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Last Child of Krypton
Chapter 22- Clothed in the Sun
Toji was standing in the doorway with flowers in his hand when he heard Hikari's voice break as she whispered, "We're leaving."
He stepped inside. He was in his customary jogging suit and he'd slipped a glove over his right hand, and had gotten by, so far, by telling people it was a prosthetic. Hikari's family lived in a small home, like most of the members of NERV's staff with multiple children. Her father was an administrator- he worked at a desk, not even in the Geofront proper, and had only ever seen Evangelions from afar, Superman on a television screen.
As he set the flowers down on the small table beside the door and slipped off his shoes, he felt suddenly like an intruder in a foreign world he no longer understood. A few weeks ago he was a normal high school student, and then all of this insanity came crashing into his life- first the disaster with Unit-03, then fighting beside Asuka when they retook the base. In his new world of marvels, he'd forgetten the simple fact that Hikari's dad had spent over a week huddled in a cold, poorly lit shelter with her sisters, Nozomi and Kodama, eating rationed meals and sleeping in cots.
His sister, of course, was overjoyed by the Ring. Her big brother was a superhero. She was going to see him on TV with Superman fighting monsters and bad guys. His father hadn't taken it so well. An explanation, limited as it could be, and a demonstration of his powers led only to the old, bald man sitting in their tiny apartment saying "don't get hurt," as if he meant to say "don't hurt me."
Now, this.
"We're moving," she clarified, staring at the floor.
She was dressed simply in a house dress and an apron, which was a little dusty. The apartment was full of boxes, some open, some taped shut, many stacked on top of one another. What little personal touches had once marked the place as familiar to him were gone. When they first started dating, he had enjoyed coming here- there was so much laughter and life in this house with Hikari's sisters and her father, a thin, spare little man who always wore a tie and treated the happiness of his daughters like some kind of an art, putting the whole of his person into it.
"Why?" he said, his voice a little higher than he'd wished.
He didn't realize he was standing on the floor until her father rested a hand on his shoulder. "It isn't anything to do with you, young man. You will always be welcome in my home, but… no job is worth this. I know that it isn't your fault that Hikari was missing, but after her mother… I can't…" he trailed off.
"I understand, sir," he said quietly. "I… should go."
"Wait," Hikari said, and the old man suddenly found himself needed elsewhere.
She slipped her hand in his and smiled. His real hand.
Until she touched the ring, then she shivered a little.
"I'll call you," he said, slipping out of her grip.
"Bye," she said weakly, turning so he wouldn't see her cry.
He slipped his shoes back on, closed the door, and left the flowers behind as he walked out into the street. He thrust his hands into his pockets angrily, and started to walk, with no particular destination in mind. He looked up and out of the corner of his eye happened to catch flitting impressions whipping through the air, like mosquitoes just close enough to see. Shinji and Asuka, probably. They liked to fly together.
He let out a ragged sigh and dialed Kensuke's number.
"Hey man," Kensuke said brightly. He was typing something in the background.
"'suke," Toji said brightly, scanning the horizon as he did. "You wanna hit the arcade later?"
"Nah, I can't," he said a little dejectedly. "Mari's synch test will be done in like an hour, and we're going out."
"I still can't believe that you and-"
"We have mutual interests."
"Obviously. See 'ya."
"Yeah." Kensuke said distractedly. More clicking.
He hung up.
He didn't know why he was upset. After all, he could fly at mach six within the atmosphere under his own power, according to the Ring. It's not like he couldn't just go visit her. See, Toji wasn't a dumb jock, though. Toji was smart. He understood things like implication and subtext. Implications and subtexts like "I want my daughters to live in a safe world, and the one you're part of isn't safe."
He was a little surprised to run into Rei Ayanami. He'd wandered most of the way up to the hills around the high school and found her standing not far from the huge furrow Unit-01 had dug out when it landed there during that battle. It felt like a million years ago. She was seated in the grass, and half a dozen small rocks were orbiting her head. Occasionally, tiny hexagons of orange light flickered into being under them and their motion wobbled a bit.
"Watcha doin?" Toji said amiably.
"I am practicing."
"Whatcha practicing?"
"Using my abilities."
"Oh. What's up with the rocks? Is that all you can do?"
He eyes slitted open in apparent annoyance, and she glanced to her left. A tree had fallen in one battle or another, and lay up along the curve of the hill, a root bowl at its base still coated in earth. It was good size. The pebbles dropped to the ground with tiny slaps and as Rei focused on the tree, it gently lifted off the ground, creaking and groaning as it did. Some rodent squealed in a anger and ran out of the branches, departing along some hidden path up the hill. The tree lifted a good ten feet up in the air, hovered lazily for a moment, and then Rei apparently became bored with it and slammed into the ground with a meaty thud that sent a flight of birds flapping and chirping into the distance.
"Oh," he said.
"I also have a limited ability to fly. I do not like it."
"So what's up with the rocks?"
"I have decided my abilities are more useful if I have some fine control over them."
"Huh."
Apparently she'd tired of the conversation, as she closed her eyes again and the rocks began to drift up off the ground and circle her head again. Without warning, her eyes went wide and the rocks dropped. He felt a sudden impression of energy all around him, and she fixed her gaze on the sky.
"We should leave," she said flatly. "There is an Angel coming."
Then, the alarm went off.
SSSSS
"Finally," Misato almost snapped as Toji and Rei walked into the command center.
Reflexively, Toji formed a ring of energy around himself at his feet that swept upwards, casually replacing his track suit with his Lantern uniform, and no matter how many times he did it, there was still an eeriness to it, an odd-out-of-place-ness. He stood stiffly, while Rei retained her usual relaxed indifference.
"What's the situation?" Toji said in his most martial voice.
"I just sent up the new pilot in Unit-0. Mari and Shinji have been incapacitated by that thing's beam. Asuka is going to murder me if I don't let her go charging to the rescue."
"Slowly!" Asuka voice boomed over the speakers.
"I'm going up," Toji nodded and turned.
"Wait," Ritsuko called.
He blinked. "Why?"
"We don't even know how Shinji's defenses actually work, but this thing cut right through them. How do you know you'll do better?"
He stopped. She had a point.
"So what do we do?"
"I am handling the situation," Kaworu said softly.
The rails from the launch tube slammed upwards, followed in short order by the Eva itself. As Unit-00 surfaced, the light from the Angel wavered, as if it were unsure of what to do with so many available targets. Kaworu calmly walked the Eva beside Unit-02, and his eyes closed in concentration. He moved his hands forward on the controls slightly, and the Eva's arms raised.
"I am unfolding my AT-Field."
A hexagon of light appeared over his head and blurred outwards, expanding to cover both Evangelions. Mari suddenly fell silent, and the static from the camera in her plug resolved into a view of her apparently sleeping peacefully, her head lolling against one side of the seat.
"Incredible," Ritsuko said to no one in particular. "How the hell is his field that strong? The umbilical should be melting."
Shinji groaned, and Misato let out a deep sigh of relief.
"Shinji? You awake?"
"Y-yeah," he said shakily. He was moving in Unit-02's hand, leaning against of the giant fingers.
"I require assistance," Kaworu said flatly, his eyes opening just a bit. "I cannot hold her back forever."
"Shinji," Misato looked back up at the screen. "Can you pull Unit-02 back to the launch rails?"
"Yeah," he panted.
On screen, Unit-02, shuddered, and when with a great grinding sound the Eva began sliding backwards. Dust and debris trailed up from its feet as Shinji pulled it back onto the pad. He flew around before it in a drunken arc and pushed it until the shoulder pylons fell into the clamps. Misato nodded and the Eva dropped out of sight, Shinji with it.
"Kaworu," Misato commanded, "get to the next launch point. We'll bring you down next."
SSSSS
As Unit-02 settled at the base of the launch track, Shinji lighted on the Eva's shoulder, then made his way to the emergency release. He pulled the armor plate free, found the handle, twisted and pulled, and with a hiss of steam and released pressure Unit-02's head slumped forward, the back panels twisting open to allow the plug to eject. Once it was free, he opened the plug's hatch, went inside, and picked Mari up in a fireman's carry.
He landed with her in the cage proper, on the retractable bridge in front of Unit-01. The purple behemoth's head tracked him as he came in, rushing towards the oncoming medical recovery team. With their help, he bonelessly laid Mari's limp body on a gurney. The nurses took off her glasses and A-10 clips and wheeled her away. Shinji sank to his knees as Asuka ejected from Unit-01 and came bounding down the ladder in three quick steps, her hair slick against her neck with LCL.
"What happened?" she said, her voice strained, as she sat down beside him.
"It was in my head."
SSSSS
"He's down," Hyuga announced as the doors to launch pad 27 slid shut with a clanking bang.
"Status on the Angel?" Misato replied evenly, barely containing the relief in her voice.
"It's moving," Aoba said, his voice straining a little. "The pattern is changing definition. It's going to do something."
The Angel's luminous body folded into a single bright point and it lanced down out of the sky, a streamer of light trailing out behind it. It slammed into the streets with a puff of smoke, dust, and debris, and the camera became fuzzy for a moment from the vibration. The exact point of impact was behind one of the armaments buildings.
"What happened?"
"It hit the armor plating. It's digging."
"How fast?"
"I can't say, it- hold on, the field resonance is changing, it- holy shit!"
Light. There was light everywhere.
SSSSS
Shinji woke up with a start. He sat bolt upright in a bed in a darkened room on his broad bed. The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon, like a daub of bright ochre on the edge of a blackened canvas. He was groggy, and considered his surroundings for a moment. Everything was so familiar, and yet so distant. The red-purple grass wagged in the summer breeze as a gnarlack swooped low over the field, a keening wail of lonliness sounding the morning. His father mused that all creation pined for completion and companionship, and the cry of gnarlac was left to Krypton as a gift of the ancient progenitors to remind us all of the value of companionship.
Asuka rolled over beside him, her red-gold hair shining in the newborn light. She smiled beatifically, the neural connection clips she wore in her hair blinking faintly. She reached out and stroked his arm gently.
"What's wrong, Kal?"
"I had a strange dream," he said. "I dreamed I was someone named Shinji… something strange was happening. "
"It was just a dream, my love. Go back to sleep."
SSSSS
Misato snapped out of her reverie with a start. The sound of boiling water hissing into steam spurred her. She turned down the soup, muttering to herself as the spillover slacked and stopped. She hated cleaning this stove. Fortunately, the soup was almost done. Kaji would be home soon. Penny, her dachshund/corgi mix, whined at her side for a treat. She sighed and tossed him a scrap of meat from the soup.
"If you keep doing that he'll just keep begging," Kaji said as he scooped her from behind in a hug. She pressed back into his embrace, covering his arms with hers, and forgot all about the soup again.
"You're home early," she said, turning her head to press her cheek to his.
"Slow day at the office," he said. "Say. We've got an hour or so before the kids get home…"
/\../\
Kaji picked his way through the rubble, an armful of food in his hand. The Valentine Treaty had ended the war, but not the struggle. His mother was waiting for him, waiting for their rations. Sighing, he passed a ruined, burned out car. It was only by luck that they had managed to be in the mountains when the Impact came, and the ensuing chaos was… difficult. Thankfully, they made it to a refugee camp and there were clean, safe, and relatively happy.
He heard a sob and stopped.
Behind him, seated next to a pile of old bricks, a girl about his age sobbed into her hands. Her hair, so dark black it shone blue in the twilight at the end of the day, bobbed as she shook, tears streaming between her fingers. Gingerly, he set the food bag down and sat down beside her.
"A… are you okay," he said, his adolescent voice cracking.
"I'm scared," she sniffed. "I can't find my daddy."
"Come with me," he said, "I'll help you. What's your name?"
"M-Misato," she said.
He put his arm around her and led her forward, towards the safety of his mother's tent.
"It's okay. I won't let anything happen to you."
\/\/
Asuka ran down the path, her high heels held in one hand. Bouncing with excitement, she rang the doorbell again and again. Finally, the door opened. She fell into her mother's arms, hugging her tightly and was embraced in return.
"I had to tell you!" she beamed, "Shinji asked me to marry him!"
"What did you say?" her mother asked, pulling back from the embrace without releasing her daughter. Her bright blue eyes beamed with promise.
"I said yes! What did you think I would say?"
"Asuka," her mother said softly. "What about your post-doctoral fellowship?"
"It's okay," she said, "Shinji's father offered me a post at NERV! I'm going to be the project head of the next generation Eva series!"
"You should be," her mother beamed, leading her into the kitchen. "You practically wrote the book on piloting, after all. The Angel War would never have been won without you."
"Oh, Mama, you praise me too much," she said, blushing.
There was a doll, a little raggedy doll with yarn hair and button eyes, sitting on a high-backed chair in the parlor.
Asuka had always hated that doll.
|O|
Toji strode across Tokyo-3 in his Evangelion Unit-03, the ground shaking beneath their feet. Like a titan of legend, his mighty war machine gleamed black and gold in the noonday sun, hefting the progressive greatsword he carried to battle.
Hikari's image popped up in the corner of his vision.
"Let's do this!"
He smiled, and charged
SSSSS
"Stand! Bow! Sit!" the class representative as Ms. Hikari Suzahara entered the room. She beamed at her students, basking in the glow of admiration from the girls and playfully bashful at the quiet, awkward adolescent lust from the boys.
"Let's begin with the quadratic equation," she said. "Who can…"
SSSSS
Ritsuko tapped-tapped-tapped on her keyboard, entering commands into the MAGI. Naoko Akagi, her mother, put a hand on her shoulder.
"You learn so fast," she mused. "Sometimes I think you're better at this than I am."
Ritsuko took a sip of her coffee and smiled.
SSSSS
Hyuga sighed, falling back from his terminal, a sheen of sweat on his face.
"Thank God for you, Hyuga," Misato purred, her hand on his shoulder. "Without your quick thinking, we would be lost."
"I just did my job," he said sheepishly, blushing at the smiles of the other bridge techs.
Misato leaned over him, her prodigious breasts straining against the buttons of her dress uniform jacket. Why wasn't she wearing a shirt under it?
He decided he didn't care.
"You're so smart and strong," she said as she slid into his lap. "Just hold me please."
SSSSS
Aoba floated in an inky black void.
"Eh," he said.
SSSSS
Maya sighed, leaning back from her terminal. As always, she was alone, the others having punched out as soon as their shift ended. Poor, poor Maya. Without her the whole place would have come crashing down, and she knew it.
Her chair spun suddenly. Dr. Akagi pressed her into it by the shoulders and slid into her lap, straddling her.
"Dr. Akagi!" she said with a start.
Akagi leaned in and planted a soft, warm kiss on her lips.
"Maya, I have something to tell you," she whispered, pulling Maya to her in embrace.
SSSSS
Kensuke pulled his heavy helm from his head and let it fall to the earth. His lacquered armor was stained with the blood of a dozen enemies. His might katana Foe-Render had taken many lives that day. The fortress of the Dark Lord Gendo had fallen, and he and his men stood triumphant beneath the banner of the Mourning Crane once again. He strode into the camp of his victorious generals, who cheered and raised their scabbarded swords in salute. The lovely Princesses Ayanami and Makinami clung to his arm, beaming with joy at her rescue.
"We've won again!" he declared, "That is good! But what is best in life?"
"A fleet horse, the open steppe, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair," one of his generals announced, his face serene.
"Wrong!" Kensuke cried. "Conan! What is best in life?"
The might barbarian, his Cimmerian features as out of place among his easterly comrades as his rusty chain mail, wore a grim mask of tightly controlled fury.
"To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women."
Several nods greeted him.
"That is good," said Kensuke. "That is good."
SSSSS
Mari was very sad, and her shoes were dirty. She sniffed back a sudden, shuddering sob and ran the sleeve of her uniform sweater under her nose. She had been sitting in the waiting room for six hours, six long hours since her father had picked her up at school. Normally, she would have been happy to leave, even during nap time, but today her father was sad. Mommy was sick and had to go to the hospital, and he kept talking to doctors with funny accents and weird names. She had to sit, now, by herself while he talked to one of the doctors alone. She didn't know why, but she thought that was bad.
The chair was uncomfortable, and the whole place had an eerie smell, like disinfectant and air freshener covering up something worse, something subtle and cloying that layered itself over everything in the place. There were magazines on the table. She didn't like them.
She looked up when daddy came through the door. He was a lean man, a little old to have a daughter so young, and they weren't close. He sat down next to her and touched the tips of his fingers together, his whole body bent over like there was a weight on his shoulders. He said nothing for a while, and the clock on the wall went tick-tick-tick.
Finally, he broke into a quiet smile. "It's okay, Mari, she's going to be okay. We'll be home in a few hours. She'll be so happy to see you smile."
SSSSS
Rei started in surprise when, quite unexpectedly, everyone around her dropped into a deep sleep. She managed to catch Commander Katsuragi, who was surprisingly heavy. She picked the woman up easily, however, but decided to lower her to the ground to avoid allowing her neck to rest at a potentially dangerous angle. At the same time, she reached out with her AT-Field and cushioned the other's falls, so that Toji and Fuyutsuki lay down gently on the polished floor. The others, fortunately, had mostly been seated.
There was an uncomfortable pressure on the back of her head, like soft music trying to catch her attention. The sudden bright light that infused the room was decidedly unpleasant. Around her, the screens and terminals began to wink out, and she heard a rumbling over their heads as the Angel continued to dig into the ground. She focused her own AT-Field and the sudden pressure abated.
"Hello," a calm voice said over the loudspeakers. "Can anyone hear me?"
Rei descended to the second level on an emergency ladder and slipped one of the technician's headsets on. "This is Ayanami."
"Hello, Ayanami. This is Pilot Nagisa. What is happening?"
"Everyone is asleep. I see that you are not."
"Nor are you."
"Indeed. What should we do?"
"We must destroy the Angel. I can relaunch you from here."
"I would appreciate that."
She slid Hyuga's hands away from his console, and then examined it for a moment. The launch commands were deceptively simple, she was sure. She typed in what she thought was the correct sequence and then stood back.
"Did that work?"
"The pressure in the plug has increased."
"Oh. I apologize."
"No need, it is tolerable. Please try again."
She repeated the commands, slightly differently this time. There was a satisfying rumble somewhere off to her left as the carriage launched the Evangelion back to the surface.
"How are you able to resist the effect?"
"I cannot say."
The screen was still static. The light grew brighter, and the pressure came back. She felt something, like a wisp of air sliding along the back of her head.
Why do you send the destroyer? This is not as foretold. Where is she that rideth upon the Red Dragon?
She looked around the room. "Who is this?"
"Ayanami?" Nagisa said. "Hold, please, I am engaging it."
I offer you a gentler end than the others.
"We do not wish to die."
You do not understand what will happen if you do not.
"Ayanami?" Nagisa said again. "I will not let you die. Stay calm."
"I am calm," she said, her voice growing ever so slightly heated.
No, the tiny voice said, I have to end this, you don't understand.
The people around her began to stir as the light and sound faded, and Rei let out a small breath of relief as the monitors began to function once again. The huge screen came up, and she could see Unit-00 approaching the Angel. The creature had unfolded into a spider-like profusion of luminous tubes arranged around the central core. The effect had faded as it raised an AT-Field to protect itself from the Eva. Kaworu drew the progressive knife and advanced.
As he drew near, the creature let out a high pitched shriek and leapt at him out of the crater it had formed when it hit the surface. It latched on to his Eva and he grappled with it. When he unfurled his AT-Field, the Angel's own all but vanished, and there was a series of loud cracks and pops as the Eva's hands crushed long, glassy limbs in the process of forcing them out of the way. The thing bled in all colors, luminous like the innards of a light stick. Kaworu forced it to the ground, raised the prog knife, and plunged it into the thing's middle. It died with a single stroke.
I just gave you what you wanted.
Beside her, Hyuga awoke. He looked around the room in a panic, then his eyes fixed on hers.
"Rei?" he said.
He looked around some more, at his hands, and, curiously, at his lap. "Oh," he said, his voice breaking. "Oh."
SSSSS
Fuyutsuki could not, honestly, say long he had been in the cell. He had no room to stand, and just barely enough to sit, but nowhere near enough lie down. The ceiling of his chamber could suddenly erupt in harsh bright light, harsh enough to make him force his eyes shut, or he would be bathed in total darkness. There had been no food so far. Whatever they did, it was at random intervals, most likely so that he would not be able to tell how much time had passed. He only knew that he'd passed out a few hours ago, or so he thought, when a sickly-sweet gas flooded in around him and stole consciousness from him with surprising ease.
After seemingly no time passed at all, he awoke to find his right hand in intense pain, swathed in bandages that immobilized his fingers. His other hand had been similarly wrapped, but apparently to keep him from scratching at his right. He tried his teeth, but when he thought he'd broken one on the wrapping he gave up and tried to relax. The odd proportions of the chamber forced him to half-lay against one wall, and his back was beginning to throb. His hand burned and he could swear he felt something moving, tugging at sutures on his palm that lit up with tiny flares of pain with each twitch.
Then, the gas came again.
He woke this time seated on an uncomfortable metal chair. His hands were bound behind his back, so that he could not lean forward, and the back of the chair dug into his back, forcing him to arch it slightly and enhance the throbbing from his sore muscles. The room he was in looked like a police interrogation room, to the point of there being a table in front of him with donuts, just out of reach, on a sterling silver plate. They were all frosted pink, with sprinkles.
Seated across from him was a dead man.
It was as if a hanged corpse had been cut down, stood up, and walked into the room with him. Tall and gaunt, he, or it, was dressed in western preachers' clothes, a long coat and a broad brimmed hat. It wore a leather bag over its face, shading barely perceptible eyes that gleamed in their own darkness. The bag had been tied around its throat with a dirty, ragged rope bound into a noose that dangled over a linen smock that could have been buried in the earth. It leaned forward, and folded corpse-white hands on the table in front of it, and looked into his face.
"Don't worry, Professor," it said in a harsh rasp, "I'm your doctor. Tell me, how do you feel?"