Chapter 19 - The Conflagration Man, Part 2 of 2
The following morning saw a quintet of students with a 4:1 gender ratio walking from the same apartment complex towards a mutual destination. For two of their number, it would be their first-ever 'first day of school' overseas for one, and second for the other. As they walked, Shinji used the opportunity to get to know Maria and Mari a bit better, given yesterday's rush to get the two settled in.
Of Maria, in addition to her scientific bent, he found her to be a very well-read girl with an insatiable appetite for adventure fiction of multiple stripes, yet with a down-to-earth taste in films, bearing a great appreciation for the works of Richard Linklater, Barry Levinson, and the Coen brothers. She also boasted a commendable skill in classical guitar, along with, purportedly, the largest collection of old dime novels that was the envy of the bibliophiles in her previous student body. In spite of all that, she had quite the top spot as one of the most popular girls at her prior school, as a beauty, a student, and an athlete.
Of Mari, it was clear she was the funny one, given her self-described status as the 'ultimate' Monty Python fangirl, with music tastes that blurred the lines between punk, New Wave, and alternative-if her MP3 player full of Oasis, the Jam, and Franz Ferdinand was anything to go by. Due to her rather quirky nature, many of the more 'clique-y' popular girls at their former school wondered why or how it was Maria, who by all rights should have been one of their own, hung out with a girl like Mari. Mari herself never paid their dismissiveness any heed, while Maria simply stated every time she was asked that she simply 'had her reasons'. (Though she was quick to quash any rumors the other girls would have sparked about the two of them.)
"But enough about us," Maria was now saying. "What about you? Just where on the cultural tableau do you fall, Mister Third Child?"
Shinji gave her a light shrug before answering. "I'm a man of simple tastes," he said. "I prefer listening to classical and jazz, have been known to cook up quite a satisfying dish now and then, and enjoy reading or viewing anything with a mystery or a caper afoot."
"Favorite childhood movie?" Mari probed.
"Ratatouille, easily," he replied without exaggeration.
"Ooh, now he's a keeper," Mari purred. "Better keep an eye open before someone snatches him up, Princess."
Asuka seethed with frustration and befuddlement for a moment before fighting to regain her sense of self-control. "It's not like that, Four-Eyes!"
"Sure it isn't..." Mari teased back, before turning her focus on Rei. "How about you, Bluebird? Anything you like to do/watch/play/read or otherwise?"
Rei at first was unsure how to respond to being called by the name of a variety of bird, but let it go as she focused on answering the Fifth Child's question. "I too have taken to enjoying reading mystery stories," Rei answered. "It was Shinji who introduced me to them after he arrived here. It helped us bond. I have been increasingly fascinated with them ever since. As of late, I am currently making my way through the titles focusing on Raymond Chandler's detective, Philip Marlowe; most specifically, The Long Goodbye."
"Hmm..." Maria pondered for a moment. "Something tells me you'd enjoy The Big Lebowski then."
Oh, here we go...Asuka thought to herself, remembering the many times she sat through viewings of that particular movie, a perennial favorite of Maria's. Enough times that she could quote most scenes by heart, curse her own terrific memory!
"I am unfamiliar with that one," Rei said.
"Basically," Mari chimed in, "it's a Raymond Chandler story if Chandler was a stoner with a sense of humor."
"What Mari means," Maria said with a slight glare at Mari, "is that it's a movie that deconstructs the typical trappings of a Chandler mystery by putting its central character in a story with a hopelessly complex plot that, in the end, is pretty much immaterial."
"Intriguing," Rei replied, one eyebrow slightly arched.
"Ooh, that's so cool!" Mari beamed when she saw Rei do that. "Do it again! I swear, you'd be a natural Vulcan at a Star Trek convention with a skill like that!"
"Oh, gimme a break..." Asuka muttered to herself.
At this point, they had reached the school, where they climbed the steps leading up to the front door and entered. Shinji, Asuka and Rei went on ahead to their classroom while Maria and Mari stopped at the main office to be issued their official school IDs and laptops. A few minutes later, the two girls waited outside the door while the teacher arrived and entered, causing Hikari to bring the class to order as usual.
"Stand! Bow! Sit!"
Once the students sat back down, the teacher stepped behind his desk. "Class, we have two new transfer students joining us starting today. I expect you will treat them accordingly." He then turned his focus to the classroom door. "You may enter now. Please introduce yourselves."
With that, the door opened, and in stepped Maria and Mari, much to the surprise of the majority of the students. Though Shinji hadn't wondered why, Mari was still wearing her uniform from the private school she and Maria attended back in the States; how she managed to finagle the faculty into letting her do so he figured he'd never know. Each girl wrote their name on the chalkboard before turning around to greet their new classmates.
"Good morning!" Maria greeted cheerfully in flawless Japanese. "I'm Maria Vincennes. Charmed, huh?"
Good grief, now she's just pushing it, Asuka mused with a slight eyeroll. Also, why do I get the feeling that's something I would've said...?
"I'm so looking forward to spending the year learning alongside everyone here!" Maria finished.
"And I'm Mari 'Illustrious' Makinami," Mari greeted with her turn, flashing a quick salute. "Top-of-the-line Evangelion pilot, at your service! Not to worry, with myself and Maria here-yep, she's a pilot too-I can guarantee that you're all gonna be a-okay from now on! Other than that, like Maria I'm an orphan, and lived overseas for a while, so it's great to be back in the homeland after so many years away! Anyway, let's all get along great, shall we?" Maria blanched a bit at Mari casually revealing that particular personal detail, which made Asuka chuckle with amusement.
With that, the two of them picked a couple of empty desks to sit at, each, unseen by the majority of the class, quickly eyeing four specific students with a knowing gaze: short-haired brunette Mana Kirishima; raven-haired, bespectacled Mayumi Yamagishi; lanky yet athletic Musashi "Lee" Strasberg; and stocky Keita Asari. Already, gossip was starting to form in the minds of the other students pertaining to the new arrivals. For certain other students, there were different things on their mind.
"Ohmanohmanohman," Kensuke giddily whispered to Toji while adjusting his camera, before slightly pointing towards Maria and Mari. "It's like Howard said-there's gold in them hills! Gold!"
Toji wearily shook his head; thanks to how closer he and Hikari had gotten of late, he was beginning to have second thoughts on being part of Kensuke's little enterprise. Turning to Shinji, he invoked a different sort of iconic movie character as he spoke: "Just when I think I'm out...he pulls me back in...!"
A few hours later, lunch had rolled around, and while Shinji and the others went to eat with their respective friends, Maria and Mari opted to seek out the four students they'd eyed earlier, and upon doing so, headed off to an empty classroom where they could talk in peace. It was Mana who spoke up first once the door was closed.
"Nice to finally meet SavageGurl0333 and Ca+sp jamas2009 in-person at last," Mana said, referring to Maria's and Mari's usernames from their online chats.
"Same here for the both of us," Maria said in turn. "To be honest, we'd never thought we'd be deployed here at all, but it looks like good fortune smiled on us."
"You guys been keeping busy in the meantime?" Mari posed.
Mayumi nodded affirmatively. "[We've gotten ourselves pretty well-versed in the code language, just so we can keep things nice and covert between us,]" the girl demonstrated in very fluent Mayan.
"[Good job,]" Maria replied. "How about you, Mana?"
"The pet project's just about done," Mana answered. "Mr. Secord guarded his plans very carefully, thank goodness. I'm glad he entrusted them to me"
"What about you two?" Mari asked of Musashi and Keita.
"Our taps are up and running," Musashi answered. "With any luck, we'll be able to tap into the MAGI without anyone getting wise to us."
"Good thing Aida's methods were workable with a little refining," Keita added.
"Good to hear," Maria said as she looked at everyone around. "I'm glad you all are here, considering how big an undertaking we've got ahead of us. When I originally reached out to you guys, I thought I was crazy, trying to rope a bunch of kids like me into carrying out quite the set of last wishes for my granduncle. But thankfully, we're not like most kids, and given the presence of a certain...shadowy player who's probably after the same conspiracy as us, we'll do our damned best to make those wishes come true. With that, I'd like you, as the new Fabulous Five, to swear an oath. Not just any oath, though-it's the same that Clark Savage lived by as he and the original Five carried out his mission the world over." With that, all six raised their right hands, as each began to recite Doc Savage's legendary oath.
Maria: "Let me strive every moment of my life..."
Mari: "To make myself better and better, to the best of my ability, that all may profit by it."
Mana: "Let me think of the right and lend all my assistance to those who need it."
Mayumi: "With no regard for anything but justice."
Musashi: "Let me take what comes with a smile, without loss of courage."
Keita: "Let me be considerate of my country, of my fellow citizens and my associates in everything I say and do."
All: "Let me do right to all, and wrong no man."
End Chapter 19.
**Author's Note(s)**
Who knew listening to the soundtrack to the 2001 Ocean's 11 would help as I wrote this?
The good thing about the extracanonical characters of EVA (that aren't Mari) is their relative-blank slate status, meaning inventive writers can add all sorts of bits and backstory to them. Hence, my additions to Maria, to start.
Ratatouille being Shinji's favorite childhood film I thought would be very fitting, and I was also inspired by a new crossover story being currently written by Thuktun Flishithy (he of the EVA/Godzilla crossover "Leviathan" fame).
Mari's nickname for Rei comes from Gryphon117's currently-running story "An Insider's Look".
Raymond Chandler was a legend in the realm of mystery-writing, known for his particular brand of hardboiled detective novels starring the private eye Philip Marlowe, portrayed famously on film by Humphrey Bogart. The most famous of Chandler's Marlowe novels include the aforementioned The Long Goodbye; Farewell, My Lovely; The Big Sleep; and The Lady in the Lake. The Coen brothers were greatly, but loosely inspired by Chandler's work when they worked on The Big Lebowski, their 1998 film about a bowling slacker known as "The Dude" who winds up in a case of mistaken identity, kidnapping, and ransom.
Toji winds up paraphrasing Al Pacino's Michael Corleone in The Godfather, Part III.
Maria's web handle comes from Doc Savage's first published appearance, in March 1933's Doc Savage Magazine #1. Mari's is inspired by both her semi-frequent association with catlike behaviors and the year of her debut film, Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance.
The Fabulous Five were Doc Savage's five aides who accompanied him on his adventures, each an expert in their particular fields. They consisted of Lt. Colonel Andrew Blodgett "Monk" Mayfair, an industrial chemist; Brigadier General Theodore Marley "Ham" Brooks, an accomplished attorney with a sword cane; Colonel John "Renny" Renwick, a construction engineer and giant of a man known for his fists that can knock the panels out of heavy wooden doors; Major Thomas J. "Long Tom" Roberts, an electrical engineer; and William Harper "Johnny" Littlejohn, an archaeologist and geologist with an impressive vocabulary. Like those five, the members of Maria's Five are quite specialized, which you'll see in due time. The use of Mayan was prominent among Doc Savage and his crew as a means of exchanging info meant for their ears only; they were inspired by the descendants of ancient Mayans who supply Doc Savage with the gold used to fund his voyages and scientific endeavors.
Mana's mention of a Mr. Secord should give you all some idea of what other pulp character's legacy will be felt throughout this story as well...