had been forced to amputate in order to save his life. The veins on his upper thigh pulsed with every throb, as though beating to the tune of an enormous heart, coursing with power unrealized and untapped…
For the time being, at any rate.
Iruka Kyoryuu sighed in frustration as his glasses fogged up yet again. The office, as always, was just warm enough to make him uncomfortable, despite the fact that no one else seemed to find the heat as oppressive as he did. Lucky them—they didn't have to put up with his eternally sweaty hands and weak eyesight. Seizing the frames of his glasses with one hand, he reached up with the other to wipe the perspiration from his brow. He frowned in annoyance as the chilled surface of his prosthetic arm made contact with his forehead, making him shiver as though someone had pressed an ice cube to his face.
He'd never gotten used to the blasted weather. In the seven years since he'd returned to his home country from his studies abroad, his body had been slow to acclimate to the unfamiliar warmth that now pervaded Japan. At times like these, the thirty-six year old doctor wished for the relatively cool clime of the apartment complex in America which had been his home for more than a decade. His time in the United States had been like a dream come true for Iruka; the people were understanding to a point, gave him privacy when he so desired, and were polite enough not to stick their noses in his business—which was just the way he liked it.
Iruka was a rather antisocial man, having been bullied frequently in his youth for being fat, a video gamer, and a geek who didn't seem to have any real knowledge of the outside world. Because of this, he lacked many friends and preferred to keep to himself—which was ironic, considering the fact that he eventually decided to become a physician.
Yet I couldn't pursue that dream here, he thought with a resigned sigh as he let his synthetic limb drop down to a resting position. There were too many people—everywhere, crowding in on me, crowding the buses beyond capacity, touching my shirt, my pants, my wrists; yammering inanely and in loud voices about the most painfully trivial pieces of noninformation…
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to stymie both the growing downward spiral of his thoughts, and the rapid palpitations of his heart. Thinking like that wasn't good for him; that was what had caused his depression and subsequent breakdown when he was sixteen. It had been a pleasant summer day when his parents returned home from one of their frequent business trips to find that he had barricaded himself into his room, boarded up the windows and slit his wrists. Thankfully, they had summoned an ambulance before he had lost too much blood, and the paramedics were able to stabilize him.
It had been four hours later, when he had awakened from an anaesthetic-induced coma, that he had uttered a simple yet profound phrase: "Mom, dad…I'm not well."
His psychiatrist had told them that he was suffering from an extremely severe case of agoraphobia—the worst that she'd ever seen, apparently. Since his parents were somewhat wealthy, they could afford to send him somewhere with a population that wasn't as dense, in order to continue his studies.
So they'd said. But Iruka knew the truth: they just wanted him out of the way, like always. Why else would they leave the house for weeks on end and only stop by for the briefest of hours before flitting off to some other exotic location, while he was forced to stay behind and drown in a tempestuous sea of people? They hadn't wanted him—they were one of those new couples who were interested primarily in their sex life and their work. They had had no room or need in their hearts for a child—and an overweight, nearsighted, sickly boy with a post-nasal drip and a terrible immune system was even less welcome.
Why the didn't just give me up for adoption is beyond me, he thought with clenched teeth, a vein throbbing in his temple. His eyes widened in horror for half a second as his heart suddenly stopped beating; then he relaxed when he heard the familiar ba-bump of his pulse.
The doctor reached into a drawer on his desk and retrieved a plastic bottle full of Carvedilol pills. Unscrewing the cap, he dropped three capsules into the palm of his flesh-and-blood right hand and tossed them into his mouth. Within seconds he had swallowed the medication, washing them down with a drink of bottled water.
I really need to get off that subject, he thought as he calmed down, allowing the pills to work their magic. Returning to his seat, he stared at the file on his desk.
SUZUHARA, TOJI jumped out at him from the page, dominating his focus with their large, bold letters. SUBJECT HAS SUSTAINED SEVERE PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAUMA…
Ah yes, the Fourth Child. The Suzuhara boy had been involved in their NERV's recent battle with the Thirteenth Angel. Iruka hadn't been on hand to witness it, but from what he'd heard, the commander's son had gone ballistic in the aftermath—threatened to destroy half of headquarters with his Evangelion before being sedated, f he understood correctly.
With Doctor Akagi busy doing God only knows what elsewhere, the two pilots had been placed under Kyoryuu's care. The physician grumbled under his breath; he didn't enjoy taking orders from what he considered to be a jack-of-all-trades scientist—much less one that was younger than he by six years—but as she outranked him in the standing hierarchy of NERV, he had to do what she said.
Regardless, he had read the psychological profiles of both pilots. While he found that he could emphasize somewhat with Shinji—given certain similar aspects of their pasts—it was Suzuhara that truly piqued his interest. By all accounts the boy was the exact opposite of what Iruka had been at his age—brash, strong, healthy, athletic and arrogant to a fault. The report indicated that he had accepted his position as an Eva pilot in order to make up for an incident involving his sister during the Third Angel's attack on Tokyo-3.
Yet right from the start, his all too brief career had turned into a disaster: as soon as he'd synchronised with Unit Three, the parasitic organism which the MAGI supercomputers had christened Bardiel took possession of the Evangelion, resulting a short but furious engagement which had left Units Zero and Two incapacitated, and Unit Three reduced to a bloody pulp. In fact, the pilot's entry plug had been violently crushed by Unit One before Shinji Ikari could reassert control over the amethyst colossus.
Suzuhara's injuries had been severe: shrapnel from the plug had become embedded within the limbs of his left profile, mangling them beyond any hope of repair and allowing gangrene to set in. The fact that the metal had been laced with a 'foreign contaminant' (the MAGI refused to clarify what the substance actually was) had not helped either. In the end, they had been forced to amputate everything below his knee and shoulder.
Iruka grimaced darkly. He'd been in charge of the surgery, and for the briefest of instants it seemed as though the stumps of Toji's limbs had turned a sickening shade of indigo; but when he blinked, they were a normal colour. It must have been a trick of the light—after all, the mysterious substance had been isolated in the amputated parts of his limbs, so he doubted that whatever it was could have spread to the boy. More importantly, according to the boy's file he was completely healthy—no history of illness, no outbreaks of any major disease—nothing more severe than a bout of stomach flu at the age of seven.
This meant that he was a perfect test subject for the doctor's little…experiment.
Carefully, making sure that no one was lurking near his office, Iruka reached into a pocket of his lab coat and withdrew a tiny bottle full of a thick, green liquid.
Drinking within the Geofront was a minor offence punishable by court-martial and the docking of pay; this was his alibi if anyone discovered the beaker. To the untrained eye, it appeared to be nothing more than the doctor's private stash of absinthe. If anyone were to do a more detailed analysis of the liquid, however, they would quickly discover that it was never alcoholic, nor a beverage.
In fact, they would quickly learn that the emerald fluid contained the distilled genetic code of more than half a dozen different skinks, chameleons, monitor lizards and various other reptiles.
This volatile little genetic cocktail was Iruka Kyoryuu's magnum opus, his life's work, a project that had consumed his life for sixteen years—a serum so radical and potent that, if discovered, would land him in a maximum-security prison for twenty-five years on charges of international theft, treason, smuggling, the hunting of endangered species, and crimes against humanity.
Project Re-Genesis—a catalyst that would drastically enhance and accelerate the human body's recuperative process.
Originally the brainchild of his professor during his time spent in America, Re-Genesis had been their mutual dream for decades; Kyoryuu, because he had been fascinated with reptiles since he was but a child; the professor, because he sought a way to restore the arm that he had lost in Operation Desert Storm.
Yet things had become more personal for Iruka in the months immediately following Second Impact, he noted wryly as he flexed his mechanical hand. In the ensuing chaos, some thugs had broken into the labs in search of something valuable to sell. All they had found was a foreigner and a vial of some useless green liquid, so they decided to vent their frustrations on him.
He'd fought them off as well as he could, given the situation, but there were five of them—and one of them had been carrying a machete…
Fortunately, his professor had known a man called Mendel Stromm, a man who specialized in creating cybernetic limbs and replacement organs. Two million dollars and a week later, Iruka had woken up on a lab table in an unsanitary warehouse—with that thing in the place of his left arm. To make matters worse, they had learned halfway through the surgery that his back wouldn't be able to take the strain of supporting this much-heavier prosthesis unaided; as a result, both his shoulder blades and a large part of his spine had been reinforced with steel plating and advanced servomotors that clicked and whirred with every movement. His colleagues told him that the noise was somewhat unsettling; he barely even noticed it anymore.
Iruka had thrown himself into the work on Project Re-Genesis, sparing just enough of his energy and attention to graduate from college and university with honours. In his mind, the cybernetic limb that clung to his shoulder like an unsightly barnacle made him even more of a loathsome creature—and that serum was the solution.
Alas, when the research had amounted to nothing after eight years, Professor Connors had given up hope of ever completing the formula and had the project discontinued. Iruka had not found it so easy to consign everything that he done over all that time to a trash can, however. He had confronted the professor after a night of heavy drinking. Harsh words were spoken. An argument began, which eventually devolved into an all-out brawl. Iruka somehow emerged victorious, fleeing with a vial full of the serum and leaving his friendship with the professor—the only real friend he'd ever had—in tatters.
Kyoryuu had eventually returned to Japan, were he began to hold practice—all the while continuing to experiment with Project Re-Genesis. After less than a year, he decided that the only place with the facilities necessary for his continued research would have to be NERV Headquarters in Tokyo-3.
He got himself hired by the U.N.-sanctioned organization in short order, serving as an assistant and medical advisor to Doctor Akagi before her growing duties elsewhere resulted in him being placed in charge of the on-site hospital.
Two years ago he had finally made a breakthrough—after so many years, he had at last cracked the formula's code and made Re-Genesis a viable solution. Immediately he began testing it on various specimens: initially he'd used guinea pigs and laboratory rats which he had mutilated himself, before moving up to stray dogs and cats. All subjects had returned as positive: broken bones knitted within seconds; eyes that had cataracts became perfectly healthy and functional; severed limbs regrew in a visceral and graphic fashion in less than a quarter-hour.
He was skittish about testing Project Re-Genesis on humans, however. He couldn't use it on himself without arousing suspicion for obvious reasons, and even if he started using vagrants as test subjects, eventually the rapidly-expanding number of missing homeless people and street punks would attract the eye of Section-2.
But Suzuhara was in the perfect position: his regeneration would be looked on favourably by NERV, as they could always use an extra pilot; and even if the serum backfired for whatever reason, he'd be no worse off than he already was. Really, what did either of them have to lose?
Iruka slid open one of the drawers on his desk and pulled out a hypodermic syringe with a long needle. If this works, you'll thank me boy; if not, you won't even know the difference. Filling the needle to the brim with the green liquid, he rose from his chair and strode out into the hallways of NERV.
It was time to pay the Fourth Child a visit.
Unit Three held its purple-hued predecessor by the throat, its horrendously long arms pinning the horned giant to the mountainside. The black colossus's jaws hung open in a feral grin, the vile parasite controlling it savouring every moment of the impending kill as its mammoth hands squeezed down on the struggling cyborg's pharynx. The sensations flooded over the possessed Evangelion's captive pilot, subsuming his will beneath a tsunami of savage bloodlust and killer instinct. Toji barely even registered the excruciating pain in his forearms, where the bones had torqued and split into fine greenstick fractures when Bardiel had extended his arms. He didn't register the fact that he was strangling one of his best friends to death; he couldn't even tell who he was or what he was doing.
Nor, really, did he care. All that mattered to him was crushing the offensive amethyst titan that had caused him such pain in the past. His suppressed anger towards Unit One for injuring his sister in its battle with the Third Angel had been easily discovered by the Thirteenth; now it was feeding that anger, stoking the flames with the fatty tinder of rage and murderous intent until his mind was little more than an inferno of pure and utter loathing. His Evangelion was the perfect host for such an insidious parasite—and now Toji's emotions had made him into the perfect puppet.
They could both feel it—feel the life slipping out of Unit One, and with it its pilot. Soon it would be over; with the EVA destroyed, and units Two and Zero incapacitated, there was nothing which could stop Bardiel from reuniting with the All-Father at last and bringing his glorious vision to fruition.
Then their weakly-struggling victim's eyes turned a uniform shade of bloody crimson.
Unit One's lax grip on Bardiel's arms suddenly tightened to a vicelike hold on its neck, and with a mighty push the Lillim's vessel surged to its feet.
The collective consciousness that made up the Thirteenth Angel's mind suddenly had a sudden, unexpected and entirely distressing bad feeling about this situation. Their positions had now been completely reversed: the predator was now being preyed upon—the hunter had become the hunted!
The two Evangelions snarled as they pushed and squeezed, each trying to throttle the other before their opponent could do the same. At first it seemed that they were evenly matched—two titanic monsters, one driven by Angelic instinct, the other by a force which Bardiel found both familiar and terrifying.
Then Unit One jerked its hands violently to one side, and the Thirteenth spawn of Adam rapidly felt an icy numbness flood through its possessed body as its cervical vertebrae snapped in half like a dry twig. Its host's arms, once mighty limbs that had brought low the very being which was now killing it, went limp and slid from Unit One's neck like water off a smooth stone. Unit Three dangled from the Test Type's grip, a broken rag doll, its pilot having fallen into a coma once the cyborg's neck was broken.
Yet Unit One did not stop there. Cracking open its dental armour in a savage roar, it swung the beaten corpse of its enemy over its shoulder, bringing it down on the ground with meteoric force.
Bardiel knew what had happened to the other Angels who had faced this abomination. It knew that its end was nigh, that in a few scant seconds its foe would deliver a killing blow. Yet it knew that there was still a way to escape. Withdrawing its presence from the dying and useless body, it transferred all of its mass to the plug containing the Fourth Child.
Unit One drew back its fist and swung it forward, punching the possessed Evangelion's face with such force that its head literally exploded. A tidal wave of gore and grey matter washed over the Lillim city's street, one of Unit Three's eyes flying off quite a distance before landing near the entrance to one of their emergency shelters, many miles away. Far from sated, the purple colossus dug its fingers beneath a gap in the dead Evangelion's breastplate and pulled, ripping the armour plating from its torso before proceeding to yank out its entrails. Out they came—intestines, stomach, liver, spleen, kidneys, lungs, heart…even the S2 organ which had grown to replace the Evangelion's power core. Only then, when the corpse's chest had been emptied of all organs, did the vile monster begin to deface the rest of the body. It started by tearing Unit Three's left arm right out of its socket, a geyser of blood spurting forth to mar the side of a skyscraper as it casually tossed the limb aside. It landed in the Chikuma river, already stained red from the setting sun and quickly turning a sickening shade of scarlet.
On and on did it continue to exhume the corpse, until after the longest five minutes of both pilots' lives, nothing remained of the onyx giant but a bloody, limbless husk, stripped of all life and dignity by the amethyst nightmare which towered over it even now, the victim's film-coated entry plug clutched in its trembling hand. Bardiel tensed, knowing that the moment of doom was at hand, readying itself to make its final gambit.
With a scream that seemed more human than animal, Unit One clenched its fist. The entry plug crumpled, the metal forced inward by the pressure. The Thirteenth Angel flowed like a viscous liquid over the tearing surface of the plug, passing through the LCL and toward the unconscious but severely injured pilot.
It had latched onto the Fourth Child's left side when a piece of shrapnel stabbed into his arm just above the elbow. The Angel loosed an incredibly high-pitched scream that carried throughout the rapidly-dispersing link-connect liquid. Had Toji still been conscious, the ungodly sound would not only have driven him irrevocably insane but also would have robbed him of his hearing. The horrendous noise was repeated a second later, when another entry plug fragment perforated the Angel at the midway point of his left thigh. Abruptly the sound halted, coinciding with a technician's report that "Eva Unit Three—I mean…the target has gone completely silent, sir." the filmy residue that made up the now-dead Angel began to decompose rapidly, sloughing away like the surf at a beach.
Yet enough remained to seep into the boy's grievous wounds, spreading through the opened arteries and veins, an insidious yet harmless invader that posed a quandary to all scans. No life signs to indicate the presence of blood pattern blue; no cause for his overtaxed immune system to fight off the strange invader; no reason to consider him contaminated. By the time the medics had arrived, there was absolutely nothing left to indicate that the Thirteenth Angel had made any form of contact with Toji Suzuhara whatsoever. By the time they had rushed him to NERV's hospital in the Geofront, the material in his bloodstream had become nigh indistinguishable from the life-giving humours.
So it was that when Iruka Kyoryuu entered the pilots' room, he had no reason to suspect that his actions would soon have consequences far more drastic than anything he could have imagined. Striding across the sterile chamber to the Fourth Child's bed, he cast a critical eye over Suzuhara. It was clear that he'd never be able to pilot an Evangelion again—much less accomplish whatever athletic dreams the jock probably had. With a sigh of resignation, he pulled up the boy's sleeve to expose the pit of his inner elbow.
Well, here goes nothing, he thought as he jammed the syringe into Toji's radial recurrent artery. It was the largest artery in that portion of the boy's body; the serum would be dispersed throughout his body within minutes. Re-Genesis would take effect immediately thereafter.
Kyoryuu stuffed the empty hypodermic into a hip pocket, then turned on his heel and walked out the door. He gave a curt nod to the two female pilots—Ayanami and Soryu, if he recalled correctly; he was too busy to bother remembering their first names—as he walked past, flat-out ignoring the inquisitive stares that they sent his way.
The girls continued to stare after the portly doctor until he rounded the corner and disappeared from view. Then they slowly turned and gave each other confused looks. Not only had that man been the most unhealthy-looking physician they'd ever seen, he hadn't even bothered to let them know how their fellow pilots were doing!
Asuka Langley Soryu huffed in irritation. Who the hell does that verdammt quack think he is anyway? She sneered in her mind. What kind of doctor doesn't tell the patient's condition to their coworkers?! Especially to me, the Great Asuka Langley, pilot of Unit Two?!
The "Great" Asuka Langley? A sinister voice echoed mockingly within her skull. I don't seem to recall you preening and strutting like this during the last battle. Or have you already forgotten how quickly you were beaten? How soundly your opponent incapacitated you and left your Evangelion to rot in the hills of Matsushiro?
The Second Child's eyes narrowed. For a second there, I honestly forgot that you were rattling around inside my head, Zarathos. What a pity.
Yes, it certainly is, the demon replied, its telepathic voice dripping with scorn. At least then I wouldn't have to put up with such an uncooperative, cocksure Rider! Your stupid pride has already cost you the use of any potential allies. How long will it be before you also lose to the Angels?!
Would you shut up for a minute, damn it?! I don't need your lip right now!
Fine, the demon spat. But I warn you—that doctor will pose a problem in the future. He has not killed anyone, but the stench of evil hangs over him. And with that, the fiend withdrew into the recesses of Asuka's mind.
The Re-Genesis formula coursed through Toji's veins, diffusing itself throughout his body. Under normal circumstances, the reptilian molecules would bond with his platelets, white blood cells and bone marrow, copying and replicating his genetic blueprints in order to kick his recuperative faculties into overdrive.
These circumstances, however, were clearly far from normal.
The reptilian DNA made contact with what remained of the Thirteenth Angel. Parasitic and absorptive in nature, Bardiel's genetic material assimilated Re-Genesis into itself, forming a hybrid compound of two wildly different genetic materials. Once this occurred, the new substance proceeded to finish what it had originally started—albeit on a much faster scale.
The unconscious boy muttered softly and began to toss and turn as it went to work. His agitated movements intensified as his various injuries began to heal at an unbelievable rate. Wounds sealed, scabbed over, and became indistinguishable from healthy flesh; broken bones knitted themselves back together until they seemed like new; and a powerful, throbbing ache began to suffuse his left side.
Suddenly Toji snapped awake, his body jerking violently as he sat up. His shoulder was on FIRE!, and it was all he could do to hold back a bloodcurdling and decidedly unmanly scream. His eyes, drawn to the source of the sudden agony, widened in horror as the stump of his arm burst open like an overripe fruit, a shaft of bone shooting out from it until it was as long as his arm. An overpowering sense of nausea took hold as the ivory spear split into five points, each of which cracked multiple times to form phalanges and metacarpals. The same thing happened halfway down the length of bone, splitting it in the middle to create an elbow. His right hand flew up to his mouth as a layer of pink and purple fibres oozed over the newly-formed humerus, radius and hand. The taught sinew rapidly thickened and expanded into muscle tissue, over which flowed a coating of hairless pink skin.
For a moment the pain subsided, and all Toji could do was gaze upon the naked, rosy arm with a mixture of confusion, awe and revulsion.
Then he screamed as the pain returned with the force of a sledgehammer as his leg underwent the exact same process. Mercifully, the blanket still covered everything below his waist, sparing his mind from having to see such an awful sight once again.
But the pain…god almighty, the pain!! There existed no words in any of Man's many languages to adequately describe it!
Shinji leapt from his bed, awoken from a most peculiar dream by the sound of his macho friend wailing like a newborn baby. He turned to look in his direction, fear and guilt warring in his heart: fear at what he'd see writhing in Toji's bed, guilt for having caused him such pain in the first place. It was no secret that the Third Child blamed himself for the loss of Toji's limbs, after all.
So he was understandably shocked to see Toji flailing both of his arms about while something happened to his legs. With a sickening sprooot, the Fourth Child kicked the sheets clean off with his left foot.
Abruptly Toji's limbs went slack, and he fell back onto his bed, his eyes wide open. Shinji ran over, screaming his friend's name as he shook the taller boy in an attempt to snap him out of whatever stupor he was in. had he not been so occupied, he would have seen Toji's eyes undergo a startling transformation: for the briefest of instants, his sclera went from white to completely red, and his pupils narrowed and elongated until they were vertical, reptilian slits…
Author's Note: yes, I admit it; I have a tendency to jump on bandwagons. Despite the name, however, this story will have more in common with Orionpax's Superwomen of Eva series than the Antiheroes story(ies) created by Biohazard 101; it will reference the characters and events of some of those stories, and I may even involve a superwoman or two directly. Whether or not that happens is entirely up to the authors: Orionpax, Mike313, Archdruid-Sephiroth; if you have any objections to my using your characters in this story, then you need only say so in the review section. Similarly, if my use of the characters is okay, post a review indicating as such.
Some of you may be wondering how I'm going to work this into the other stories, if I get their permission. In response, I would have to point you in the direction of treacherous Web: although it's part of Orionpax's overall collection, it clearly doesn't mesh with the rest of them--if for no other reason than that Ritsuko kills off Gendo Ikari within the first three chapters. I'll find a way to do it--you can count on that.
Finally, you've no duobt noticed that a sizeable portion of this chapter was dedicated to the background of an original character. I'll ask you all to bear with me on this, as it is necessary for the overall story arc. Iruka Kyoryuu is not finished with Toji yet--not by a long shot.
And now I will leave you, dear readers, with two things: first, a request that you read and review; and second, a challenge: who can tell me, in a single, five-line paragraph, what they think will happen to that OC? Will he be an ally, an adversary, or a completely neutral character? Shall he become a pre-existing Marvel character, or, like Hikari Horaki in Spirit, will he become someone completely new? You'll get five bonus points if I like your hypothesis, thirty if you somehow manage to get it perfectly, and you will be docked ten points if it is written in l337, chatspeak or some other form of nonsensical claptrap. The top five (the remaining criteria I am keeping to myself) will receive salutations when the next chapter comes out. Adieu!