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"You will believe a man can fly." -Advertising copy, Superman: The Motion Picture, 1976

Last Child of Krypton

Chapter 2- The Second Child

Ryoji Kaji was, at heart, a philosophical man, or perhaps a man talented in appearing philosophical to more easily woo women. In either case, he was quite philosophical now, as he sat in a flight from Vladivostok to Tokyo-3 at the head of the first class section with Asuka Langely Soryu, the Second Child, Evangelion Pilot, and fifteen year old girl. Kaji once read that hell is other people. Hell, he decided, was teenage girls. In an airplane. He would leave that last part off, it made the whole thing sound markedly less clever. There were two things she was doing that led him to this conclusion. One, she was holding his hand. Again. Two, she was demanding to know when they'd get there. Again.

Sighing, he snatched his hand away and fumbled for the newspaper he'd already read six times, studiously trying not to engage her in conversation, although he did glance at her out of the corner of his eye. She was stunningly beautiful, and if he'd been a younger man, and hadn't effectively raised her since she was nine, he might have been more receptive to his advances, but as it was, it was like dealing with a cousin, or maybe a little sister, with a crush. That, and she was so insistently, desperately looking for anyone to show some concern for her, to push past her bluster, and for lack of a better term her bullshit, that the anyone who did take advantage of her by pushing just the right buttons without really caring for her deserved to burn in hell.

She was dressed up for her big debut. Knowing her, she probably thought she was going to be met by a huge reception at the airport; Katsuragi had already told him that they wanted everything low key, since there were currently two people in the world qualified to pilot the only machines that could prevent the total destruction of the human race, and parading them around in public was a stunningly terrible idea. Kaji agreed completely and had been gradually letting her down during the entire flight; bring up bits and pieces and hints of how quiet the whole thing would be. Angering her would be a bad idea. She might breach the hull.

Kaji dropped his paper as the airplane shuddered a bit, lurching him up and down. He looked around. Asuka took it in stride, and continued to stare out the window, her hand cupped in her chin. Considering her training, turbulence probably wasn't much of an issue before. Kaji sighed and turned back to studying his paper. Maybe he could finish the crossword puzzle.

Then the plane lurched again, and the FASTEN SEAT BELTS light came on. Kaji took notice now, setting the folded paper in the sea beside him. He motioned to the Section 2 men seated behind them to buckle themselves in. One of them leaned forward.

"What's going on?"

"I don't know. Something's wrong."

SSSSS

"I bet you'll like her," Misato said absently, tapping the steering wheel of her very sedate, very boxy, very unpleasant rental car. It would be weeks until her baby was drivable again, and she wouldn't be able to afford to really fix her for a long time. Especially since she still had payments. She thumbed the turn signal on and pulled into the visitor's parking lot for Tokyo-2 International Airport. Shinji stared up at the planes absently, chin in hand. He sat up suddenly, and Misato was about to ask him what was wrong when her cell phone buzzed angrily.

She answered as she stepped out of the car.

"Captain? It's Hyuga."

"What is it?"

"There's something wrong with Asuka's plane. We picked up the distress call on the air band a minute ago. They're going down."

She snapped the phone closed and jammed in her pocket, and then broke into a run. "Come on, Shinji!"

She trotted to a stop. "Shinji?"

SSSSS

The plane lurched hard to the side, the wings shuddering as the pilot struggled for control. Two of the four engines were smoking, and a third was showering sparks. Asuka looked out the window and horror and took a white knuckle grip on the seat, shivering. She had an sudden, very uncomfortable feeling that she was, in fact about to die. This was only confirmed when the entire aircraft suddenly shifted about ten feet to the left and kicked her stomach up into her throat. She strangled a cry of alarm. She turned to Kaji. The older man looked grim, but retained a zen-like calm. There was a sudden shriek of metal, a terrible rending groan, and the left wing of the plane peeled back, wobbled for a moment in the air, and detached, falling end over end through space. Asuka clenched her teeth shut and closed her eyes, and put her hand on Kaji's.

Then, she heard it. Something cut through the screaming behind her.

"What the hell is that?"

Her eyes snapped open. The Section 2 man behind her looked out the window. "Is it a missile?"

"No," said the one next to him. "I think it's a bird or something. It's not a plane, it's too small, it- here it comes!"

Asuka watched, wide eyed, as a tiny blue-and-red object flitted about behind the plane like some kind of a huge bird. She watched it land on the rear of the fuselage, just ahead of the tail section. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. There was a person… there was someone standing on the back of the plane, in some kind of red and blue costume. She watched as he took hold of the tail and began to pull, tugging on the metal. This was impossible. She had to be dreaming. This was a dream, and she was going to wake up any minute and realize they'd landed and all the bouncing had made her have a nightmare about the plane crashing.

"What is it?" Kaji said, crowding next to her. "What the-"

There was a final, moaning shriek as all at once the tail section came free, tearing loose in a shower of sparks and thin, spindly tatters of metal, like shredded paper thrown into the wind. The figure toppled backwards, end over end, tangled up in his cape.

SSSSS

"Nice move, Shinji," he berated himself as he watched the now wingless and tailless plane start to roll. He had to think and he had to do it fast. He couldn't just grab the plane and stop it, it would pull it apart or kill the passengers or worse. He dove through the smoke, skimmed along the side of the plane, and planted himself on the nose. Spreading his arms wide, he carefully, deliberately started to put pressure on it, first from left to right and then pushing ever so gently up, trying to level it out. It struggled against him, the metal rending at his touch. If he pushed too hard, he'd go right through it and make it worse. Finally, inexorably, it began to straighten and stabilize.

Then he noticed that he'd missed the airport.

"Great."

SSSSS

Asuka watched the figure slice by her window, the panicked screams of the other passengers drown out her thoughts. There was a lurch and she could feel something straining against the plane. Even as it started to level out, the ground swept up, too fast, and she realized they'd missed the landing strip, heading for the trees beyond. Tree limbs were beginning to beat against the remaining wing, and the plane started to push up again, ever so gently. Finally they cleared the trees, which opened out onto a highway. The plane began to turn perilously, shifting her world to the side, and she reflexively closed her eyes. They were almost in.

She waited for the thud, and just when she thought it was never going to come, there it was, nearly jarring her out of her seat, the belt digging into her waist. She pressed hard into the seat back as sparks and smoke shot up from the side of the plane, obscuring her window. For what felt like forever the plane rumbled along the ground, starting to tilt and turn sideways until, slowly, finally, it came to a stop. There was a sudden lurch forward and the seat belt ground into her middle again, and she flopped back against the seat, panting.

Every eye turned towards the door at the front of the plane, just short of the cockpit. There were three metallic clangs, the door shook once, and then with a scream of metal tore free, bursting outward with incredible force, shattering the hinges. The world seemed to slow as he stepped onto the plane.

He was wearing some kind of uniform, mostly blue with red boots and a red cape and a strange symbol emblazoned across his chest, and he looked at her with warm blue eyes, just for a second, as he scanned the plane. He was filthy and covered with leaves and road grime and he was panting and he said,

"Is anybody hurt?"

"I bith my tongue!" one of Asuka's bodyguards announced. She palmed her face.

SSSSS

Shinji resisted the urge to lean on his knees and pant, or brush the debris off his costume. He did his best to keep his eyes off Asuka, and he failed totally. Misato's description of her was a pale reflection, like the light of the moon in the ripples across a pond. She wore a yellow sundress and a ribbon at her pale throat and crossed long, supple legs in front of her. She met his eyes with her own, a deep cerulean that reminded him of the sky on a summer afternoon. Her auburn hair was like the sunset, held back on her head by a pair of barrettes that he recognized, after a moment, as A-10 connectors. Misato had told him she never took them off.

Then the doofus behind her said something about biting his tongue, and she stifled a laugh. He couldn't help but smile. He was paralyzed. What should he do? Offer her a hand? Introduce himself? Say "Hi, I'm Shinji Ikari, and I can breathe in space?" He had to do something, to say something, so he did.

"Are you alright, miss?"

"Yeah," she said absently, "I- I'm fine, thank you."

He looked up and realized that half a dozen camera phones were pointed at him and, to his credit, didn't start in response. Instead he smiled, looked around the plane, and said,

"I hope this doesn't put you off flying. Statistically, it's still the safest way to travel."

Then he took a bounding step towards the door, stepped out, and flew off.

SSSSS

"Showoff," Asuka muttered, crossing her arms. Kaji smirked at her, then straightened his face, desperately hoping she didn't notice. She was kind of cute when she was being defensive. Kaji sighed when one of the goons sitting behind them tapped him on the shoulder.

"What the hell was that?"

"You've got me," Kaji replied.

SSSSS

Misato ducked back into the car and turned the key in the ignition. Only then did she notice that Shinji was cowering in the seat beside her, covering his head. She sighed and patted him on the shoulder. Poor kid, after everything he'd seen in the last few days, telling him that the plane that they were going to meet was crashing was probably not the best thing for his psyche. She sighed and started the car. Her phone rang again.

"Katsuragi."

"Captain, you have got to see this. I'm sending a link to your phone now."

The call disconnected and she waited as the text message popped up, hit okay, and YouTube loaded. She skidded the car to a stop as she realized what she was seeing. It was the inside of a plane, of Asuka's plane, she realized when she saw the back of the girl's head in the foreground. A figure stood at the front of the plane in… in a cape, addressing the passengers, the light of the morning pouring in behind him through a rent in the plane.

"I hope this doesn't put you off flying…" he said through tinny speakers. The phone rang again.

"What is it now?"

Hyuga reported to her where the plane landed. She pointed the rental car towards the exit, straightened herself, and tossed the phone to Shinji as she floored it.

"Hi Shinji," Hyuga said.

"Oh, uh, hi Mister Hyuga."

"You can call me Makoto."

"Uh, yeah, can I call you back? Misato's trying to kill us."

"I am not," Misato snapped as the car drifted out onto the highway, slammed the car into a lower gear, and gunned it. The car fishtailed a bit, and then straightened as its tiny four cylinder engine roared, a look of manic glee on the driver's face.

"You know what the best thing about a rental car is, Shinji?"

"No, what?"

"No car can accelerate quicker, corner harder, or go from reverse into drive at a higher speed!"

Shinji groaned. In the distance he could see the last wisps of smoke rising from the crash site, and smirked secretly to himself. They rounded the gentle curve, passed the trees, and saw the gaggle of fire trucks and emergency vehicles around the plane. Misato pulled to a stop, rolled down her window, and held out her NERV identification like a battle standard, rolling slowly through the throng to the foot of the yellow emergency slide that had opened up from the side of the plane at the good wing. Asuka stood with her minders, a wool emergency blanket thrown over her shoulders. She wore it like an affectation, to appease the idiots around her who assumed she needed comforting, although she did cleave rather closely to the side of one man, who wore a lazy, casual smile over a lazy, casually undone dress shirt and tie, a scruffy sort with thin stubble and a ponytail.

"You," Misato growled. Shinji swallowed, hard.

Misato put the car and park and stepped out, and Shinji did the same. At this point, several things happened all of a piece. Misato's eyes met Kaji's, and something not unlike a bolt of lightning passed between them, the sort of intense feeling of presence that drew looks from the fire crew and other passengers gathered around. It was a look of love in denial pretending to be longing meeting one that was just longing, wrapped up in a sad, sloppy grin the way a frightened child swaddles himself in a security blanket. The second thing that happened was that Asuka Langley Soryu laid eyes on Shinji Ikari for the first time, and stiffened oh so subtly, her air of casual indifference shifting to one of deliberately indifference, her eyes rapidly snapping off him to look anywhere else before he noticed her looking. Shinji, being Shinji, despite being able to see the heat rising from her skin, hear the quickening of her heartbeat, and practically feel the sounds of the afternoon breeze brushing through her hair, of course noticed none of this. Instead he waited patiently next to Misato, expecting her to introduce him. He adjusted his glasses and coughed.

"Hey," Asuka broke the silence, "I know you. You're the washout, right?"

"I," Shini stammered, "I- what?"

"Asuka, be nice," Kaji chided, grinning. "Don't worry about it, Shinji. Her bark is… well actually the bite is worse."

"Kaji," Misato snapped.

"Oh relax," Kaji smirked. "I assure my relations with Miss Soryu are those of a doting parent."

Shinji didn't need fifteen kinds of vision to see the girl glare at the older man with a look so fierce it could cut glass. At least her attention was off him. He was quite unsure why he was so glad to be relieved of her gaze, nor why he felt a sudden pang to be back under it.

"You… you know who I am?"

"Of course," Kaji said. "Only by relation to your father, of course. I must say you're taller than I expected."

Shinji cringed at the mention of his father. "Oh."

"I'm here to pick up Asuka," Misato said coolly. "so we'll be on our way."

"Oh, I hope you don't mind if I tag along," Kaji said, following as she turned. "It's a bit of a walk to the airport from here."

Misato huffed indignantly, but didn't say no. The older man naturally fell in step beside Shinji. He leaned over and whispered, "Always let them walk in front."

Shinji shot him a wry look over the tops of his glasses, but said nothing. Instinctively, he opened the front door of the car for Asuka, and was prevented from doing the same for Misato by Kaji, who opened it and bowed, gesturing inside with an exaggerated motion. Asuka bounced into her seat and once Misato had slammed her door in Kaji's face. Kaji stopped Shinji as he opened the back door and leaned in close, and whispered so quietly that Shinji wasn't sure he was meant to be heard, but of course he was.

"Neat trick with the plane. We need to talk. Now stay calm. I'll keep them distracted."

His eyes wide, Shinji slowly settled into the seat, his eyes nervously flitting from Misato to Asuka and back again. Misato wordlessly started the car, and as soon as there were no pedestrians in front of her, Kaji began working his magic.

"So Shinji," he said rather loudly, "I hear you're living with Katsuragi now. Tell me, is she still wild in bed?"

SSSSS

Kozo Fuyutsuki stood silently outside of the office of his commanding officer, once his student, Gendo Ikari. He was forced to wait, for the members of the Human Instrumentality Committee would not deign for the second in command of their subordinate organization to sit in on meetings with the commanding officer, lest he see a dressing down. The nature of his inclusion in the organization left him trusted for his willingness to keep secrets for so long despite the horror he expressed upon first learning them, but held at arm's length in light of the nature of his recruitment. They would value his loyalty, but never trust him, give him a high position, but never authority beyond the bare minimum needed to serve their purposes. He was just another tool, although a tool that knew of the hand that wielded it.

At length the door popped open, alerting him without ceremony that he was permitted to enter. When not in session with his superiors, Gendo Ikari kept his office open, as if daring anyone who might presume upon his time to enter and prove themselves worthy. Having crossed the vast expanse of his office with its dark colors and low ceiling, carefully crafted to put the supplicant in awe of the man who sat at its far end, he found the entire matter tedious, but of course made no remarks on the subject. He had long learned that Gendo Ikari would speak more openly to someone he could not see face to face, and so took up a position behind his superior, over his shoulder, in place of a conscience the man had long ago discarded. This little ritual reminded him sickeningly of the habits of some old serial villain, though he kept this sentiment to himself as well.

"Well?" he broke the ice at last, knowing that the man seated before him would not be the first to speak.

"The committee are naturally concerned about recent events. I informed them I have the matter in hand."

"Did they mention the circumstances of the Second's arrival?"

"No. They are no doubt curious, but none will investigate too deeply. In the end, it is of no consequence."

Kozo considered this for a moment. "Was the operation a success?"

"He reacted as I anticipated. If I can mold him to meet our needs, the impact on the Scenario will be minimal. If he is less tractable than I anticipate, the more extreme measures are still available."

"You could approach him directly. Explain-"

"No." the younger man snapped with finality.

Kozo quickly changed the subject. "The Second herself-"

"Will suit our needs perfectly. In the end, using any but her would have been a fool's errand. It would be unnecessarily sentimental to put him in her place, even if he could pilot."

"I see," Kozo said. "Will there be anything further? I must attend to the budgetary matters regarding the repairs, and the German government is complaining about transfer of Unit-02."

"No. Handle it."

Kozo nodded and left the room, not turning back to look at the commander of NERV as he did. Once he was out of view of Ikari's office his pace quickened, but only slightly. He considered his options for the moment, and decided it was best to actually go to his office and get some work done. He stepped into the elevator, pressed the button, and watched the round counter click-click-clack its way as he headed down, deeper into the abyss beneath Tokyo-3. Lieutenant Ibuki joined him in the elevator after three floors.

"Good afternoon," she said brightly, a warm smile on her face.

"It is, Lieutenant Ibuki. How are you today?" he said cordially, as if he weren't among the chief architects of a mad cult's plan to murder her soul.

SSSSS

Asuka was tired, hungry, and had spent another hour on top of a fourteen hour flight with a layover in Siberia or some other awful Russian hole, with only per precious Kaji and some nameless goons to defend her. Goons that had been left at the airport. Such were the wages of goons, for there were goons aplenty but only two Evangelion pilots in the whole of the world, and only one of them was Asuka Langley Soryu, which put the other at an immediate and profound disadvantage. Now she was trudging up stairs –Misato didn't have the good sense to live in an apartment complex with an elevator- to her new home, which since the good captain had picked it out, was bound to be horrible. She braced herself for disappointment, to be only more severe now that her precious Kaji had abandoned her at the first entrance to the Geofront. Something about reporting for his new duties.

At least her boxes were here. Misato didn't seem surprised, and shouldn't have been, having had the opportunity to bask in Asuka's greatness in Germany proper, but her boring little assistant did, openly wondering,

"What's all this stuff?"

"This stuff would be my things," Asuka said imperiously. "You can help carry them," she added in a sweet tone that really meant "You can carry them all."

Misato worked her way amongst the forest of boxes and opened up an apartment that was already occupied. Asuka blinked, wondering who she'd be rooming with, until she detected the faint, lilting scents of beer and curry, marking Misato's territory more clearly than a blinking sign. She followed her new guardian inside, and noticed something that alarmed her. There was a door which quite clearly read "Shinji's Lovely Suite", marked with a little magic marker heart.

"I guess she's moving you out, washout," she said, glancing at the boy, who had already kindly started moving boxes into the apartment. He was strong, she had to give him that.

Misato's lips split in a wry grin. "Nah, I have two extra rooms."

Full stop.

"What?" Asuka shrieked. "A boy and a girl shouldn't live under the same roof after the age of seven!"

"I'll be around to chaperone you," Misato grinned. "Besides, Shinji's a very quiet young man, and it's his cooking or mine."

"But…"

"What are you worried about, anyway? Do you liiiiiike him?"

Asuka groaned. She was unable to resist sliding open the door to his room. Inside she was surprised- his room was studiously neat, a pair of pajamas carefully folded on a neatly made futon, a lamp, an alarm clock, a spare school uniform hanging on hangers in the corner of the room over a cased instrument- a cello, by the size of it. His only real possessions besides that were books, dozens of them in neat stacks along the floor by the closet, in half a dozen languages. She spotted English, of which she had a passable understanding, Japanese of course, French, and what she took to be Spanish, Russian and some that appeared to be in Latin, of all things. Many of them were cookbooks.

"Stop spying," Misato nudged her rips, and she slid the door shut. "I better not catch you sneaking in there tonight."

"Oh please," Asuka rolled her eyes.

"You need your rest," Misato went on. "You'll have synch tests and paperwork and whatever else Akagi can come up with after school tomorrow."

"School? What school?" she said, her stomach fluttering. "I don't need to go to school, I have a bachelor's degree!"

"You're going to school," Misato said, slipping into her Operations Director tone. "The command staff of NERV has an obligation to see that the pilots have as normal a life as possible," he tone shifted then, "I know it's a little scary going to school in a totally foreign country, Asuka, but Shinji will be with you. You'll be okay."

"I am not scared," Asuka said coldly.