Chapter 2 - A Strange Tale

The seven teenage superwomen had quickly reconvened after dodging the powerful concussive blast unleashed by their opponent, an almost four-story tall, purple and magenta-colored, humanoid-looking robot.

"HALT," the robot's electronic voice boomed, before it was then joined by reinforcements on either side of it, all of them more human-sized robots, with a couple of exceptions. Said reinforcements included two HYDRA Dreadnoughts (both at least eight feet tall in height) and five mechanoids resembling the Guardsman 'drones' built by Mana to bolster her armored alter-ego Iron Maiden, the major difference being the shade of green in their coloring and the addition of bulkier gauntlets and a set of spiked shoulder pads. "DESTROY," the larger robot ordered, causing its smaller comrades to begin advancing towards the superpowered teens.

"Scatter! Pair up, pick your targets, and knock 'em down fast!" Mari commanded as she and the others quickly broke into two-person teams (with one three-person exception). Mari herself jumped up and caught Hikari's hands as she maneuvered them into the air, where they and Rei went after the Dreadnoughts, dodging as one of them unleashed its built-in flamethrower nozzles and shot out some streams of intense flame. The second Dreadnought aimed at Rei before shooting at her with the spikes it launched from its knuckles like missiles. Rei, on her board, crested her way out of the path of the spikes before unleashing a particle beam blast on the Dreadnought, overloading its inner workings and causing it to collapse, wisps of smoke escaping from the wrecked chassis.

Meanwhile, Hikari, weaving herself and Mari through the air away from the flame bursts, tossed Mari in mid-air while the star-spangled girl somersaulted into a landing on the back of the Dreadnought, slamming it with her shield. Hikari quickly launched some feather flechettes from her wings that hit the robot right in the face, while Mari took the opportunity to leap off the robot and toss her shield, causing it to rebound until it sliced the flamethrower nozzles clean off. Hikari then quickly grew her hair into twin whip-like forms that ensnared the robot's legs and pulled, making the robot fall on its face while Mari took out the power pack with another slam of her shield.

Maria and Mayumi, on the other end of the warehouse, flew in a circle around the five Guardsman-like mechanoids as they tried shooting them down with their laser pistols and repulsor blasts. Deciding it was time to cut the evasive maneuvers, Maria began deflecting the shots with her hammer as she addressed Mayumi.

"Storm! 'Chain lightning'?" the young thunderer posed. The two of them had been working on a combination attack utilizing their mutual control over one particular weather element, and this was going to be the field test for if they'd need to use it against an opponent.

"'Chain lightning'!" the white-haired wind-rider affirmed, swinging her Raijin Yari spear as she began summoning the right atmospheric conditions for what they were about to pull off. Soon she channeled powerful bolts of electricity through her spear and aimed it towards Maria's hammer. Maria swiftly held Storm Bringer out and caught the bolt like one would catch a ball in Jai alai, gave her hammer an overhand swing, and amplified the bolt as she sent it flying towards the lead mechanoid below. From there, the bolt swiftly traveled through to the other four, jolting them in place and overloading them until they collapsed into smoking heaps on the ground.

While that was going on, Asuka and Ruby were left to handle the biggest robot as they avoided its beam blast or the metal tentacle it unleashed from its right palm, hitting back with either balls of hellfire or powerful punches. Managing to run circles around it due to the larger robot's lack of speed, the teenage Ghost Rider and her red She-Hulk of a sister regrouped as they got into position for something special they'd been working on.

"Ready?" Asuka asked.

"Ready, Sis!" Ruby replied. With that, Asuka jumped into a crouch as she landed in Ruby's open right palm, and from there, Ruby threw Asuka directly at the robot. "Eat 'flaming fastball special', bucket-head!"

While in mid-air, Asuka quickly unsheathed her chainsaw-sword, revved it up with hellfire, and with a snarl, slashed the robot across the chest the moment she was within reach. The robot soon began to short and stagger about, uttering "DE-ST-ST-TROY" before collapsing onto its back and shutting down. The girls soon reconvened in the center of the warehouse, the flyers landing beside their more grounded compatriots.

"Great job, guys!" Mana's voice sounded over the speaker system in the building. "Guess I can consider this first combat test of the 'Danger Room' a success." The group turned to see Mana herself, clad in her Iron Maiden armor, landing beside them as her helmet's faceplate retracted. They were joined by the others who'd come from the building's control booth, made up of Shinji, Toji, Kensuke, Musashi, and Keita. As hinted by the armored girl genius, the entire group had been at Mana's 'workshop' to try out the new training facility she'd built within it, as a means for helping them not only keep in shape with their powers, but also work on team dynamics should a group effort be needed against any bigger and badder super-criminals they might encounter. In the initial stages of the test, the participants were run through a specialized obstacle course, each tailored to their specific abilities. Once those challenges were out of the way, Mana and Kensuke introduced the 'main event' into the proceedings with a 'trial by combat' against the robots.

"You all right, babe?" Toji asked Hikari as he handed her a towel.

"I'm fine, just need to catch my breath a bit," Hikari answered as she took the proffered towel, changing back into her non-powered form while she wiped the sweat off her face, her wings disappearing and her hair and eye colors returning to their normal brown.

"Yours and Ruby's 'fastball' got a little better, I noticed," Shinji said as Asuka shed her demonic guise, leaving a blue-eyed, redheaded girl in a biker outfit.

"Awww, thanks, giri no ani!" Ruby said as she quickly swept him up in an appreciative hug a few feet off the ground. This had the effect of making him blush and sputter, given his accidental proximity to her chest.

"HEY-down, girl!" Asuka barked at her sister with a mild glare. "And we're not at that stage yet, so quit calling him that!"

"All right, all right, simmer down, Sis," Ruby said as she put Shinji down while shifting into her own non-powered state. It was a skill she'd been getting the hang of, in part thanks to Dr. Samson's and Misato's guidance. When she was able to 'power down', she more or less was Asuka's twin, save for her strawberry blonde hair color, in contrast to Asuka's blazing red; not to mention her sunnier disposition, due in part to being a physical embodiment of a side of herself Asuka had long repressed in her efforts to be the best EVA pilot. Compared to her, Ruby wanted to have fun, make friends, go on dates-the stuff kids their age normally did. Much to Asuka's chagrin, it seemed Ruby had taken a page from her now-former guardian and was as much a tease, especially when it came to Shinji. Yet thanks, in part, to her relationship with Shinji, Asuka had learned to be better at weathering her sister's ribbing. That didn't mean she didn't find it any less annoying.

I know what you're thinking, Young Rider, Zarathos hinted within Asuka's mindscape. You remember the rules-I cannot harm an innocent.

*HHHH* I know, I know, Big Z...Asuka mentally replied to her demonic 'roommate' with a slight eyeroll. Just don't tell me I gotta wait for her to grow out of it.

Unaware of this, Mana brought up the holo-emitter on her armor's left arm as she called up S.I.D. "S.I.D., please prep the maintenance Guardsmen, we've got a bit of a repair job waiting."

Soon, the holographic image of a teen girl with blue hair in twin-tail style appeared. "Already on it-I've had them on standby since the test was winding down." With that, a door on the other end of the room opened, and a group of Guardsman droids equipped with various tools soon stepped in and got to work on repairing the robots used in the unconventional sparring session.

"You gave us quite a workout, Mana," Mari complimented as she lifted her cowl/wig combo off her head, revealing the brunette underneath while she donned her glasses; she also willed herself back into her normal build, her star-spangled outfit now looking a bit looser on her frame. "The Dreadnoughts were a nice touch, I've been wanting to try again with them since the HYDRA incident." She was referring to, of course, the attempted takeover of NERV and Tokyo-3 by the sinister terrorist organization in question, where among other things, the infiltrators had smuggled Dreadnoughts in component form into NERV HQ. Mari then looked towards the biggest of the robots they'd just fought. "Where'd the big guy come from, though?"

"You mean Rover?" Mana replied. "That's a bit of a story. S.I.D. and I acquired him through one of the shell companies we set up-he was originally built by a Dr. Bolivar Trask."

"Trask...Trask...Where have I heard that name before?" Maria wondered as she lightly tapped her hammer down on the ground, transforming back to her normal self in a brief flash of lightning while the hammer became the charm on her choker again.

"American roboticist," Kensuke elaborated, "used to work for the U.S. department of defense for a time. He came up with a number of advances in the field before he left to go into business for himself."

"Yeah, now I remember," Maria said. "Some of the technicians at NERV-1 were students of his when he taught at MIT. Said he was a genius in the field."

"Also a real paranoid wacko," Mana chimed in. "He thought the world was going to be taken over by 'mutants', so he planned on building an army of 'sentinels' to fight back." She again pointed towards Rover as she continued. "He only got as far as Rover here before his two children grew worried enough that they had him committed to a mental institution. They then held something of a 'fire sale' for a lot of his prototypes-S.I.D. and I were lucky we were able to get Rover for a steal before somebody with less-than-noble-intentions did. Plus, thanks to the strong reprogramming we did, he makes a pretty good 'guard dog' for the workshop."

"He'd certainly scare me off if I was trespassing around here," Mayumi said softly as she did her own power-down, going from the white-haired, semi-statuesque Storm to her usual black-haired, mousey self, while her Raijin Yari became the pendant she wore around her neck. Maria soon appeared at her side as she donned her glasses, and the two girls exchanged a high-five.

"We really showed the Sentries lightning truly strikes twice, didn't we?" Maria posed in a boastful manner.

"Y-yeah, we really did," Mayumi replied; even with her transformation into Storm and all the trials and tribulations she and her friends went through last year, from misguidedly using Kensuke to unleash the powerful Gladiator to facing off with the genetically-engineered SEELE warrior known as Exodus, she was still a shy bookworm at heart.

"Seriously, you two were awesome!" Kensuke complimented with his usual high level of enthusiasm. "That had to be your best chain lightning yet!"

"I agree," Rei chimed in as her board passed over her and relieved her of her silvery sheath, before shrinking down into a more manageable size she could carry. "You two have become more in-synch with one another as you mastered the combination. Even Toomie thinks so." To illustrate her point, the board wiggled in her arm as if it were voicing its concurrence.

"I still can't believe you named your surfboard," Asuka said with a slight shake of her head.

"Well, she did show it was alive in a way," Hikari said. "Though I've been wondering-why 'Toomie'?"

A tiny smile appeared on Rei's lips as she answered. "As you have seen, I normally summon it by calling out 'To me, my board!'. Therefore..."

On hearing this, Asuka and Maria were close to face-vaulting like in a stereotypical anime with a groan.

Shinji, on the other hand, was a bit amused. "Heh-my sister made a joke. You're still surprising me every day."

"I am certainly trying," Rei said in turn. If there was one great thing becoming the Silver Surfer had done for her, it was helping her forge a better connection with Shinji (and later, with Yui) than she had with his father, Gendo. Shinji, for the most part, had taken to the role of (slightly) older brother better than he himself had expected. (It had also had the bonus effect of dissipating whatever initial jealousy Asuka had held towards Rei, to the point where, with gritted teeth, Asuka had admitted her foolishness in that regard.)

The group soon heard the sound of car horns outside, indicating that their respective rides were here. After the girls changed their clothes (with Mana stowing her armor in its 'backpack' form), they soon exited the building where they found their parents or guardians waiting for them. Yui and Kyoko greeted their respective kids as they opened up the van they'd borrowed from NERV HQ's motor pool; Toji, Kensuke, and Hikari headed over to the car driven by the latter's older sister, Kodama Horaki; Maria and Mayumi made their way to Maria's guardian, Rebecca Carlson, who'd elected to take Mayumi in due to her foster mother's passing last year; and Mari met up with her father, Katsuo Makinami, joined by Mana, Musashi, and Keita, since they were dropping them off at their own place.

Out of the corner of their eyes, Yui and Kyoko looked towards one end of the warehouse where a group of Guardsmen were wheeling Rover to another area on the grounds for his particular repairs. The two of them understandably went wide-eyed with surprise at the sight.

"Is...Is that the Trask Sentinel?" Kyoko asked, having read of Trask's work years ago while she was a GEHIRN scientist.

"What's it doing here?" Yui added confusedly, also well-informed of Trask's contributions to the robotics field.

"Like Mana told us," Asuka said with a minor hint of sarcasm, "'it's a bit of a story...'".

The two women looked at one another and shrugged before they got in the van, where Asuka and the others recounted said story briefly before focusing on more pressing plans-specifically, for the group picnic they were going to be part of tomorrow to celebrate NERV's victory.

None of them, or any of their friends, were aware of something that was going to put a damper on those plans. Said something being a large, metallic and mechanical sphere that was making its way towards Earth, getting closer and closer...

To be continued...

**Author's Note(s)**

Big thanks to Archdruid-Sephiroth for suggesting the name change to Mayumi's spear, as well as the alteration to their take on the long-time X-Men foe Exodus. In his 'Tempest Aterna', the spear was named Gungnir, but with Maria's presence in this conglomeration of Superwomen of EVA story elements, something tells me Odin wouldn't be too pleased with that. (To say nothing of who Exodus is in that particular story as well.) Hence, Raijin Yari-like I told them, it brings to mind the Raijinto from Fire Emblem Fates. Maria and Mayumi's chain lightning combo attack was something I've had in mind since I started planning this out, inspired by the attacks used by Storm and Thor in the first Marvel: Ultimate Alliance video game. Now then, on to the MU lore:

-Bolivar Trask and the mutant-hunting Sentinel robots first appeared in 1965's The X-Men #14 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby; ironically, in later stories, it would be revealed that Trask's two children, Larry and Tanya, were mutants themselves. The sentinel being named 'Rover' comes from the 2002 Sentinel series by Sean McKeever and UDON published under Marvel's short-lived Tsunami imprint; Rover was the name given to the sentinel that the series' main character, Justin Seyfert, rebuilds and reprograms. Rover would make an appearance in the 2009 animated series Wolverine and the X-Men.

-The Dreadnoughts debuted in 1967's Strange Tales #154 by Roy Thomas and Jim Steranko, where they were initially used by HYDRA to breach the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier in an attempt at assassinating Nick Fury. They've also been used by other criminal groups such as the Maggia, A.I.M., and Iron Man foes Zeke Stane and the Mandarin.

-The Guardsmen with the spiked shoulder pads are based on the modified Guardsman armor worn by Curtis Elkins, aka Sentry, a member of the agency known as the Jury who first appeared in 1993's Venom: Lethal Protector #2 by David Michelinie and Mark Bagley.

-Asuka and Ruby's 'fastball special' is a long-storied tradition in Marvel's comics, going back to its debut in 1976's The X-Men #100. It's a signature combo move for the X-Men, especially Colossus and Wolverine, though variations have appeared over the years.

-Rei naming her board 'Toomie' comes from 2014's Silver Surfer #3 by Dan Slott and Mike Allred. The Surfer's traveling companion at the time, a young Earth-woman named Dawn Greenwood, is the one who gives the board the name in the first place.