Previously on…
EVANGELION: AGE OF MARVELS
Following the fall of the Thousand Year Reich, the chief architect of Hitler's terror, The Red Skull, set out across the globe in search of the wonder-weapons his Fuhrer had wasted so much time and effort collecting. In his search he turned to Lorenz Kihl, an archeologist of little note working in secret in British Palestine. Kihl uncovered what he termed the Secret Dead Sea Scrolls, actually an alien cube containing details of a race from beyond to stars. There is technology so advanced it is indistinguishable from magic, and there is technology so advanced it ismagic.
Over the following two decades, the Skull kept Kihl on a short leash, working to decipher the cube's mysteries while the world lurched into an Age of Heroes. Men like Tony Stark and Peter Parker took it on themselves to defend their fellow men with extraordinary gifts, while a new race of post-human mutants arose and threatened the established order. It was an age of wonder and adventure, when men and women could look up and catch a glimpse of the world of tomorrow being born today…
Until the night of August 21, 1973, when Norman Osborn, in his guise as the Green Goblin, murdered Gwen Stacy, the fiancée of Peter Parker, the Amazing Spider-Man. As an insurance policy against his failure, Osborn sent a package detailing Parker's identity and activities to every major news outlet. With Osborn's death by his own hand, Parker became a fugitive and the world teetered on the brink as humanity, whether human, superhuman, or mutant, was bitterly divided on the question of responsibility. Some blamed Parker for Stacy's death, others argued that men like Osborn had always existed, but in the age of superpowers, vigilantes were desperately needed to keep them in check. Both sides rallied around Gwen Stacy as a martyr of a victim, and protesters took up the chant Spider-Man Lives!
The turning point came at the trial of Peter Parker. Following his surrender to the authorities in New York, the trial was a media sensation, and nearly turned the tide for the pro-hero movement until the Avengers, under the command of Tony Stark, broke Parker out of prison and spirited him away. The general public had no way of knowing that Doctor Doom, at the behest of Kihl, had arranged his murder, and tipped off Stark. The Age of Heroes was over, and in the new age, superpowers were scorned and shunned, the wearing of masks was a federal offense, and the newly invented mutation suppressing drug Mutex caught on like wildfire, despite the desperate efforts of the mutant terrorist Magneto.
Doom's grip on the world tightened. Without the distraction of battling the Fantastic Four, now forced to break up and live under their civilian identities, Doom turned his efforts to more peaceful pursuits, working with Kihl to prepare various bastions of defense around the world. The Last Battle of the Heroes took place on September 13, 2001, when the remaining Avengers were lost in the disaster known as Second Impact, a massive explosion on the Antarctic coast that destroyed the Savage Land and Atlantis, liquefied the Antarctic ice shelf, and sent a massive tsunami racing around the world. The resulting environmental damage, flashpoint wars, and poisoned ocean nearly halved the world's population. In the new order, Japan and the European Union of Doctor Doom are paramount, and the United States is a fading shadow of its former self, with most of the interior given over to a post-apocalyptic wasteland, haunted by warrior bands and the fearsome Wendigo.
Second Impact was only the first stage in Kihl's master plan. The end of the world was only the beginning. His victory assured, he set about preparing for an eschaton of his own making, a new heaven and a new earth, a new God to unchain mankind from alien gods and extra-dimensional monsters, a force of preservation and creation… under his control.
Little did he know that a new Age of Marvels was about to begin…
"STRANGE VISITORS"
Maya didn't know what to expect when she came in to work that morning. Dr. Akagi was back, and she was happy for that- she, along with everyone else, thought Ritsuko was dead, disappeared after her plane went down in Russia. The rumors started when the elder Dr. Akagi died the same night. Her death was ruled a suicide, but Maya thought it was an accident. Naoko Akagi was anything but suicidal, insistent to anyone who would hear that Ritsuko was alive. Maya admired her greatly, but not in the way she admired Ritsuko. She was so brave and strong to get up after only a few days in the hospital and come to work, and with her back the way it was. It made Maya flinch every time she saw Ritsuko's pained grimace and limp.
She ran her card through the reader and stepped into the lab. Some of the other techs waved at her, and she waved back, ducking between them. Ritsuko's private office and lab were further down. Now that Maya was her assistant again, she had clearance to visit her. She still remembered the way the woman shrieked when Maya gave her the news, a cry to saw through bone. The normally jovial atmosphere in the labs was gone. Before she left, people used to call Ritsuko Doctor Pullring or Doctor Bubble Butt. If Maya heard any of that today, she would report them to the Commander herself.
She needed to run her card and put her hand on a reader, a pane of glass that glowed as it scanned her palm and fingers, to enter the secure lab. In comparison to the clean, brightly lit engineering labs, the classified labs were dimly lit. Ritsuko and her mother both preferred it that way. The place was chaos- a forest of coffee cups that no one had moved since Naoko died, piles of books and printouts and papers. The whole room was classified for that reason- neither woman was especially neat. Naoko used to rant whenever anyone brought up her slobbery, that there was a difference between organized and neat and most people preferred the latter to strongly. Maya missed her.
Ritsuko was in the lab. She hadn't bleached her hair, which must have been shaved or close cropped during her captivity. It wasn't long enough to be called a bob, but evidently long enough to constantly need to be brushed out of her eyes, and was a healthy chestnut brown. She was throwing the coffee cups away, dumping the stale old coffee into a bucket and the cups into a plastic bag. Her face was a blank mask, but brightened a little when she saw Maya.
"I hate this," she whispered.
Maya moved closer. "Want some help?"
Ritsuko nodded, and Maya joined her, cleaning up the old coffee.
"You know," said Ritsuko, "when I came in here this morning, I'd forgotten she was gone, that she's dead. I thought…" her voice cracked. "I thought she'd be sitting at her console, and turn around and scold me for being late."
Shakily, she lit a cigarette, taking a long drag that made the tip glow brightly in the room. "She's really gone. I…"
She dropped the bag, and a paper cup rolled across the floor, the inside stained dark by the old coffee. Maya stared straight ahead, frozen in place, trying to figure out what to do. Slowly, she picked up the cup and put in the bag and took over, dumping out the rest of them until the chaos was a little cleaner. She pulled the bag and bucket out of the lab and locked the door. Ritsuko was still standing frozen on the spot, like a statue, her eyes sort of dull. Maya walked over to her and haltingly reached out, resting a hand on her shoulder. She flinched, but a little life came back into her gaze and she smiled, if weakly.
"Thank you," Ritsuko murmured.
She walked back to her desk and Maya followed. Sitting amid the clutter was a black vase, with something etched on a brass plate fixed to the front. Ritsuko went about clearing the pile so she could move the vase close to the wall and keep it safe from being knocked off. Maya realized, with a start, what it was. Ritsuko picked up her mother's ashes and touched her forehead to the cool black stone and choked back a sob, then tucked her against the wall, sitting on a battered old engineering textbook.
"She would want it this way," Ritsuko said, her voice thick with strain. "This was her home. She would want to stay here with us."
Maya nodded, rubbing her arms. She didn't know what to say.
"She was a good person. I miss her." She stopped short of saying we; she couldn't really speak for the other techs.
Ritsuko flopped down in her chair and blew out a long line of smoke, then ground out her cigarette in the ash tray. "I should quit smoking these damned things."
"Have you heard anything from the Commander?" said Maya.
Ritsuko's hands were shaking. "I got an email. I get back pay and I'm the head of the Evangelion Division now. I get to name my assistant. You have the job, if you want it."
"Of course. An email? That's it?"
Ritsuko snorted. "It's like she just walked off the job and didn't come back. I just got some stares when I came in." She touched her hair. "I think they thought I was her. Hyuga looked like he'd seen a ghost."
"I'm glad you're here," said Maya. "Summers was trying to take over the Division."
Ritsuko snorted. "I'll skin that bitch if she so much as touches my keyboard."
Maya blinked. "Oh."
Ritsuko hugged herself, folding her arms under her breasts. "I can't do this. I have to go home. I can't… my mother is dead."
Maya shifted on her feet.
"I'm taking lunch. Will you come with me?"
Maya nodded, and Ritsuko got up. She took a moment to clean her face with the corner of her lab coat and shrugged out of it, leaving it lying across the back of her chair like a shed skin. She wore a tight sweater that covered her to the neck and loose slacks. Maya's gaze drooped to the older woman's hips before she looked away. She'd lost weight while she was in captivity, and seemed leaner now, harder… but she was beautiful. She had high cheek bones and big green eyes that looked like they'd scene too much, and a pursed rosebud of lips with a beauty mark on her chin, just under her eye. Her mother was a handsome woman, but Ritsuko was a bombshell. Maya felt jealous and… something else by turns, whenever she was in the room.
Ritsuko seemed to notice her attentions, and coughed. "Shall we?"
Maya nodded and took off her own labcoat. She didn't rank highly enough to wear whatever she wanted, so she wore the standard black uniform.
"Don't come in here dressed that way tomorrow," said Ritsuko. "I hate that uniform."
"But…"
"I'm your boss. I make the rules. There's going to be some changes around here."
Maya nodded, and followed her out. She saw what Ritsuko meant as she passed by the workstations. The technicians stared at Ritsuko like she was a phantom, and looked nervous when she met their gaze. She seemed angrier than she ever had before. In her mother's presence, she's almost been meek. Ritsuko had all the keys in a ring in her pocket. She could make the elevators come right to her, and she knew the corridors like the back of her hand. In a few minutes, and without passing through the Eva cage, they were outside, walking across the floor of the Geofront.
"I'm not hungry," said Ritsuko. "We'll get some food later. I think we're going to be pulling some all-nighters for a while."
"Why?" said Maya. "I mean, the Evas are all rated for full operational status…"
"By who?" Ritsuko demanded. "I want to know that they're right. This place will go to hell if you let it. Everybody around here things that the Evas are a big joke, a waste of money, that the attack will never come. Humanity is not going to be caught with its pants down because my underlings got lazy."
Maya nodded. "It was Summers that made us move them to operational status. She…"
"I hate that woman," said Ritsuko. "She's got half the complex to herself, and no one knows what she's doing."
"I've never been down there," said Maya. "She doesn't have many people under her division. We try to get some info out of them, but they… they're all real quiet. It's freaky."
Ritsuko looked up at the artificial sky. A tear was glittering on her cheek, and she wiped it away. Out here, it was peaceful. There were trees, and the air was cool and dry, and smelled of turned earth from the agricultural fields on the other side of the artificial lake. Maya had always wanted to go swimming in there. Some of the techs did, now and then. Maya couldn't even bring herself to swim in the pool in the staff gymnasium; she was too shy to walk around in even a modest bathing suit in front of mixed company, and the thought of one brought back bitter memories of high school taunts.
"Should I bring her out here?" said Ritsuko. "Out here where there's some sun and trees, instead of that lab. Should I do that?"
Maya blinked. "I don't know."
"I can't," said Ritsuko. "She's not resting."
"What do you mean?"
Ritsuko was shaking. "Maya, if you tell anyone about this, it could mean your life. I'm not kidding."
Maya blinked. "I don't…"
"No bugs out here," said Ritsuko, "No one listening. I need someone else to hear it. I need to know I'm not crazy."
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a phone. It wasn't Nerv issue. Maya's throat went dry.
"You can walk away," said Ritsuko. "Go back to work, live your life. I won't demote you or treat you any differently, but you're the only person around here I think I can trust."
Maya nodded. "What is it?"
Ritsuko dialed the number and put the phone on speaker. Maya listened to Naoko's panicked voice, and the cackling, high pitched one that broke in on her, and the screaming, and her eyes widened. Ritsuko cut off the phone before the message ended and shoved it in her pocket, her eyes taking on that distant look again. She gazed out at the lake and the trees.
"My mother was murdered."
Hikari woke up, to the blaring bleating of her alarm clock. In reflex, she rolled over and brought her fist down on top of it, meaning to silence it by striking the snooze button. Instead, her hand mashed right through it, the clock letting out a pathetic bloooorup as the alarm died. Hikari stared at it, blinking. She'd shattered it, and chunks of the plastic casing where everywhere. The now fading digital face lay dangling over the front of her nightstand, which sagged now, as the top had been split, cracked in half from the impact. She sat up, gingerly, and poked it with her finger. It swayed, the wooden sides squeaking against one another as they moved.
"Hikari?" Kodama called. "Are you okay? What was that noise?"
"I'm fine," Hikari called back, shakily. "I just hit the alarm too hard."
She felt… strange. Energized, like her legs were coiled springs, but her wrists felt sore, and were a little swollen when she touched them. As the sleeves of the old t-shirt she slept in slid back, she gasped. Her arms weren't bigger, necessarily, but they were trimmer, for lack of a better word. She could see all of the muscles moving individually when she flexed her fingers, and when she turned her hand over to look at her palm, all the veins along the underside of her arm stood out. She got up, stumbling a little, and looked in the mirror above her nightstand.
Her jaw dropped. Her waist had pulled in, tucking into a sweeping curve above her hips. She pulled her shirt up, gingerly. Her stomach was suddenly more defined than she'd ever seen it, even when she was younger and skinnier, before she started to fill out as she matured. Her abs stood out clearly, even from the side, and she had those little folds of muscle running towards her legs that only runners and volleyball players seemed to have. Her legs were the same, all toned up with the muscles picked out clearly, even her calves. She pulled the shirt over her head and stared at herself. Her shoulders were as defined as her arms and the rest of her, and when she twisted, tight cords of muscle stood out on her back. She was almost as muscular as Mari, and she didn't remember being so… endowed the day before.
She needed a shower. She was covered in clammy sweat, and the straps of her bra were pulling at her shoulders and back, and it felt uncomfortably tight around her chest. She pulled her shirt back on and walked out into the hallway gingerly, and before she took two steps a painful surge of hunger coiled in her stomach and sprung through the rest of her. She turned and almost ran into the kitchen, her mouth watering so heavily she all but drooled. When she made it, she grabbed the biggest microwave breakfast meal she could find, shoved it in the microwave, rammed some bread into the toaster, and tore into a bag of cereal, shoveling it in her mouth with her hand.
Kodama wandered into the kitchen, staring at her.
"Feed a fever, I guess. I… have you been working out, or something?"
Hikari stared, and looked down. But for the handful of little oat rings in her hand, she'd emptied out the bag, five or six servings, and she was still hungry.
"What day is this?"
"Friday," said Kodama. "You have school."
"Right," said Hikari.
The microwave made a lout pinging sound, and Hikari practically tore the door off pulling out the little tray of food. She yanked the plastic sheeting off, tossed it in the sink, and started shoveling rubbery microwave eggs and sausage into her mouth with her hand. Kodama stared at her blankly, but Hikari ignored her, too driven by the howling maw in her stomach. When the tray was empty, she grabbed the toast, slathered it with butter and jelly, and ate it in two or three bites apiece, smearing jelly on her face in the process. She licked her mouth clean, and then fished through the refrigerator. She found a bottle of milk, yanked the cap off, and chugged a quart of it, took a breath, and drank the rest.
Finally, she burped. She still felt a bit peckish. There was some cheese…
"School," said Kodama.
Hikari jumped. She heard Nozomi getting up. She had to get to the bathroom. She rushed up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and nearly crashed into the wall. She felt a weird rush when she ran, like her feet wanted to kick through the floor. She stumbled, one foot dragging behind her as though it had momentarily stuck to the floor. She brushed into the bathroom and locked the door behind her. She wasn't winded from her sprint. She stared at herself in the long mirror next to the shower. Watching herself, she pulled her shirt over her head and pooled it at her feet, and finished stripping down.
I look like a model, she thought, staring at her body. I didn't look like this when I went to sleep.
While she waited for the water to heat up, she set about brushing her teeth. She glanced at her hand. There wasn't a mark left from the bite. She was beginning to think she'd dreamed the whole thing. When she'd carefully brushed all her teeth, front to back, she rinsed out the brush and went to drop it back into the rack.
It was stuck to her hand.
She unfolded her fingers, bending them back a little. The handle of the brush was clinging to her palm, even when she turned it over and shook her hand. She tugged at it with her free hand, but it remained stuck. She could feel the plastic bending, on the verge of snapping, and let go. Suddenly, it dropped away and clattered in the sink. Gingerly, she picked it up -it didn't stick this time- and put it in the rack. The water was hot, and starting to steam up the bathroom. She felt pinpricks on her skin, just as she was beginning to sweat, and stepped under the hot water.
She took a quick shower, letting the water scrub the stale sweat off her skin and lightly shampooing her hair. Wrapped in a towel, she headed into her room and started drying her hair. Nozomi ran past her into the bathroom with a whooping war cry, enthused that she'd beaten Kodama, who just sighed. Hikari stepped into a pair of underwear and went to put on a bra, but the straps dug into her shoulder, and the back wouldn't clasp. Her body was too wide, and it was too small, anyway. She wrapped herself back up in the towel and poked her head into the hall.
"Hey sis, can I, um… can I borrow a bra?"
"What?" said Kodama. "I… I guess. Here."
Her hand appeared through the crack of her door, holding an elastic sports bra. Hikari snatched it, ducked back into her room, and pulled it. Miraculously, it fit her. She put on her uniform shirt next, buttoning it to the neck, and then pulled on her slacks. They were loose around the waist, but tight around her hips and backside in a way they never were before. She looked at herself in the mirror. The changes weren't as obvious, but the shirt was obviously tighter over her chest and fit her shoulders more snugly. She slipped into her shoes and picked up her hair ties, pulling her hair into two long tails behind her head, so close they were almost one. She was starting to realize that pigtails looked a little silly with the Academy's severe uniform.
Somehow, she was still hungry. She trotted down to the kitchen and opened the fridge. There was a block of tofu near expiring; she snatched it and ate it in three grimacing bites, then found some old lunch meat, and some fruit that had sat in the drawer for a while. When she was done, she'd eaten a good meal's worth of food, she had enough to pack a bento in her hands, and her stomach was still rumbling.
Kodama came down the stairs in a sweater and skirt, high heels clicking on the floor, fussing with her earrings. She stopped and looked at Hikari.
"You look different," she said. "Is it your hair?"
"Yeah," said Hikari, and burped. She covered her mouth, nearly dropping the twin handfulls of food.
She looked around. She must have left her bag at school, and with it her bento.
"I'll have to buy lunch," she sighed.
Kodama rolled her eyes and handed her a sheaf of bills. "It's on me. I should have thought of that. I'll get lunch together for Nozomi. You'd better go. You're running late."
Hikari glanced at the clock. With a start she realized she had a bare ten minutes to make the twenty minute walk to the train station to get to school. She darted though the kitchen to the hallway, trusting Kodama to lock up, and ran for the stairs. She brushed through the doors and darted down, taking the steps two at a time. She felt odd as she moved, somehow more acutely aware of her body and surroundings, a kind of intuitive knowledge. Soon, she was taking the steps three at a time, and jumped from four steps up onto the landing at the bottom, and blinked.
She'd just run down five floors, and wasn't winded. Shaking her head, she ran through the door. There was no time to check the time on her phone. She ran through the lobby of the apartment complex and out onto the sidewalk in long, loping strides, earning a few stars from the people on the street. The train was coming in; she could see it approaching on the elevated line. She pumped her legs faster, weaving between the people on the sidewalk. A knot of men stood in front of a newsstand. She ran past them, and she could swear that for a moment, her feet were on the side of the building in front of them. She ducked around a mailbox by slapping it with her hand and swiveling her feet off the ground, landing on the other side, and kept running in a dead sprint. The train station was in sight, now.
The train had stopped, and the doors opened. She ran for the entrance to the station, and when she met the first step up, jumped the next six, briefly paused on the landing, and rushed to the turnstile, fumbling for her pass. Again she stumbled, as if her foot had stuck to the ground, blushing at the bleary-eyed attendant as she rushed through, swiping her card. The conductor gave her a look, as if she wasn't going to make it, until she broke into an arm-flailing, leg-pumping run and almost jumped into the train, skidding to a stop in the middle. She found a spot in the press of people where she could grab an overhead handle and stood, taking a breath.
It came out as a stilted sigh. There was no need to catch her breath. She wasn't winded. She blinked; she should have felt her heart pounding in her chest, should have been sweating, but she almost felt cold, and when she touched her neck, her pulse was perfectly normal. The doors closed, and a moment later, the train lurched.
Something happened. It was like a buzzing in the back of her head, something crawling across the back of her neck. She reached for it, and it grew more intense, and somehow directional. She twisted in time for a hand to slide across her hip, just short of missing her backside. She turned to face the man who was trying to grope her and locked eyes on him.
Everything happened at once. She twisted, and pushed her elbow into his gut. He sagged back into the crowd with a loud grunt, then doubled over and landed on the floor, gasping for breath. Dimly, some part of Hikari was aware that she heard a loud shearing and snapping sound, and when she looked at her other hand, the handle had come loose. She glanced up. The mounting plate was twisted and deformed, the bolts sheared off.
A policeman in the odd, all-white city uniform slid through the crowd. "What's going on here?"
"That man grabbed me!" Hikari shouted, pointing at him. "He tried to touch my butt!"
The cop looked at her, and looked at him. Several of the people around her nodded, backing her up with murmurs. Another officer appeared and they dragged the man to his feet, but he doubled over and vomited on the floor, sagging against the cop, who turned his foot slightly to avoid the spillage touching his foot. His lips twisted in distaste.
"Well, I doubt he'll be doing it again. He's coming with us."
Hikari slipped away, blending into the crowd. She saw their head snap around as they looked for her, but somehow she knew where they were looking, and stepped away from those spots. She could feel their gaze, as if a physical pressure swept out of their eyes and fell wherever they looked. She bumped into another man and yelped, then blinked. He was tall, twice as wide as she, and he wasn't Japanese. Dressed in an overcoat and broad hat, he had a medical patch over one eye. He stepped between her and the police, blocking them from sight.
"Hell of an arm, kid," he said, looking her up and down. He took the broken handle from her hand. "Shoddy workmanship. Feh."
She backed away, and the train lurched as it came to a stop. Without anything to hold her up, she nearly fell, but her feet were planted to the floor. She lifted her foot and it came up with a pop, and it stumbled. She saw more black jackets getting off, students heading for the school, and followed them. When she glanced over her shoulder, the man with the eye patch was gone. She stumbled out onto the platform and looked around. The school was in sight, and she headed for it, falling in with the other students.
She stared at her hands.
"What's happening to me?" she murmured, looking around.
"Hikari?"
She nearly jumped a foot in the air. The only reason she didn't lift off was the balls of her feet sticking to the concrete platform. She didn't recognize the voice until she turned around.
"Hikari?" said Shinji. "That's your name, right? I should have asked yesterday. Your friends-"
She nodded, enthusiastically.
He cocked his head to the side. "You look different."
"I did my hair a new way," she said, absently.
He shook his head. "Are you alright? You looked really sick yesterday."
"I'm fine. I just got a little queasy. I don't like bugs."
She blinked. As if saying it invoked them, she looked up. There were a number of heavy beams running over the platform, part of the structure of the station in front of the school. Crawling along the undersides were four or five large spiders. More peeked out from inside the beams themselves, tiny pinprick eyes focused on her. She could almost feel them watching her.
"Shoo!" she snapped.
All at once, the tiny creatures darted off, vanishing into crevices and cracks, darting out of sight on their too-many legs. Hikari blinked.
Shinji took a step closer. "Are you sure you're okay?"
She nodded, vigorously. "Thank you."
She was blushing; she could feel the heat up to her hairline. Damn it.
Shinji stared intently at her for a moment. "Perhaps we could-"
"Idiot! There you are."
Asuka stalked across the platform and grabbed Shinji's arm, tugging him away. Mari followed behind her, arms folded under her chest, eyeing the whole situation with a sort of wry amusement, cat-ears twitching wildly. Before she realized what she was doing, Hikari's arm shot out and she had her hand on Shinji's other arm.
"We were just talking," Hikari snapped, "Goose step your way over there and-"
"What did you say to me?" Asuka hissed, brushing past Shinji.
"Hey!" Shinji shouted, pushing them apart. "Calm down, will you?"
Asuka rounded on him. "This commoner insults me and you defend her?"
"I didn't-" Shinji stammered, "I just-"
"Lucky boy," Mari purred, draping her arms over his shoulder. "All the girls fighting over you."
"I am not fighting over anyone," Asuka shouted, waving her arms. The other students stared, until they realized who she was, and then scurried away.
"Come on, we'll all be late," said Shinji, shrugging out from Mari's arms. "I'm sorry, Hikari. Perhaps we can speak later."
At that, Asuka eyed daggers at her.
The feeling she'd felt earlier slammed into the back of her skull. It would have made her stagger if she hadn't risen up onto the balls of her feet, hands clenched into fists at her side, and started to shift from foot to foot, ready to spring in either direction.
"What's going on here?"
Hikari's head snapped around. This day couldn't get any worse. Her crush, Mr. Lawson, was walking up to them in his overcoat and long golden scarf. His coat was a rich green that brought out his eyes, sparkling and full of a kind of wry mischief. He looked over the four of them and frowned slightly, but the corners of his mouth seemed to struggle to break into a smile.
"Well, we'll all be late, and only teachers are allowed to be late," he announced, "Let's go."
That seemed to mollify Asuka. She pulled away from Shinji, taking Mari's arm, and they walked towards the door. Shinji slowed, for a bet, and met her gaze with a slight nod before joining them. Hikari fell in step with Mr. Lawson, and realized she was clutching her hands in front of her chest like a cartoon character in a cheesy romance manga, and shoved them down to her side, unconsciously tugging at the hem of her jacket.
"I heard about yesterday, Hikari. I'm sorry I wasn't there to help. Are you alright?"
"I don't know, I…" Hikari started. "I felt really sick last night, and everything is weird this morning. I feel like… a spring."
"A spring," Lawson said, thoughtfully. "Hey, do you remember that book I promised to give you?"
Hikari shook her head.
"I suppose not. You've been busy lately."
He reached into the pocket of his coat and handed her the battered paperback book. The Trial of Peter Parker.
Hikari took it, realized she had no bag, and folded it under her arm instead. Mr. Lawson gave her a curt nod and picked up his pace, heading for the other teachers as they walked into the building. Mr. Kimura shied away from the others, looking guilty about something. Lawson fell in step with Miss Katsuragi, and started chatting with her about something. There were rumors about them, that Mr. Lawson "liked" Miss Katsuragi. Hikari thought it was all so much nonsense. What could he possibly see in her?
Hikari hunched her shoulders, and headed for her locker. She had to get her books, get through the school day, live her life.
She had to figure out what was happening to her. She tucked the book in the side pocket of her bag as she pulled it out of her locker, and rushed to join Toji and Kensuke as they headed for class.
Shinji joined the others as they stood at attention. While the strict discipline of the Academy called for it, neither he nor any of the other boys in the class needed to be told to pay attention when Miss Katsuragi swept in, dressed in a knee-length skirt, conservative pumps and a blazer over a red blouse, a shade lighter than the ones the students wore. Despite all her efforts to dress conservatively, the eye of every boy in the room fell on her in an instant, drawn to the sway of her hips and the magnificent curve of her chest. She pushed her hair back behind her ear and fiddled with something on her desk. Half the eyes in the room snapped to the door, where Mr. Lawson was waving at her and smirking wickedly, earning him the attention of the girls and angry glares from the boys as Miss Katsuragi waved back.
As Lawson ducked out, two new students came in, new laptops slung under their arms. Shinji felt the collective swell of interest; they were both girls, and they were both exotic. Asuka, a few rows in front of him, bristled. Seated at the higher part of the lecture hall, he stared down at her head, hoping she wouldn't launch into an outburst. It would be nice if the new girls were smart enough not to provoke her. He glanced over at Hikari. He was amazed he'd never noticed her before. She was pretty in a funny way; Asuka was stunning but Hikari's freckles and blushes and big brown eyes had a quality he'd never really noticed before, that he couldn't put to words. As she leaned forward and rested on her hands, he noticed the swell of her chest under her uniform blazer and fingered his collar, making sure that his coat hung open in defiance of the dress code. Hikari seemed to feel his attention, and glanced over.
His eyes shot to the front of the classroom, and he felt a deep blush creeping up his face. He coughed a little, but no one noticed. The first girl stepped forward, looking over the class levelly with blue eyes. She must have had mixed parentage; her hair was auburn, almost red, and hung just past her ears in a sloppy bob cut. She stood and carried herself like a boy, and…
Asuka glanced over her shoulder at him. Great.
"Mana Kirishima," the redhead said, staring out at the class as if in challenge.
She stood with her shoulders squared, and Shinji could see at once that she knew how to fight. She bowed curtly and walked up to take her assigned seat, glancing at the floor as she walked up towards the back row of the lecture hall, and sat down. The next girl walked up.
Shinji studied her intently. She looked… familiar. Her eyes were a deep crimson and her skin deathly pale, but her mouth curled in a slight smile as she looked at the rest of the class. Silky, silvery hair tumbled loosely over her shoulders down to the waist. Slightly built, she slender but tall, and willowy.
"Kaworu Nagisa."
Shinji slumped in his seat. The new girl danced up the aisle, moving lightly on her feet. She gathered her hair into a loose tumble and pulled it over her shoulder as she sat down, and adjusted the collar of her blazer. The ones the girls wore were a slightly different cut, and a little tighter. She wasn't as… big as some of the other girls, but shapely in a way, almost elegant, especially when she folded her legs. Shinji glanced at her and she immediately locked eyes on him and smiled, waving, ever so slightly, with a curl of her fingers.
Suzahara leaned in from behind him. "You suck, Ikari."
Shinji jumped in his seat and Miss Katsuragi glanced up at them, frowning.
"I hope you will welcome these ladies to our school," she said cooly. "Miss Nagisa, make sure you have your hair in a regulation style on Monday."
Shinji blinked, and glanced down. Asuka wore her hair loose, too, why would-
"Laptops!" Katsuragi shouted, "We've wasted enough time, and calculus waits for no man, I-"
Lawson poked his head in the room again, and made a whip-crack motion with his hand. Shinji snorted a laugh, and heard a murmur of mirth around him. Katusragi made a shooing motion, and he pulled the door shut, disappearing into the hallway.
Shinji sighed as he pulled out his laptop. He hated computers; they had a tendency to die around him, especially if he used his powers. They didn't get on well with strong magnetic fields. He made frequent backups, but this was his sixth computer this year and "my mutant powers destroyed my homework" only worked four or five times. He opened the note taking program, and in a small window to the side, the chat program. It was sort of an open secret that the students chatted with each other during class.
Miss Katsuragi turned and started writing on the board, and Suzahara's chat tag, BEEFMAN, popped up. "DAT ASS."
Shinji angrily typed a rebuke and hit enter, and the heads of four or five girls, Hikari included, snapped around to stare at him. Asuka shot him an angry glare and typed something; it must have been a private message. Shinji decided to ignore the chat program and minimized the window, working on taking notes. Pre-calc was hard, after all. He lost himself in Katsuragi's lecture, taking notes as she worked through the equations. Mid-way through, she slipped out of her jacket and draped it over the chair, and Shinji winced at the collective gasp.
He realized Hikari was staring at him, and opened the chat program. She'd sent him about a dozen private messages. "Meet me for lunch."
"I can't," he typed back, glancing at her nervously.
"Yes u can," she typed back, looking at him through the corner of her eye. "Come on."
He looked at the back of Asuka's head; she was ignoring the chat, too, busily taking notes.
"Okay," he typed back, and he heard a little squeak; Hikari had jumped in her seat.
He sighed. He was sure he'd missed something important.
Ritsuko drummed her fingers on her desk, looking at the stack of reports, requisitions, and requests. She scooped it all up, walked over to Maya, and dumped it on her lap. Maya squeaked, almost dropping her coffee, and pushed back in her rolling chair from the terminal she'd claimed at the side of the room.
"First lesson in leadership. What do you do when someone drops work in your lap?"
"Um," said Maya, eyeing her askance. "Do it?"
Ritsuko sighed, and put her fists on her hips, impatiently. "No, you find another lap to dump it on. Figure out which techs out there are wasting the most time jerking off or whatever, and give them something to do. Go, shoo."
Maya jumped up, holding the stack of papers to her chest, and rushed for the door. She glanced back at Ritsuko and headed out. The door slid shut and clicked behind her as it locked, and Ritsuko let out a slow breath. She turned around, opened her terminal, and started typing. She'd figured out how she would hide it- she had root access. It would be easy to tuck away a file directory in an innocuous place, among the MAGI's resource files. When she had the directory set up, she triple encrypted it and loaded the key onto a thumb drive, reached under her sweater, and tucked it in her bra. After she closed the file, she'd need the key to reopen it.
It was time. She started a new schematics file, using the same CAD program she used for Eva design work. She needed a title. She shrugged; if anyone made it this far, there would be no point in hiding it.
IRON MAN, she typed.
She reached into her purse and pulled it out, the innocuous looking canister she'd pulled from the suit before she hid it and limped back to civilization. She put it on the desk, tapped the side, and the top opened, exposing the tiny core, still pulsing with an inner light. She'd have to rig up a way to monitor it; it was still dangerous. She closed the containment unit again and tucked it back into her purse, and turned back to the computer, pulling out the tablet and light pen. Surprisingly, finding schematics for Stark's early work wasn't particularly hard; it was only the work he'd done after about '72 or so that he actively destroyed, keeping his secrets all to himself. Before Second Impact, the Mark I suit he used to escape from captivity in Korea was on display in a Manhattan museum, even.
She had more resources than that, though. She had the Evas. What were they, after all, but huge suits of armor? Stark's work was just a start, and the more she looked at it, the more she could see the similarities between the Iron Man suit she'd pulled apart, and the Eva. She needed it to be smaller, lighter, and to be able to suit up on her own. She wasn't going to face her mother's murderer in her own skin, that was for sure. It would be a lot of work. She needed to figure out how to get the suit in, scan the parts, and work from there; doing it all from scratch would take months, even before she figured out how she could hide the process of bashing together a proof of concept to try the damned thing on.
Maya slipped back in, and she hurriedly closed the file.
"What was that?"
"I was just looking at some of the shoulder pylon modifications," she said, as calmly as she could. "I didn't authorize any of this."
"Oh," said Maya. "We were having trouble with the restraints on Unit Zero, so we…"
Ritsuko blinked, and looked at the screen. There was a list of directories, and at the bottom of the list was one that wasn't supposed to be there.
"Shush, Maya," she said, opening the errant directory. Inside was nothing but a text file, and it was blank, but the file name was ileftsomethingforyouinthecor e dot txt. Ritsuko quickly returned to the command line and turned around.
"I'm sorry, what were you saying?"
"The pylons," said Maya, "We modified them after the berserker incident earlier this year. Doctor Summers…"
Ritsuko made a hissing sound though her teeth. "I see. Well, I'll take a look at them."
"I thought you were looking at them," said Maya.
Ritsuko sighed. "I'm tired. I'm sorry. How long have we been here?"
Maya glanced at her watch. "Six hours."
Ritsuko sighed and threw her head back against the chair. "How are you so perky? Stop doing that. Stop perking."
Maya shuffled uncomfortably. "Are you alright? I mean I know you're not, I just… you're acting funny."
Ritsuko sat up. "Maya, did you ever think that you might be wasting your life?"
Maya looked around. "…no?"
"Oh bullshit," said Ritsuko. "Yes, you do. How many hours have you worked this week?"
Maya rolled her eyes, not in derision but concentration, her mouth working silently as she did the math. "Seventy-five."
Ritsuko sat up, rolling onto her feet, and a wave of fatigue forced her back down. "Go home, and don't come back for twelve hours. Don't look at me like that," she said as Maya pouted, "You're not in trouble. What is it, Friday?"
Maya nodded.
"Shit. I've got something to do, and then I'm going home. I promise."
Relaxing a little, the girl nodded, hung her lab coat on the peg, and turned.
"Remember," Ritsuko called, "No uniform!"
Maya looked over her shoulder and nodded. Ritsuko waited a moment, then grabbed her purse, slung it on her shoulder, and headed out, ignoring the stares of the technicians. There was one more thing she needed to do, one more person she needed to see. She was not going to hide from Gendo Ikari. She took the elevator up, out of the underground complex, and into the Pyramid proper, where Gendo kept his lair. She gave the security staff a hard look as she walked into the executive offices, and down the long corridor to Ikari. People called it Walking the Mile when they were called up to speak to him. Ritsuko laughed at herself for going voluntarily.
She'd never been close to the man, for sure. He was cold, in his way, but had an air of command she sometimes envied, but there was something off, something that bothered her. When she first arrived, she had something of a crush on him, even though he was old enough to be her father. Her mother quickly disabused her of any such notions; Naoko was terrified of him. Something about that made her skip a step, but she pressed on. His office was enormous, all black with a sepulchral air, like a tomb. He had a preference for Western religious art, woodcuts from the Divine Comedy and a Tree of Life etched on the celling, made to glow and reflect on the floor. The door stood slightly ajar, and Ritsuko was about to push it open when she heard a soft sound that could only be a woman's gasp.
Leaning to the side, she peered into the office. Gendo was in his oversized chair, and in his lap was Natalie Summers, and other than her skirt, hiked up to the curve of her backside, she wore nothing but a black bra and stockings, and the bra was hanging on for dear life, with the straps pulled down over her arms. Gendo ran his fingers through her loose, coal-black hair and traced his thumb over her lips. If she started sucking his thumb, Ritsuko was going to vomit.
She backed away from the door, heart pounding in her chest. She turned, and as quietly as she could, headed back down the hall, teeth clenched, fists curled so tight that her fingernails threatened to draw blood from her palm. That bastard! In his office, no less. She earned some stares as she passed through the offices. Fuyutsuki was walking out of his office and started at her appearance, almost dropping her coffee.
"God, I thought you were her."
Ritsuko slowed. "Sorry," she mumbled.
"Come in for a minute," said Fuyutsuki. He was the Executive Officer, he could give her orders. She followed him into his office, and pulled the door shut.
"What?" she said, curtly. "I'm busy, I-"
"Yes, I know," said Fuyutsuki, smoothly. "It has to be a hell of a thing, picking your life up after what, almost a year?"
"Nine months," said Ritsuko. "All of my Earthly possessions are sitting in an empty apartment in one of the housing blocks. I should be glad it wasn't all burned."
"We never lost hope you would come back," said Fuyutsuki. "I can't imagine the Evangelion Division without an Akagi at the head. I'm very sorry for your loss, Ritsuko."
He seemed to mean it. She softened a little, biting her lip. She looked down; she didn't want the Old Man to see her tearing up.
Fuyutsuki leaned over and opened his bottom drawer, and pulled out a crystal decanter full of brown liquid. He poured two glasses, and pushed one to her. She snatched it up and barely remembered to clink glasses with him.
"To absent friends," said Fuyutsuki. There was something haunted in his eyes. How much did he know?
Ritsuko wanted desperately to slam back the whole thing, but she took a neat sip, as did he.
He looked around. "There are rumors that your mother's death wasn't an accident."
She froze.
He sighed. "I believe it was. It happens. She'd been working for almost thirty-six hours. You know how frantic the pace was, and with you gone for the conference, she had to do it all herself. We've settled in now, but Ikari had on us a war footing for weeks there, like he was expecting something."
Ritsuko relaxed a little, sipping more whisky to keep from sighing too hard. Did he know something or not? What rumors?
He put the glass on his desk and turned it in his fingers. "I was never especially close to her, but she was a good woman, in her way. She could be abrasive, but she cared deeply for people, even if she didn't show it."
He fixed his gaze on her. "I think she might have cared too deeply."
Ritsuko nodded and finished her drink. It gave her a warmth she'd been missing for a while. "Thank you."
Fuyutsuki nodded. "Watch yourself. The walls have ears around here. I wouldn't want a woman in mourning to be part of any ugly rumors."
She stood up, resting the glass on his desk, and stepped out of the room. Her hands were shaking, until she stuffed them in her pocket. Shoulders hunched, she walked back to the elevators. She was the head of the Evangelion Division, so all she had to do to access the CIC, where the MAGI cores stood, was type the cod into the elevator. She hit the button and sagged against the back wall.
The doors opened and Ryoji Kaji stepped in.
Ritsuko stood straight up, her eyes wide. "What the fuck are you doing here?"
Kaji shrugged, ponytail swaying. "I'm a Special Inspector for Nerve, now. I'm inspecting."
"Inspecting what, the female staff?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Volunteering?"
"Go to hell," she said, angrily. "I'm going to a classified area. Go inspect somewhere else."
He pushed the button for another floor, and when the elevator reached it, he stepped hurriedly through the opening doors, but turned to glance over his shoulder at her.
"Watch yourself, Rits."
She folded her arms under her chest. "I'll bet you haven't even seen her."
He flinched. "No, and it's staying that way. I'll see you around, Ritsuko."
The doors slid closed with a clatter and she stepped back. The floor indicator ticked over to the red band; she was into he classified lower levels of the command center now. As it pulled to a stop, she stepped out. The CIC was as cold as a tomb, empty and lit by red lamps overhead, surprisingly dim with everything shut off. There was no need to come down here except for physical maintenance on the MAGI system, but she checked anyway, walking around the elevated upper level where the Commander and XO stood, and then headed down the side stair to the main level, and then the ladder down to the Cores. She took another look around, to make sure she was alone, and moved to the cores. There were three of them, great slabby metal things the size of a car, packed full of the guts of the MAGI, wires and circuit boards and artificial brains and brass plates inscribed with sorcerous symbols and witchy glyphs.
There were three nodes, each based on Naoko's personal philosophy and personality; Melchior, Naoko as scientist, Balthasar, Naoko as mother, Casper, Naoko as woman. She had to decide which one would have something hidden in it for her.
Balthasar. The mother. She moved to the central node and started undoing the clamps that held the hatch, checking over her shoulder as she did. The command center remained dark and quiet, the LCL coolant tanks for the cores quietly circulating below. The hatch came up smoothly on hydraulic pistons and she crawled inside on her hands and knees. A switch turned on a runner of florescent lights along the low ceiling. It was a tight fit, and her back gave her a twinge, but she managed to turn around and draw the hatch down. She'd have to recharge her artificial spine, soon.
Slowly, she made her way through the crawl space, but nothing looked out of the ordinary. There were sticky notes everywhere, detailing the functions of all the components. She crawled through the hot corridor, feeling the first prickles of sweat on her forehead, if it wasn't from nerves. Sitting at the very back, she looked around. Nothing looked amiss. It was possible that she simply picked the wrong core; she had a two out of three chance of choosing wrong, after all. It just seemed like something Mother would do.
She happened to glance to her left, and there was a sticky note that said "HERE". Ritsuko tugged it loose, and the panel under it shifted with a click; the screws had been pulled out. Inside was a terminal, and attached to it was a pair of ear buds. She pulled it out, stuck the headphones in her ears, and shifted it on to her lap, lifting lid. It started to play a video file automatically. Naoko, sitting in the same spot where she sat now, bathed in red light.
"If you're watching this, you didn't listen to me."
Ritsuko shuddered. Her mother's voice.
"I come in here to think, sometimes. It's peaceful, and I… feel like I belong."
She looked around.
"There are a lot of things I never said to you, daughter. Things I should say to your face, but I'm too cowardly, so I leave them here. I hope if anything happens to me, you'll find this. I know you will. I've done extraordinary and terrible things in my life, Ritsuko. I hope you could forgive me for half of them, if you knew."
On screen, she looked around. "I used to think this was my life's work. Then… something has come up. I learned something I shouldn't have. The Contact Experiment, Ritsuko. Someone tampered with it. Yui Ikari's death wasn't an accident. I've tried to find out who… Gendo wouldn't know how, Fuyutsuki loves her. I don't know who did it. I tried, but I failed. If you're watching this, it probably means I got too close."
She stared into the screen quietly for a time. Her lips curled into a faint smile. "I love you. I spent my life building this computer, but my greatest creation is you."
Ritsuko slapped the computer closed and yanked the earbuds out of her ear, stifling a sob. Slowly, she put the terminal back, or started to.
She stopped, and pulled it back out. She closed out the file, stuck her thumb drive in the computer, and downloaded it. Then, she put it back against her chest, where it belonged. The next thing she did was plug the terminal into the core itself, and start typing.
If she siphoned off two percent of the MAGI's cycles, no one would notice. That would be all she needed to complete the design, and there was an unused lab off from the main one, where the sub-assemblies for the Eva knee joints were built. It had everything she needed to fabricate armor.
It might work.
The moment Hikari dreaded was on her. She was standing in the locker room, surrounded by stripping teenage girls. The new girls were being shown their lockers by the gym teacher, a sturdy woman named Yoshida who brooked no nonsense in her class. If she had to put her bathing suit on today, it wouldn't fit, she was sure. Thankfully, it was to be an indoor class. She stepped out of her slacks and waited for the inevitable comment, then kept on, until she was down to her skivvies and pulling on her shorts. No one noticed.
She laughed to herself. Of course no one would notice, why would they care if her appearance changed if they never noticed her before? She glanced around. Kirishima seemed totally uninterested in the other students. Nagisa had the locker next to hers, and shifted about nervously, remaining dressed in her red shirt much longer than the other girls, glancing around nervously. Hikari pulled her shorts up and dumped the loose cotton shirt over her head. Nagisa blushed and pulled on her shorts, but hadn't taken her blouse off yet.
"You can't wear that," Hikari whispered, leaning over to her.
"I know, but I didn't, I'm not… I'm not prepared for this."
Hikari scratched her chin. "I'll turn my back. No one will see you."
Nagisa nodded thankfully, and Hikari stepped in front of her, planting her hands on her hips and her feet apart, blocking the view as Nagisa hastily slipped out of her blouse and pulled on her t-shirt. Hikari reached into her locker and pulled out a spare bra and handed it over to her.
"Put this on under your shirt."
Nagisa's cheeks reddened and she took the undergarment, pulling her arms into her sleeves to slip it on without exposing herself. Hikari reached under her shit to do up the clasp for her and set the straps.
"Thank you," said Nagisa. "You should call me Kaworu."
"Hikari," said Hikari, shrugging. "You're new, huh?"
Kaworu nodded and gathered her hair up behind her head, trying to twist it into a kind of braid. Hikari pulled one of her hair bands free, did her hair up into a single ponytail, and gave it to her. She blinked, and then redid her own hair.
"Your hair is really beautiful," said Hikari. "It's so shiny."
"Thank you," she said, blushing again.
"Come one, we'll be late."
Kaworu followed her out into the gymnasium. The girls were all lined up at their marks for the warm up, five minutes of jogging around the gym. When the teacher gave the order, they all moved lightly and reluctantly forward, except Mari, who bolted, pulling far ahead of everyone else with long loping strides until she went around the entire line and caught up to Asuka again, slowing as they jogged together. From looking at her, Hikari was reasonably certain she did not, in fact, have a tail. The short shorts made that abundantly clear, as did her tendency to knot her shirt behind her back and expose her well-muscled midriff. She turned her nose up as she walked beside Asuka, studiously ignoring everyone in the room.
Hikari realized she was jogging almost the front of the line and wasn't even breathing hard. She'd begun to think everything that morning was a dream. The teacher blew her whistle and called for the students to follow her outside, holding the door open onto the track. Hikari fell in step with the other new girl, Kirishima.
"Hi," she said.
"Go fuck yourself," Kirishima said.
Kaworu appeared behind her. "She did that to me, too."
Hikari stared after Mana as she jogged.
"Weigh in!" The coach called, and the girls lined up.
Hikari hated this part. Who the hell had the idea they should line up and have the coach call out everyone's weight? Asuka stepped up, and the teacher called "One fifteen!" and Asuka flounced away, lining up on the marks on the track. Mari stepped up, and the coach called "One eighty five!" and stared at her for a moment. Hikari blinked; Mari didn't look that heavy. Mana stepped on the scale.
"Two-fifty… wait, what?"
Mana stepped down and took her place on the line, bouncing on her feet. The teacher waved the rest of them off; the scale was messed up, somehow. Hikari took her place, leaning forward with her feet in the blocks. The teacher loaded up the starter pistol and aimed it skyward.
"Whoever wins the first lap," she cried, "is done for the day."
Almost casually, she pulled the trigger.
Hikari bolted.
She ran wildly, her arms and legs pumping, leaving the ground for a bare second with each stride. Everyone, even Asuka, fell behind, all except Mari. Clenching her teeth, her face a mask of focus, the taller girl started to edge ahead of her, leaning into the first turn. Hikari blinked, and leaned into her run, clenching her teeth, focusing on moving, and started to pull ahead again. She was halfway around the track from the rest of the pack, her and Mari, neck and neck. Mari let out a strange noise, almost an animal yowl, and dropped to all fours, charging forward on her hands and feet, like a damned cat. Hikari grunted and picked up her pace, half jumping with each stride, barely keeping up with her. The finish was just ahead, and Hikari made the final push, pulling ahead of Mari at the last second. She skidded to a stop, stumbling as she came up on the teacher. Mari gave her a hard look as she slowed a bit, made the turn, and sprinted for the rest of the pack, ready to take the second lap.
"Horaki, isn't it?" said the teacher.
"Yeah," Hikari panted.
"Never seen anyone beat Makinami before. Go hit the showers."
Hikari nodded and walked back towards the door. She blinked when she realized she didn't even feel winded anymore. It was like she hadn't been running at all. She stepped into the gym, breathing in the cool air, and glanced at the high jump bar with the heavy pad behind it. She glanced back, then looked at the pad again and ran for it, full tilt. When she neared the bar, she jumped without dipping, just sprang from a standing start.
She cleared the bar. She sailed over the bar, over the mat, and saw the wall rushing to meet her. She put her hands out and slapped into the concrete block with a heavy slap, and hung there, blinking. Her hands were pressed flat against the wall, her feet dangling under her. She looked down. There was nothing holding her up. She looked at her hands.
Slowly, she pulled one from the wall, and stared at her palm. She was holding herself up, one armed. She reached up, planted it to the wall, and pulled herself up, expecting to fall when she let go with the other hand. She didn't. She put her feet on the wall, pulled her hands back, and stood straight out, then pumped her legs and jumped. Twisting in the air was easy, natural. She landed in a crouch, a perfect dismount on the hard floor, as if she'd done it a thousand times.
There was a pull up bar on the side wall. She walked over to it, reached up, and took hold. With one arm, she easily lifted herself from the ground and held it, hanging in space from one curled arm. She continued, pushing down until she did a one-armed dip, lifting herself up over the bar, and then dropped to the floor, again without difficulty. She glanced at the weight room.
She had to know.
She crept inside. It was empty; the boys must have been somewhere else. The equipment was all strange to her. She'd never done any weight lifting before, but she figured out quickly that she was supposed to lift the bar on one of the racks over her head. She picked it up, expecting to be heavy, but it might as well have been weightless, so she grabbed one of the biggest plates she could find, solid iron and wider than her chest, and slid it over the end of the bar, and then another on the other side. When she picked up the other one, she realized she was holding it with one hand, easily.
She stepped under the bar and shifted it in her hand, trying to get under it so she wouldn't hurt herself.
It lifted like nothing at all. She let go with one hand, holding it at an odd angle, one handed. Slowly, she lowered it back into the rack, and put more plates on. She picked it up again, and again it felt like it weight nothing at all. She put more plates on plate after plate until she couldn't fit anymore and the bar bent from their weight, stepped under it, and lifted it straight up. She lowered it, put one hand in the center, and lifted. Somehow, she knew her feet were stuck to the floor. She felt a little flex in her belly, but that was it. She lowered the bar back into the rack and counted the plates, doing the math in her head, and she staggered backwards, breathing hard, not from exertion but shock.
She'd just lifted a half a ton over her head. With one arm. It was easy.
Stripping the plates off as quickly as she could, Hikari put everything as she found it, then ran for the locker room, and into the shower. It was almost lunchtime. She stepped out of her clothes and into a stall, and slapped the button that turned on the hot water, breathing in the steam in relief. She scrubbed herself thoroughly, listening as the other girls all came panting in, turning on the water themselves. As she wrapped herself in her towel, she heard a high-pitched scream.
Kaworu was standing in a stall, wrapped up in her shower curtain, her thick hair a wet tussle clinging to her shoulder.
"They took my towel!" she shrieked.
The teacher, standing outside, grunted noncommittally. "Just go get another one. Nothing we haven't all seen before."
Kaworu whimpered, clutching her curtain.
"Who took it?" said Hikari.
Every head in the room snapped around to stare at her. Hikari snorted, then went to the rack and grabbed a spare towel. Asuka's hand clamped around her arm before she reached the silver-haired girl.
"You heard what the teacher said," Asuka hissed, coldly.
Hikari shook out of her grasp. "Back off, Red. I've had it up to here with you."
Asuka's eyes narrowed. "What did you say?"
To Hikari's utter shock, Mana stepped up next to her and folded her arms under her chest. "You heard her. Back off."
Asuka blinked, and drew her hand back. She looked at Mari, and they retreated, walking back out into the locker room. The other girls were filing out. Mana looked at her and nodded, and followed them. Hikari moved to Kaworu handing her the tail.
"Hikari," said Kaworu, "I need help. There's something wrong with me."
"What?" said Hikari.
"I'm bleeding."
Hikari blinked. "What, did you fall or something?"
"No, I… I'm bleeding," she whimpered. "It won't stop."
Hikari's jaw dropped. "Wait, what? Do you mean-"
Finally, the teacher stepped in the room. "I'll handle this, Horaki. Go to class."
"But-"
The teacher rolled her eyes. "I know how the plumbing works, kid. I've had one longer than you."
"I.. Kaworu? I'll see you at lunch, okay? You'll be okay. It's normal."
"How is this normal?" Kaworu shouted, shaking the shower curtain.
The teacher began talking to her in a soothing voice, and Hikari realized she needed to dress, or she'd be late for class.
At lunch, the students were free to eat in the cafeteria, or on the expansive grounds of the school. Shinji waited near the line, holding his lunch tray in one hand, trying to make himself small so Asuka wouldn't notice him, while keeping an eye out for Hikari at the same time. He spotted them both. Asuka was easy to pick out, she had an orbit of other girls surrounding her at all times, and Mari was a head taller than all the others. His breath caught; he swore she could hear him breathing sometimes. He saw Hikari and motioned with his head towards the door, using another group of boys as camouflage as he passed out of the building into the warm air. Hikari caught up to him a moment later, carrying a tray in either hand, laden with food. The Nagisa girl was with her, following along behind, looking around nervously, and her eyes red as if she'd been crying. When they were out of Mari range, Shinji spoke.
"Hey," he said to the Nagisa girl, "Are you okay? You look upset?"
"She's having a bad day," Hikari explained.
Shinji looked at the food trays. "You must be hungry."
"I'm not," Nagisa said, quietly. "This is for her."
Shinji blinked, but said nothing. He guided them to an out of the way spot, under a tree, and sat down, leaning against the trunk. Hikari sat next to him and Nagisa sat next to her. Hikari immediately began shoveling food in her mouth, looked at him self-consciously, and then started eating again as if she were starving and she'd found the last food on Earth. She chugged a cup of soup, ate three sandwiches, and stuffed an entire cup's worth of noodles in her mouth and then, more slowly, started on the second tray.
"Sorry," she said, blushing and shrugging her shoulders. "Gym class took a lot out of me."
Nagisa flinched. Shinji eyed her, but kept his mouth closed.
"So," said Shinji.
Hikari choked down a mouthful of food. "So," said Hikari. "Why do you let her treat you like that? You'd think you're married to her."
Shinji chewed his sandwich thoughtfully, and stared at the ground. "I kind of am."
Hikari froze. "What?"
"We're betrothed."
Hikari stared at him, blankly.
"It means we're engaged, but-"
"I know what betrothed means," said Hikari. "Who the hell gets betrothed?"
"Princesses," Shinji sighed.
Her eyes opened even wider. Nagisa's jaw dropped.
Hikari's friends were approaching, Suzahara and Aida.
"You don't sound happy about it," said Hikari.
Shinji blew his hair out of his eyes, and rested his chin in his hand. "It wasn't exactly my idea. Her father and my father talked to each other, and the next thing I know, I'm going to marry her when we both 'come of age'."
"You don't like her?" said Hikari. She seemed oddly intent when she asked that.
"Well… not in that way. I know how she comes off, but she's not a bad person. She really isn't."
Nagisa snorted. Loudly. Hikari looked at her and nudged her with her elbow.
"I knew her from when she was nine," said Shinji. "She's kind of like… my sister. I don't know why she's so mean to everyone here. She wasn't like that before. Well, she was, but not all the time."
He looked at his feet. "Okay, most of the time. I just know it's not really her. You have to trust me."
Hikari was grinning widely for some reason. Until Aida and Suzahara walked up and dropped in the grass behind him.
"What are you doing poaching all the girls?" said Suzahara, nudging Aida to join in. "Your wife is going to skin you."
"Fiancée," Hikari corrected.
"Wait, what?" said Aida.
"I don't think that's the right word. We're betrothed, not engaged," said Shinji.
"They're the same thing," said Hikari.
"They are not," said Shinji.
Aida was pulling out his phone. "I'll look it up."
A moment later, he frowned. "It's not on Wikipedia. There's an article about betrothal but it doesn't say what you call a betrothed person. A betrothee?"
"What the hell does betrothed mean?" said Suzahara.
Shinji shoved his head in his hands, and sighed.
"I want you to shave," Summers murmured, rubbing her cheek against Gendo's chin.
"No," said Gendo.
A light on his desk flashed, and he sighed. "Out. Now."
She pouted, stood up, and sashayed to where she'd left her blouse and lab coat, pulling her bra straps up as she did. She blew him a kiss, red eyes leering at him, and swayed out of the room with an exaggerated swagger. He hated being interrupted, but it was of no consequence. His budget meeting with Dr. Summers could be taken care of later. When she pulled the door closed, he tucked his shirt in and tapped the button on his desk.
He flinched when Kihl's face appeared in front of him. If it really was his face, withered and ancient, just a chin beneath an iron mask with an inset visor.
"Ikari," Kihl hissed, "The prophesied time is upon us. The Third will make landfall on your shores in twenty four hours. See that you are prepared."
Without further comment, and without leaving him time to reply, the holographic display winked out.
Gendo adjusted himself and stood up, finishing the job of tucking in his shirt, and picked up his jacket.
It was time to wake Rei.
