Chapter 1 - A Journey into Mystery

Terminal Dogma, NERV HQ, 2016...

She was witnessing the end of an era. An era that she, in part, helped bring about. For as long as she could remember, Dr. Yui Ikari had been part of a series of events that had plunged the world into global catastrophe, then into a battle for the planet's survival against otherworldly forces, all at the behest of a secret cabal bent on attaining immortality and imposing on humankind their twisted idea of salvation. Her own role in these events was key, having been one of the architects of Project-E and the development of the Evangelions, and from there, the very soul of Evangelion Unit-01, which her own son would pilot against the so-called 'Angels'. Yet for all she 'saw' and 'felt' in her time trapped within Unit-01's core, she, and certain others, did not see coming just how the battle against the Angels would be won.

In fact, she was looking at a number of the reasons behind such an outcome right now, as they, within the area of Terminal Dogma where all the failed EVA prototypes were discarded, were at work dumping the remaining pieces of the prototypes-along with the organic components of Units-00 through -04, Provisional Unit-05, and the SEELE-built Mass Production EVAs-into the large, circular pits that made up this area of the most top-secret level of NERV HQ. All of the women before her, along with herself, were involved in NERV in one capacity or another, and, through freak occurrences or the unlikeliest of circumstances, had been granted powers and abilities that not only helped bring the battles with the Angels to a swift end, but had also helped expose the SEELE conspiracy and bring the organization down for good.

Near the middle-left pit, Misato Katsuragi, presently in her green-hued, amazon-level She-Hulk form, was hefting an EVA 'femur' on one side while the other was held by Ritsuko Akagi, alias Spider-Woman, her four near-translucent arachnid 'legs' assisting her. With one heave-ho, the two best friends, whose friendship came under no small amount of strain during the war with the Angels, tossed the bone into the pit to join the other pieces already within. In the air above, a glowing Hitomi Kaga-known in-costume by the name Ms. Marvel-tossed the bone she'd been holding above her head into the upper-right pit, which was then joined by the armfuls held by technicians Satsuki Ooi (aka Stature) and Aoi Mogami (aka Yellowjacket), both currently at giant-size thanks to their Pym Particle devices.

While those four did most of the heavy lifting, the others were taking care of a different task altogether. Yui's longtime friend and colleague Kyoko Zeppelin Sohryu, currently wearing the ebon armored form of Darkhawk, flew into one of the pits and planted a specially-designed explosive charge on one of the walls of the pit. She then flew out and moved on to the next pit, an action being repeated by two other superpowered techs: the currently bug-sized Kaede Agano (aka the Wasp), and Ritsuko's former assistant-turned-partner Maya Ibuki, the multi-powered Ms. Fantastic, who stood near the rim of one pit while stretching her arms into its depths as she planted the charge she was holding.

Yui herself-at one point, a temporary host for the cosmic entity known as the Phoenix Force-was observing and occasionally coordinating from the observation deck overlooking the pits, along with techs Makoto Hyuga and Shigeru Aoba; Ryoji Kaji, Misato's fiancée and a 'ladykiller' spy presently assigned to 'desk duty' as the SEELE investigation was wrapping up; and Yui and Kyoko's former college professor, and for a time, NERV sub-commander, Kozo Fuyutsuki. The former professor himself had a contented look on his face as he watched the last of the EVA 'bones' be tossed into the pits.

"I can honestly say I'd never thought I'd see this day come," Fuyutsuki stated. "It's a bit cathartic, seeing one particular ghost of the past finally put to rest."

"I'm liable to agree," Yui replied. "I sincerely never imagined my life would be pulled towards this particular direction. Used to be this sort of thing only happened in comics."

"Call it fate, call it karma, call it whatever-I'm just grateful we're still around to say all this," Shigeru chimed in as he looked towards Satsuki and Aoi in particular. "And we've got you, the girls, and-I still can't believe-the kids to thank."

"You're certainly welcome," Kaede's voice sounded as she returned to her normal size in an instant, briefly startling Aoba the minute he saw her right next to him. "Then again, it's not like it was just us girls making an effort..." She then shot a wink at Hyuga as she coyly continued. "Isn't that right, Hawkeye?"

"A-heh..." Makoto replied a bit sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head absentmindedly. It had certainly surprised those who worked with him for so long that the bespectacled otaku they'd thought they knew so well was a) an undercover S.H.I.E.L.D. agent looking into NERV's dark secrets, and b) that he was such a highly-skilled archer, trained by the first man to use the Hawkeye name, with an arsenal of specially-designed 'trick arrows' at his disposal. (It also didn't help that, at the moment, he was still wearing the uniquely-designed purple sunglasses that were part of his 'uniform'.)

"Face it, Hyuga, you've got a bit of swagger now," Kaji said with one of his usual lopsided grins. "Embrace it. It's no wonder you've got Ooi hanging on your arm-the ladies love a guy with great aim."

"And what're they aiming?" Satsuki posed, her giant face just within view of those on the deck enough to make the stubbly agent jump a bit, eliciting a bit of chuckles from the others. With that, Satsuki shrank back down to her normal size as she was helped onto the deck by Makoto, followed by Aoi doing the same as she landed on the floor from her own downsizing. Hitomi landed as the glowing aura around her subsided, while Misato followed her after making a superhuman leap from down below. Kyoko flew in and landed herself in the middle of the deck (transforming back into her normal form by tapping the amulet on her chest), while Ritsuko and Maya were the last to arrive, the former swinging in from a webline she'd shot out earlier while Maya lifted herself up by channeling her invisible field generation into an elevating platform, which Ritsuko helped her off of as she took her girlfriend's hand.

"Everything all set?" Yui asked.

"All good to go," Misato answered as she changed back to her regular self, shrinking down a couple of inches while her muscle mass decreased to more typical levels and her skin went from green to pink; Kaji then handed her her 'signature' red jacket. "We're ready for the literal explosive finale."

"I'm sorry Sumire couldn't be here," Hitomi said, "but Commander Brand wanted her at S.W.O.R.D.'s planetside base for a debrief, same with Kyouya."

"We'll catch them up at the picnic when they gets back, no worries," Kyoko assured. The group then faced the pits full of EVA parts down below, an air of finality about them. For what seemed like a lifetime, the Evangelions had been a part of their lives, whether they liked it or not, but at least right now, they would gain some closure, if only symbolically. It was then that Makoto held out a tray with four remote detonators, each cued to the charges that had been placed within the pits, each given to those who were there at the start of the whole GEHIRN/NERV 'saga'. Fuyutsuki and Yui were a given, while Misato was handed one due to her father and herself being right at ground zero for Second Impact, and Ritsuko given one in honor of her mother's memory. Ritsuko herself eyed the detonator in her hand, as if contemplating it and what it meant.

"You okay?" Maya asked as she put a hand on her love's shoulder.

"I'm fine, Maya, really," the bottle blonde said before looking back at her remote. "Just thinking how my mother would've relished this moment were she still here."

"In a way, it's through you that she is," Fuyutsuki offered. "If anything else, she'll probably rest easier. I can't imagine she'd be prouder."

Ritsuko smiled at the professor's words. "Thank you." She then faced Maya. "Maya, if you'd be so kind?"

"My pleasure," Maya replied as she then held her hands out towards the opening on the observation deck, and her expression soon became one of concentration. A brief glimmer of orange light then signaled that she'd put up an invisible barrier. "Okay, everyone-you're up."

Nodding in affirmation, Fuyutsuki, Yui, Misato, and Ritsuko stepped forward and held their detonators out, their thumbs squarely on the buttons. Yui eyed the other three on either side of her as she said, "On the count of three. One...two..."

At her last word, the four of them depressed the buttons, and triggered the charges in each of the pits. Large explosions soon lit up the chamber, with Maya's force field holding back the resulting shockwaves. The sound was loud and deafening, but not as much to the onlookers due to how much Maya had insulated her field. Finally, after several minutes, the explosions began to subside as the observers watched the EVA remains turn to ash, ensuring no Angelic genetic material would fall into the wrong hands; thus, the first of the major efforts in NERV's decommissioning was complete. Plus, with Adam the First Angel destroyed, and Lilith the Second Angel no longer on Earth-thanks to the Phoenix reformatting her into a creature resembling a silvery falcon and the two birdlike entities heading out into space on a long journey-no one would have a source through which to create anything Angel-derived.

"Bye-bye, all of Evangelion," Yui solemnly uttered.

"And good riddance," Misato added, Kaji's arm around her waist.

After a few more minutes spent watching the scene down below, Kaji suggested it might be a good idea to get out of the 'tomb' and head up topside. No one disputed it, and the soon-to-be-former NERV personnel headed out of the observation deck and made their way to the elevators that would bring them to the level of Central Dogma.

-X-

Unknown to the group, while they were busy with destroying the EVA remains, in another section of Terminal Dogma, a series of machines secretly carried out a directive hidden within the MAGI's programming, a 'side project' of sorts that its creator, the late Naoko Akagi, had hoped to work on following the supercomputer's completion. Triggered when Ritsuko had successfully beaten back SEELE's cyberattack last year, the three-part A.I. core of the MAGI continued its directive to ensure the completion of "Project: Jocasta" without alerting anyone, human or machine, to its progress. But that is a story for another time...

-X-

As the group walked through the greenery of the Geofront interior towards the trams to the surface, they talked among themselves, mostly regarding future plans.

"Something I should've asked," Shigeru began, "I know we just blew the biological components to smithereens, but what happened to the armor and the cybernetics?"

Aoi was quick to field that one. "The cybernetics will probably be dismantled and repurposed for a lot of the damaged portions of the Geofront. As for the armor..." She smirked a bit as she held out and opened a small box full of capsules. "I shrunk the components down and figured Mana could do something with them-with the exception of the kids' units, I made a few special capsules for them as mementos."

Makoto quirked an eyebrow over this. "Isn't it kind of counterproductive to give them reminders of the hell they went through last year?"

"EVA may have done a lot of harm to the kids," Misato started to say, "but on the other hand, it also brought them together as friends. Same goes for us, if you think about it more. But enough waxing nostalgic-anyone got any future plans once we're all out of a job?"

Shigeru grinned knowingly as he spoke up first. "You know the band my buds and I have? Well, I was gonna save this bit of news for the picnic, but might as well get it off my chest..." He eyed the others, some sporting more expectant looks as they awaited what he'd say next. "We're gonna be opening for Lila Cheney when her tour hits here in a few months!"

A number of eyes widened on hearing this. "Lila Cheney? Seriously?! How'd you-?!" a flabbergasted Hitomi started to ask.

"Her tour manager happened to see us playing a gig a month ago," Shigeru confidently answered. "Liked us so much he asked on the spot if we'd want in. You know you're hitting the big time if you're opening for a legend, how could we not say yes?"

"Legend is right-I haven't heard Lila Cheney's name since junior high," Yui commented. "*Sigh* Now I feel old..."

"Says the one who doesn't look a day over 30," Ritsuko jokingly threw out.

"Perks of coming out of an EVA's core the way I came in," Yui responded accordingly with just the right amount of mirth. "But congratulations, Aoba. You guys earned it."

"Just don't forget us 'little people'," Satsuki added. "Shifting gears a bit, in a month I'm starting as a construction engineer for the new Japan office of Damage Control. I can already think of a number of ways my size-changing will help." She eyed Kaede and Aoi before asking, "What about you guys?"

The two looked to one another briefly before Kaede answered. "With Ms. van Dyne's backing, we're partnering to start a new global STEM initiative."

"Geniuses In action Research Laboratories, specifically," Aoi added. "We...may have peeked a bit on Hyuga's laptop when he was helping us. Found a S.H.I.E.L.D. list of the most intelligent humans on the planet and noticed there weren't any women higher than 27th place, so...with G.I.R.L., we plan on correcting that."

"I like the sound of that already," Ritsuko commented.

"How about you?" Aoi asked her.

Ritsuko and Maya briefly eyed each other as they thought back to one night in the apartment they now shared a couple of weeks ago...

-X-

Ritsuko was going through her emails on her laptop...while laying back on the ceiling, having stuck herself there by the soles of her feet. She'd found that it helped a bit as she wrote and fine-tuned any research notes she'd been compiling for a while now, mainly possible real-world applications for the scientific breakthroughs brought about through NERV.

"OHMYGODOHMYGOD-!"

Ritsuko started when she heard Maya's excited voice, wondering just what her girlfriend was going on about. She soon got her answer when Maya stretched her neck and arm towards her, a just-opened letter in her hand. Ritsuko carefully removed the letter from Maya's hand, and as soon as she looked it over herself...she immediately joined Maya in the excitement that was loud enough to be heard even outside their building. (Thankfully, unlike Maya's prior residence, there wasn't any Mrs. Takanawa next door to complain about the noise.)

-X-

"We received a letter the other day," Maya began explaining, "inviting us to join the staff of the Future Foundation's new branch office here in Japan. Right from Dr. Susan Richards herself!"

"Maya, that's amazing!" Hitomi gushed. "Congrats!"

"Uh...care to fill a girl in?" Misato asked quizzically.

"The Future Foundation's a U.S.-based think tank headed by Reed and Susan Richards," Kyoko elaborated. "Their goal is creating a better future for humankind through scientific discovery beyond what we already know. Though thankfully, not in the way GEHIRN or NERV was intended for." Kyoko pointed at Misato's She-Hulk outfit. "The fabrics made from unstable molecules most of you recently acquired were one of their initial breakthroughs."

"Maya and I decided to send them a few papers we'd been working on demonstrating uses for some of the tech and medical breakthroughs we've developed here," Ritsuko further explained. "We'll be meeting with both Richards next month before we officially start."

Yui looked up towards the Geofront ceiling before she spoke. "I have a distinct feeling Naoko would be even more proud of you. Congratulations."

"Thanks, Yui, I appreciate it," Ritsuko replied. Given how involved she'd been with Gendo before Yui returned, it still surprised her how much the former Phoenix host had been forgiving of her. "What about you, Hitomi?"

Hitomi hesitated a bit before answering. "I've...Commander Brand recruited me to join S.W.O.R.D., as a xenotechnologist. I'll be studying all sorts of alien tech thanks to them."

"Plus getting the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work with actual aliens from across the universe, of course," Kaji slyly pointed out. "Let me know if you actually meet any little green men."

"Sure I will," Hitomi assured with a rare eyeroll from her.

"Least it's more exciting than what I've got planned," Makoto began. "I put in a request for some desk duty-after all we've been through, I need a breather."

"You sure you want that?" Kaji posed slyly. "Then again, I'm one to talk, considering my own tour of desk duty coming up..."

"Which I, for one, am glad for," Misato chimed in. "After how many risks you took in pursuit of the truth, I'd really like to see our engagement pay off. Got a problem with that?"

"Not at all..." Kaji answered, knowing it was better to keep on his gamma-powered fiancée's good side.

"Got anything on the horizon yourself?" Ritsuko asked Misato.

"...Yeah, actually," the soon-to-be-former NERV major answered. "I've been giving it some thought, and Kaji and I talked it over-I'm gonna head back to university and go for a doctorate."

The bottle blonde eyed her longtime friend skeptically. "And in just what field, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Psychology," Misato answered. "I've been considering a career change once all this was done and over, and when I chatted with Dr. Samson the other day, it hit me that becoming a child psychologist seemed like a good way to give back." Her expression went serious for a moment as she continued. "I want to make sure no other child's forced to deal with whatever trauma they have the way me or the kids had to for so long."

Ritsuko dropped her skeptical look on hearing the depth of Misato's decision. "That may just be the most sensible idea you've had since taking Shinji in."

"Don't suppose you've ranked any others that you'd like to share?" Misato posed with a faux ominous tone of voice.

"I kid, I kid," Ritsuko said placatingly. "Seriously though, it definitely qualifies as a worthy cause. Just don't come to me to mooch off my notes, we're way past that."

"Ha, ha, ha," Misato sarcastically bit back, before turning her attention to Fuyutsuki. "How about you, Sir?"

"No need to address me by rank anymore, I'm more than happy to put that behind me," the former professor said. "And to answer your question-I may just pick up where I left off before Second Impact. I've a feeling I have a few more years of teaching in me that could be put to good use."

"I might just follow your lead into that field, Sensei," Yui said. "Hopefully without having to bail a student out of jail." That elicited a minor chuckle from Fuyutsuki. "And you, Kyoko?"

"Add me to the list of those joining scientific outfits setting up shop here," the strawberry blonde replied. "In my case though, it's a relatively new one called Horizon Labs, headed by an old colleague of ours-remember that exchange student we had in sophomore year? Max Modell?"

"I do, now that you mention it," Yui affirmed, "I always liked the guy."

"So, here's something I've been wondering regarding you two..." Ritsuko started to ask, a bit of mild humor in her voice. "How's it feel to suddenly find yourself raising not one, but two kids?"

Yui and Kyoko soon found themselves quite a bit stumped, and maybe a teeny bit flabbergasted, over how to answer that one. Then again, it was a bit astonishing for each to discover, after reuniting with their own children, that they'd suddenly found themselves with a second. For Yui, at least Rei was easier to handle, given her particular personality (and especially given what Gendo had intended for her with his scenario); Kyoko, on the other hand, had to deal with not only making up for lost time with Asuka, but the two of them also doing their best to adjust to life with Asuka's gamma-powered clone, who was almost a total opposite of Asuka in terms of personality-a teenage gentle giantess.

"Speaking of the kids," Maya began to say, inadvertently saving the two mothers from having to come up with answers, "I wonder what they're up to today-you'd think they'd have wanted to be here to see this."

"They're over at Mana's 'clubhouse', trying out a new training system she developed," Misato replied, "and besides, something tells me after all they've done for us, they've probably had enough of giant mechanical monstrosities to last a lifetime."

A retrofitted warehouse owned by one of Mana Kirishima's shell companies, around the same time...

"Move it!" Mari "Captain America" Makinami shouted as she and her fellow teenage superwomen scattered to avoid the large beam blast shot in their direction.

The seven of them, made up of Asuka "Ghost Rider" Langley-Sohryu; her 'sister', the young red She-Hulk Ruby Shikinami; Hikari "Spirit" Horaki; Mayumi "Storm" Yamagishi; Maria "Thunderstrike" Vincennes; and Rei "Silver Surfer" Ikari, regrouped as the smoke cleared to face their opponent as they came into view: an almost four-story tall, purple-and-magenta-colored, humanoid-looking robot...

To be continued...

**Author's Note(s)**

Welcome, at last, to the true start of our story, True Believers! Things will get only more exciting as it progresses, and don't worry, there will be omakes to lighten the mood every now and then, including one where, in true OrionPax09 fashion, they finally deal with the cross-dimensional panty-raiding problem that is Happosai! Meanwhile, here's the first of the Marvel lore annotations for this story.

-Teleporting mutant rock star Lila Cheney debuted in The New Mutants Annual #1 (1984) by Chris Claremont and Bob McLeod. She's a semi-recurring ally of the X-Men, at one point dating Cannonball and bringing on Dazzler as a keyboardist in her band.

-Damage Control, a construction and insurance company which handles repairs to infrastructure following superhero/supervillain battles, debuted in a story in Marvel Age Annual #4 (1988) by Dwayne McDuffie and Ernie Colón. There is precedent for a size-shifter working at the company, exemplified by the employment of, at different points, the Eric O'Grady Ant-Man and the Tom Foster Goliath.

-G.I.R.L. debuted in The Unstoppable Wasp (vol. 1) #2 (2017) by Jeremy Whitley and Elsa Charretier. It was formed by Nadia van Dyne (daughter of Henry Pym and his first wife), along with Edwin Jarvis (the longtime butler to the Avengers), as an enterprise to assess female scientific minds, to convince S.H.I.E.L.D. that their 'most intelligent humans' list was outdated and needing revision.

-The Future Foundation debuted in Fantastic Four (vol. 1) #579 (2010) by Jonathan Hickman and Steve Epting, as a philanthropic organization founded by three of the Fantastic Four's members both in the wake of the (seeming) death of Johnny Storm and out of Mr. Fantastic's discouragement by the way Earth's scientists currently viewed science and its applications.

-S.W.O.R.D. (Sentient World Observation and Response Department) debuted in Astonishing X-Men (vol. 3) #6 (2004) by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday, and was the sister agency of S.H.I.E.L.D. that specialized in dealing with extraterrestrial threats to global security. Led by Special Agent Abigail Brand, they've frequently worked with the likes of the X-Men and the Jessica Drew Spider-Woman.

-Horizon Labs debuted in The Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 1) #648 (2010) by Dan Slott and Humberto Ramos, as a research company headed by Max Modell specializing in cutting edge technology, with seven lead scientists filling out its leadership. They've mostly been associated with the Spider-Man corner of the Marvel Universe.