Evangelion: X-Treme Measures
Chapter 5: Doing The Math
In the Canadian Rockies
Logan awoke with a roar claws extended, nostrils flared, breathing sharp. He looked like an animal trapped in a corner ready to go out with blood on it's fangs. Then the reality came flooding in and he realized where he was.
Easy old man, easy. Logan thought fighting an uphill battle to calm his breath. He searched for Kayla while retracting his claws, and found those big doe like brown eyes looking at him with not fear as most had looked at him with, but concern.
"Was it the wars?" She asked having grown accustomed to his past.
Logan wished it had been that. What had caused his mind to go on the warpath was he had felt death. The kind of death he and Victor had dealt out for close to a hundred years, the kind of death that Stryker had tried to get him to keep giving out when he bailed them out of prison. The kind of death, that he was good at.
"Yeah." He lied.
"Which one?" Kayla asked out of curiosity.
"All of them." That technically wasn't a lie.
Kayla crawled back into bed and slapped Logan's hand away from the claw marks on her arms.
"Nothing to worry about." She said as she settled back in to Logan's arms.
"Looks like we're going to need new sheets baby." She added groggily before letting sleep take over.
"Yeah." Logan chuckled out letting her sleep. He settled back into bed but kept his mind alert, something still seemed ... off. Just not right. He searched with his heightened senses for any intruders who might be on the property, and found no one.
He left it at that but fell into a restless, dreamless sleep.
In Tokyo-3, NERV HQ
Gendo laid dead in the morgue. Stryker has sent Team X out to search the city and surrounding areas for Victor when it had become apparent he was the culprit. John Wraith had searched all of the subway tunnels in the city because his ever paranoid mind had been convinced that's where Victor would go to for escape. He had found some tracks but they had lead to him to the docks somehow. He radioed in the information and let other take over the search. He now walked through the halls of NERV trying to find Stryker to get relieved, god he wanted a beer, when he came upon a figure that made him freeze.
A boy of no more than fourteen, dressed in what John assumed were his sleep clothes, was sitting in a chair, hunched over with a aura of depression and confusion surrounding him. The dim lights helped the picture reach a new level of gloom. John looked at the figure in sadness. He sighed and walked over the teen, beer forgotten.
"Hey kid. How yah holdin' up?" He asked taking the seat next to him.
Shinji looked up at the teleporter with some hesitance. "Alright I guess."
"Hey-I'm um-I'm sorry about-"
"Don't be." Shinji interrupted.
This confused John, and made him worry.
"Why?" John asked.
"Because...I'm not sure...if I'm sorry either." Shinji hesitated.
John looked at the boy and remembered his own past. He asked Shinji about his relationship with his father. Shinji was hesitant but with some coaxing told John about his mother, being sent away, and being brought back just to pilot EVA.
John looked to the floor and remembered having a similar conversation with his boxing coach, so many years ago. He sighed because he knew what had to be done.
"My mom died when I was young too." He started. He saw Shinji look at him. Good I have his attention.
"Cancer took her." He continued and took off his hat.
"And personally I would have rather been sent away, because my ole man beat my ass until my powers kicked in. Until then the doctor at the hospital knew more about me than he did." He stopped, the wound may have healed on this event but the scar was still there. But had to be done.
"I always wanted to be somewhere else, to just-just runaway. Then when I turned twelve-" BAMF! He ported to the other side of Shinji. "I could."
"What'd you do?" Shinji asked, wanting him to continue.
"I did just that, I ran away. Teleported onto a few trucks until I ended up in New Orleans, I was born in Mississippi forgot to tell ya that, and met Chuck." He reminisced.
"Who's Chuck?" Shinji was feeling better having someone who he could relate to.
"He owned a gym in New Orleans, taught me how to box." He said putting his hands up in the classic boxer position, with a slight smile on his face remembering his days in the gym.
"You ever seen a boxing match Shinji?" He asked looking to the boy.
"Uh, I'm not much for fighting." Shinji admitted shyly.
"Oh, there's more to boxing than just fighting. There's more to every fighting style than just fighting. There's technique, the training, the reason behind fighting that way. " John said counting off on his fingers.
"Maybe I'll show you a few moves sometime." He smiled at Shinji.
"Really?" Shinji said actually a little...happy.
"Sure." John said shrugging his shoulders.
"Wraith." cried a new voice down the hall. John and Shinji looked to see Zero standing a the end of the long, eerie hallway.
"Stryker need us." He said.
"Alright." He said.
"Sorry kid. Gotta go." He said towards Shinji. Shinji nodded and Wraith began to walk down the hallway.
Shinji thought about the conversation he just had with the man and noticed something amiss with some facts.
After the attack over a month ago Misato had demanded at least some information about the pilots bodyguards. She hadn't gotten much but she had shared it with the pilots. One piece of information they got was the ages of the Team X members. John Wraith's age was listed as thirty-five.
Shinji did the math and it didn't make sense. If the story he had been told was true... than John Wraith had been using his powers for eight years when Second Impact happened.
Author's Notes:
Okay I'm finally back and I realize this is a short chapter but the next chapter is going to be a big action chapter involving Victor and Wolverine (not really a spoiler since it's kind of obvious). So I wanted to have this chapter be short and add a few more details to the story.
Also I'd like to thank everyone that reviewed while I was I was working on other stuff.
A few people have said I should make the pilots have powers but I've seen similar things in other stories. You know the pilots meet some cross-over character and then they get the same powers that the character has, and I don't want to do that. But someone is going to get powers and I'm going to give you guys a hint. Watch a few episodes of Wolverine and The X-Men and look at the main team on that show and look for any similarities to Evangelion characters.