Chapter 3 - A Tale to Astonish

The morning sun was rising over Tokyo-3, spurring those who paid its rays heed to awaken and get ready for the day. It was no different at the apartment complex a few certain NERV 'veterans' called home.

In the Ikari household, Shinji, having not shaken the habit, was the first one up, and had already prepped breakfast for himself, Yui, and Rei. A short while following Yui's Phoenix-assisted escape from Unit-01's core, both he and his newfound sister had discovered that being incorporeal for so long resulted in the Ikari matriarch temporarily having as big an appetite as Misato. (Thankfully, they'd stocked up using a portion of the first wave of their post-piloting career 'stipend', and Shinji was able to prepare some very satisfying meals in the days that followed.)

"Rei, breakfast is almost ready!" Shinji called from the kitchen, while Yui read a magazine at the table.

"I will be finished soon," the bluenette replied as she wound down the yoga routine playing on the television set she was currently engaged in, with Toomie, hovering half a foot above the floor, acting as her 'stepping block'. Yui had turned Rei onto yoga, noting it was something that helped during her college days to get her brain active in the mornings (especially after an all-nighter study session). Rei, on giving some sample exercises a try, had taken to it quite earnestly.

In the Sohryu household, like Yui, a 'delayed' appetite had temporarily befallen Kyoko in the days since her return, though it wasn't as 'severe' due to the S2 engine in her Darkawk form supplying her with near-limitless energy initially. It was also while the Sohryu women settled into their new place that Ruby was found to be a bit more 'domestic' than her twin, embracing cooking duty quite easily (and certainly making for a decent chef). To think we were worried she was gonna be another rage-monster...Asuka once mused upon discovering this; it was enough to make her wonder if, given Ruby being her clone, she herself had a side like that hidden away somewhere, which made her shudder at the thought. In contrast, it had taken a bit of time for Kyoko to get used to the idea of Asuka having a 'night job' thanks to her unique responsibilities as the Ghost Rider; lord knew that, if she'd ever have the opportunity, she'd definitely have a conversation with this 'Zarathos' and try to convince him to accept something of a minor curfew for her daughter.

Meanwhile, in the apartment presently inhabited by one Misato Katsuragi and Ryoji Kaji, the couple in question were in bed, though when Kaji opened his eyes after hitting the alarm on the clock...he found himself at the edge of his half of the bed, quickly catching himself before he could fall off. Wondering how he'd gotten there, he turned to face his fiancée, only for one of his trademark sloppy grins to appear as he looked upon her She-Hulk form, snoozing contentedly, her usual sleep shirt stretched to its breaking point and the bedsheets covering up just enough of herself to leave a bit to his imagination. While he would've liked to indulge said imagination, he knew they had somewhere to be later that day, so he gently shook her shoulder. Thankfully, this had the desired effect of stirring her awake, as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes while turning to face her beau...and growing confused over one little thing.

"How'd you get all the way over there?" she wondered.

"Take a look at yourself," he slyly answered.

Blinking with further confusion, Misato did just that, only to be greeted with familiar green-hued musculature; that was enough to answer the question of how Kaji had been pushed towards the bed's edge. "Ah, dammit," she muttered with a slight blush, "hulked out in my sleep again-and this was one of my favorite tees, too. (Gotta really do something about this.) Gimme a sec..." Taking a couple of deep breaths, Misato then concentrated, and soon shifted forms until she was her normal self.

"Still never get tired of seeing that," Kaji mused. "Or of the reverse."

"Baka-hentai," Misato playfully threw at him, along with a pillow that hit him dead-on in the face. She then got up and made her way towards the bathroom. "I'm gonna hit the shower-I expect to see a delicious spread on the kitchen table when I get back out!" she warned, her tone still playful. The moment he heard the bathroom door slide close, Kaji got up and made his way to the kitchen area, just in time to greet Pen-Pen as the penguin popped out of his fridge.

"Wark," he uttered, which Kaji surmised roughly translated to "Morning."

"Heh. Morning to you too, little buddy," he said as he gave the bird a pat on the head. "Hold on a minute and I'll have your chow all set." With that, he got a tin of fish out of one of the cabinets and opened it, added his own touch of special seasoning, and then poured the contents into Pen-Pen's bowl, which he then set down in front of the hot springs waterfowl. "Bon appetit," the stubbly semi-active spy said as he got to work on his and Misato's own breakfast. A few minutes later, the bathrobe-clad Misato joined him in the kitchen, where they both sat down to the promised 'delicious spread'.

In the few hours that followed, the occupants of the three apartments spent their time getting ready for the victory picnic, be it preparing food or gathering folding chairs and plasticware. Finally, at around noon, said occupants each exited their respective abodes, bundles of varying sizes (and in varying containers) in-hand. It didn't take long for them to greet each other on the way to the building's elevator.

"Hey, guys!" Misato said, hauling a cooler under one arm and a dual-seat camping chair folded up in the other.

"Hey," the children in the group greeted back. Pen-Pen waddled up towards them, causing Rei and Ruby to greet him with a petting on the head.

"Doctor. Doctor. Annnd, Doctor," Kaji greeted Yui, Kyoko, and Asuka, respectively. Shinji and Rei looked at Kaji, puzzled by the delivery of said greeting. "Spies Like Us," Kaji elaborated. "A cinematic treatise on what not to do when working in the intelligence field."

Asuka, with a slight roll of her eyes, broke it down simply for her boyfriend and his sister. "Goofy 80s movie. Not exactly a high mark for film, but occasionally funny." Kaji had shown it to her one time back during her days at NERV-3 in Berlin, one of a number of 'bad' movies she'd sat through between Misato's time as her guardian and his tenure.

The group soon boarded the elevator and were down on the ground floor, walking towards their respective cars, where Asuka was recounting a recent ride she'd gone on the other night as the Ghost Rider.

"Let me tell you, this guy really took the cake in terms of weird costumes," she explained. "He was like something out of a Kamen Rider rip-off. (Don't ask me how I know about anything Kamen Rider, I just do.) He's this ex-motorcycle stuntman wearing a helmet that looks like-get this-a giant eyeball, calling himself an emissary for 'They Who Wield Power'."

"And who's "They"?" Shinji asked.

"Some cult that's like a second-rate Light of the Divine," Asuka answered. "Self-described agents of the fallen angel 'Zadkiel'. They're the ones who actually gave the guy the helmet in the first place. Anyway, he could hypnotize people and shoot lazer beams with it. I caught him when he was trying to mind control an entire rave-Big Z could see this guy's sins crawling all over him."

"What was the name of the guy, anyway?" Misato asked.

Asuka held back a giggle as much as he could before she answered, "'The Orb'", only to be then beset with a small fit of laughter. "Anyway, for once, Big Z and I decided to just hand the guy over the cops. And I'll say this-he actually looks scarier without his helmet on than he does with it," she said before jokingly shuddering at her description.

On the road away from the Horaki residence, around the same time...

"You're kiddin'," Toji said, dumbfounded. "There's a group of superpowered people really livin' under the city?"

He, Hikari, and Kensuke were once again in Kodama's car, on their way this time to the site of the picnic. Hikari had been telling them about a strange encounter she and Mayumi had experienced while patrolling one day.

"I'm serious," Hikari affirmed. "Turns out they got their powers from the same contaminated lake water that gave me mine." A sad look briefly graced her face as she continued. "What's terrible is they feel like they're too ugly to coexist with other people, so they formed a community in the shadows. They call themselves the 'Morlocks'."

"Like in that old novel, The Time Machine?" Kensuke guessed.

"Funny, Mayumi asked their leader, Callisto, the same thing," Hikari answered. "We found them when they were sabotaging the bottling plant for that "Pow-R 8" soda that was popular for a while. We thought they were criminals at first, but then they showed us the soda was actually harming them, and I don't mean in terms of high sugar and empty calories."

"I helped confirm it for them," Kodama chimed in. "The chemical composition of that soda was really toxic to the Morlocks' physiologies."

"Mayumi and I convinced them to let us help them without any further violence," Hikari further explained. "We made contact with a reporter named Banri Udagawa, and with his help exposed the parent company's health code violations. One of the Morlocks even testified with Udagawa's backing."

"Huh, so you guys are why Pow-R 8 got taken off the market," Toji mused.

A car driven by Katsuo Makinami, around the same time...

"So it looks like I'll be adding learning savate to my 'to do in my spare time' list," Mari was saying to her father. "Seems like it'd be a real kick! And believe me, after my shield being on the receiving end of her kick, I'd know."

The two of them were currently in their car on the way to the picnic site, where she'd been telling her father about a run-in she'd had (as Captain America) with a mercenary named Marie Batroc, the daughter of the infamous savate-skilled French mercenary Georges Batroc, aka 'Batroc the Leaper'. It had been apparent that the apple didn't fall far from the tree, as according to Mari's account, Marie Batroc was just as skilled-and deadly-as her father, the two having been evenly-matched throughout their fight.

"From the sound of it, for once, it makes me glad S.H.I.E.L.D. put you through all that training," Katsuo said. "Maybe there's someone at the Academy who can teach you, if you're set on adding that to your skillset."

"Huh, you may be right," Mari said as she gave it some thought. "I'll have to ask Fitz-Simmons, considering they're pretty much the only alumni I know..."

Before Mari could continue her thought, a brief but bright flash lit up the sky, startling them for a moment as Katsuo swiftly pulled over to the side of the road. Quickly assessing that they were both okay, father and daughter soon got out of the car, and when they looked up, their eyes widened with shock at what greeted them:

The entire skyline looked as if it were completely aflame.

This sight didn't go unnoticed, especially among Mari's friends and the population of Tokyo-3 at large. Suddenly, the flames dissipated, and gave way to what looked to be an unending field of space debris.

The Ikaris, the Sohryus, and the residents of the Katsuragi apartment were awestruck by this development. The feeling was short-lived for Asuka, as it gave way to exasperated frustration.

"Oh, sonuva-!"

"Language!" Kyoko, Ruby, and Shinji mildly scolded.

It was then that Misato's cellphone went off, and she quickly picked it up after seeing the call was from Ritsuko.

"Rits? Are you seeing all this?" Misato asked.

"If you mean the space rocks that suddenly appeared in our atmosphere, then yes!" the bottle blonde replied, already in-costume as she swung her way via webline through the cityscape, Maya flying close beside her after 'flaming on'. "Maya and I were just on our way out when we saw the flames earlier. We're heading over to NERV HQ right now, she's already had H.I.T.O.M.I. calling the others to meet us. You'd better get here right away, this looks like an all-hands-on-deck situation!"

"Roger that," Misato responded in turn, "we'll see you there." She then hung up as she addressed the others in her group. "Looks like we're postponing the picnic for now. Mind taking a detour to HQ?"

"Not at all," Yui answered. "The equipment at HQ is advanced enough that we might be able to get to the bottom of this, and hopefully figure out a way to stop it."

"*Sigh* Looks like all this food's going in the fridge..." Shinji mused wearily.

"That will not be necessary," Rei said as Toomie swiftly garbed her in her silvery sheath. "We can place the food and supplies in Toomie's pocket dimension until we can find a proper storage area at HQ. I suggest we do so without haste."

The others did just that, and once finished, they left the cars behind, opting for their own specific means of getting to HQ faster, with Shinji riding passenger on Asuka's Hellcycle, Kyoko flying off after changing into Darkhawk, Rei carrying Yui on her board with her, and Ruby and Misato (after She-Hulking out) making gamma-fueled leaps across the city, the latter carrying Kaji in a piggypack fashion (with him doing his best not to lose it in the process).

As they made their way to HQ, more than a few questions were on their mind as they contemplated the circumstances that forced them to hold off what was supposed to be a normal day for a celebratory get-together:

What was going on? Why was this happening? And what could they do about it?

To be continued...

**Author's Note(s)**

Given the little spectacle that occurs towards the end of this chapter, some of you should be getting a rough idea of just who or what our fair superwomen will be dealing with...(Also, see if you can spot the tiny MCU nod that isn't the mention of Fitz-Simmons.) And now, our Marvel lore annotations for the day:

-There are two men who took up the identity of the Orb. The first one, Drake Shannon, debuted in 1973's Marvel Team-Up #15, by Len Wein and Ross Andru; the second, unknown one debuted in 2008's Ghost Rider, vol. 6, #26, by Jason Aaron and Tan Eng Huat. Both are considered to be B-level foes of Ghost Rider at best, though the second one had a prominent role in the 2014 Marvel event Original Sin. They Who Wield Power debuted in 1974's Marvel Team-Up #26, by Len Wein and Jim Mooney, while Zadkiel debuted in 2008's Ghost Rider, vol. 6, #27, also by Jason Aaron and Tan Eng Huat.

-The Morlocks debuted in 1983's The Uncanny X-Men #169, by Chris Claremont and Paul Smith, where Storm famously challenged their leader, Callisto, for leadership of the community, both to prevent her teammate Angel from being forced to marry Callisto and to end the Morlocks' attacks on normal humans. The plot of the toxic soda comes from season 3, episode 6 of X-Men: Evolution, "X-Treme Measures", which was the debut of the Morlocks in that show's continuity.

-Banri Udagawa is a 'Nipponized' take on Ben Urich, an investigative reporter best known in the Daredevil and Spider-Man corners of the Marvel Universe, who debuted in 1978's Daredevil #153, by Roger McKenzie and Gene Colan. I was inspired by Mike313's approach with 'Jun Godo', based on Jim Gordon, for his SWOE2 story "Dark Lady of Tokyo-3".

-Marie Batroc first appeared (and was subsequently killed off) in 2002's Agent X #6, by Gail Simone and UDON Studios. Her father, Batroc the Leaper, first appeared in 1966's Tales of Suspense #75, by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.