Disclaimer:
I do not own Evangelion or DC Comics. Please don't sue me, I'm poor.
Summary:
The loss of her ability to walk devastated Chiyo Suzuhara, the younger sister of Toji. That is, until she came across a discovery of her mother's. One that lifted her up into the clouds.
Chapter Two: Avenging Angel
It was early that same night that Toji slid open the glass door to the balcony, where his grandfather Hisao Suzuhara, was reading a book in his favorite patio chair. He often could be found here when not at work or asleep in his room, he found the sound of the chirping cicadas soothing.
"Hey granddad, you busy?"
The elder Suzuhara glanced up as Toji joined him on the balcony. Below, the city of Tokyo-3 twinkled in the fading twilight as darkness began to wraps its inky fingers around them. Another long day coming to a close.
"Not at all, what can I do for you Toji?" he set aside his book and tugged at his bifocals to bring them into focus, leaning back in his chair as he regarded his eldest grandchild.
"I'm... well I'm kinda worried about Chiyo," Toji said, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.
Hisao merely raised an eyebrow. "And why is that? I thought she was doing well."
"Well she's... well it's kinda strange how she's been lately. She was so quiet for the first week or so but now it's like the loss of her legs doesn't even phase her. Like she's been dealing with it all her life. I'm kinda worried she's taking it too well."
"Too well?" his grandfather asked.
"Well... yeah. I thought she'd be a lot more upset about it, I guess. Is that normal?"
"Well normal is relative, for one thing," Hisao said, leaning forward in his chair. He took out a cloth and began to clean his glasses as he spoke. "As you know, I lived through Second Impact..."
"Granddad, I get all I can take about that from teacher at school," muttered Toji.
The elder Suzuhara snorted. "I highly doubt he'll be teaching the true horrors that happened to the world in those first few years. It was bedlam. Chaos, riots, natural disasters great and small. I saw colleagues go through all manner of troublesome dementia."
"Dementia?" asked Toji, leaning against the balcony railing. That really didn't sound good.
"Well lots of people deal with stress differently," Hisao replied after a moment's thought. "The mind can do all sorts of odd things to cope."
Toji considered that. It definitely wasn't like how Shinji dealt with this sort of thing. If his friend had lost his legs he was fairly sure he would be shadowed by dark clouds day and night. Then again, he tended to be pretty much like that most of the time anyway. Melancholy was his default emotional state, maybe Chiyo's just happened to be joyful.
Plus, he'd gone back to normal fairly quickly too, given his brief ride in Unit One. Granted, he'd escaped intact, but it had been a harrowing experience all the same. Maybe it was some deeper instinct of humanity, to try and go back to normal no matter what happened to them.
None the less, where his sister was concerned, Toji wanted to be sure.
"That's kinda what I'm worried she's doing," he said. "That she's just pretending to be happy so we don't worry."
"Which makes you worry," Hisao said with a knowing smirk.
"Yes! I mean... well..."
"Well you've always been looking out for her... we all have since her mother passed away, God rest her soul. But you especially. Something that I'm quite proud of, I might add... but maybe you're upset she doesn't seem to need her big brother to protect her anymore?"
Toji grimaced at the idea. "Granddad come on, be serious."
He laughed. "Look, I admit I was worried too, but you know your sister, Chiyo's always been... good at dealing with this sort of thing. You remember when your Mother passed away?"
He nodded, not enjoying the memories. "She never even cried at the funeral," Toji said. "It's like it didn't even register."
"I'd be worried if I didn't think Chiyo was finding some way to deal with her emotions, but really, I think she's being genuine. No false fronts, no hidden meanings. I think she might be just a bit more rebellious at the idea that she has to stay all cooped up here than anything else."
The two of them glanced inside, where they could see Chiyo on the couch, tracing her pen along her sketch board, a glass of orange juice resting precariously on the armrest. Perfectly content, the wheelchair beside the furniture there almost as an after-thought, rather than some looming presence.
"Well much as I admire your dedication to your sibling, you can't smother her forever. Sooner or later she'll have to spread her wings and learn to fly."
Chiyo Suzuhara may have been confined to a wheelchair, but she was still walking on air.
Absolutely nothing could get her down. The very idea of what she'd done seemed ludicrous, but the news stations had been raving about it all the next day. How a mysterious girl with wings had saved a young boys life during a horrible fire. Mostly focusing on the fire, it seemed, but she got a mention, at least. She was a hero, albeit one who was grateful nobody had found out it had been her.
She didn't even want to think about the implications that would come, especially if they found out she'd been using artifacts she'd (admittedly) taken from a museum. Having tasted real freedom, she had no plans to trade it for iron bars and a small cell.
Chiyo wheeled out of the living room and into the kitchen, humming to herself as she popped a piece of bread into the toaster for her breakfast. She planned to eat light and be on her way as soon as Toji and dad had left for the day.
"Morning Chiyo," her father greeted from the kitchen table, not even glancing up from his newspaper.
She wheeled over to the table as she spread some butter on her toast, smiling as she spotted an article on the front page. "Can I have that when you're done?" she asked.
He shrugged, passing her the paper as he patted her on the head and wished her a good day, then straightened his tie and exited the apartment.
Chiyo eagerly dug into the article. She couldn't quite read all of the kanji, but she got the jist of it. There was even an artists sketch a few pages in, but Chiyo had to snort when she saw it. She could've drawn something better than that in her spare time, and this person got paid for it?
"I'm heading to school!" Toji announced.
"No breakfast?" she inquired, setting down the paper, mind abuzz with plans already.
"I'll grab something from the vending machines, I'm already late, and if I don't get there soon..."
"Class Rep'll yell at you, I know. Get going, I'll be fine," Chiyo said.
He gave her a brief, one-armed hug, still holding his bookbag in the other hand as he all but ran out of the apartment and into the hallway, nearly colliding with their elderly neighbor on his way out. Chiyo giggled as she heard his shouted apology, already fading in the distance.
Leaving her completely alone in the apartment.
On the edge of Tokyo-3's residential district was a small shipping warehouse. One wall had been caved in during the Third Angel's attack, and as such, the place was since abandoned. As hideouts went, it was remarkably cliché, but with so many of them forced into hiding from the general public, it was the best they could manage at the present time.
A light clicked on overhead, and the three individuals stepped forward to the edge of the illumination, keeping to the shadows as they spoke.
"Is everything prepared?" asked the first.
The second figure nodded. "We've been watching the target for a good while now. Their patterns are remarkably predictable, it's almost like they don't care."
"So much the better for us," replied the third. "We're ready to keep Section Two and the police distracted at the anointed time. All you need to do is move."
"And you're quite certain of this?" asked the second. "We're strained for men and resources enough as it is. Steel hit another one of our warehouses the other night."
"That heretic will be dealt with in due time," declared the first. "Don't worry we've planned this extensively. Everything is in place. Very soon, it will be time for us to step into the light."
As he spoke, the speaker stepped out of the shadows, letting light fall on him. It was an older individual, gray-haired and wild-eyed, dressed in very distinct golden robes of the highest quality, trimmed in white. On his chest was a most distinct image, that by now almost everyone in Tokyo-3 recognized, and few welcomed the sight of. The image of a yellow flame with lines of light radiating out from it.
The symbol of the Light of the Divine.
Chiyo took her time to enjoy her breakfast and the newspaper, as well as brush through a few mathematical books her father had brought home for her. Just enough to seem like she'd been truly studying. But after an hour, brother at school and father and grandfather at the lab, Chiyo decided she was alone as she was going to be. Without wasting another moment she wheeled out of the kitchen and to her bedroom, grabbing the contents hidden under her bed.
It was three days after her first flight, when she'd practiced the wings and saved the little girl. But that had only whetted her appetite. Chiyo wanted to learn more about these mysterious artifacts. If the harness had become a pair of wings capable of flight, what else could the other things do? She was giddy at the very thought of it.
The main problem had been where to learn and practice with them.
Initially, she thought the museum could work, her mother's office was out of the way and largely abandoned, but the chances of being found out there were simply too great. Too many people, too many possibilities. So over the next two days she'd carefully smuggled it all out, hiding the various trinkets either on her body or under the wheelchair. She'd had one or two close calls, especially when she'd worn the bracers out underneath a long-sleeved shirt, but it turned out the strange substance didn't even set off a metal detector. Something else odd she'd need to puzzle over. In the end, all of it was now resting atop of her bed ready for her personal use.
"Hmmm, where to start, where to start," she murmured, examining each item in turn. Much as she wanted to use the harness again it was the middle of the day, someone might see her. So she decided to start with the bracers, snapping them onto her wrists and trying various (and sometimes even silly) things to see if they responded in any way.
She tried touching them, wearing them, snapping them together, waving her arms around. She was about to give up when her wild antics knocked loose the lamp sitting on her nightstand, and she flailed about, nearly missing a chance to catch it as she leaned over the edge of her wheelchair. But thankfully, she caught it before gravity could take effect and it could shatter on the ground.
"Huh, that's weird..." Chiyo said, noticing how light it felt. She held it in a single hand as if it was light as a feather. Testing that, she tossed it up and caught it in the same hand. Easy. Curious, she set it down on the bed, then tried to pick up the nightstand the same way. Again, it lifted up with unnatural ease, as if it was lighter than air.
A wild thought struck her, and before she even gave it proper thought she'd leaned over and grabbed the bed itself with both hands. It lifted up with ease. So much ease, in fact, it started to wobble, the awkwardness of it making up for its sudden lack of weight, and it tipped precariously to one side. Chiyo quickly brought it down before her lamp and all the artifacts were dropped onto the ground, and it came down with a mighty crash.
She winced, really desperately hoping the neighbors downstairs didn't hear that.
"Oookay," she said, removing the cuffs and putting them down. "Right. Uhm, let's try something else..."
She brushed a hand against the mace, enjoying the smoothness of the silvery steel it was made out of. She couldn't explain, but Chiyo really enjoyed how the metal felt. Like it was... alive almost. She picked it up reverently, marveling at its design. Despite being as ancient as the harness it looked almost modern. Maybe even futuristic.
This time she moved out of the bedroom and into the kitchen to practice. Plus, she was thirsty, and decided some OJ was in order.
She gave the mace an experimental swing, like a baseball bat. She'd never been very good with sports, never had the chance really, but she'd watched Toji practice a few times and wondered if there was any similarities. Swing, swing, swish. It carried through a lot on some hits, she had to hold back unless she wanted the head of the weapon to go wildly out of control. But it seemed like no time before she got the hang of it, and without a care she swung it to rest on her shoulder...
Crash!
She glanced up in alarm as her swing had knocked her drink off the counter and sent it crashing to the ground. The fragile glass had shattered, and her orange juice was staining the floor amidst the glass fragments. Thankfully, it was replaceable. She just needed to scoop up and hide the fragments. Not so easy when she wasn't able to reach the floor without lying on it, but she managed.
She'd also knocked the newspaper to the floor, scattering its contents, and crawled forward to pick them up and put them away as well. As she did, she glanced down at the newspaper now lying on the floor, with the crude sketch of her winged self lying prominently amongst the scraps. And a page underneath poking out, the title reading 'Superwomen' prominent enough.
The beginnings of an idea sowed in her subconscious.
She almost jumped up when she heard the door slam from the adjoining room. "I'm home!" called out Toji.
Was it that late already? she wondered frantically. Where had the time gone?
She sat up as quick as she could and tugged on the cover of her wheelchair, hiding the mace beneath it as quickly as she dared. Not half a second before Toji came in and dropped his bag on the floor when he saw her lying there.
"You okay?" he asked, immediately at her side.
"Fine," she replied, hauling herself back up into her chair. "Just made a mess, I was trying to clean it up."
"Need a hand?"
"No I'm fine."
"Chiyo..."
"Really I'm fine!" she said as she finally settled into her seat, brushing a loose strand of hair out of her face. "What?"
She tried to look as non-chalant as possible, but thankfully all Toji did was give her a funny look and then went back to rummaging through the cabinets for an afternoon snack.
Chiyo Suzuhara was going to be a superhero.
Unfortunately, there was only so much time she could truly devote to this in any case. The last thing she wanted to do was let her family find out. This was her discovery, she wasn't going to share it with anyone. Not even Toji, who may as well have been another father the way he babied his 'little sister.' This time Chiyo was flying solo.
Fortunately, seeing Chiyo in a high spirits helped ease some of Toji's guilt concerning her accident, and thus, lifted his spirits as well. So he tended to leave her be when he wasn't fussing over her like a mother hen. Her father also indulged her, giving her ample space and giving only a few cursory calls to check on her studies and keep her on task. To his mind, anything that kept her from thinking about her loss was a good thing.
"Yes dad, really," she replied into the phone, holding it to her ear with her shoulder as she tinkered with the mace. Adjusting the handle, a bright glow suffused the head. "Hmmm... what? Oh, no, that's just the radio. Static, must be a cloud passing overhead," she said quickly, turning off the weapon. "Yeah I listen to the radio while I study. Helps me concentrate. Really dad. Yes. Of course. Well it's not like I'm learning how to disco, am I?"
She laughed, flipping the phone closed, and breathed out quietly, thankful for the near-miss. Then set the phone down and picked up the mace again, going back to her testing.
The radio was on a music channel as Chiyo tinkered with the mace, trying to get a better idea of how it worked. She hadn't really lied to her father. Just hadn't told him what she was really studying.
With a little fine tuning, she learned how to control the voltage of the mace but adjusting her grip on the weapon. The instant she let go of it, it stopped working all together.
It almost seemed like technology. But it was over eight thousand years old, from a time when the greatest invention was forged bronze. She'd tried to make sense of it, read through her mother's logs, the archaeologists who'd discovered the artifacts, heck she'd tried seeing if there was anything like this in a science fiction movie, but nothing gave her any sort of clue as to how they worked, only that they did.
"Magic," she said as she eventually gave up her research. "Only possible explanation."
She did find out the artifacts originally had been discovered just after the Second Impact. Turns out the particular tomb they'd been found in had been only uncovered following the massive shake-up the Earth had gone through. Everything had originally gone to the New Midway City Museum in the United States, then the crate had been sent here for an exhibit, and lost in the wake of the Third Angel's unexpected attack.
"But Mom had it here the whole time," she thought. "And now nobody knows."
Nobody but Chiyo Suzuhara, at any rate.
Ah yes, she needed a costume. Preferably with a mask. That part solved itself quickest of all, the headdress she'd taken from the museum fit her head near perfectly. For the rest, well, she didn't want to fight in her school uniform. She needed something else.
To accomplish this, she decided she needed something practical. And that's when she dug through the closet and pulled out her old P.E. clothes.
A few snips of a handy pair of scissors did wonders to modify them, make it more like a costume, and the fact that it was much old, and therefore tighter on her frame, meant it was less likely to be a hindrance in a fight. Best part was, it was from a school she wasn't attending anymore. Even if someone traced it's origin to her old elementary school gym class, she wasn't participating in it anymore. The odds of them finding her were therefore slim at best.
But could she really do this? Go out and be a superhero? Now that she was ready, and had paused to think about it, it sounded silly. Besides, compared to raw powerhouses like Wondergirl and the Green Lantern, heck even Steel... she was just a small girl with a mace and a pair of wings. What could she do? What difference could she make?
Suddenly the radio cut out, the song she'd been listening to warbled and vanished, replaced by a broadcast.
"Attention people of Tokyo-3!"
She lifted her head from her work, curious who could overcome the broadcast. NERV maybe, which meant trouble. Possibly even an Angel attack.
"We are the Light of the Divine, who cast aside the shadows of ignorance and hatred! We who-!"
Chiyo quirked an eyebrow, wheeling herself over to the radio to nudge up the volume a little. She'd heard of the Light of the Divine, some crazy cultists who'd decided that if NERV was fighting something called an Angel, well, it must have declared war on Heaven itself. They were determined to see NERV and the Eva's destroyed, and had picketed outside of the school on more than one occasion, according to Toji. Personally, Chiyo thought they were nuts. Anyone who mistook the Angels NERV fought for the ones in biblical texts had more than a few screws loose, far as she was concerned.
"-pease the Almighty! And we have taken one of your pilots! THE pilot, no less!"
She blinked. "Wait, what?"
The broadcast continued. "And now, hear if you will the words of our captives. Read it."
A second voice replaced the first, much quieter. She had to strain to hear it properly for a moment. "The Light of the Divine demands the total surrender and dismantling of NERV and the destruction of the heretical war machines known as Evas. This will be done in three hours, or four o'clock local time, or the c-... consequences will be dire. We are... we're in good healt-" before being abruptly cut off. But that wasn't what made the blood run cold in Chiyo's veins.
That was Toji's voice! The Light of the Divine had kidnapped Toji Suzuhara! The pilot must've been Shinji Ikari. Toji had said they'd be stopping by the arcade today with Kensuke, maybe the crazed cultists had grabbed them up while they were in-between levels of Space Invaders.
Oh god, what has my big bro gotten himself into now? she wondered.
The original voice came back on. "-re willing to be reasonable, but do not put us to the test. Our cause is holy, and our wrath terrible to behold. If we see police or any of NERV's security forces anywhere near this building, the lives of the hostages are forfeit. Our demands-"
NERV would surely respond, but could they stop the mad cultists before one of their hostages got hurt?
Chiyo's blue eyes drifted over to the mace, resting on the table. The silvery metal seemed to call to her. Calling for justice.
Chiyo Suzuhara bit her lip so hardly she nearly drew blood.
"Guess it's now or never time," she said, picking up the headdress and tugging it down over her head...
Far below, in the streets, pandemonium reigned. The local police had set up a blockade around the building where the Light of the Divine were holed up, one of the highest skyscrapers in the city, and several were busy trying to keep the curious populace back. In the skies above, two VTOLs hung back at a safe distance, as well as a helicopter and camera crews from local broadcasting stations vying for airspace with the T3PD and Section Two, both of whom were fighting over jurisdiction in the incident.
"-don't care who they are, the fact is that three kids are in the-!"
"One of the hostages is Shinji Ikari," interrupted the Section Two operative, a man in a pair of dark sunglasses and a suit. "As such we have authority to over-ride the situation when one of the hostages happens to be an Evangelion pilo-"
"Along with two civilian students!" the policeman responded. "Now unless you have written authorization from your Command-!"
A screech interrupted the two men, as a blue car broke through their barricade by jumping the curb and coming to a complete stop inches before it smashed into a lamp post. Then again, given the state it was in, it looked like another dent wouldn't have mattered so much. The door slid open and a tall, long-legged woman with purple hair and a red uniform stepped out, striding over towards them as she yanked off her sunglasses.
"Misato Katsuragi," she said, flashing a badge. "NERV Operations Director. I'll be taking charge here. What's the situation?"
"Listen lady, NERV may be-!"
"Shut up!" she said, pushing the annoying cop out of the way. "I said I wanted sit rep." When the others hesitated, she added in a more forceful tone of voice. "NOW."
The young police officer stepped down, suddenly contrite, and the Section Two thug looked away, hoping and praying the Colonel wouldn't recognize his face. After all, it had been his lapse that resulted in the pilot getting kidnapped in the first place. He'd be lucky if all he got was fired for this.
An older policeman with a bushy moustache stepped forward. "We've secured the building, Colonel. There's no way in or out, but unfortunately the cultists seem to be well aware of this. They're holding up on the topmost three floors, with hostages at the very top. Any attempt to breach will give them ample warning and more than enough time to carry through on their threats."
"Goddamnit," muttered Misato, glancing skyward. "What about an assault from the roof?"
He shook his head. "Can't be done. The top floor has wide windows and visibly in all directions, there's no way someone could make it up there unless they were dropped directly from above. And it's too narrow for a helicopter or a VTOL."
"Snipers?"
"Moving into position. We need twenty minutes."
She grabbed up a megaphone from one of the witless cops nearby.
"Colonel? What're you going to do?"
"Stall," she replied softly, then flicked the switch and raised the megaphone to her lips. "Attention! This is NERV Director of Operations, Lieutenant Colonel Misato Katsuragi! We are willing to negotiate for the release of the Evangelion Pilot! Please state your demands!"
A voice boomed down from above, amplified by technology. "Ah, the mighty NERV comes beg for the release of their precious puppet, does it?"
Misato resisted the urge to growl, but just barely. "NERV exists for the protection of all mankind. What you are doing is fundamentally-"
High above, in the captured office building, another cultist, in a white robe with less ostentatious ornaments, stepped up to the high priest and whispered into his ear. The older man nodded. "Silence! We see through your transparent lies!" he called out, his voice echoing through the megaphone and down into the street. "We know of your feeble attempts to rescue the pilots. You would bring damnation down upon us all. But we will not stand for it. And to prove how very serious we are... we will now kill one of the hostages," stated the leader. He lowered the megaphone and made a jerking motion with his head. Two of his white-robed cultist friends grabbed the arms of Toji, dragging him onto the balcony. The jock struggled for all he was worth, but he was outnumbered and out-muscled by the others.
"Leave him alone!" shouted Shinji, only to immediately be knocked back down by another cultist. "It's me you want, let them go!"
"Shut up, boy!"
Shinji fell to the ground, lip split and bleeding, helpless to do anything but watch as Toji was dragged to the open window and hoisted up by the two crazed men and brought to the open window. He struggled with everything he had up until he very last minute, when he was pitched forward and out the window. Gravity claimed him an instant, and he was instantly in free fall.
Ohgodohgodohgodohgod... he thought, speeding past the floors at a dizzying rate. His eyes snapped closed, and he did the only sensible thing he could. Pray he passed out before he actually hit the ground far below.
Suddenly, something caught his jacket, and he lurched to a hard stop. He almost lost his lunch at the sudden change in motion, and glanced up in shock. He looked up, unable to comprehend what had happened, and then he saw her.
It was one of the superwomen. It had to have been. No one else could've gotten away with such an outfit.
A set of canary yellow pants encompassed her legs, with black stripes running down either side all the way to a pair of black boots. On her upper body she wore a top of a similar black and yellow, which left her small but very firm arms bare and stopped just below her chest, leaving her toned midriff visible. A modern belt with a buckle was slung across her narrow waist, and a heavy mace hung from a clip on it. A dark headdress covered the top of her head, a few black tresses sneaking out from the back as it served to conceal the top half of her head, allowing only a pair of blue eyes to peek out from their eye holes. The design flowed out to either side of her head like a pair of wings.
But was what was most curious was her face. What little he could see under the mask of the face was pretty, with a dainty chin and soft cheekbones that meant she'd probably blossom into beautiful when she was older. It didn't look quite angelic, but it did seem to give a measure of comfort on an almost familiar, subconscious level.
And then of course, there was the wings. As if he needed more evidence he'd been saved by a superwoman. They gave an a hard flap as the winged girl tried to steady their flight, though Toji squirmed, already feeling them starting to fall again. His legs kicked ineffectively at the air before he could stop himself.
"Relax, I got you! Huuunnngh. Damn you're heavy!"
Straining mightily against the additional weight of Toji, the winged girl arched their descent, using momentum to swing the two of them towards another sky scraper nearby. She dropped Toji as soon as it seemed he was a safe distance, and he landed with a stumble, falling onto his side. She was there a moment later, though she did not actually land, just sort of hovered a few inches off of the roof as her wings drew in closer to her lithe frame.
"Are you alright?" she asked, hand on his shoulder. "Did they hurt you?"
"I-... I think I'm okay," he said, his heart still racing from his near death experience. Then he suddenly remembered. "Kensuke! Shinji! They're still over there!"
"Stay here," she instructed, unclipping the mace swinging from her hip and flinging herself off the rooftop before he could stop her. Great wings spread out instantly to catch her, and the strange winged girl caught an updraft, circling her way back up to the very building he'd just fallen from.
Toji Suzuhara could only watch in stunned silence, unable to form a coherent thought until a stray breeze reminded him he was still close to fifty stories up.
How the heck do I get down? he wondered.
"You see now how very serious we are!" bellowed their leader, again addressing the law enforcement in the streets below. "We have already been more than patient enough with all of you. We fight for the salvation of mankind itself!"
"Sir?"
"Not now," he hissed, hand cupping the megaphone before turning back to it. "We are the Light that will cast out shadows!"
"SIR!"
"WHAT?"
His underling pointed a trembling finger, and the cult leader turned, just in time to see a small, winged girl with a heavy mace smash through a window and come crashing into the abandoned office, sending glass shards scattering everywhere. Half of the room's occupants threw up their arms in defense as she came to a halt in the middle of the room.
Chiyo instantly identified the hostages, recognizing Kensuke easily, and Shinji from the numerous reports she'd read about her own accident. Plus, they were the only two in the room who didn't look completely ridiculous in those silly white and golden robes.
"An angel! A true messenger! We are in the presence of a savior!" cried the Light of the Divine leader.
Chiyo frowned darkly, and slapped her mace into her hand, tugging on the top of the handle to activate it and letting lightning crackle along the spiked head.
"Guess again," she growled. "RaaaaAAH!"
Chiyo surged forward, swinging around with the mace to slam the older man in the gut. The force of the blow was amplified far beyond anything her diminutive frame suggested she was capable of, and the cultist was swept clean off his feet, flying through the air to crash against the far wall. Even if that hadn't knocked him unconscious, the electrical field by the mace would've done the trick. It was like being hit by a taser, it really messed you up for a good few minutes, but it wouldn't leave any permanent damage. Not that Chiyo was feeling charitable right now.
"Get her!"
Two more of the Light of the Divine threw themselves at her, one from each side. Chiyo performed a backflip through the air, trusting the wings to move her as effortlessly as an acrobat. The clumsy cultists crashed into one another instead of her, and she followed up by rapping both of them lightly on the head with her weapon, knocking them out.
She heard a click, and her head snapped up. One of them had drawn a weapon.
Without hesitation she twirled her mace around in her hand and threw it hard as she could, across the room, to slam into the cultists gut. He slammed into a wall, his shots going wild into the ceiling before he let go of the trigger and collapses in a heap.
Maybe I should practice a bit more with these, she thought as she recovered the mace. I don't know my own strength anymore.
She suspected the bracers and the harness had been increasing her strength, but she'd know idea just how powerful she'd become until this very moment. A ninety pound girl was tossing aside full grown men like they were cardboard cut outs.
Dropping another cultists, she took a quick look around, but found no one left to fight. To a one, all of the Light of the Divine were out cold, though she could see that none of them were dead, though they'd be badly bruised and broken for a long while indeed. No less than they deserved.
"Uhm..."
She tilted her head, spotting the Shinji and Kensuke, both unharmed and virtually untouched despite the carnage the room had gone through.
Shinji suddenly snapped upright, as if remembering something, and was on his feet in minutes with a panicked expression. "What about Toji?"
"Oh he's-" and Chiyo cut herself off, stammering as she realized that she shouldn't know who Toji is. Fortunately she quickly recovered. "Uhm, he's the boy who fell out the window earlier, right?"
"That'd be him," Kensuke replied.
"It's okay, I caught him. Oh, by you may want to send someone to pick him up, he's on the rooftop on the building across the street. Can't miss it."
"T-thank you," was all he said. And Chiyo smiled.
Then she heard a commotion from below, more shouts, and a few gunshots. Chiyo realized the police or Section Two had broken through the barrier and were swarming inside now. Not wanting to be caught, she clipped her mace at her side and made her way to the open window, pulling herself through and into open air again.
Shinji could only stare numbly, and wonder just what the hell had happened.
Kensuke, by contrast, had enough of a clear head to raise up his camera and try and get a few shots off. But by the time he had, their rescuer was a fair ways off, looping through the air as she dove behind another tall building and vanished from sight.
After the masked superwoman had left, Section Two had burst in, half expecting a confrontation with armed and dangerous cultists. Thus they were understandably confused when they found the Light of the Divine lying comatose and battered all across the room and their objective, the Third Child, completely unharmed. Kensuke Aida was equally unscathed by the encounter, and both were released after a brief interview with the head of Section Two, a humorless man by the name of Chiron.
Misato's relief had been much more tangible. Chiron had barely excused himself to deal with his underlings than the purple-haired woman had all but jumped on Shinji and pulled into him into a bone-crushing embrace.
"Don't you ever scare me like that again, you hear!"
The Third Child tried to assure her he would never do such a thing, but unfortunately, the taller woman had caught his head against her ample chest when she'd hugged him, and now he had to struggle just to keep conscious from lack of air and blood rushing through various parts of his anatomy. In other words, another perfectly awkward day for Shinji.
If it hadn't been for NERV's official report, their father might never have believed Toji. As it was, Chiyo had to keep a very straight face the whole time to feign her own disbelief.
"Simply amazing," muttered their father, feeling light-headed. Both of his children had been through near-brushes with death in the span of a month, Toji twice. At this rate he wouldn't have many dark hairs left, they'd all go gray, or fall out completely like his own fathers. He almost wished he could've moved them all away, but honestly, he was indispensable at the lab, and the lab was only located in Tokyo-3.
So like it or not, they were stuck here for now.
Fortunately, Toji seemed to shrug off his near-death experience relatively well, though he was quieter tonight than usual. He'd even offered to cook dinner, something he usually begged off because he hated doing it so much.
Plus, his skills were tantamount to first degree murder.
"I just realized how little I seemed to do around here," he'd said. "Seems like the least I can do."
The Suzuhara family patron allowed himself a smile as he watched his children go about their usual routine, and thanked whatever divine being was listening that the spirit for overcoming adversity was so strong in both of them.
Chiyo wheeled up to the table and poked a fork at the meal. Toji was a terrible cook, but she was hardly going to critique, at least he was nice enough to do something for them all.
To delay the inevitably horrible food from reaching her mouth she rifled through the newspaper, then paused as she caught sight of Toji's Tokyo Tattler copy on the table. Toji had been buying regular copies ever since Wondergirl's debut for news on the Superwomen, and since she now more or less qualified as one, Chiyo was curious (and a little nervous) to know if she'd made the papers. She scooped it up and rifled through it.
"Hey Toji, you made the news," Chiyo said.
He paused in his cooking. "What?"
"Yeah that kidnapping incident... looks like someone got a snapshot of your rescuer too, see?"
She showed him the picture on the front, which involved an amateur photo of Chiyo as she was flying away from the scene. The angle was much too poor to even see her face, and far too grainy, she had no worries someone would recognize it was her. But a woman with wings and carrying a mace was rather distinct all the same.
"Oh yes, the angel," remarked their father, finishing off his plate.
Toji smiled, then a thought came to him. "Oh hey, they came up with a new name for her too. Must've decided they can't call her an Angel, what with NERV monopolizing the rights to the name and making it our numero uno mortal enemy."
"So what're they naming her?" asked Chiyo, turning the tabloid back around to read the title. He answered her at the same moment she read it aloud.
"Hawkgirl."
Next Time!
"But... there's no way we could possibly repay you for this," Chiyo replied.
Mayumi smiled, adjusting her glasses again. A stray ray of light caught the lenses, rendering her eyes invisible. "Oh I'm sure something will come up in the future. It's always good to have allies in my line of work."
Omake - Bad Publicity
"So what're they naming her?"
"Bludgeoning Angel."
Chiyo spit out her orange juice. All over Toji. "That's the stupidest name I've ever heard!" she yelled, shredding the Tokyo Tattler into pieces with her bare hands. And then burning it for good measure.
Authors Notes:
Obviously I'm taking quite a lot of creative licenses with the Hawk's Nth Metal equipment and their powers. But I blame the comics, its an even more confusing mess, trust me.
If Tokyo has a Tokyo-2 and Tokyo-3, no reason that Midway City doesn't get a New Midway City following Second Impact.