Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.
Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or anything associated with it, and I am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.
Chapter One: Reluctant Magic
After she returned to the command center from the MAGI sub-node, Maya found that she couldn't concentrate on her work at all. For her, this was unusual enough to be freakish, but it wasn't exactly like she was mystified at the reason.
Learning that powerful hidden cabals currently had plans for Armageddon in the works would shatter anyone's focus.
What am I going to do? She thought as the more junior technicians went about the task of preparing for the system restore she'd ordered. What am I going to do?
Her day wasn't supposed to go like this. It was supposed to have just been a normal day, busy but fulfilling, with her doing what she loved to do. Finding out about a scheme to destroy the world and being charged with preventing it from happening had not been on her agenda.
"Maya?"
The petite brunette nearly jumped out of her skin as she felt someone's hand upon her shoulder. Maya immediately leapt to the conclusion that it was the Commander, who'd somehow discovered that she'd learned too much. That the voice which had spoken her name obviously didn't belong to Gendo Ikari was something that didn't quite register with her.
Maya turned and saw Ritsuko standing behind her.
Sempai, she thought. Her mentor's mother had, through the wonders of cutting-edge technology, reached up from the grave to try and protect her, and Ritsuko didn't have the faintest clue about it.
She almost told Dr. Akagi that she needed to speak with her in private, so she could tell her sempai that she and everyone else in the world was in grave danger. The words were on the tip of her tongue before a truly terrible thought stopped her.
If the Commander intended to use NERV's technology to bring about his terrible plan, wouldn't he need the assistance of NERV's top scientist?
No! Maya thought at once, not wanting to believe for a moment that her mentor and friend would ever be a party to such a thing.
Still, the question of how the Commander could ever hope to complete his plans without Dr. Akagi's help was something she had no answer for, unfortunately, and much as she didn't want to think Ritsuko could be involved, Maya didn't think she could afford to take a chance.
"Maya!"
Startled, the brunette jerked back to reality and blushed with embarrassment. "Gomen nasai, sempai. I don't know where my mind is today."
Ritsuko nodded. "You look a little pale," she said. "Are you feeling all right?"
"Just fine," Maya said, nodding earnestly. "I'm just a little… out of it today."
Ritsuko smiled. "I think we've all had days like that, Maya," she said. "I asked you how things were going here."
"Oh, well, I noticed that both Balthasar and Casper were acting strangely, so I ordered a full system restore," Maya answered.
The blonde's eyebrows went up. "I didn't expect that the power outage would have such a great effect on the MAGI."
"They were both behaving very strangely, sempai," Maya said, fervently hoping that Ritsuko didn't go investigating the MAGI's ills herself.
Until the system restore was complete, there would be records of Balthasar having sent her those forbidden files. Regardless of whether or not Ritsuko knew anything about the Commander and SEELE's plans, Maya didn't want Ritsuko discovering what she herself had.
"I trust your judgment, Maya," Ritsuko said. "Just be sure to give me a heads up before you actually do it. There's some files I'll need to backup."
"Of course, sempai," Maya said, feeling both relief and guilt sweep over her.
She trusts me, Maya thought. But I'm hiding things from her. And I don't trust her, not enough to tell her about what I found, anyway.
"Well, I have to get back to what I was doing," Ritsuko said. "No rest for the wicked, eh, Maya?"
"I… I guess not," Maya replied, forcing herself to sound as cheerful as possible while fervently wishing her sempai had made a different choice of words.
The rest of the workday was a blur to Maya, as she functioned largely on auto-pilot while turning over the hideous things she'd learned in her mind. She was so out of it that she very nearly ordered the system restore be initiated before warning Dr. Akagi as she'd requested, and only the reminder of one of the junior technicians saved her from making this embarrassing blunder.
Finally, the day came to an end, and Maya was able to punch out and head for home.
"Quite a day, huh?" Makoto said to her as they headed for the train station.
"You can say that again," Maya answered tiredly.
Makoto adjusted his glasses, taking notice of the laptop the brunette had under her arm as she did so. "Taking your work home with you?"
You have no idea, Maya thought.
"Yeah," she answered. "All those problems with the MAGI today really put me behind."
"I can imagine," Makoto said. "Well, try not to work too hard."
"Somehow," Maya said as they boarded their train, "I don't think that'll be an option."
Makoto quirked an eyebrow. "Are you okay, Maya?" he asked. "You seem very down today."
"Oh, I'm fine," Maya said, forcing a smile. "Just… beat."
Crud, I'm definitely going to have to dust off my showmanship skills if I don't want people getting suspicious, Maya thought to herself.
"Well, we've all been there," Makoto said. "Just remember that NERV won't fall apart at the seams if you fall a little behind in your work."
"Thanks, I'll try and keep that in mind," Maya said.
So normal, she thought, amazed that it was still possible for her to have such an ordinary conversation, knowing what she now knew. The world had become a darker place that afternoon, but everybody was acting just the same as they had that morning. Maya realized there was no reason for them to behave differently, since they didn't know what she now did. Still, it was oddly disconcerting.
The train took Maya to her own neighborhood in about fifteen minutes, and she disembarked, now heading for her home on foot. She reached her building in minutes and was soon entering her apartment.
"I'm home," she said as she crossed the threshold.
As usual, no one was present to answer her. One of the few negatives to her job at NERV was that the long and often erratic hours prevented her from forming much of anything in the way of a social life, let alone finding a boyfriend. She didn't even have the time to care for a pet.
It would be nice to have another rabbit, Maya thought, remembering Carrots, her childhood pet, which had doubled as a prop in her father's magic act. Though really, having anything here waiting for me to come home would be nice.
She quickly put this thought out of her mind, wondering how she could be concerned about something so minor when she had discovered mere hours ago that the entire world was in jeopardy.
"Ugh, is that ever going to sink in?" Maya wondered aloud, rubbing her eyes.
She felt exhausted, simply from carrying the weight of such overwhelming knowledge for the bulk of her day. The brunette didn't even want to think about what it would do to her after a few days or weeks.
Well, can't be helped, she thought. I can't unlearn that information.
With a small sigh, Maya placed her laptop down on her kitchen table and plugged it in, since she had a sinking feeling that she'd need it for longer than the machine's battery could hold out.
The first thing she did once she got her computer booted up was to start copying the Instrumentality files on her hard drive to a portable zip drive. There was far less chance of NERV discovering she had them that way, and Maya didn't want to take any more risks than were absolutely necessary.
While her laptop was busy with this task, Maya went to her bedroom to exchange her uniform for a black T-shirt with the NERV logo on it in red, and a pair of very short jean shorts that she wouldn't be caught dead wearing in public. After this was done, Maya fixed herself a cup of tea. It calmed her nerves a little.
Her laptop let out a chime, signaling that it had finished the task she'd given it and was now idle. Pulling up a chair, Maya first deleted the copy of the files that remained on her hard drive, and then began to look through them more carefully.
There was a lot of information there, all of it horrifying, but still less than Maya had expected. The uncorrupted files she possessed were heavy on "what" and low on "how." They explained that SEELE and Commander Ikari both intended to invoke Third Impact, SEELE for the purpose of achieving godhood and Commander Ikari for becoming reunited with his deceased wife, but there was no explanation of how they planned to make this work.
Oh, there was a bit of extra information here and there—all the Angels, or the "children of Adam" as they were referred to most of the time, had to be dead before either SEELE or Ikari could commence Third Impact, for instance, something that brought Maya no small measure of relief—but there wasn't nearly enough for Maya to really get a grip on what was going on.
"I need more information," she sighed after two hours of attempting to repair the corrupted files had resulted in nothing but frustration.
She couldn't hope to stop the Commander and SEELE if she had only the barest idea of what their plans were after all.
Maya then realized that she was thinking about trying to do, namely defeat Commander Ikari, the most unflappable, steely, and downright intimidating man she'd ever met, who held sway over the entire city. Then she'd have to somehow thwart the people he answered to. The task Balthasar had charged her with suddenly seemed incredibly overwhelming all over again, and the mousey technician wasn't sure whether to burst into fits of laughter or tears.
As it turned out, she did neither. Instead, her stomach made itself heard, letting out a loud growl. Blinking, Maya looked at her clock and realized how late it was.
Part of her was amazed that something as petty as hunger could even register with her, considering what she had learned. She supposed some parts of a human were simply unable to appreciate such things.
"I guess it couldn't hurt to stop for dinner," she said to herself.
Maya knew how to cook competently enough, but there were plenty of nights when she just didn't feel up to the task. This definitely being one of them, the brunette searched her freezer until she found a frozen meal, which she quickly popped into her microwave.
"A fine mess you've gotten yourself into now, Ibuki," she mused while she waited for her food to heat up.
After living alone for a while, she had developed the habit of talking to herself occasionally. She tried not to think of the implications of this habit too much, or too hard.
"You couldn't just be a computer technician anywhere, oh no! You had to make a difference just to show Dad, so you worked your way into NERV so you could have some small part in saving the world," she grumbled. "Now look what's happened. The fate of the planet's resting entirely on your skinny shoulders."
Her microwave finished heating her dinner, and she sat down and started to eat, not allowing herself to think, just taste. Her brain needed a break, and she didn't want to come to the conclusion she knew she would inevitably reach.
Yet she could only shut her eyes to what was right in front of her face for so long before she acknowledged that it was there. As she was washing the few dishes she'd dirtied, she finally gave in.
She needed more information, and it would be reckless at best for Maya the computer technician to try and obtain it. Maya the magician, on the other hand, had a lot more options open to her.
She'd sworn to never again use magic, but the fate of the world was at stake.
"I really hope nobody ever finds out about this," Maya sighed as she put away her dishes.
Walking with both resignation and determination in her stride, Maya left her kitchen and went to a moderately-sized closet she had in her apartment. Unlike the rest of her living space, which she made a point of keeping tidy regardless of what her work schedule looked like, Maya almost completely neglected this closet.
So she wasn't surprised to find dust and cobwebs aplenty when she opened the door, the hinges releasing a loud squeak as she did so. "Lovely," she coughed slightly as a cloud of dust wafted out.
The closet was where she kept the few items that connected her, in one way or another, to magic. In it resided every object of power and every prop necessary for a stage magic trick that Maya possessed, along with assorted other bric-a-brac that she associated with the part of herself which she'd repudiated.
Sitting in the center of a shelf within that was at her eye level, as though positioned specifically for her to see them at once, were two little stone , the Shinto god of medicine and magic, lay there dressed in obsidian, while the white hare of Inaoa, a magical creature that had once helped the diety, sat next to him, made entirely of alabaster.
Her sister Natsume had slipped those into her bags, the day she left home. The little statues had been accompanied by a hastily written letter, in which Natsume had apologized for not helping Maya argue with their father, as well as asked Maya not to let her refusal to let her heritage rule her turn into a willingness to forget about it.
The brunette smiled slightly as she picked up the figurines. She remembered finding them, and reading her sister's letter. All her anger had instantly melted away and she'd cried very hard, full of sudden homesickness and fear that she had just made a terrible mistake.
If not for the little statues, the contents of the closet would likely be languishing in a garbage dump somewhere, rather than sitting on some neglected shelves, covered in dust.
Putting the god and the rabbit back down, Maya began to root about inside the closet, searching for something. She didn't expect that she would be looking for very long, since there really wasn't much there. The vast bulk of the enchanted artifacts and talismans owned by the Ibuki family remained in her father's possession, and only things that Maya had accidentally taken when she'd stormed out, as well the few items she'd picked up despite herself since then, occupied the closet.
"Ah," she said with satisfaction as she finally discovered what she was looking for.
It was a deck of tarot cards, similar to the kind one could buy in just about any magic or hobby shop, but powerful in the hands of a Homo Magi like Maya.
"I can't believe I'm doing this," she said as she took the cards back to her kitchen table and removed them from the box.
Maya didn't read tarot cards like most fortune tellers did. For one thing, she had no use for the minor arcana; she could only ever get information out of the major arcana, the ones with pictures on them. She sorted the useless cards out, and then shuffled those that remained.
Once this was done, Maya took a deep, calming breath, momentarily letting go of her dislike for magic and releasing all but one thought from her mind.
I need to know about the Commander's plan.
Her right hand hovered over the deck as she took slow, even breaths. For several minutes, she just sat there, unmoving, and allowing herself to go into a sort of a trance.
Abruptly, as though compelled by great and unseen forces, Maya grabbed a card from the top of the deck, flipped it over, and placed it on the table in front of her.
She didn't see what card it actually was, only what it represented and the knowledge that came with it. The first card represented, appropriately enough, Commander Ikari, the one who guided the whole evil scheme with a firm and ruthless hand. SEELE was powerful, terrifyingly so, and clever in their own way, but Gendo Ikari was the one who held all the winds and dragons. He was the one who had personal access to the truly important people and objects.
With that realization, her hand flipped three more cards, each one representing an EVA pilot. The ones for Shinji and Rei she placed right beneath the Commander's card. Asuka's was put off to the side.
The First and the Third Children were the important ones. They were the keys to the Commander's scenario. Asuka… she was just extra somehow.
Were Maya not in a trance, she might have wondered at how the Second Child would react to learning such a thing. Probably not very well.
Three more cards came up, which she all placed next to Shinji. If the Commander and SEELE had their way, the Third Child would, for but a moment, hold power over everything in his hands, and in his pain, he would choose to unmake it all.
Maya could have stopped there. She knew what the critical elements of the scenario were. She knew who and what she had to meddle with in order to ensure that both the Commander and SEELE were denied what they wanted.
And yet she couldn't stop, because there was one more thing she needed to know. Her hand turned over two more cards in rapid succession, and she discovered that Ritsuko Akagi, her beloved sempai, was knowingly assisting Ikari in his monstrous ambitions, just like her mother had before her.
Maya sucked in a sharp gasp of air, and her trance was broken. She shook her head violently, suddenly feeling sick and nauseous.
"This day just keeps getting better and better," she said, panting.
She then looked down at her table, and saw which card had represented what. Some were, if not comforting, at least what she would have expected or even relatively mundane. Asuka and Rei, for instance, were represented by the Sun and the Moon, respectively. The three cards that showed what SEELE and Commander Ikari wanted Shinji to do at the climax of their terrible scheme were the World, Judgment, and Death. Naoko Akagi was the Empress, a card which often symbolized something to do with motherhood. None of these cards disturbed her.
Ritsuko's card profoundly confused the petite brunette. The bottle blond scientist was represented by the Fool, which Maya couldn't begin to understand. She had always felt that her sempai was the smartest person she'd ever met.
Her beloved mentor's card disturbed her somewhat, but the two remaining cards that she'd drawn chilled her to the bone. Shinji Ikari was represented by the Hanged Man, an ominous portent at best. Of course, trouble for him in the future meant trouble for everyone, if SEELE and the Commander's plans ever reached their final phase.
That alone was enough to make her taste bile at the back of her throat, but even that terrible bit of knowledge couldn't compare to the card that she had first drawn, the card for the one who was at the center of all of it.
The card representing Gendo Ikari was the Devil.
The next day found Maya sitting at her terminal in the NERV command center, typing away with far less enthusiasm than usual. The horrifying things she had discovered, both last night and before then, refused to leave her mind and allow her any peace for even a moment.
"Lieutenant Ibuki."
Maya jumped so violently that her entirely body actually left her chair for a moment. Breathing hard, she turned to see who had addressed her. Her frayed nerves were not exactly soothed when she found herself looking up at the face of Captain Chiron, the head of Section Two.
"Yes, sir?" she asked.
"Commander Ikari wishes to see you," Chiron replied, "immediately."
"Of course, sir," Maya said as she stood up, then turned to one of the junior technicians. "Yumi, cover my station until I get back."
"Yes, ma'am," the other tech said obediently, taking Maya's seat.
Maya got up and followed Captain Chiron out of the command center. The man walked with long, purposeful strides as he led her to the Commander's office, and he didn't say a word.
Perhaps it was just her imagination, but Maya detected a certain…grim air about the man, like an executioner leading the condemned to the gallows.
Stop it! She commanded herself sternly.
"Why does the Commander want to see me?" she asked a few moments later, unable to take it any longer.
"The Commander didn't inform me. I was just sent to get you, Ibuki," Chiron replied curtly.
That answer didn't exactly fill her with confidence, but they had reached the great double doors that were the portal to the Commander's lair. Chiron opened one of the doors and gestured for Maya to enter.
For a moment, the petite woman's legs refused to move as fear swept over her. She had never been called into the Commander's office to speak with him alone before. Nor had anyone else of her relatively low rank, for that matter. The only reason he would summon her like this was if he knew.
You're not sure he knows, Maya told herself. But he will know something's wrong if you run or freak out.
Armed with this bit of logic, Maya stepped inside, and just in time, too, if the strange look Chiron was giving her was anything to go by.
The interior of the Commander's office looked like it always did, which was to say that it looked creepy. The vast room was dark, despite the entirety of the far wall being a great window that should have flooded the place with sunlight at this hour. It must have been some trick of the way sunlight was reflected into the Geofront that kept the place dim in even the middle of the day, Maya mused. A strange and intricate drawing of something she wasn't familiar with covered the ceiling and was reflected upon the floor's mirror-like surface.
Whatever it is, it's creepy, Maya thought.
"Lieutenant Ibuki," Gendo addressed her as she approached his desk.
"Sir," Maya replied automatically, saluting.
Her brown eyes darted over to his side, where the Vice Commander had been standing like a sentinel during every previous visit she'd ever made to the huge office. The absence of the older man disturbed her.
"It has come to my attention that you recently performed a full system restore on the MAGI," Commander Ikari said.
Maya's heart began to jackhammer within her chest, and she felt herself break out into a cold sweat.
Showmanship, Maya! She thought.
Suddenly, the former stage magician remembered her time at the Jade Maiden, feeling humiliated by what she was doing but keeping a smile firmly glued to her face at all times. Keeping her outward appearance together couldn't be that much harder now than it was back then.
"That's correct, sir," she replied and was impressed with how level her voice sounded.
"Why did you decide to do this?" he asked.
"The MAGI were behaving strangely," Maya answered. "It appeared as though the power outages that occurred during the Ninth Angel's attack had caused a number of errors."
"How were the MAGI behaving strangely exactly?" Gendo pressed.
Fighting the rising terror as she became more and more certain he was about to inform her she was caught at any moment now, Maya swallowed and answered, "Balthasar started running random applications, and Casper attempted to hack Balthasar."
"I see," Gendo said.
There was a pause.
"Is that all, sir?" Maya asked after the silence became practically painful. "Am I dismissed?"
"Yes, you may go," Gendo said coldly.
Maya had to consciously command herself not to show her relief, which she knew would arouse even more suspicion than her fear would have. "Thank you, sir," she said, saluting again.
With that, she turned on her heel and strode toward the doors, forcing herself not to move too fast toward sweet, sweet freedom.
Then, Captain Chiron stepped in front of the doors, blocking her path.
"Oh, yes, there is something I forgot," Gendo said, his tone almost conversational. "Casper sent you files that were never meant for your eyes."
Maya gasped and spun around to face the Commander. Her eyes widened when she actually saw him.
The man's eyes had been replaced with burning coals, and his orange glasses were visibly melting from the heat they were producing. He exhaled and twin streams of gray smoke escaped his nostrils and went swirling toward the ceiling. Maya let out a small squeak of terror.
"There was only one sane thing to do when Casper sent you that information," Gendo proclaimed.
Maya barely heard him. When he opened his mouth to speak, the brunette had fiery light blazing within his mouth. It was like his body had become the vessel for an unholy inferno.
"The sane thing to do would have been to delete the data, flee, and try to enjoy whatever time the world has left," Gendo continued. "Not to try and stop me. That's a battle you've already lost. Behold."
He gestured, and Maya noticed that smoke was billowing out of his sleeve. Slowly, reluctantly, she turned her head to look in the direction he had indicated. Maya felt the blood drain from her face once her gaze fell upon what the Commander wanted her to see.
Shinji Ikari, the Commander's own son, hung suspended from the ceiling by a noose formed from thick rope. His blank, glassy eyes stared at her accusingly, and his skin had long ago long the glow of life.
"No," she whispered, wondering how she had managed to miss the gruesome display before.
"And now, Ibuki, you shall join him," Gendo said, getting up from his desk and slowly advancing toward her.
The man left burning footprints with each step he took, and Maya could feel the intense heat he was giving off even though he still all the way across the room.
Release a cry, she turned and tried to get out, but Chiron grabbed hold of her forearms and kept her easily away from her only possible escape route.
"Get out of my way!" Maya exclaimed, struggling fiercely even though she knew there was no chance of her overpowering the large man. "He'll kill us both!"
Chiron's response was to wordlessly shove her hard enough that she went sprawling, falling painfully on her rear end. She turned her neck to see how close the Commander had come and saw that he was already more than halfway across the room.
I'm going to die, Maya thought with absolute certainty.
"Help me!" she screamed. "Somebody help me! He's going to kill me!"
Suddenly, a point of silvery light appeared in the center of the great room and flew toward her, trailing wispy smoke behind it. Before Maya's very eyes, it grew and transformed, taking on the shape of a man.
Takeshi Ibuki.
A ghostly vision of her father stood before her, dressed in the tuxedo she'd seen him wear countless times, the one he always wore for his performances. He extended a hand, and Maya could see an object, a solid object, resting in his palm.
A magic wand. It was the key to her escaping the Commander's office alive.
But it was also the symbol of everything she had walked away from, everything she had escaped from. If she took it now, it would be as good as admitting to her father that he had been right all along.
She hesitated.
And that hesitation proved fatal. The Commander pounced on her, and her entire world became heat and pain. Maya threw her head back and screamed in agony as she felt her skin being charred away, her bones being reduced to ash, and her very soul becoming scorched by the Commander's infernal flame. And then—
—She jerked awake with a start. Her chest heaved as she panted heavily, and her entire body was utterly drenched with sweat. She felt even more weary than she had before she'd gone to sleep.
I'd forgotten…the price that has to be paid to read the cards, she thought as she gradually calmed down.
Unfortunately, she knew she wasn't quite finished paying yet. The residual effects from the tarot cards wouldn't be dispelled until dawn of the coming morning. Until then, any sleep she got was destined to be plagued by horrifically vivid nightmares.
"Guess I'm staying awake then," Maya said to herself, getting out of bed and throwing on a robe.
She trudged toward her kitchen to make herself some tea, not looking forward to the rest of the long night she had before her.
Morning came eventually, as morning always did, and Maya got up and went to work, as she always did. Her workday unfolded in a perfectly normal manner; no scary Section Two guys said they needed to speak to her in private, and the work remained every bit as intellectually-stimulating as ever.
It's not the same, she thought morosely as she typed at her console.
The knowledge she had acquired yesterday had taken the sparkle off the world, and Maya was no longer taking the simple pleasures from her job that she once had.
Which is a real shame, since my job is about the only thing in my life right now, she thought. Or at least it was, until Balthasar decided I look like someone who can save the world.
"Hello, Maya."
The petite technician jumped, and then spun her chair around to face Ritsuko. "Sempai," she said. "You startled me."
"Sorry, about that, Maya," Ritsuko said. "I wanted to ask you if you're feeling better today."
"Oh, much," Maya lied through her teeth, forcing a smile.
"Good," Ritsuko said. "Anyway, I was heading down to the commissary for lunch. I was wondering if you'd like to join me."
Two days ago, Maya would have leapt at this offer, but two days ago felt like a completely different lifetime. "Thank you, sempai, but I really have a lot of work I should finish."
"All right, Maya," Ritsuko said. "Just don't let your job consume your life. All work and no play, you know."
"Right," Maya agreed.
Ritsuko walked off. Maya watched her go.
What hold does he have on you, sempai? The brunette wondered. What hold did he have over your mother?
Maya just didn't understand how Gendo could manage to control someone like Ritsuko strongly enough to make her cooperate with his awful plans. She had always seen her mentor as a strong, confident woman who'd be completely unwilling to take any garbage from anyone.
Ritsuko's strength was the reason Maya had always felt so drawn to the blond woman, but apparently there was a side to her sempai that she'd never seen.
All her illusions had been shattered in the course of a single day.
"Hey, Maya, is something wrong?" Aoba asked. "It's not like you to brush off Dr. Akagi like that."
"Hmm? Oh no, I just have so much work to do," she said, adding a tired sigh for effect, which wasn't hard, given how little sleep she'd gotten the previous night.
"I hear you," Aoba said. "Weekly reports, regular maintenance, and the Children have a sync test that we have to oversee today. It's crazy."
"Yeah," Maya agreed. "Crazy."
The long haired technician's comment made her think of the EVA pilots, two of whom were the keys to the evil plans that were being carried out beneath the veneer of saving the world from the Angels. After briefly looking around to check that no one was looking at her, Maya turned to her console and brought up Shinji and Rei's dossiers.
To her surprise, the First Child's was practically empty, containing nothing but her name, date of birth, a picture of her, and the records of how well she'd managed to sync with EVA over the years. There was no personal history, family records, or anything else. It was like the girl just existed for the purposes of NERV.
The Third Child's dossier contained more information, but not by much. His mother had died when he was four, and his father had sent him to live with an uncle soon after that. Commander Ikari had then called him back shortly before the Third Angel had arrived. There was no real information on the years between then.
Poor boy, she thought. And the people controlling his life want him to hate the world so much that he'd destroy it. They're deliberately making his life a hell.
She thought back to her dream, to the horrible, glassy eyes Shinji's corpse had had, and she shuddered.
Of course, as bad as that had been, real life held worse for him down the line, if his father had anything to say about it. In her dream, the Commander had hanged him. In the waking world, the Commander wanted to get him to hang himself.
It shamed Maya to realize it, but she'd never given Shinji, or either of the other EVA pilots for that matter, very much thought. They were just… co-workers for the most part. People who worked for NERV like she did, but not in the same department. It was her job to help care for their machines but not for them. The Children themselves had never been her concern, and she'd never seen any reason to change that.
Her gut twisted with further guilt as she thought back to the past since Balthasar had contacted her. She had done little but feel sorry for herself since then, and while being charged with defeating foes like the Commander and SEELE wasn't exactly pleasant, it was nothing to being the focus of those same groups, to having them putting their enormous resources to the task of making him miserable enough to want to end everything. They weren't trying to make her miserable enough to place a noose around her own neck.
Maya hadn't asked for this duty, but somebody needed to do it, and she, too, had resources, loathe as she was to call upon most of them.
Guess I have no choice but to save the world, then, she thought, steeling her resolve.
"The tests are completed for the day," Ritsuko announced as the Children's test plugs opened. "Shinji, your score has increased by four points. Asuka, you've gone up one. Rei, you've remained steady, as usual."
Shinji looked at Asuka out of the corner of his eye, and was unsurprised to see that the redhead was looking less than happy. Whenever a sync test revealed that his link with Evangelion had strengthened more than hers had, the German was irascible for the rest of the day, at best. He was in for a rather unpleasant evening.
I hate sync tests, he thought glumly.
"The three of you are dismissed for the day," Akagi said.
"Roger," the pilots replied, getting out of their test plugs and leaving the testing chamber.
Shinji headed to the locker room that was reserved for male EVA pilots. It struck him as a little ridiculous to have two locker rooms for three pilots, especially when there were other locker rooms used by the rest of the NERV personnel throughout the base. However, he'd be lying if he were to claim that he didn't appreciate the privacy.
The Third Child showered and changed back into his normal clothes, glad to be out of the plug suit. With this task completed, he picked up his bag and left the locker room, already pondering what to make for dinner.
Maybe something Western, he thought. It would probably improve Asuka's mood.
"Shinji?"
He turned to see that Maya Ibuki was standing at the end of the hallway, apparently having just turned a corner. "Can I help you, Lieutenant Ibuki?" Shinji asked.
"There's no need to call me 'Lieutenant Ibuki', Shinji," the technician said. "Everyone just calls me Maya."
"Uh, okay, Maya, then," Shinji said. "Is there something you want from me?"
"I just wanted to ask how you're doing," she replied.
"How I'm doing?" he asked, confused and wondering if perhaps there was something going on that he didn't know about.
Maya shrugged. "Well, I just figured that I should probably ask the people who we've charged with saving the world how they're holding up now and then."
"I'm fine," Shinji answered.
"How are things at home?" Maya pressed. "How are you doing in school?"
Shinji frowned, vaguely suspicious of this spontaneous show of concern. However, he simply gave a mental shrug and went along with it, not knowing what else to do. "Okay, I guess," he said. "I'm, uh, struggling in physics class, but other than that, everything's… normal."
"I see," Maya said. "You know, if you like, I could probably tutor you in physics. It hasn't been so long since I had to study it myself."
Shinji blinked. "Uh, aren't you really busy, with your job and everything?"
"Sometimes," Maya admitted, "but here's the thing: things really kick into high gear around here during and after Angel battles, and at those times, you and the other pilots are stuck here all the time, too."
That much was very true, Shinji thought. After every battle, he, Asuka, and Rei were subjected to endless tests and checkups. Not only that, but their respective Evangelions all underwent a similar number of checks, and the pilots were required for quite a few of them. Every Angel battle meant at least two straight weeks of going in to NERV after school and staying at headquarters for hours. It was enough to make an EVA pilot wonder if letting an Angel tear him apart would really be so bad.
"You're really willing to tutor me in physics?" Shinji asked, almost disbelievingly.
While people randomly deciding to do nice things for him did happen, it was exceedingly rare. Heck, even his best friend had had to punch him in the face before they could be pals.
"It's not like I have much else to do on my off hours," Maya said, and Shinji detected a brief trace of genuine forlornness before it vanished behind her cheerful demeanor. "Besides, it's the least I can do for you, considering what you're doing for everyone."
"Oh, I just pilot the EVA," he said bashfully.
Maya shrugged. "Well, is it a yes or a no?"
Shinji considered briefly. This offer from out of the blue struck him as really odd, but he couldn't possibly imagine Maya having some kind of malicious intent. She just came off as the type of person who didn't have a single malevolent bone in her entire body.
He could also really do without the school sending Misato another bad report card, and he wasn't exactly eager to get further instruction from Asuka (although, to give credit where it was due, he didn't think he'd ever forget the basic principles of thermal expansion).
"I think I'd like that, Lieutenant Ibuki, uh, I mean, Maya," he said.
She smiled. "I'll see you this Sunday at my apartment, then?" she asked. "At, say, two o'clock?"
"Uh, sure," Shinji said.
"Good," Maya said. "I live in the Yoshimata apartment complex, in the northwest part of the city. Do you know where that is?"
Shinji nodded.
"I'm in apartment 321," Maya said.
"Okay, I'll, uh, see you on Sunday, then," Shinji said.
Maya gave him a smile and a nod, and then she walked off. Shinji smiled as she turned and corner and vanished from sight. That had been extremely nice of Maya.
Never cast part of a spell.
It was something her father had said frequently, and though Maya had never been crazy about the phrasing of it, the basic lesson was sound. Leaving a job half-finished was never a good idea, especially when that job was saving the world from a pack of frighteningly powerful madmen.
And right now, Maya felt like that job wasn't even half done; whatever ability to help Shinji she might have during their tutoring sessions, it couldn't be greater than his own father's ability to hurt him.
"Obviously, I have to do more," she said as she dragged her trunk of magic stuff out of her closet that evening and opened the lid. "And not just a little more. Much as I hate to think about it, this situation requires drastic measures."
She pulled her magic wand out of the trunk. It was black, about a foot long, and had a white tip on either end. Thousands of stage magicians throughout history had used such props, and Maya's was actually no more special than any of theirs. It served as something to help her focus; she herself had more than enough magic than to need an enchanted trinket for basic spells.
"Still can't believe I'm doing this," she muttered as she wiped away the layer of dust that had collected on the wand with a handkerchief. "And I really hope Dad doesn't find out I'm using magic again."
Priorities, Maya, she thought. Saving the world is the primary objective. Keeping Dad from finding out you're using magic to do it is number two.
It was something she knew intellectually, but emotionally, she was still having difficulty making herself accept it. Maya wasn't usually a stubborn person, but this particular issue was the exception.
Suck it up, and do it! She ordered herself sternly.
Even with this thought in mind, Maya didn't immediately go into motion. Instead, she silently regarded her wand for a long moment. It had been a very long time since she'd last cast a real spell, her dabbling in divination the previous night notwithstanding. But it was the sort of thing that never left a person, like the ability to ride a bike.
Or at least, she hoped so.
"Start out with something simple," she told herself.
The brunette scanned her apartment for a few seconds, before her gaze settled upon a glass of water that sat on her kitchen table. Maya pointed her wand at it.
"Ezeerf!" she commanded.
Nothing happened. The water in the glass remained completely unchanged.
To her surprise, Maya felt a surge of sadness assault her. It was completely nonsensical, but it was also utterly undeniable. Despite how soundly she had renounced her magical talents, the idea that they had atrophied so totally over the years that she couldn't cast a real spell filled her with sorrow.
My magic powers are… gone, Maya thought despondently, not yet even wondering how she was supposed to stop the Commander and SEELE without her magic.
Then a faint creaking sort of noise reached her ears and she looked up. The water in her glass was frozen solid.
A large, relieved smile spread over her face. "I must have just been a little rusty," she said, then pointed her wand at the glass again. "Waht!"
The ice instantly melted back into water.
Feeling her confidence in her long ignored gift grow, Maya pointed her wand at a small footstool in her living room. "Loots otni tibbar!"
The footstool shifted and warped, its form and color changing until a snow white rabbit sat in its place, its little pink nose twitching.
"Ssalg otni evod!" Maya said, pointing at her original target.
The water glass was transformed into a white dove, which let out a soft "coo!" and then went flying around the apartment.
"Hcuoc semoceb regit!" she shouted.
Her couch morphed into a white tiger, which sniffed around for a moment before it spotted the rabbit. Then it let out a roar, and charged the bunny, which naturally beat a hasty retreat. The tiger knocked over a small table with a lamp upon it, sending the small appliance crashing to the floor where it shattered into a million pieces.
"Stop!" Maya shouted as the two animals tore through her home, the larger one destroying everything in its path. "I mean, pots!"
The rabbit and the tiger both immediately froze in their tracks. Maya sighed in relief, then looked around her apartment and blanched. The giant feline's brief rampage hadn't just upended her table and shattered her lamp, it had dug deep gouges in the wooden floor with its claws, knocked over her TV, and crashed into her entertainment center, damaging her stereo.
"Slamina emoceb ym ffuts niaga!" Maya said.
The tiger changed back into her couch, the rabbit became the footstool again, and the dove changed back into the glass of water.
Unfortunately, the dove happened to be flying around at the time, so it changed back in midair. The full glass went falling to the floor and shattered, sending water and pieces of broken glass in all directions.
"Great," Maya grumbled, suddenly a good deal less thankful that her magic still worked.
She surveyed her trashed apartment with a weary grimace, considering what she should do. On the one hand, she was loathe to use magic to fix a problem she could solve without it. On the other hand, the animals she'd conjured had made an incredible mess.
Her deliberations were cut off by someone pounding at her door.
"Ibuki!" the voice of her neighbor cried. "What in the world is going on in there?!"
"Nothing, Mrs. Takanawa!" Maya shouted back. "It was the TV!"
"The TV my foot!" the woman shouted back. "Do you have a lion in there?"
Maya sighed, rolling her eyes. "Ym emoh kcab ni redro," she said softly.
Immediately, the gouges in her wood floor fixed themselves, the furniture all returned to their rightful places, and the glass fragments and spilled water came back together again.
"Noisivelet no," Maya said as she went over to her door, and her television clicked on.
After quickly stashing her wand in a drawer, Maya threw open the door, giving access to her elderly neighbor. "Hello, Mrs. Takanawa," she said.
The short, gray haired woman didn't respond, instead looking pointedly past Maya into her apartment.
"Why do you have a glass of water sitting in the middle of the floor?" she asked.
Maya resisted the sudden urge to reply with, "Why wouldn't I have a glass of water sitting in the middle of the floor?"
Instead, she said, "It's my apartment, and I can do what I like in it," in as much of a matter-of-fact a tone as she could muster. "Now, do you see any dangerous animals in here, Mrs. Takanawa?"
"No," the old woman admitted reluctantly. "Everything seems to be in order."
"Good," Maya said, "now, please, I'm very busy…"
"A young woman like you shouldn't be working all the time," Mrs. Takanawa commented.
"I'll keep that in mind, ma'am," Maya said.
Mrs. Takanawa hesitated for a moment, obviously searching for some reason not to leave, then she reluctantly walked off, allowing Maya to close the door and breathe a sigh of relief.
"Okay, clearly, practicing here was a bad idea," she said to herself.
This presented a problem, though. While Maya knew that she couldn't solve the rather massive problems she'd been charged with solving from the comfort and privacy of her own apartment, she was loathe to venture outside just for the purpose of shaking off the rust from her skills. What if someone she knew recognized her?
Even without the possibility of being targeted by the likes of SEELE and the Commander, Maya did not want it to become common knowledge that she'd ever had anything to do with magic, real or fake.
Eventually, Maya realized that there was only one solution to this problem.
"This just keeps getting better and better," she grumbled as she went over to her trunk.
Her costume from her stint at the Jade Maiden was another thing she'd kept, though even now Maya couldn't have told anyone why. However, regardless of the reason, it looked like the old thing was going to come in handy to her at least one more time.
Trudging to her bedroom, Maya lost her NERV uniform and donned the attire of her old job. Despite her displeasure at having to put it on again, she couldn't help but feel considerable satisfaction upon finding that it still fit just as well as it did back when she was in college.
I guess being so finicky about my diet most of time has paid off, she thought with satisfaction as she pulled on the fishnet stockings.
She almost donned her high heels, too, then stopped and slipped on a pair of flat shoes instead. Maya suspected she'd be doing a lot of walking that evening, and some concessions to practicality had to be made.
The contents of her bottle of spirit gum were dry as dust, but Maya fixed that with a quick spell and then applied her mask.
"Gentlemen and ladies, Maya Ibuki has disappeared," she said quietly to her reflection. "The Amazing Aya is back."
Then she frowned. Her old stage name was too much like her real one, and even worse, it could be tracked back to her, if someone were to investigate hard enough. She didn't intend to prance around in her costume enough to actually need an alias, but still, it was probably best to be prepared. Certainly if someone asked her who she was, Maya wouldn't be able to come up with something good on the spot. She just wasn't that creative.
"Well," she said to her reflection, "Dad's stage name was always Zatara, which was supposed to sound Western. I guess I might as well use something like that. Zatarista? No…hmm, Zatina? No."
She stroked her chin for a few moments, trying to figure out an alias that she wouldn't feel completely ridiculous with.
"Zatanna," she said at last, struck with sudden inspiration. "That one's not so bad."
Her decision made, Maya, or Zatanna, grabbed her top hat and gave it smack, causing it to pop up. She placed it upon her head, then left her apartment, being very careful to avoid her neighbors on the way out. Finally escaping from the building, she strode out into the cool air of the dark streets, and walked off, headed toward the poorer area of the city, where she was sure there would be ample opportunities to practice her magic.
Author's Notes: I have to admit that I'm not too pleased with this chapter, since little besides Maya angsting away occurs here. She's got a rather drastic move planned, and I considered having her executing it this chapter, but it just felt like I'd be making the pacing of this frantic if I went that way. Eventually it seemed like there was nothing to do but post this and move on.
Jayelwillow, it was a coincidence really, since I'd decided who I wanted each girl to be before I put the first SOE2 story, Hikari being the exception, of course.
Bissek, the limits of Zatanna's powers have always been quite poorly defined. This is actually one of the reasons I picked gentle little Maya for this role. I don't need to know what she can't do, because I know what she won't do.
Anyway, thanks as always to my readers and reviewers, and thanks again to my beta reader. Now for a little fun.
Omake
More Than One Way to Kill a Gendo
Gendo was going to kill Fuyutski for suggesting this.
He and a large number of NERV personnel were crammed inside the base's rarely used auditorium for the "First Annual NERV Talent Show" and he couldn't wait to get the hell away and back to his office.
"Man, did you know Maya could do this?" he heard Aoba ask Makoto.
"No," the bespectacled technician answered back. "Did you know Maya had such great legs?"
Gendo allowed himself a quiet sigh. Ibuki had been one of the first people to sign up for the talent show, and the crowd was loving her magic act. He himself failed to see the appeal of watching a thin wisp of a woman like her perform a few cheap tricks.
"Now," Maya addressed the audience. "For my next illusion, I'm going to need a volunteer from the audience! Do I have a volunteer?"
Numerous hands went up, and she scanned the crowd for several seconds.
"Commander! How about you?" Maya asked, completely ignoring his crossed arms and general I-hate-the-world-and-all-the-cute-and-fuzzy-animals-in-it posture.
"No," he said flatly.
"Aw, come on, it'll only take a second," Maya pleaded.
"No."
"Emoc ereh!" Maya said, waving her wand.
Against his will, the Commander found himself getting up off his chair and walking toward the stage.
"Isn't he a good sport, folks?" Maya asked the crowd.
"I don't know how you're doing this, Ibuki," Gendo said under his breath as he approached, "but rest assured, you will pay for this."
Maya ignored him entirely. "All right, Commander, now I need you to get inside the mystery box."
He looked and saw that the "mystery box" was a long, short wooden container that was large enough to hold a man who was sitting down. It was on legs, which kept it a few feet off the floor.
"No."
"Teg ni eht xob," she hissed.
Again, Gendo felt a mysterious force compel him to do as she commanded, and he obediently got into the box, even closing the lid for her once he was inside.
"Now, ladies and gentlemen," Maya addressed the crowd, "Without harming the Commander in the slightest, I will impale the mystery box, using these swords!"
She threw a curtain off of something turned out to be a sword rack containing a half dozen gleaming blades.
She wouldn't dare, Gendo thought. She wouldn't even think about it. She wouldn't—
"Arrgh!" he screamed in pain as Maya drove the first sword right through the box, and him.
"Oh my god!" Maya exclaimed as the auditorium exploded into chaos, seeing the blade emerge from the other end of the box with a coating of red blood. "Someone must have put a real sword in here!"
With the last of his strength, Gendo turned to glare at Maya. The last thing he saw before his world went dark was the tiny smirk she dared to throw his way.