Neon Genesis Evangelion: Valkyrie

Chapter 4: Don't Let Me Down

Tokyo-3, Japan

Present Day

Toji awoke in an empty apartment to the bleating sound of his alarm clock, and moaned softly. He sat up and remained there for a full minute before wearily turning the thing off with a slap to the snooze button. He felt a terrible temptation to lay back down and go back to sleep, but he'd made a promise. It was important to his old man that he go back to school. They'd finally released him from maintenance work at Nerv and he could spend some time in the hospital with his sister. He sat on the edge of the bed and groggily stared at the floor for a while before the alarm came back on and turned it off, then sullenly wandered down the short hallway into their tiny bathroom. Higher ups could afford bigger places, but he and his sister and his old man lived in a little box a fair distance from the school.

He showered quickly and looked at himself in the mirror. He had the first hint of fuzzy stubble along the corner of his jaw and felt stupid for feeling so proud of it not long before. He wasn't a man. If he was a man he would have gotten Kanna to safety instead of letting her get hurt. He would have protected people he cared about. Instead, she was half dead and he didn't have a scratch on him. He smeared a little shaving cream on the corner of his jaw and just stood there for a while with the razor pressed to his face, shaking. He closed his eyes to force the tears in, and when he opened them he realized that he'd snapped the handle of the razor clean off. He wiped away the shaving cream expecting a thin line of blood on his cheek, but found nothing.

With a sigh, he brushed his teeth, dried his hair, and pulled on his tracksuit. It was faster than putting on some dumb uniform and he had to get to school. It was a long walk. He made sure the apartment door was locked behind him and walked down the stairs, half-stomping, a knapsack full of uncompleted school assignments and instant food thrown over his shoulder. He nearly reached the bottom when he fell. The stair beneath his left food gave way, simply parted under his step and dumped him onto the ground. He let out a yelp of surprise and lay there for a minute, the urge to just cut loose and start sobbing forcing its way up his spine into the back of his head. Tenderly, he moved his leg, expecting a twisted ankle at best.

He wasn't hurt at all. Lucky.

Slowly, he stood up, leaned on the doorway for a while, and made his way down the front steps, out of the apartment building. They were close to the reconstruction zone and he could vaguely hear the sounds of demolition in the distance, the snorting diesel engines of great machines and the pounding of pile drivers. It was matched by the distant sound of reconstruction, as the downtown area was rebuilt. The robot had knocked a chunk of debris into the park where Kanna hid to get a look at it, and no one even cared, even though the old man worked for Nerv. Not even a sympathy card. He saw a recruiting poster for the organization and he wished he could get his hands around the neck of whoever was responsible for it.

The train ride to school was crowded, and despite his height he blended in easily enough. There were a lot of people like him, staring at the floor, probably thinking about other people. He saw a lot of people in the hospital, young and old, some lucky enough to leave with a few stitches or a bandage and a few who didn't come out at all, their beds were just empty one time when he walked past. He hung onto the strap above his head and stared out the window, until the train leaned into a turn and it snapped in his hand, sending him toppling into the wall. He grunted and stood up with a huff as the passengers around him shot him dirty looks.

When the train stopped at the station, it was still a fair walk to the school, and it was still dark out, but he walked brazenly down the middle of the street, not caring who saw him. He spotted some of the other students in the distance, making their way towards the school. They filtered in the front door and he joined them. He stopped at his locker to put away his things and realized there was someone standing next to him. He slammed the door, and got a few stares.

Horaki stood there, oddly calm, a concerned look on her face. She started to say something and he cut her off.

"I didn't do the stupid papers," he snapped, "and I don't care."

"Oh," she said softly, "I'm not class rep anymore. I was worried about you. Aida said your sister was hurt."

"Yeah," he blushed. Wait, why was he blushing?

Stupid, stupid, stupid Toji. She was just trying to be nice to him and he bit her head off like a big dumb jock. He didn't remember her being so cute, either. Even beneath the shapeless uniform jumper they made the girls wear, he could see the athletic outline of her waist, and he was sure she hadn't had such shapely legs when he saw her last. She looked like she'd been out running for hours a day. He realized he was staring at her legs and blushed again, but she tilted her head, oblivious. She'd dropped her pigtails, too, and trimmed her hair short- not as short as Ayanami, but short enough that it was tight against her head when she pulled it into a ponytail.

He started to say something to her and froze. A bombshell walked past her, strutting down the hallway like she owned the place. She was the tallest girl in his grade, maybe in the school, and quite possibly that he'd ever seen, with fiery red hair that hung to her waist in an intricate blanket of small braids. She shot him a disapproving glance as she past and stuck her nose in the air, leaving him standing there staring after her like an idiot.

"I…" he started to say to Horaki, but she was already walking into the classroom, her shoulders fallen.

He followed her with a sigh. Very smooth move, Toji. He spotted Kensuke at the back of the room, fiddling with his laptop. He made his way to the back of the classroom and slipped into the seat beside him, and Kensuke looked at him excitedly.

"Hey, man! I was worried about you. How is she?"

"They don't know," he said, staring off at nothing. "They said she might not walk again."

Kensuke shrank back. "I'm sorry, Toji. I really am."

Toji blew out a breath and leaned against the back wall. "I know, man, I know."

Kensuke was quiet for a while, and then said, "did you see this?"

He turned the laptop around. On the screen was a window open to the newspaper website, which was dominated by a blurred black and white video still of a figure in a mismatched jumpsuit fist-fighting with a tubby guy in a leather jacket and a ski-mask. The caption read SPIDER-MAN COME TO TOKYO-3?

Horaki appeared next to him and leaned over Kensuke's computer.

"Spider-Man?" she snapped. "That is clearly a girl!"

Kensuke sat up defensively. "What are you talking about? This person has no boobs, and is therefore clearly not a girl."

With a snarl, Horaki stalked off, balled fists at her side, muttering to herself. Toji watched her in confusion until the tall redhead walked into the room and every set of eyes fixed on her. He could practically feel the mixture of admiration, lust, and resentment. It was enough that no one even noticed when the Ikari boy followed Ayanami into the room, head down as usual. He glanced furtively at Horaki, who spotted it and blushed, only for Ayanami to step between them with a glare.

He almost felt it before he heard it, the low growl of the evacuation alarm as it grew into a steady wail. He starte"d to stand up, but he couldn't get his feet under him before the chair under him exploded and he slammed to the ground, dragging the desk with him.

Kensuke stared at him in confusion, and then shoved his laptop into his bag. "Come on, man," he said, "we have to go!"

Mari sat in the lab in her bathrobe, flicking through photograph after photograph on the screen. "Okay, Jarvis, tell me what we know."

She felt a pang when the image of the gunman in the head-sock flashed on screen, and blinked away a tear. Jarvis had a dozen pictures of him, all masked, wearing a dozen different guns and bladed weapons, even an RPG.

"Wade Wilson," said Jarvis, "Alias Deadpool. Mercenary for hire. Mentally unstable, associated with the Canadian Weapon program."

"Weapon program?"

"An attempt to reproduce or exceed the benefits of Erskine's Super Soldier treatment," Jarvis explained. "Wilson and several others have been granted an increased healing factor, derived from the genetic material of the mutant Logan, alias Wolverine, currently a Shield operative."

"So he can't be hurt," said Mari.

"He can indeed be hurt," said Jarvis, "but he possesses a superhuman resistance to injury and recovery speed that essentially renders injuring him pointless. He has literally been dismembered on several occasions, and resurfaced later. The constant regeneration effect, combined with cancerous tumors, has damaged his mental state."

"What about the other guy," said Mari, "the gruesome one with the funny bat plane thing."

"The Hobgoblin," said Jarvis, bringing up the image. "the first Hobgoblin was fashion magnate Roderick Kingsley. Kingsley co-opted equipment used by Norman Osborn in his alias as the Green Goblin. Unlike Osborn, Kingsley never used the Goblin Formula, and so maintained his mental stability."

"Where is he now?"

"Deceased," said Jarvis. "The Hobgoblin alias has been used by at least five known criminals, often passed or sold from one to the other at various times. There have, on occasions, been multiple Hobgoblins active simultaneously, and at least one Hobgoblin also used the alias Jack O'Lantern, with a similar modus operandii, while acting as the Hobgoblin."

Mari sat back in the chair and tapped a pen to her lip. "So, the Hobgoblin could be anybody. That means Wilson is our best lead, doesn't it?"

"Indeed," said Jarvis. "Unfortunately, he is quite insane. He tends to complete contracts once accepted, but for every time he takes normal, traceable methods of payment, he insists on being paid in television memorabilia or Taco Bell coupons. There may be no records connecting him to the broader conspiracy behind the attack on the mansion, and it is entirely possible he no longer even remembers it."

Mari sighed in frustration. "So that's it? There's nothing I can do?"

"We have a visitor," said Jarvis.

"Show me."

The main screen switched to a view of the front door. Standing in a crisp uniform with a great deal of ribbons and ropey things and other army decorations was Brigadier General James Rhodes. Mari was a little surprised. She hadn't seen the man since she was a little girl.

"Let him in," she said as she jogged over to the stairs and headed up.

She met him in the foyer. There was no point in the door lock, really, since there was still a plywood patch over the main entrance and the wall that had been blown out, but Rhodes was the sort to knock before entering.

"Mari," he said as he stepped inside, "I'm sorry."

"Yeah," she said a little thickly. "What can I do for you? I mean, I-"

"I just wanted to stop by and check on you. I know I haven't talked to your dad in a long time, but I wanted to do a little more than just stop at the funeral."

"Oh," she said, "come in, then. I don't really have food or anything. I've been eating out of boxes."

He smiled sadly as he looked around, surveying the damage. He put his hat on one of the tables.

"Jarvis?" he said.

"Colonel," said Jarvis.

"I'm a general now."

"Ah," said Jarvis, "my apologies."

"That's okay," he chuckled. "I haven't seen this place this bad since me and Tony got into that little dustoff."

"Indeed," said Jarvis.

"Dustoff?" said Mari.

He smiled. "We got into a fistfight. He thought he was dying and got drunk at a birthday party."

"Oh."

"We were both wearing Iron Man suits at the time," he added.

"Oh," Mari said, recognition dawning. "Really?"

"What happened to his stuff?"

She sat down on the couch and looked at her feet. "Shield took everything, all the security stuff, too, and they messed around with Jarvis. They said they'd let me know if they found anything."

"They won't," Rhodes said, a little heat in his voice. "They tend to be a little reluctant to bring in outsiders on their work."

She sighed. "I don't know what to do. I have to meet with some guys from Stark Industries next week. I'm the majority shareholder now, and there's the funeral, and I… I want to do something. I want to find the people that did this."

"I know. You're going to do fine. You've got your dad's brains and your mom's common sense, that's for sure. You got her looks, too."

"I get that a lot," she said as she pulled off her glasses to wipe at her eyes. "I don't even know where to start."

"That's the other reason why I'm here," he said as he reached into his uniform coat.

He handed her a thumb drive. She turned it around in her fingers. "What is this?"

"It's nothing, and you didn't get it from me, because I wasn't here. We're not going to see each other until the funeral, and you barely remember me, right?"

Her eyes widened. "Right."

"Right," he said. "I'm not saying goodbye and walking out the door right now. I will see you around, though. Good luck, kid."

Asuka looked down at herself in the mirror and admired the way the "plug suit" clung to her physique, although she was somewhat annoyed that she would have to wear it in front of other people. As she walked she felt the way it squeezed her hips and the not so subtle way it highlighted her chest and wondered if there wasn't an ulterior motive in her design. It also wasn't fireproof, which could have been quite problematic. She hadn't mentioned that, and hoped that it would never come up.

As she left the locker room she passed the Ayanami girl, who stared at her with something that could almost be called hunger. Asuka was not easily unnerved but there was something off about the so-called First Child, with her pale skin, silvery hair, and her unnatural crimson eyes that she could swear changed color from time to time, fading to a soft pink, as if the blood had been drawn out of her. Ayanami passed her without a word, to change into her own plug suit, which was for some reason more modest than her own, possibly because it was some sort of prototype.

The technicians in their orange jumpsuits pointedly looked away from her as she made her way along the catwalk to Unit Two, which stood chest deep in a coppery-smelling substance called LCL, which could be electrolyzed and oxygenated as part of the life-support system. The operations director- the loud-mouthed drunkard she lived with, who metamorphosed into someone who appeared competent, quite to Asuka's surprise-had explained her role in this mission. As it was her first sortie, she would provide backup to the Ikari boy, while the Ayanami girl waited in case her Evangelion had to be activated, which would require an emergency- it had been damaged somehow, but no further details had been provided. She made mental note of all of this, ready to send her report to von Doom when her contact arrived.

The cockpit of the machine was unorthodox. It was situated in a large, cylindrical apparatus mostly taken up by computers and the life support system, which they called the "entry plug". Inside was a simple seat with a featureless control yoke and a padded section that closed over her legs to hold her in place. She surmised that the function of the yoke was primarily mental, as she could somehow feel the machine when it activated through clips she had stuck through her hair. Once she was inside, cold, foul smelling LCL filtered into the plug, eventually flooding it. By now, she had learned to simply taken a great lungful of it all at once. Thankfully, when the process began, it was almost immediately warmed by a small electric current to a comfortable temperature. She didn't risk warming it herself.

Once the connection was established, she could actually feel what was going on outside in addition to the display in front of her- even the air currents flowing over sensors in the armor plating. The red titan was hers, and she liked it- it was as if they'd painted the thing to her taste without even being asked. There was a warm, familiar sense of belonging to it, as if she was meant to be in this place. It took a small amount of her mental discipline not to simply sit back and luxuriate in it. Instead, she willed the machine to take stomping, jarring steps to the pad where she would be launched after it locked her into place, huge clamps sliding over the Evangelion's arms to hold it against the launch rail.

She took a deep breath of foul tasting liquid before she heard the signal and the Evangelion rocketed skyward, along a track that took her up and out of the Geofront cavern and into daylight that stung her eyes. In the distance, she saw Unit One, the horned, purple "test type" rising from a similar launcher, its head rising as if at attention when it came to a stop. Immediately she stepped away from the launch pad as the clamps released and headed, as they had been training her, to an arming system hidden within the façade of a plain-looking skyscraper. The Evangelion stepped with ease over the streets below, and she took up an oddly named "palette rifle", which fired mass-reactive explosive shells the size of small automobiles.

As she had been trained, she scanned for the so-called angel. This creature was radically different from its predecessor, which according to the footage they'd showed her had limited flight capability. This one never touched the earth, despite a lack of any apparent source of propulsion or lift. It resembled a blending of a serpent and some sort of enormous insect, its long, segmented armored body covered with tiny, wriggling legs that hung uselessly beneath it. Its defining feature, other than its pointed, armored head, was a pair of glowing tentacles that stretched out behind it as it moved.

She snapped behind an armored building, rested the weapon on it to steady her aim, and opened fire. A series of explosions rippled across the creature's body, and with a curious, warbling cry, it turned to her, picking up speed as it did. A section of armor stood in front of it and its whips lanced out, neatly quartering it into huge triangles that slid to the earth in a cloud of dust. She fired again, peppering the creature with bursts clouds of shrapnel, to little, if any, effect.

The sudden realization overwhelmed her, as she understood that this was not going to be as easy as she'd been told.

Hikari took up a position last in line as they filed into the school shelter, a smaller, less comfortable bunker than the one they'd taken refuge in during the last attack. The class representative, a stocky girl Hikari hadn't talked to that much in the past, was ticking names off a list as they filtered inside. She looked around and realized there was someone missing.

"Hey," she said to the new rep, "Where's Aida and Suzahara?"

"I sent them to the bathroom," the girl said, annoyed. "Please, go into the shelter, Horaki."

"The bathroom?" said Hikari. "Are you kidding me? I'm going to check on them."

"Hey!" the rep called, "Wait!"

She ignored her and headed up out of the basement. She curled her hand into a fist and rapped on the door to the boy's room, and after there was no answer, kicked it open. It swung into empty air, and the line of urinals was empty, the stalls devoid of feet. With a huff, she stalked away from the bathroom, ignoring the growing intensity of the buzz in the back of her head.

She headed towards the front of the school. She knew the emergency was still in effect, and worried a little about her own family, but Kodama wouldn't let them go anywhere but the shelter. When she stopped at the door, her jaw dropped. She'd never imagined that the angels would look so real, so alive. The thing moved with a sinuous grace as it snaked around a red robot, as big as ungainly as the other one, the purple one, which was running over to it. Hikari felt a pang of sympathy for the pilot of the machine as it futilely emptied its rifle into the creature's belly, to no effect at all.

The Evangelion grappled with the angel, twisted, and slammed itself to the ground, carrying the creature with it. Smoke snaked up from where two long, thin arms that looked like they were made of light itself touched the armor, leaving long scorch marks. When the whips moved, they picked up speed and grew brighter, leaving trails in her vision, like she'd looked into the sun itself.

She spotted Toji and the Aida boy, filming the scene with his damn camera, and rushed towards them, the buzzing in her neck so intense it almost hurt. She grabbed Aida and shook him, yanking the camera out of his hands.

"What's wrong with you? You could be killed! We need to get inside!"

"That's what I said!" Toji snapped, "I couldn't let him come out here by himself!"

Hikari groaned. "You idiots! Come on, let's get inside! Quickly!"

The feeling in her neck lanced into her, hurt so hard she felt it in her chest, and she gasped. As she turned she saw the angel yank the Evangelion into the sky and throw it, just throw it just like that, toss it into the air with ridiculous ease. It turned its attentions on the other one but Hikari didn't see it. She screamed and tried to pull them away, but Toji didn't move, he just didn't move, like he was planted to the ground. He cried out himself and grabbed her and Aida both and covered her with his body, pulling them to the ground. Aida screamed, high pitched and frantic, like a little girl, and she watched the machine blot the sun and come sailing towards them. It landed beside them in a crash, throwing up clumps of earth and grass, and with ponderous slowness its arm came down, then its hand, right on top of them, and darkness covered her.

She breathed in, and felt cold, the scent of earth in her nostrils. With a great mechanical whirr and the grinding of servos and armor plates the Evangelion rose. The hand lifted up and planted down in the ground, palm down, digging a crater as it pushed itself to its feet and charged away, each step shaking the ground like a miniature earthquake.

Hikari let out a slow, deep breath. Toji stood up slowly. The jacket of his track suit was in tatters, as was his undershirt, but he was unharmed, without even a scratch. He looked down and shouted in alarm. His legs had sunk into the ground to his knees, and where his hands had fallen were deep furrows in the earth, which had left his hands covered in soil and grime. He sat down in the huge palm print and sat there for a moment, staring at his hands as if they were strange to him.

"What is this?" he whispered, "What's happening to me?"

Shinji was screaming, he was screaming and he couldn't stop. It was hurting her, it was hurting Asuka, and he had to stop it. It had taken her umbilical, taken the power from the machine that protected her, and he hated it. He felt his rage surge through him, felt it crawl up his spine and tear its way out through his mouth, force his jaws open in a cry of fury even as he tried to bite down on it, wanted to grab it and twist it with his neck until it ruptured. Unit Two was in dire straits. It had charged back into battle to peel the angel off of him and now felt the full force of its fury. It had her pinned down, the burning cords of its whips that still burned his arms and chest wrapped around her neck, and through the comm system he could hear her gurgling cry of agony as it choked the life from her.

He came up behind the angel and dragged it away but it wouldn't let go, and her screams grew higher in pitch and intensity, for the angel did not release Unit Two's throat, and by extension, hers. She was trying to say something in a language he didn't understand, but he didn't need to know the words. He use Unit One's first to gather the whips up, drawing them around his palm, biting his own lip to bite through the pain as it burned him, and with his other hand he took hold of the whips and pulled until the whips snapped and it was the angel's turn to scream. It let out a long, mournful cry and turned to him, head-butting with its mass, and behind it Unit Two went silent, its batteries spent.

He drew the progressive knife from over his shoulder and jumped into the angel. As he shouldered it through the armament building behind it the structure collapsed, bathing them both in dust. It wriggled under him and lashed his body with its own, trying to force the Evangelion away, and he clamped down on it, putting it into a hold with the Eva's legs. He raised the knife and struck, the shudder rolling up the Eva's arms and into his body as the vibrating blade ripped into the shining red cove in the beast's belly. He raised it and lowered it again, over and over, pounding it into the angel's body, and he heard Misato screaming at him and the sounds of other people talking and even Rei whispering at him insistently but he kept bring it up and down over and over again until he realized she was saying, "It's dead! It's dead! Stop!"

The knife fell to the earth with a great crash and he sat there for a moment, his Evangelion straddling the beast's corpse, panting. He rolled off of it and crashed onto his back, and darkness swept up from within him, pulled itself over his eyes, and took him into sleep.

He awoke to the plain white of the infirmary ceiling. He felt tender when he moved, and when he lifted his hands over his face they were wrapped in thick bandages, with only his thumbs protruding. He sighed and let them fall to his side, and it was not until he heard soft breathing beside him that he realized he was not alone.

Asuka sat next to the bed. A bandage was wound around her neck and around her arms under her loose hospital gown, and around her right hand. Her blue eyes fixed on him, surprisingly cold for one so fiery. She didn't speak for a time, and when she finally did, her voice was hoarse and rough.

"You have saved my life. I owe you a debt."

He was so shocked he said nothing as she stood up, shrugged on a bathrobe, and walked out of the room, her hair nearly glowing in the gloom of the half-light. It must have been after dark, when the lights were lowered. He closed his eyes and fought hard to find his way back to sleep, only for it to evade him.

Ryoji Kaji dialed the phone number, and waited patiently for the series of clicks as the voice-over-internet-protocol connection jumped from proxy to proxy, hiding his true location. When Gendo Ikari answered, he slid his voice modifier over the handset of the phone.

"Did you receive the package?" he said calmly, allowing the changer to shift his voice into a gravelly drawl.

"Yes," said Ikari. "We have another job for you, if you are prepared to accept it."

"No," he said softly, looking around. He was alone at the tables outside the café. "I wasn't told that Wilson would be there, and that a child would be in danger. You said that Stark wouldn't even be home. I'm a thief, not a murderer."

"We are prepared to pay well."

He disconnected the call with a press of the end button. He pulled the voice changer free, and slipped it into his pocket, then reached over and nonchalantly dropped the phone into a cast iron wastebasket near the little fence that marked the boundary of the café. He waited patiently until the girl arrived.

She wore a long yellow dress and had her hair bound up under a wide brimmed hat, as if she was in some sort of spy movie and as if having red hair in Tokyo-3 wouldn't make her stand out if she stuffed it into a hat. He smiled at her in what she no doubt thought was recognition but was in fact contempt as she sat down, opened a makeup compact to blatantly look behind her for anyone that may have been tracking her and turned to the waitress.

"A cup of espresso for myself and the gentleman, and a biscotti for me," she said, a little louder than necessary.

The woman gave her a strange look as she went to put the order in.

"You should have ordered a biscotti for me, too," said Kaji, finishing up the code.

With a huff, she reached into her purse, pulled out a small envelope, and slid it across the table to him. He took it without ceremony, creased it around the drive inside, and slipped it into his pocket, making it look as if he'd reached inside to pull out a cigarette.

"How do you find Tokyo-3?"

"Lawless and boring. I would like to go home soon."

"Well, we'll see," he shrugged.

When the coffee arrived, she took a sip of it, grimaced, and then slid the biscotti over to him. "You can have it."

He was happy to see her leave, as the expression goes, but perfectly glad to watch her go. After a while he stood up, left a tip and the payment, and sauntered out onto the pavement. He decided he'd take a walk, take in the sights. The downtown area was still closed off after the angel attack, but he was free to wander the business district, such as it was. He was admiring a selection of fine suit coats when he bumped into someone.

He turned and smiled instinctively, putting on his best sloppy grin, setting his whole body to a sort of rakish tilt, ready to seduce. A beautiful woman with coal black hair and a military bearing face him, and he found his eyes drawn to her impressive bust and the shapely sway of her hips. Then, the more rational parts of his brain began to draw in some blood flow and he realized how much trouble he was in.

"You," Misato said, angrily.

Toji made explanation when they arrived at the shelter, told the class rep he'd snuck outside for a peek and fallen in the mud, hence his hands. After he cleaned up a bit, he noticed that the Horaki girl had slipped off, and his heart sank a little. He stood in the bathroom leaning over the sink when the emergency ended, staring at himself in the mirror. He didn't look or feel different. The mirror had cracked when the giant robot landed outside, as if there'd been an earthquake. He tapped a piece with his fingers and it fell out with a soft tinkling sound. Slowly, he picked it up between his fingers, placed the point against his cheek, and drew it down. His eyes widened as tiny bits of glass, like a child's craft glitter, poured down his cheek like tear. When he wiped it away, there was no blood, no mark, not even a scratch.

He took a step back and another until he hit the far wall, and then he sank down until he was seated on the cold bathroom floor, and tears blurred his vision. He rubbed at his eyes. It wasn't fair. If something happened to him, if he'd been changed somehow, why him? He should be the one broken in the bed, not his little sister. She should have been out there right then, climbing around in the playground, running with her friends, not lying there broken in a bed, not even able to wake up.

Kensuke sat down next to him. "Hey."

He didn't say anything. He just sat there, staring at his knees. Kensuke sat beside him for a while in silence and then said, "They called school for the rest of the day. Maybe we should go home."

"No," he said. "I'm showering in the gym, and then I'm going to the hospital."

"Okay," Kensuke said softly. "Let me know if anything changes."

"Yeah," he said thickly as he stood up. "I will."

As Ritsuko brought the first report on the latest sortie into Gendo's office, she had an unusal feeling of being watched. He sat casually in his chair, his usually neatly trimmed beard a little longer than usual, the beginnings of a moustache forming across his lip. He looked as if he hadn't slept in a long time, and he was idly fingering the sleeves of his jacket as she approached and set the file on his desk.

Before she had a chance to speak, he slid a copy of the day's newspaper across his desk to her. She picked it up, quickly skimmed the article, and put it back down on the desk.

"You don't think that's Peter Parker, do you?"

"That is not the Parker," Gendo said strenuously. "Our contacts with Shield report he is still at Los Alamos with the Storm woman. We want this person found, immediately."

She blinked. "I'll see what I can do."

"Very good."

She lingered for a moment.

"What?"

"Nothing," she shrugged.

As she walked out of the office, she passed Essex. He'd crawled out of his subterranean lair, no doubt to commiserate with Gendo. As the representative on base of the Human Instrumentality Committee, he outranked her considerably. It made him no less creepy. He brushed against her, seemingly on purpose, and she winced when his hand touched the tender part of her shoulder where the harness holding her wings in place.

"Doctor Akagi," he drawled, drawing closer to her. "I was hoping I would run into you. I have a variety of reports on the function of the Evangelions' biologics to share. Perhaps we could go over them over dinner this evening?"

She glanced back at Gendo, who didn't react in the slightest, then at Essex. "Just send them by courier. I have too much work to do."

Essex shrugged and walked into the room, making no effort to conceal it as he turned at the waist to stare at her ass as she went through the door. She hurried out of his line of sight as fast as she could, gasping. When she arrived at the lab, she slammed the door shut, locked it, and slid a chair up under the doorknob.

"What is it?" said Maya.

"Essex. God, he freaks me out."

She shrugged her shoulders. "Help me, get this goddamn thing off me."

Hurriedly, Maya helped her pull off her lab coat, and she winced as she did. Then it was a simple matter of undoing the straps and lettering her wings flop free. She let out a sigh of relief as the pressure was let off, but her shoulders still ached. Maya set about bandaging the little cuts around the joints where the wings emerged from her back and on her shoulders, and she gasped as the antiseptic stung her.

"You can't keep doing this," said Maya. "It's getting worse."

"I know. I wish I could get rid of them. I've tried. "

Maya paled. "Really?"

"Yes. I spent a month in the hospital after I tried cutting them off when I was high school. My mother almost went bankrupt paying off the doctors, keeping it a secret."

"Why? They don't look that bad," Maya said guardedly.

"She always hated them, said they made me different, and she's right. I'm lucky some freak like Essex isn't dissecting me right now. I just wish they'd go away."

"It's too bad you can't just, you know, have them," said Maya.

Ritsuko laughed bitterly. "You don't know what's it's like to be different."

Maya looked at her sadly and touched the edge of her wing, just barely brushing a feather with her fingertips.

"Yeah," she whispered, "I guess not."

"Okay, Jarvis," Mari said as she handed Dummy the thumb drive. "Dad did say not to trust anyone, so I want you to run everything you can on this, make sure there's no viruses or anything."

"Yes, Ma'am," Jarvis replied. He brought up a video feed on the main screen. "There has been another attack in Japan."

"Where?"

"Tokyo-3 once again, Miss Mari."

She leaned back in the chair and pulled her lip down with her finger. "The same place, both times. I thought Nerv said these things could show up anywhere?"

"That is what they announced at the press junket after the first attack, yes."

"Show me everything you've got on Nerv while you're checking over the thumb drive."

An image appeared on the screen of a severe looking man with a chinstrap beard and a taste for dark clothing. To Mari, he looked a little depressed, trying to look menacing and doing a fairly good job at it. "Who's that?"

"Gendo Ikari, supreme commander, answers directly to the United Nations. Lived in the United States briefly with his wife, Yui Ikari, now deceased. Son, Shinji Ikari."

An image of this Shinji appeared on screen.

"He's kind of cute," said Mari.

"I am not one to judge, miss," said Jarvis.

She couldn't help but laugh at that. "No, I doubt Dad taught you how to do that. These personnel files are cool and all, but tell me about their robots."

For that, Jarvis had only distant, blurry stills. "Approximarily two hundred feet tall, humanoid in shape, structure suggests reinforcement other than standard metals and composites. Nerv began purchasing large quantities of adamantium several years ago, but not enough to significantly protect a machine of this size."

"What are those things trailing out the back of them?"

"They appear to be a power source."

"Wait," Mari sat up. "The giant robots have to be plugged in?"

"So it would seem."

She drummed her fingers on the desk. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I am afraid I am not following you."

"They run on an external power supply, right? What happens if it's cut?"

"Most likely, there are supplementary backup batteries."

"Right," said Mari, "but if the batteries can keep it going a long time, what's the point of the cord? Especially if these battles are so short? They're like a few minutes, right?"

"Indeed. This implies that the batteries are not a sufficient solution on their own."

"Meaning…" Mari trailed off.

Jarvis was quiet for a time. She could practically feel him thinking beneath her feet.

"Meaning," said Mari, "that they would be looking for…"

"…an alternate power source."

"Jesus," said Mari. "Do you think it was them? This Nerv wanted an arc reactor?"

Jarvis thrummed in thought for a moment. "A Japanese heavy industrial concern made an offer for an exclusive contract to construct a number of compact arc reactors last year," said Jarvis, "but your father rejected them."

"How many?

"Fifteen in all. They would rely on the same principle as your father's chest reactor but would be significantly larger, with an exponentially increased output. It is possible the concern was acting as a front group for Nerv."

"Holy shit," said Mari. "Holy shit."

"I have finished analyzing the thumb drive," said Jarvis.

"Yeah?"

"General Rhodes has prepared for you a selection of documents that are classified, taken from air force intelligence. I recommend they be destroyed after-"

"Whatever," she snapped, "what are they?"

"Proof that Nerv has been moving around large sums of currency. An employee at the state department was nearly fired after suggesting…" he trailed off.

"What?"

"After suggesting that Nerv was engaging in a money laundering scheme involving coupons for Taco Bell."

"You have got to be kidding me," said Mari.

"I assure you, I am not."

"Well," said Mari. "I think we're going to find out if I'm big in Japan."

Misato was clenching her fists so hard her knuckles turned white when she walked into the apartment, not even bothering with announcing her arrival. She kicked her shoes off by the door and stalked into the kitchen, hastily unbuttoning her uniform as she went. She pulled a beer, cracked it open, and touched the bottom of the can to her forehead to cool herself before taking a long pull. First the battle, and then running into Kaji had fairly well cemented the ruining of her day, and it was entirely likely it would get worse.

Shinji was sitting at the kitchen table, staring at his bandaged hands. He just sat there, staring into space. She took another drink and sat down next to him, but didn't say anything for a while. She wanted to just let him get used to presence for a time. When she thought she'd been there for a minute or two, she rested a hand on his arm, and she flinched.

"Shinji," she said softly, "you disobeyed my orders."

He winced, but she went on. "You did the right thing. You may have saved Asuka's life."

"I couldn't even hear you," he whispered. "I just wanted to hurt it."

Slowly, he stood up. "Can I go for a walk?"

"Are you going to be okay?"

"Yes," he said, "I just want some air. Is that okay?"

She nodded vigorously. It wouldn't hurt to let him have some space, and she had no idea when Asuka would be home- she was already out exploring the city. They two rarely spoke, and Misato had to fight impulses constantly to try to get them to do a little more than glance furtively at each other. It would be nice if the two halves of her functional pilot corps actually talked to one another once in a while.

There was one advantage to all of this. When she needed some air, as she did now, she could go for a swing. It was awkward at first, and she had to work her way to the center of the city to find tall enough buildings to actually swing from, which was more than a little awkward. It was as simple as shooting a web at something over her head and jumping with it, letting her momentum carry her far enough to catch the next hold and keep going. What amazed her most of all was how normal it seemed after just a few days- it was like she wasn't afraid of heights anymore, even when she was so high it made the cars beneath her look like little bars of soap.

Today, it was growing late and school had been cancelled after the attack. She was still angry at herself for running away after the battle, but she was afraid for Shinji- she was pretty sure he was the pilot of the purple robot. By the time she dared get close enough, they'd already taken it down, but they were in the middle of the city, the part they'd cordoned off with police and fire trucks, picking apart the corpse of the thing they'd killed, hauling it away in big pieces on flatbed trucks. She swung up to the corner of a building overlooking the work and hung from the wall, watching them for a while. The Nerv men in orange jumpsuits looked tiny from up here, carting away quivering sections of flesh from the… from the thing.

It was so unnatural, that's what bothered her most. It was like it had parts from living things, but they were wrong somehow, as in the disturbing drawings of artists who don't quite understand anatomy and proportion. She shivered, and decided that without getting closer, she wasn't going to see anything else here, so she turned, tossed a line out towards one of the other buildings, and went for a swing, letting it pay out long enough to drop some altitude.

She dropped down onto a bus with a thud and crouched on the roof, letting it carry her along until she was relatively close to the Katsuragi apartment. When she was relatively close, she stood and sprinted for the front of the bus and took a leap, giving herself enough momentum to get into the swing again, and she couldn't resist whooping for joy. It didn't take her long to find him- she was surprised to spot Shinji walking down the sidewalk, hands hanging at his sides like he didn't know what to do with him.

She followed him for a while, keeping pace with a series of lazy swings over his head, sometimes pulling ahead, sometimes falling back. He walked without any apparent destination, and amazed her by the sheer fact that he never looked up. He never really raised his gaze above his feet, for that matter. She waited until they were fairly far away from the apartment before she swung down and clung to the wall beside him.

He let out a yelp of shock and jumped back, and she couldn't help but giggle at him. She looked up and down the street to make sure no one was looking, then pulled up her mask to show her face.

"Don't do that!" he said, hurriedly. "What are you doing? Are you crazy? What if they find you?"

"Oh, I'm just hanging around."

He blinked at her. "Huh?"

She sighed. "I wanted to make sure you were okay. Was that you today? In the robot?"

"Yes," he said quietly.

"Your hands," she dropped to the pavement. "Are you hurt?"

"It's like a sunburn," he shrugged. "They said it would go away in a few days."

She blinked. "How did that happen? Aren't you, like, inside the robot?"

"When it gets hurt, it hurts me, too. It's how it works."

"That's awful," she drew nearer to him. "Thank you."

It was his turn to blink in surprise. "What?"

"Thank you," she repeated. "You stopped that monster. You saved us. I was outside of the shelters. I saw it."

He blushed. "Oh. I, I mean, I didn't- it was…" he trailed off. "I'm not a hero, miss Hora…" trailed off and looked around, "uh, Spider-Girl."

"You can call me Hikari," she chided, "uh… when I'm not wearing the mask and stuff."

His phone rang, and he fumbled for it, awkwardly holding it in his wrapped hands, forced to work it with his exposed thumbs. He had to bend forward a little and use both hands to get up to his ear. He mumbled an apology and some agreements and hung up.

"That was Miss Misato. I have to go back to the apartment now," he sighed.

"Okay," she sighed. "You have to?"

"Yes. She wants me to eat dinner with Asuka."

"The girl with the red hair?"

"Yes. She pilots Unit Two."

"The red one?"

"Yeah," he rubbed at his neck with his lobstered hand. "I don't think she likes me very much. She doesn't talk to me."

"She seems kind of stuck up," Hikari shrugged.

"Don't tell anyone, but I saw her crying the other night. She sleeps across the hall from me."

Hikari rubbed at her chin, beneath her mask. "Really? I can't see someone like her crying."

"Yeah," he said, "she said something about her mother, but she didn't wake up. It scared me a little."

"You sound worried," Hikari said guardedly.

"She's like us," he looked around quickly, lowering his voice. "She has a power. I can tell."

"You can?"

"I can feel it. It's hard to describe. I just can. I really have to go now."

"Okay," Hikari said sadly. "I'll see you at school tomorrow?"

"I think so." He said, and turned to walk away.

She worked her way back up the building, and perched at the corner of the roof, watched him for a while before swinging off for home.

Dealing with these insufferable people was enough, but being forced to sit and have a banal conversation over a banal meal of foul tasting instant sludge was almost more than Asuka could take, and most of all, the damnable food wasn't even hot enough. When the Ikari boy walked in, he sullenly took a spot at the table, looking like a helpless puppy when he tried to paw at his chopsticks with his bandaged hands. His look of defeat would have been amusing had it not been so pitiable.

"Hold still," she snapped.

She picked up a scoop of the foul tasting instant food and offered it to him, and he craned forward and accepted it, after which she offered him another, and another, and then held the cup of water for him to drink, which was no doubt welcome considering the amount of foul tasting spices the Katsuragi woman had dumped into their food, most likely to mask the flavor of decidedly conflicting packaged meals she'd mixed up into a great glob in a sauce pot.

She realized that Misato was smiling wistfully at her and froze. She met her gaze levelly, and then as the wheels turned in her head, realized why she was looking at them like that. Asuka was feeding him.

Angrily, she slammed the stupid sticks down to the table and stood up, then stomped into her tiny bedroom, trying to ignore the woman's raucous laughter. She slammed the door and dropped onto the floor, trying her hardest to breath deeply and control herself. Her neck and hand still stung, which only aggravated her more. When she held up her right hand, a thin nimbus of flame had formed around her fingertips, and her heart leapt into her throat. If she lost control here…

"A-Asuka?"

"What?" she snapped, trying to hide the tension in her voice.

"C-can I come in?"

She clenched her fist, trying to hide the flame, only for it to smolder around her knuckles, as though her hand were a coal. She put her other hand over it, only for it to spread to her limb, slowly working its way up her arm. Heat shimmered around her.

Slowly, Shinji slid the door open.

"No," she said, hurriedly, "get out, get out, you'll…"

He ignored her, a distant look on his face, and slowly crouched beside her, and then rested his hand on her arm. She expected his skin to peel and crack, the fat beneath to sizzle away from the bone, but neither happened. The flame simply ceased to be, and she felt a strange coolness surge through her, followed by a profound sense of relief. She relaxed and almost fell onto her futon, breathing hard.

"How did you do that?"

"Is that what it is?" he whispered, "the fire? Is that what you do?"

"Yes," she said, guardedly. "How did you stop it?"

"I don't know," he said, his whisper cracking with nervousness. "I don't know. It doesn't work that way on anyone else, I just…"

"What else can you do?" she whispered, a quiet smile creeping across her lips.

Author's Notes

I'd like to throw this out here: I don't dislike Rei. I actually like her quite a bit, and I am guilty of the supreme heresy of neutrality in the great war of Red vs Blue. I think either pairing, or no pairing at all, can work depending on the writing. I know she comes off as a little rough so far, but she's carrying a terrible burden and it makes her a little nasty. I have a character arc planned for her but it's a slow burner. We'll be learning a bit more about her in Chapter 5...

As to who will end up with who, it wouldn'tbme Marvel without a love octagon, but I'm writing this without shipper goggles. If there's any shipping at all, it will be something that grows organically out of the story, although it's pretty clear at this point that Hikari has a crush on Shinji. Of course, Toji likes her but doesn't know it and he's too stupid not to stare at Asuka's ass when she walks by when Hikari is like right there, and Asuka may very well like Shinji a little, but has no idea how to express it...

On the other hand, if you were wondering, yes, Maya is gay, totally gay for Ritsuko.

Toji's power isn't directly copied from any pre-existing Marvel character. The accidentally smashing stuff comes from an ability to "root" himself to a specific spot, so that he can't be moved, and he has invulnerability. That's it, no speed, strength, or other powers, he just can't be crushed or moved.

A note on the character's ages. It's kind of nebulous exactly how old everyone is, but the kids are all a little older, especially Mari, who has been old enough to drive for a couple of years, and will be able to take control of Tony's assets directly rather than in trust as a minor.

That hammer is still out there, but at this point, none of these people is worthy of picking it up. I wonder who it will be...