Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.
Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or anything associated with it, and I am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.
Chapter Three: Red Tape and the Scarlet Speedster
"Now that is one damn big plane," Jessie observed.
"Now that is one damn big understatement," Mari quipped, craning her neck in a futile attempt to see the top of the gargantuan aircraft that was currently at rest on Bethany Base's airstrip.
The entire place had been cleared of any other aircraft for the first time ever to the best of the EVA pilot's knowledge, but it still looked far too small for the plane that was currently parked there.
Which wasn't that much of a surprise, considering that Evangelion transport planes were the largest class of aircraft ever built by the hands of man. The enormous plane, which looked like one big, sleek wing, had a wingspan greater than that of three jumbo jets put together and could carry a standard Evangelion inside its specially-designed cargo hold.
Of course, Mari's Unit Five wasn't exactly a standard Evangelion. To prepare it for air travel, the American NERV branch had built an enormous metal box around it, with clamps that the transport could easily latch onto at the top. The complicated operation of attaching the plane to the massive container was already completed, and the transport was sitting atop the huge box, the additional height allowing it to cast its shadow across the entire base. Wheels on the bottom of the super-sized cargo container would allow the thing to roll across the runway for takeoff, and the engineers swore that they would serve as adequate landing gear at least once, although Jessie and Mari were both privately dubious of that claim.
It had been a long time coming—far too long in Mari's opinion—but after months of work, Unit Five was finally repaired, meaning it was at last time for the American EVA pilot to ship out.
"That container is going to cause a whole lot of drag," Mari commented as she watched the various technicians crawling over the assembly, performing last minute checks and looking like ants in comparison to what they were working on.
Jessie nodded. "This is going to be the most expensive flight across the Pacific in well…ever," she said. "I heard that the cost of fuel for this one trip is going to far exceed ten million dollars."
Mari responded with a low whistle.
"They would've sent Unit Five by ship, if not for what happened to Unit Two," Jessie said.
The bespectacled girl grimaced slightly. An Angel had struck the UN fleet that was transporting Unit Two to Japan, and NERV had been forced to engage an Angel at sea with an Evangelion not equipped for underwater combat.
Mari burned with jealousy whenever she thought of the epic battle she had missed.
"Well, I'm glad we're going by air instead of by sea," Mari said. "The sooner we get to Japan, the better."
Jessie smirked. "Don't want Asuka to rack up any more kills without you?"
Mari groaned. "She's already got three under her belt already! She's going to rub them in my face as soon as I see her, I just know it."
That and she had a bet going with the Second Child, made when they had met years ago. But she didn't really think it was a good idea to tell her guardian that.
"Knowing her, she probably will," Jessie said with a chortle.
Mari was about to make a reply when the approach of Commander Wells stilled her tongue. The pilot quickly shifted the bag she had slung over her shoulder slightly, and then snapped to a crisp salute as her guardian did the same.
With an unusual air of formality, the commander of Bethany Base returned the salute, and then relaxed. "At ease," Wells eventually said.
Jessie and Mari both relaxed.
"Well, Pilot, after years of training here, it looks like you'll finally be leaving us to head to the front lines," Wells said.
"Yes, sir," Mari agreed.
"I realize this is one hell of a burden for anyone to shoulder, let alone someone as young as you," Wells said. "I can only say that if I could, I would take your place behind the controls of that thing."
"Sir, I'd be dismayed if you did," Mari replied, her formal tone betrayed by the grin that was starting to curl the corners of her lips. "I consider my duty to be an honor and privilege."
The expression on Wells' face made it clear that that probably concerned him more than anything else. "I trust I don't need to remind you about your other assignment?"
"No, sir."
"Good. In that case, I wish you a safe voyage, and that you may come back home unscathed someday. Show them how it's done, Pilot Makinami," Wells said. He looked ready to leave, then hesitated and added, "And please, try not to level Tokyo-3 while you're there."
Finally, Mari could hold herself back no longer. "A giant mecha destroying Tokyo, sir? Preposterous," she proclaimed.
Behind the pilot, Jessie palmed her forehead.
"Ahem, yes," Wells cleared his throat. "Well, in any event, I have things to see to. Good day, Pilot. Lieutenant." He nodded to Jessie.
"Good day, sir," Jessie said.
Once the man was away, her guardian turned to glare at her. "You just had to do that, didn't you?"
"What?" Mari asked innocently, as though she had not a clue what Jessie was referring to.
"Never mind," Jessie sighed. "Come on, let's see if we can board yet."
The two of them approached the huge form of the transport, and they were indeed allowed to get onto the plane. Mari had suspected that they might have to get on with the aid of a very long rope ladder, but as it turned out, they were able to board via the container holding her Unit Five. There was a passageway that went straight from it to the plane, which they reached with the aid of a long series of stairways and catwalks inside the great metal box. The EVA pilot's opinion of the engineers who had designed the container went up a few notches.
"Up, up and away, in my beautiful, my beautiful balloon," Mari sang softly as she and Jessie navigated their way upwards toward the plane.
"You know we're not in a balloon, right?" Jessie asked.
"Come fly with me, let's fly away," Mari immediately switched songs. "Come fly with me, let's fly away!"
"You don't know any of the other lyrics to that song, do you?" Jessie asked with a smirk.
"Hell, no!" Mari retorted. "Who did that song? Sinatra? When's the last time Sinatra was on the radio, or the theme song for a TV was by him?"
Jessie just shook her head. Then she noticed something glimmering on her charge's finger. "Hey, where did you get that?" she asked.
"This?" Mari asked, looking down at the ring she was wearing. "Oh, it's just a… going away present from Denise."
Jessie nodded. "Did you two have fun the other night?"
"Eh, not exactly," Mari said with a sigh. "We were both too bummed out about not getting to see each other for who knows how long."
That, and Denise had been appalled when Mari had shared her plans to say good-bye to the Johnson Memorial Private School for Bright Youths by painting every inch of the entire building—both interior and exterior—neon pink in the course of one night.
Apparently, the use of super speed for epic pranks was a no-no for a hero like the Flash.
"You worried about her?" Jessie asked gently.
"Yeah," Mari said with a soft sigh. "She's my best friend, but she's never exactly been a warrior. Without me around…"
"She seems to have grown up a lot since the days you defended her from bullies," Jessie said. "I think she'll be fine."
"Here's hoping," Mari said.
The two of them finally reached the actual plane at this point and quickly stowed the few bags they were carrying with them. Most of their stuff was being transported by ship to Japan, so they'd practically be living out of backpacks for a little while.
Like any military transport, the inside of the enormous plane wasn't exactly luxurious or pretty. Indeed, they'd be spending the flight in what was essentially a cargo hold with a few seats in it.
"Bet we don't even get free bags of peanuts on this flight," Mari commented, hiding genuine regret beneath humor.
Her appetite hadn't diminished one iota since the accident that gave her super-speed, but since Mari's illusion of a growth spurt had finally come to an end (with her gleefully burning those hated Ace bandages she had had wrapped around her chest once she was done with them), Denise had advised her to try not to eat so much in front of her guardian. It would look strange, after all, if she continued to be so ravenous after her "growth spurt" had ended. It was sensible advice, but it sometimes left Mari with her stomach growling.
"We'll be lucky to get a K-ration," Jessie said. "Strap in. I want to go talk to the pilot."
Not much later, the plane finally took off, its enormous engines powering its bulk into the sky.
And then the real test of Jessie Quinn began: surviving a nonstop flight from Kansas to Japan with her easily bored charge.
"I spy, with my little eye, something that begins with the letter 'c,'" Mari said as she peered out the window.
"Clouds," Jessie said, not looking up from the book she was reading.
"Right!" Mari said. "Okay, I spy, with my little eye, something… white."
"Clouds," Jessie said.
"That's right!" Mari exclaimed. "Okay, I spy, with my little eye, something—"
"Still clouds," Jessie interrupted.
"Wow, you're good at this!" Mari said, her voice full of faux awe.
"Mari," Jessie groaned, finally looking up from the paperback novel she'd had her nose buried in, "why don't you read a book, or play on your Gameboy or something?"
"I don't have a book, and I didn't bring my Gameboy with me. It's on the ship with the rest of our stuff," Mari said.
"Oh," Jessie said. "Damn. Well, just try and keep yourself occupied somehow. Quietly."
"Okay," Mari said.
The lieutenant turned her attention back to her book.
"Jessie?" Mari said after a moment,
Jessie visibly held back a sigh. "What?"
"Are we there yet?"
"We still have over ten hours to go."
"Oh."
Jessie turned back to her book. For a few minutes, nothing was heard besides the dull roar of the engines in the background.
"Jessie?"
"What?" the lieutenant asked sharply.
"Are we there yet?"
"No!"
"Oh," Mari said mildly. "Okay."
Silence returned to the inside of their little section of the huge plane. Jessie drew a deep breath, and then let it out slowly. She could feel herself relaxing, releasing the tension that the pilot's antics had created. She engrossed herself in her novel again.
"Jessie?"
"What?" the lieutenant barked.
"Do you think there's any chance that somebody filled the whole plane with poisonous snakes like in that one movie?" Mari asked, unperturbed by the vein that was visibly pulsing above her guardian's left eye.
Jessie smacked her forehead and released a gusty sigh. I didn't want to resort to this so soon, but…
She grabbed a water bottle while digging into her pocket with her other hand, withdrawing a small white pill. "Want an Ambien?" she offered.
Worked like a charm, Mari though, eagerly accepting the offered tablet.
"Better living through chemistry," the EVA pilot said before she swallowed the potent sedative.
Several hours later, Mari woke from the small nest of tarps she had built for herself atop a stack of wooden crates. After yawning and stretching hugely, she adjusted her glasses, which had been knocked askew during her slumber, and jumped nimbly down to the floor.
"Are we there now?" she asked.
"Almost," Jessie answered. "We've got about another hour to go."
"Cool," Mari replied, still feeling a little drowsy from the powerful sleeping pill Jessie had given her. With another small yawn, she plopped down into her seat.
For about twenty minutes, all was quiet and peaceful.
Then the plane's intercom came on with a burst of static. "Lieutenant Quinn?" the pilot's disembodied voice filled their compartment. "Could you come up here, please?"
Jessie and Mari traded a look, then the lieutenant shrugged. "I'll be right back," she said.
Jessie headed over to the cockpit, leaving Mari alone. The bespectacled EVA pilot literally twiddled her thumbs for a few seconds, before she gave into temptation and picked up her guardian's precious paperback novel. With a smirk, she began to skim through it, soon snickering at some of the things she read.
"How can she read this gooey romantic crap?" Mari wondered aloud as she continued to glance at the words on the page. "I mean, really, every woman has a great, heaving bosom, and every guy has a huge, hard, throbbing…"
She trailed off, suddenly paying a great deal more attention to the book. She kicked into speed mode and read the entire novel in 3.7 seconds.
"Okay, admittedly parts of that were pretty hot, but it was still a corny, pulp romance story," she proclaimed, carelessly tossing the book away.
Mari read it ten more times before Jessie returned from the cockpit. Her guardian had an unreadable expression on her face, which instantly made the bespectacled girl wary.
"What's up?" she asked.
"The pilot couldn't make radio contact with NERV Central, and they didn't want to hail anyone else without my approval, considering that this is a top secret flight," Jessie said. "I called up the JSDF."
"I'm guessing that you didn't find out the NERV base here failed to answer because somebody spilled coffee all over a control panel," Mari said.
"You guess right," Jessie said. "The entire city is suffering a total power outage."
Mari frowned. "I thought that was impossible."
"It's supposed to be," Jessie said meaningfully.
"Oh," Mari said, comprehending instantly.
"And that's not the worst of it," Jessie said. "Apparently, the next Angel has just entered the city limits."
The EVA pilot's face lit up. "Then what are we waiting for?" she asked. "Give me a second to get into my plug suit and I'll head down to Unit Five!"
She was stopped by her guardian's hand on her shoulder. "It's not that simple, Mari," she said.
"Not that simple?" the pilot echoed incredulously. "There's an Angel bearing down on Tokyo-3, NERV Central's Evangelions probably can't even get out of their cages, and we've got an EVA all ready to go. What's complicated about it?"
Jessie sighed. "We haven't officially been transferred to NERV Central yet. We're still technically under the American branch's command," she said.
"So?" Mari asked.
"So if we send you out in Unit Five right now, it would technically be America performing an unsanctioned military action on Japanese soil," Jessie said.
"You've got to be kidding me!" Mari exclaimed. "We'd be saving them! How could they possibly get mad over that?"
"What if you destroyed half of Tokyo-3 while you were fighting the Angel?" Jessie countered. "A lot of politicians here would find it very easy to lob all the blame at the 'gaijin' from the US who engaged the Angel without authorization to attack."
"Then why can't we get permission to attack?" Mari asked.
"Unfortunately, in order to transfer you and Unit Five to being under the command of NERV Central, we need NERV Central to officially accept," Jessie said. "And they're incommunicado right now."
Her frustration threatening to overwhelm her, Mari grabbed hold of her twin tails and pulled. "You can't be serious!" she exclaimed. "We're going to let the Angel win because of red tape?"
"The JSDF is trying to find someone high enough in the chain to give the order for us to attack," Jessie said.
"And how likely do you think it is that that will happen?" Mari asked, knowing bureaucrats, both of the military type and the civilian type, too well to think that any of them would risk owning a potential disaster.
Jessie didn't answer. "It's not my call, Mari," she said instead.
"If you told the pilot to jettison the container with Unit Five in it, he'd do it," Mari argued.
Jessie sighed. "You don't understand what it would mean to be at the center of an international incident, Mari," she said. "I won't let you get yourself into a nightmare like that."
"Ugh," Mari groaned, palming her forehead. "So what are we actually gonna do? If we can't land by Tokyo-3..."
"We've been ordered to just circle above the city until we recieve new orders," Jessie said helplessly.
"So we're just going to wait and do nothing while an Angel goes crazy down there?" Mari asked.
"We don't have any other choice."
"Fine. I'm going to go wait with Unit Five, on the off chance that some big shot bureaucrat over here pulls his head out of his ass long enough to give us the go ahead."
With that, she spun on her heel and headed toward the entrance to the cargo container that held Unit Five.
"Mari…" Jessie began, then trailed off, seemingly not knowing what to say.
Then the EVA pilot had left the plane, returning to the giant cargo container. Unsurprisingly, it was stifling inside; there were no atmospheric controls of any kind within the big metal box, which had been in the light of the sun all day. Beads of sweat popped up on Mari's brow almost instantly.
Well, that was fine. It wasn't as if she planned on waiting inside the container for very long.
"Sorry, big guy," she said to Unit Five as she passed the armored helmet of her Evangelion. "It looks like you'll have to sit this one out."
This act of courtesy completed, she began to look around the container, soon finding what she sought.
A parachute.
With this slung onto her back, she headed for the exit to the box.
Fortunately for her, the door into the container was just that, a door. It had no electronic locks on it that would only release when the container was earthbound. Opening it would set off no alarms inside the cockpit.
The container's designers had just assumed that nobody would be crazy enough to open the door while in mid-flight.
Clearly, said designers hadn't known Mari.
The pilot released the lock and then opened the door with one swift kick.
"I always wanted to do this!" she commented to herself over the roar of the rushing wind, her twin tails whipping about. "Never thought I'd get to do it until the war was over, though."
She checked her parachute one more time, just to make sure she was wearing it properly. Then she pinched her nose shut and jumped.
"GERONIMO!" she shouted as she began to plunge downwards, fully in gravity's thrall.
The utter freedom of uninhibited falling, the rush of wind around her, the way the world beneath her looked tiny but began to gain in size rapidly… all of it brought a smile of delight to the adrenaline junkie's face. Pleased laughter bubbled out of her, and she actually forgot all about pulling the ripcord.
Then she spotted it in the distance. The Angel.
It looked like a monstrous daddy longlegs, its multiple appendages towering over many of the skyscrapers in the city, which had noticeably not been transformed into its wartime configuration. The ugly thing clomped through the city at a slow, unhurried pace, unimpeded by Tokyo-3's usual defenders.
Mari pulled the ripcord and her parachute opened, allowing her to drift gently downwards toward to the Earth. Her descent seemed to take forever, and all the while the Angel continued to walk through the city unchallenged.
Yet she did finally reach the ground, landing at the very edge of the city limits. The moment she had her feet on terra firma, Mari quickly shrugged off her parachute, then pressed the little button on the side of her ring.
Instantly, the top popped open and her costume burst out, starting to expand as it hit the air. Mari kicked into speed mode, changing into the bright red garment faster than the human eye could hope to perceive.
Less than a fraction of a second later, the new Scarlet Speedster was racing into Tokyo-3, bolts of golden lightning crackling over her form as she went.
Yasu Hayashi hadn't liked the idea of moving to Tokyo-3 when her husband Daiki had first proposed it. She had been quite fond of the home they'd had in Kyoto-2, and there had been rumors about the new, ultra-modern city even then. Rumors which had ranged from the merely unpleasant to the truly bizarre.
Yet her husband had been offered a very good job with a salary that far exceeded the one he'd been making at the time. It would have been just plain foolish for him to pass up such an opportunity, especially considering that they'd had a baby on the way at the time.
So they had moved to Tokyo-3, and against all of Yasu's expectations, she had come to love the place. It just felt so new and bright and full of hope and expectations.
She had become so attached to the city that she hadn't left when a tragic traffic accident had claimed Daiki's life, thus eliminating the whole reason for moving to Tokyo-3 in the first place.
Indeed, she had become so attached to the city that she had stubbornly refused to leave when the Angels had started arriving, even though just about everyone who could had quickly relocated to Tokyo-2 or one of the other neighboring areas.
At the time she'd thought she was being brave, but she'd never really believed that she'd be anywhere during an Angel battle other than in a nice and safe shelter. After all, the city's early warning system would alert everyone in time to the approach of one of the monsters more than soon enough for everyone to get away.
She had never once considered the possibility that a blackout would render that system useless, and that she and her daughter Keiko would end up on the streets while an Angel rampaged through the city.
"Dive faster, Mommy!" the little girl screamed.
"I'm driving as fast as I can!" Yasu exclaimed, practically standing on the accelerator of her car.
Her vehicle, which was small and cute and fuel efficient but not very powerful, surged through the streets as quickly as it could, but the spidery Angel behind them covered an enormous amount of ground with each step of one of its many legs. She couldn't hope to stay ahead of it for long, and there wasn't any place in sight where she could turn and get out of the beast's path.
"Come on, come on," Yasu muttered under her breath. "Just a little further and we should—"
It was that moment when she saw him. A young man riding a bicycle, presumably someone who had heard the evacuation orders too late like she had, suddenly emerged from seemingly nowhere, shooting out right in front of her car.
Yasu slammed on the brake pedal with both feet. Her tires released a horrible screech which was almost, but not quite, drowned out by the ear piercing shriek of her young daughter. Yasu wasn't sure she'd ever hear properly again, but she didn't blame her little girl a bit; she would've been screaming, too, if not for the way she was clenching her teeth as she battled to keep her vehicle under control.
It was a battle she ultimately lost when she tried to turn away from the cyclist. She managed to miss him by the barest of margins, but the laws of physics would not be denied, and the car flipped over onto its side and began to skid along the street, throwing up a great shower of yellow sparks as it went.
Now that she was unable to do anything but hope they survived the ride, Yasu did scream. She screamed at the top of her lungs, her shriek rivaling that of her daughter as their uncontrolled car rushed through the street, which was currently filled with other vehicles that people had hastily abandoned in their rush to get to safety.
And then they ground to a stop.
Yasu could barely believe that they'd come to a halt without hitting anything, yet they didn't seem to be dead. Regardless, she and Keiko were both panting heavily, their intense fear leaving them in the same state that a long sprint might have.
Yet as much as Yasu would have liked to just remain in the car until her heart stopped hammering so hard she feared it might burst out of her chest, she knew that time was of the essence.
After undoing her seatbelt, Yasu pushed the car door open. It took a lot more effort than normal, because she had to push the door straight up, but she managed to do it.
Once outside, she spared a moment for a brief glance at the Angel, and then wished she hadn't. It had drawn far too close to them for comfort.
Quickly opening the rear door, Yasu reached inside the car and pulled out her daughter.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
Her little girl nodded weakly.
At this point, Yasu would have liked to do nothing more than to take Keiko's hand and run the hell away, but her conscience wouldn't allow her to just retreat like that. She set her daughter down on the street.
"Wait there for a minute," she told Keiko firmly. "Don't move."
Then Yasu quickly went around her car, finding the bike rider who had so unwisely decided to get into the way of her car. Even though she had managed to miss hitting him, he had fallen off his bicycle as a result of the near collision. He was still laying on the ground, his legs tangled up within the frame of his bike.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
"I think so, but I'm stuck," the young man grimaced. "I'm sorry."
Ignoring his apology for the moment, Yasu began to help him extricate himself from his bike. It looked like his pant's leg had gotten badly snagged on the chain. She reached down to try and unhook it.
Then a shadow fell over them, and Yasu saw the young man's face go pale with obvious terror. She heard Keiko scream, and she turned just in time to see her little girl fleeing in terror. It wasn't hard to figure out why; the Angel was right above them by this point, its massive body blocking out the sun and casting them in darkness.
"Keiko, stop!" Yasu shouted as loudly as she could.
But her daughter didn't stop, perhaps couldn't stop. She just kept running, seemingly seized by an overwhelming need to get away from the Angel as fast as possible, by any means available to her.
Then she tripped, falling hard on the asphalt of the street.
"KEIKO!" Yasu cried.
The little girl immediately began to get up, turning herself over so she was in a sitting position. She might have gotten back to her feet and made good her escape, too, if she hadn't made the mistake of looking up.
Not only was the Angel looming over them, but one of its huge, spindly legs was positioned right above Keiko, and it was coming downwards. The beast probably wouldn't even realize it had stepped on anything.
Staring death in the face, the little girl froze.
"NO!" Yasu yelled.
She started running toward her daughter as fast as her legs would carry her, but she knew before she started that she had no chance of reaching Keiko before that huge, insectoid leg came down and crushed her little girl into paste.
Time suddenly seemed to slow down, Yasu's horror causing her to view the world as though it was in slow motion. She suddenly felt as though she was trying to run through water rather than air, and her senses seemed to sharpen impossibly. She felt like she could hear every soft sound in the background, smell every aroma in the air, no matter how faint, and see every single drop of sweat on her little girl's terrified face.
Yet for all that, she still didn't manage to see anything of the person that snatched Keiko out of harm's way but a crimson blur and a few tongues of golden lightning.
At least not until that person came to an abrupt stop right in front her, causing Yasu to release a small yelp of surprise and take a quick step backwards.
"Hey, there!" her daughter's savior greeted her cheerfully, holding Keiko in her arms. "Is this your kid?"
For a moment, Yasu just blinked dumbly at the teenage girl who stood before her. She should have looked absurd in the tight red bodysuit she wore, especially given the weird ornamentation she had on either side of her crimson cowl. Yet somehow, with the bolts of yellow energy still crackling over her form, illuminating her in a soft golden glow that seemed to hold the shadow of the Angel at bay, she looked almost…
Yasu was reluctant to call anyone in that outfit "majestic" but the girl definitely didn't look absurd.
Then she snapped out of her stupor and took Keiko out of the girl's arms. "Y-Yes, she is," she said. "Thank you."
The girl in red looked down the fallen cyclist. "Hey, you okay, guy?" she asked.
"Uh, just a little stuck," the young man said embarrassedly.
The next thing Yasu knew, the girl was a blur of motion once more, moving far too quickly to see. In less than a second, the young man she'd nearly run over was free, and his bicycle had been almost completely disassembled, the parts laying off to the side.
"My bike!" the guy exclaimed.
The girl in red look at the pile of pieces, then grinned sheepishly.
"Uh, one second," the speedy girl said.
With that, she zipped off, only to return a second later, still moving so quickly she was a blur. Yasu saw her doing something to the deconstructed bicycle, but she didn't even have time to speculate on what exactly that might be before the girl was done.
"Ta-da!" she said, keeping one hand on the fully reassembled bike's handlebar's to balance it.
In her free hand, the remarkable girl held a wrench, what looked like the assembly instructions for the bike, and a rag.
Did she… did she just run off and get those just now? Yasu wondered, amazed.
"There ya go," the girl said with a grin. "I also polished the frame for you and replaced the brakes. The old ones were getting worn out."
"Whoa," the young man said, looking about as gob smacked as Yasu felt. "Th-thanks. What's your name, anyway?"
The girl's grin widened. She placed her hands on her hips and thrust her (rather overdeveloped) chest out, placing emphasis on the lightning bolt emblem on her costume. "You can call me the Flash."
Keiko's scream ruined the scarlet speedster's dramatic moment, but it probably saved them all.
The Angel, never having had much interest in the puny ants it might or might not be stepping on while it traveled toward its destination, had at first just walked right past the little group of humans. However, the Flash's bursts of super speed had apparently gotten its attention.
Whether the Angel had interpreted her super-speed movements as an ineffectual attack or had just decided to preemptively strike at the potentially troublesome gnat was something that would never be known but was ultimately unimportant.
What was important was that the Angel fixed one of the huge yellow and blue eyes that covered its body on the four humans, and then a jet of brown liquid spurted forth from it.
"Well, that doesn't look friendly," the Flash commented, quickly stepping forward so she was between the Angels and the trio of civilians who had chanced into this situation.
The fastest girl alive held both her arms forward, keeping them straight, then began to spin them so fast that they became nothing but blurs to her spectators' eyes, soon creating twin gales. Yasu held up a hand as her clothes and hair went whipping about; even well out of the path of the funnels of air the Flash had created, she felt like she was practically in the center of a tornado.
The two artificial wind currents the brown liquid the Angel had spewed out dead-on, instantly reversing the course of the mystery fluid. The stuff splashed against the very eye that had emitted it to begin with, and the Angel let out a loud hiss of obvious pain and anger, acrid smoke instantly rising from the place where the liquid had touched it.
"Oh, it's acid. Lovely," the Flash commented, then turned to the three people behind her. "Guys, I think once that thing gets over the pain, it's gonna be pissed off. You might want to vacate the area."
"Right," the young man said, instantly getting onto his bicycle. He turned to Yasu. "Hop on."
She was dubious of her ability to balance on the bicycle (Yasu hadn't been on a bike in years), especially with her daughter, but her car was obviously shot, and she wanted to be away from the area as soon as possible.
She had no idea how thoroughly her wish would be granted.
"Here, let me help," the Flash said once Yasu and Keiko had managed to awkwardly get themselves onto the bike. "I'm not strong enough to carry you three, but I can sure push."
The young man who owned the bike clearly wasn't so sure that was a good thing. "Um, I don't—"
But it was too late. The Flash had grabbed hold of the bicycle's metal frame and began to run. Yasu was aware of an intense blast of wind, of the world blurring around her, and of golden lighting, but only for a moment. The whole thing was over after only the tiniest sliver of a second. Then the bike came to a stop outside the entrance to one of the city's shelters.
Yasu got off the bicycle, only half surprised when she started staggering as though drunk once her feet touched the ground. Keiko fell almost immediately, but she giggled as she tumbled onto the sidewalk.
"Let's do it again!" the little girl exclaimed gleefully.
Yasu could only shake her head at the resilience of youth. She noticed that her daughter's hair had been incredibly mussed up by the brief but extraordinarily fast bike ride and belatedly realized that her own was no doubt just as bad.
"Heh heh," the Flash forced a sheepish chuckle. "Sorry about that. I'm not used to passengers yet."
"No… no big deal," the young man who owned the bike said as he unsteadily got to his feet, his pupils almost seeming to roll about freely inside his eyeballs.
"Okay, cool," the Flash said. "Anyway, I gotta go. Angels to fight and stuff."
And with that, she took off, leaving a gust of wind and a short lived trail of crackling lightning in her wake.
Yasu, Keiko, and the young cyclist just stood silently outside the shelter for a long moment, well after they had all regained their balance. They were in no great rush to be inside the shelter now; the Flash had taken them to a shelter that was a very good distance away from the Angel's current position.
"What just happened?" the cyclist spoke up finally.
"I'm not sure," Yasu said. "Something…something remarkable, I think."
Having dropped off the people she'd rescued, the Flash ran back toward where the Angel was, detouring on the way to make sure no other civilians were in the area around the multi-legged monster. This took her a few seconds, mostly because she felt the need to be thorough and then double check, but once she was done, she sped back to the Angel's position.
"Yo! Bug thing! Come and get me! I'm the one who killed your brother!" she called up at it, cupping her hands around her mouth to make the sound travel further. "…Or sister. I can't really tell with you guys!"
Whether the Angel understood her rather brutal taunt or not, it was certainly willing to engage the Flash again. One of its eyes focused on her and sent another spurt of acid her way. The Flash took a moment to yawn contemptuously before vacating the spot where the deadly liquid was bound for. It hit empty concrete, instantly smoking and eating a deep hole into the sidewalk.
The Flash blew a big, wet raspberry at the Angel. It responded by firing acid at her.
She moved. It fired acid at her again. She moved again. It fired acid at her again. She moved again.
"Well, this is quickly getting boring," the Flash commented to no one in particular. "You'd think fighting a giant spider without an EVA would at least get my blood pumping…"
She ran directly beneath the body of the Angel, until she was on the other side of it. Her hope was that the thing would practically tie itself in knots as it tried to attack her, rapidly changing position, but this was not to be. Instead, the Angel simply started shooting acid at her from another one of the eyes which its body was covered with.
Okay, new tactic, she thought.
This time, the Flash ran and stood at the base of one of the Angel's colossal legs, hoping that she could trick the thing into crippling itself with its own acid. However, this new strategy proved no more effective; rather than using its acid again, the Angel tried to kick her.
"Damn," the Flash grumbled as she easily evaded the attack. "This thing is just smart enough to be annoying as hell. Now I need a new plan."
She pondered the issue for several relative minutes, which to the rest of the world was exactly 0.48 seconds. All she was doing at the moment was delaying the Angel really… which might be useful in and of itself. The longer she kept it just making holes in the street, the more time NERV Central had to reset the circuit breakers and get their Evangelions deployed.
However, she had no desire to spend an hour or so dodging the Angel's pathetically slow attacks. She hadn't agreed to put on the crimson cowl so she could die of boredom.
So that meant she had to find some way of fighting the Angel that was actually effective. A rather wicked smile formed on her face as she came up with a new idea.
"You just wait there for one second," she told the Angel.
It responded, predictably enough, by shooting acid at her. The Flash took off running, departing from the battlefield.
"Well I don't show off, don't criticize," she sang as she went. "Yeah, I'm just livin' by my own true feelings! Well I won't give in, won't compromise… because I only have a steadfast heart of gold!"
She stopped singing before she could get any further into the song, having already reached her destination, namely the city docks. Once there, it didn't take her much searching to find what she wanted: a very long length of heavy-duty chain, which was probably used to secure ships to the dock. The links were huge, the metal easily as thick as her forearms.
The Flash grabbed the end of the chain and hoisted it up with a grunt of effort, laying it over her shoulder. She wobbled briefly as the considerable weight settled upon her.
"Damn, good thing I work out," she muttered to herself before taking off again, the length of the chain trailing behind her as she went.
Soon finding the Angel again, the Flash quickly got to work. With some effort, she managed to tie one end of the chain around the bottom of one of its long legs, then she took off again, heading for the next leg. This time she simply wrapped the chain around the spindly appendage, not bothering to go to the trouble of an actual knot. She repeated the process several more times, until coming back to first leg. This one she once again tied a knot around.
Once she was done, the Flash retreated a good distance away, then allowed her perceptions to return to normal speed and waited for the show to start.
It didn't take long. The Angel immediately began to have trouble walking with its legs all tied together by the thick chain. It made a desperate scramble to regain its balance as it tripped, the bottoms of its legs tearing up great sections of the street as it did so, but it was to no avail. The Angel soon went tumbling.
"TIIIIMMMMBER!" the Flash yelled.
The Angel's central body landed atop a small group of skyscrapers which would have been retracted into the Geofront had the city had power. The Flash wasn't sure whether the massive amount of property damage was awesome or cringe worthy as she glass shattered and metal twisted beneath the Angel's weight. A massive cloud of dust was kicked up by the collapse of the building, momentarily obscuring the Fastest Girl Alive's view of her foe.
Then the dust settled, and the Flash laughed at what she saw. The Angel was laying atop a very big pile of rubble, its still bound legs sticking up in the air and making it look for all the world like it was just a very big, very dead bug.
"Did I actually kill it?" she wondered with a puzzled frown after it had failed to move for several seconds. "Geeze, if this thing croaks from 'fall down, go boom' that officially makes it the lamest Angel ever."
As if on cue, the Angel's legs jerked violently at that very moment, causing the chain that held them to snap and sending broken links flying everywhere. Many of the loops of thick metal crashed into the windows of nearby skyscrapers, and a few even hit car windshields, shattering off of them instantly.
"…I think I'm gonna need a bigger chain," the Flash declared as she watched the Angel get to its feet.
Then it focused all of its many, many eyes upon her. She could actually hear them moving about inside the multiple eye sockets with a wet, horrible sound.
"You're going to shoot acid at me again? Really?" the Flash asked, more annoyed and exasperated than anything else. "Why? Because it worked so well before?"
The Angel didn't reply. Instead, it just kept giving the Flash a many eyed glare.
The confrontation between the giant spider and the relatively tiny but very fast girl was abruptly interrupted by a loud crash from in the distance, and both combatants turned to look at the source of the sound.
At first, the Flash saw nothing; whatever had made the noise was hidden behind a row of tall buildings. Then an enormous red helmet crested from behind the Tokyo-3 skyline as Evangelion Unit Two stood up. Moments later, it was joined by Units Zero and One.
How the hell did they get up here? The power's still out! The Flash thought, looking around to confirm that any nearby traffic lights were still dark. Wait a minute, did they actually launch the Evangelions manually?
She decided that she'd definitely have to call herself impressed if they'd managed to pull that off.
Before the Angel could react to the appearance of the Evangelions, Unit Two raised the pallet rifle it held and fired off a long burst, sending shells that were normally fired only from the barrels of heavy tanks surging straight toward the spidery thing.
The Angel's body didn't have enough armor to shrug off such an assault without its AT Field, which was currently neutralized by those of the Evangelions. The Flash watched from her standpoint on the ground as the rounds punched straight through the Angel's body, each one creating a large exit wound which emitted a small geyser of dark blue blood.
Then Unit Two stopped firing. The Angel staggered about, and for a brief moment, the Flash thought it might have actually survived being turned into the world's least appetizing chunk of Swiss cheese.
Then it collapsed to the ground, the weight of its central body's bulk shattering the asphalt it happened to land on. It didn't make any attempt to stand and looked very, very dead.
Damn, the Flash thought. That's another one that Asuka got.
The first production model Evangelion turned to look down at her, as though its pilot had sensed the thoughts someone was having about her. The Flash had thought she'd be too small for someone in an Evangelion to notice, but she supposed that her bright red costume made her stand out.
Smirking as she tried to imagine what Asuka was thinking at the sight of her, the Flash gave the crimson titan a jaunty salute and then ran off, soon disappearing from the other EVA pilot's sight.
Two hours later found the transport plane which had been carrying Unit Five on the ground at a military airfield just outside of Tokyo-3. The massive container which held the provisional Evangelion was sitting by the side of the runway, and a very annoyed Lieutenant Jessie Quinn was stalking around the interior of the gigantic metal box.
"Mari!" she called loudly, her voice echoing around the container. "Mari!"
"You rang?" the girl in question said from right behind her.
Jessie let out a small yelp of surprise and jumped. How Mari had managed to sneak up on her like that, she had no idea. The EVA pilot tried not to laugh and succeeded, but barely.
"There you are," Jessie said. "Honestly, how were you able to stand hanging out inside this thing for so long? It's like an oven in here!" she wiped sweat away from her damp brow, emphasizing the point.
"Well, you know me, Jessie," Mari said. "I don't let most things get to me."
"Yeah, yeah," Jessie grumbled. "It was real mature of you to hide out in here. I've been trying to find you ever since I found out that we'd finally be landing."
Mari looked down at her feet. "Sorry, Jessie," she said. "I was just so pissed off. You know how I get when red tape gets in the way of doing the sensible thing, and I know you know how long I've been waiting to have a battle here."
Jessie sighed. "Yes, I do know," she said. "But Mari, I wasn't exaggerating when I said that being the focus of an international incident between America and Japan would be a nightmare. It might not have felt like it to you, but I was only trying to protect you. I like to do that whenever I get the chance, because you get sent out into harm's way so often, being an Evangelion pilot. Not to mention the new assignment you accepted from Commander Wells."
"I understand," Mari said. "Sorry, Jessie."
Jessie raised an eyebrow. She had been expecting more fight from her charge than that.
Then she decided to just be glad the incident was over and smiled. "Well, now that we've got that out of the way, let's get the hell out of this thing," she said. "I need a shower, and then we can get something to eat."
"Sweet," Mari said. "Oh, but aren't we supposed to report in to the base today?"
"Not anymore," Jessie replied. "Our official transfer to NERV Central has been delayed till tomorrow. They're busy enough getting things in order right now."
"All right," Mari said. "Oh, and I'm guessing that since we're still here, they managed to take care of the Angel."
"Yeah," Jessie replied. "NERV Central managed to manually launch their Evangelions and kill it."
With a little quick help from a certain someone, Mari added silently, unable to suppress a small smirk.
Shinji Ikari yawned as he walked through the halls of NERV headquarters the next morning, covering his mouth politely as he did so. "Excuse me," he said.
Walking along with him, Asuka just released a small grunt of acknowledgement, apparently weary as well. Rei made no response at all.
After they had destroyed the Angel, the three Evangelions hadn't had enough battery power remaining for the pilots to even consider returning to them to their cages. The three of them had parked their Evangelions outside the city and had sat down on the side of a grassy hill to await the restoration of power to the city.
Shinji had enjoyed that; it had been one of the few pleasant, quiet moments he'd managed to have with his two fellow pilots so far, even if Rei's comments had been cryptic and Asuka had kept talking about seeing some strange girl in red on the streets.
But then the lights had come back on, and the brief, peaceful respite had ended. They'd had to wait while NERV brought out power cables for their Evangelions so they could return the beasts to their cages. Then they had to report to base and wait until they were debriefed. This usually happened quite soon after every battle, but with power recently restored after the long blackout, everything had been hectic and the Children had fallen through the cracks.
They had been kept waiting for over an hour, and it would have been much longer if Asuka hadn't started shouting.
There were times Shinji had to admit that the redhead's force of personality could be useful, so long as it wasn't directed at him.
Yet in spite of that, it had been very late by the time they'd all gotten to go home, and Shinji hadn't appreciated being woken early that morning and told he was going to NERV.
He had appreciated the vague justification for the trip he had received upon asking why they had to go even less.
"Misato said that we were coming here to 'meet someone,'" Shinji said. "Who do you suppose that is?"
"Baka, you can't even guess?" Asuka asked, but with little real heat. The redhead was apparently feeling as tired as he was.
"Um, no," he replied.
"You really don't pay attention to anything, do you?" Asuka observed.
"I'm sorry."
The Second Child sighed in annoyance. "We're getting reinforcements from the US."
"Reinforcements from the US?" Shinji repeated, still not quite getting it.
"Yeah," Asuka said absently, clearly not feeling any great need to elaborate for him. "It's been so long since I last saw Makinami."
Shinji was about to ask who Makinami was exactly when they arrived at their destination, which was the door to one of the base's conference rooms. Misato stood there, and gave them a small smile.
"Hi, guys," she greeted her pilots.
Shinji and Asuka both mumbled a good morning. Rei just kept silent. Misato briefly scowled at the underwhelming response, and then seemed to regain her usual cheerfulness.
"Anyway, guys, come in," the Ops Director said, opening the door and entering the room.
Shinji blinked as he walked in himself, taking in the two people in the conference room. One was a slim woman wearing a uniform not too dissimilar from Misato's own, sans the beret, her blond hair tied in a very professional looking bun.
The other one… the other one was a girl of approximately his age, or perhaps a little older. She was wearing an unfamiliar school uniform that consisted of a plaid skirt, a white shirt, a tie, and black nylons. Her long, brown hair was held in check by an odd hair band that might have been her A-10 connectors; Shinji wasn't sure. Unlike the NERV officer, she was sitting on the edge of the conference table, her legs kicking gently back and forth.
"Guys," Misato said, "I'd like to introduce you to Mari Illustrious Makinami, pilot of Provisional Evangelion Unit Five and, as of an hour ago, the Fourth Child. And, of course, her guardian-Lieutenant Jessica Quinn."
The newly arrived pilot got off the table and faced her comrades-in-arms, grinning cheekily. "Hey, guys," she greeted them all, giving them a peace sign. "What up?"
Author's Notes: This one didn't come quite so effortlessly as the previous chapters in Mari's story did, and I don't think Mari got in quite so many snappy one-liners as usual. However, I did have fun with this, and I have to say I was pleased with her response to Wells' request that she not level the city.
I hope I didn't make her too obnoxious in this chapter, but Mari really strikes me as someone you don't want to be on a long car ride with, never mind an intercontinental flight.
Anyway, in this chapter we got to see her in action as the Flash for the first time…and to see a sort of speed vs. power dynamic that Barry and Wally don't actually deal with all that much. You see, the Flash's rogues tend to be rather specialized baddies. They're mostly normal guys, not invisible uber villains, but they have gadgets and gimmicks that let them avoid losing to the Flash in two seconds. That way, the writers avoid a stalemate situation where the Flash can't hurt the bad guy, but the bad guy can't touch the Flash. However, most of the Angels can invoke that type of conundrum, which is why I kept Unit Five functional, instead of having Mari self-destruct it like she actually did in Rebuild. Which is not necessarily to say Mari won't clash with an Angel sans her Eva again.
Also, we got to see Mari as the Flash interacting with the innocent bystanders. I tried to get some of the Flash's uniqueness to come through here with her not just saving everybody, but then also fixing the guy's bike for him. Batman sure as hell wouldn't do that. Heck, even Superman wouldn't.
Anyway, as always, thanks to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader as well.
Oh, and one more thing before we get to the fun stuff and I stop rambling. Who can identify the song Mari sings as she's going to get the chain, and what other famous speedster it's associated with?
Omake
The Stash
"Lieutenant Quinn?" the pilot's disembodied voice filled their compartment. "Could you come up here, please?"
Jessie and Mari traded a look, then the lieutenant shrugged. "I'll be right back," she said.
Jessie headed over to the cockpit, leaving Mari alone. The bespectacled EVA pilot literally twiddled her thumbs for a few seconds, before she gave into temptation and picked up her guardian's precious paperback novel. With a smirk, she began to skim through it, soon snickering at some of the things she read.
"How can she read this gooey romantic crap?" Mari wondered aloud as she continued to glance at the words on the page. "I mean, really, every woman has a great, heaving bosom, and every guy has a huge, hard, throbbing…"
She trailed off, suddenly paying a great deal more attention to the book. She kicked into speed mode and read the entire novel in 3.7 seconds. Then she read it ten more times.
"Wow. That was…intense," Mari said once she was finally done with the book. "…I wonder what else Jessie has?"
She was rummaging through her guardian's luggage before she had even finished speaking, and she was amazed at what she found. Jessie's bag had more books in it than it did clothing and other necessities, and judging by the illustrations on the cover, they were even steamier than the first one.
Mari speed read through all of them. Moments later, she was reeling from the effects of absorbing a mass amount of smut in under twenty seconds.
A thin trail of blood came from her left nostril. Mari knew that this was a sign she should stop, but the EVA pilot had always counted "go big or go home" as her personal motto.
She dug deeper into Jessie's bag, and her face paled at what she discovered. Whips, chains, and hand-cuffs lined with fur.
But the worst was the picture. The old, slightly battered photograph showed somewhat younger versions of Special Inspector Kaji and a woman Mari recognized as NERV Central's Operations Director, sitting next to one another on a bed and smiling at the camera. Both of them were barely dressed enough to be considered decent.
The words "Jessie, you always spice up our nights. Please look us up if you ever get back to Japan. We never consider three to be a crowd," were written on it, and both Kaji and Katsuragi had signed it.
Mari's eyes shrank to the size of pinpricks.
Two minutes later…
Jessie returned to the cargo compartment with an unreadable look on her face, but her expression quickly changed to one of confusion when she saw her charge.
"Mari, are you all right?" she asked.
"I'm fine."
"Are you sure?" Jessie persisted. "You look as red as a tomato. You don't have a fever or something, do you?"
"I'm perfectly fine!" Mari exclaimed. "Now can we please talk about anything other than any kinky relationships you might have had when you were younger?"
"…Ooookaay." A confused Jessie agreed.
