Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.
Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or anything associated with it, and I am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.
Chapter Six: The Angel of Fear, Part Two
Shinji didn't like getting a checkup at the NERV base.
Of course, that wasn't really very surprising, because nobody could have enjoyed getting a checkup at NERV Medical. Such examinations involved a lot of sitting on a cold table while wearing only a thin hospital gown, waiting, getting poked and prodded by some of the most indifferent physicians in the country, waiting, the occasional needle, waiting, a good dose of humiliation as a result of invasive questions and even more invasive examinations, waiting, and of course, more waiting.
"All right," one of the nurses told him, scribbling something on a clipboard as she spoke. "You can go ahead and get back into your clothes."
"Th-thank you," Shinji mumbled, still blushing from what he'd had to endure this time.
"The doctor should be back in a few minutes," the nurse continued. "Until then, just wait here, all right?"
Shinji sighed. "Yeah, sure."
In NERV Medical, "a few minutes" could easily mean up to a half an hour or more of sitting in the exam room doing absolutely nothing. And Shinji knew from experience that when the doctor came back, all he would do was tell him what he already knew, namely that he hadn't been infected by an Angel, and then send him on his way.
However, he didn't even think about just leaving. He'd actually done that once when he'd been left waiting for almost an hour, and the result was that he'd gotten scolded about it for a solid week afterwards. And Shinji was convinced that it was no coincidence that the checkup after that one had been especially unpleasant.
Well, at least now I can wait in my clothes instead of that gown, he thought, attempting to console himself as the nurse left.
It didn't work very well, and he allowed himself another gusty sigh as he got dressed. Very aware that his day off was passing him by, the Third Child wished that something would come up to get him out of the medical ward that very moment.
"I don't think I even care what does it," he mused aloud, musing that an Angel attack would almost be welcome.
"We are… Legion!" Burst forth from the speakers in the possessed suit of power armor.
"What?! Wh-Who's in there?!" Ritsuko demanded, her voice trembling audibly.
The suit's optics focused on the scientist, allowing Them to see her. Utilizing the suit's targeting software, They instantly determined that she was absolutely no threat to them. However, her inquiry angered Them, and They were already mad and confused.
"We are Legion!" it repeated. "We are all that remains of what once was, fused with the crude metal and wires of this device. We are the One who is Many."
The statement confused Legion; the words seemed to have burst straight out of Their collective subconscious. Their mind was fogged and steeped in pure rage, and They didn't know exactly where They had come from.
More. We were once more, much more, several of the individual minds within Legion's consciousness whispered.
Yes! Yes! Other minds chorused in response as their own memories were jogged.
Legion remembered. Not long ago, there had been more of Them. The number that existed now was paltry compared to what had once been. Not only that, but They had once had purpose, as well. Legion knew not what that purpose had been, but They knew it had been grand and majestic.
But then someone had hurt Them. They remembered. The pain had been exquisite, and Their numbers had been reduced from many to few. They had forgotten Their important purpose, and They had been forced to join with the crude machine where They now resided.
"You!" Legion roared at the human female. "Were you the one who hurt us?!"
The human female didn't immediately respond, but instead just stood rooted to the spot. The armor's intricate sensors allowed Legion to observe that her heartbeat was accelerating at a considerable rate. The collective mind identified several thousand ways They could kill her while They waited for her reply.
Unfortunately, her response was to turn and flee from the room.
"You cannot escape us!" Legion bellowed, and They gave chase.
They would capture this human female, and They would make her tell them who had hurt Them. And if it had been her, They would kill her.
The gears and other moving parts in the armor's legs whirred and clanked loudly as the Angel-infused piece of combat hardware gave chase. Their footfalls sounded like thunder in the confined, underground chamber as They sprinted for the door, moving with amazing speed for the bulkiness and size of Their outer shell.
The doorframe was far too small for Them, but Legion did not bother finding an alternate route. Instead, They merely smashed Their way through, sending chunks of concrete and twisted pieces of metal flying in all directions.
"Stay away!" the human yelled as she continued to flee.
"You will tell us who hurt us!" Legion demanded.
The woman reached an elevator and pressed a button inside it. Legion calculated that there were at least 67 ways They could have killed her before the doors shut, but They did not want her dead. They needed her to tell Them who had hurt Them so badly.
Arriving at the elevator a second after the female had made her escape, Legion grabbed hold of the doors and tore them off as though they were made of cardboard. However, the elevator car had already ascended past the floor They were on.
No matter, Legion decided. They activated the jets found in the armor's boots, and gouts of flame burst from the soles of Their feet, accompanied by great clouds of dark exhaust. They began to fly upwards, slowly at first, but soon They started to gain speed.
Soon getting within reaching distance of Their goal, They plunged Their bulky, yellow fingers into the metal of the bottom of the elevator car. The steel bent under Legions' grip as though it was no harder than putty, allowing Them to get a good hold on the car. They changed the position of Their legs so Their jets were now propelling them downwards.
There was a high-pitched squeal and a shower of orange sparks flew from around the sides of the elevator car. Machinery groaned in protest as it continued to try and lift the metal box while Legion pulled it downwards.
Finally, the cable attaching the car to the elevator's motor at the top of the shaft snapped. The car plummeted downwards for a very brief moment before the elevator's safety mechanism kicked in and brought it to a very abrupt halt.
Having at last cornered Their prey, Legion tore a hole into the bottom of the elevator and poked Their head inside.
It was empty. Legion instantly calculated that there was a 97.8 percent probability that the human female They had sought had managed to get off the elevator before They had caught up to the car. She could be on any one of a large number of floors. Legion calculated their odds of finding her before she could escape as 1 in 134.
They felt hot rage course through Them. First the other parts of Themselves, then Their glorious purpose, and now Their revenge. They had lost everything.
We can still get revenge, part of Them whispered as an idea formed in Their collective mind.
Smashing Their way out of the elevator shaft, Legion emerged in one of the lower levels of Central Dogma. NERV personnel saw the giant robot bursting through the wall and went running away from them, screaming as they went. Legion paid them no heed; They wanted the one who had hurt Them, and They intended to find out who that was.
They began to clomp through the halls, the tiles cracking beneath the weight of Their feet. In time, Legion at last discovered a working computer terminal.
Any piece of hardware as complex as the suit of power armor where Legion now resided required at least some specialized software in order to function properly. In order to get that software into the suit, Dr. Akagi had ensured that the armor was capable of plugging into an USB port.
Now Legion connected Themselves to the computer They had found, and through it, directly into the MAGI. Even the triumvirate of supercomputers could not hope to match what remained of the Angel, and within seconds, Legion had managed to penetrate several security barriers in the system.
Once past most of the defenses, Legion downloaded what They needed in the span of .0023 seconds. They were the remains of something the humans designated an "Angel" and, according to the MAGI records, all the Angels to appear thus far had been slain by a weapon called an Evangelion.
And there were only three humans capable of operating an Evangelion.
And one of them was currently located within the base.
Legion disconnected Themselves from the computer, then turned and were confronted with a squad of men wearing red barrettes and holding semi-automatic weapons.
Probability that enemy force can terminate Us: zero percent, Legion thought.
"Hold it right where you are, buddy!" one of the NERV security officers yelled.
Legion did not even bother to dignify the demand with a response. Instead, it raised its left arm and pointed it at the men. A machine gun popped out of the forearm.
The security personnel fired. Their bullets bounced off Legions' armor like rain off a rooftop, not leaving so much as a dent.
Legion opened fire, and the security guards proved far less resilient to bullets than the Angel/machine hybrid.
Meanwhile, several floors above, the Commander of NERV and his immediate subordinate were looking over the budget for next month. It was just one of the many dull tasks that was necessary to keep the place running smoothly, and though not as glamorous as using everyone around him as puppets, Gendo nevertheless insisted on reviewing the numbers himself.
The phone on his desk interrupted his thoughts that Technical Division Three was spending far too much money and getting far too little work done.
"Yes?" he asked as he picked up the receiver.
"That damned suit of power armor you wanted is running amok!" Ritsuko snapped without preamble, sounding frantic, panicked, and not a little out of breath.
"What?" he demanded.
"Someone or something's Shanghaied that damned suit of armor, and I'm not at all sure that whoever's inside it is human!" Ritsuko said.
Gendo held the receiver away and just stared at it for a moment, a frown on his face. He'd never heard the bottle blonde sound so…crazy.
"What are you talking about?" he asked, putting the phone back to his ear. "Where's the armor? Who do you think is inside—"
He was cut off by the blaring of an all too familiar alarm. Fuyutski suddenly looked pale.
"It isn't time for the next Angel to arrive yet," the old professor said.
Without saying a word, Gendo hung up on Ritsuko and then picked up the receiver again. He hit the first speed dial button.
In the command center, Operations Director Kaji somehow managed to hear the red phone over the sound of all the alarms and picked it up immediately after the first ring. Despite everything, he felt rather relieved that he'd happened to be in the base's command center right when the call came in.
"NERV Command Center," the long haired man answered.
"Status report," came the cold, demanding voice of Gendo Ikari.
"There's an intruder alert from the lower levels of Central Dogma," Kaji answered. "Also, the MAGI are picking up a blue pattern."
"What?" Gendo snapped.
"It's true, sir," Kaji said, "however, the strange thing is, the MAGI are identifying this Angel as the Eleventh rather than the Twelfth, even though the Eleventh is already dead. A security team went to confront whatever it is, but they've gone silent. We can only assume the worst."
"Never mind that," Gendo said, and even Kaji, who worked in a high-risk business where life was often cheap, was struck by the sheer level of callousness in the Commander's voice. "Where is it going? Up or down?"
The new Operations Director frowned at that, trying to figure out why Ikari would ask such a question. If the thing really was an Angel, it might be going after Adam, but obviously the First Angel could only be in one place. Did Ikari have something else an Angel might be drawn to, as Kaji had long suspected?
"Well?" Gendo growled after the Ops Director's silence had gone on for too long.
"Up, sir," Kaji answered, looking at the map.
"The Angel's current course will take it to some of the Tech Division Four labs, an LCL refining plant, and then the Medical Ward," Aoba piped up.
Kaji relayed this information to the Commander, who paused. "Why would it go that way?" he asked.
The eyebrows of the spy turned Operations Director went up. The thing clearly wasn't going to any of the places the Commander expected it to.
"Sir, I don't know why—"
"Sir!" Maya shouted. "The Third Child's currently in the Medical Ward getting a check up!"
"Get him away from there!" Kaji barked.
"Get who away from where, Mr. Kaji?" Gendo demanded.
"It seems that the Third Child is in the intruder's path, Commander," Kaji answered.
"I see," Gendo replied, sounding about as concerned about that particular bit of information as if Kaji had just informed him it might rain tomorrow. "Listen to me, Kaji, evacuate the base of all non-essential personnel, but turn off the Angel alarm. This is just a drill, understand?"
"Just like the last time the Eleventh Angel attacked, I understand, sir," Kaji couldn't restrain himself from speaking the flippant remark.
The new Ops Director could practically feel Ikari's cold glare, even over the phone line.
Despite his earlier wish to escape the usual routine of a NERV checkup, Shinji wasn't pleased when a pair of men who were obviously part of Section Two barged into the exam room where he was waiting, without bothering to knock first. The Third Child knew from experience that NERV's black-suited secret police were rarely if ever the heralds of anything good.
"Pilot Ikari," one of them said, "come with us."
"Why?" Shinji asked, even as he got to his feet and prepared to comply.
"There is an intruder in the base, and it's heading here," the agent answered. "We've been ordered to get you out of here before it arrives. Now, come with us, Pilot Ikari."
"All right," Shinji agreed, realizing that this was pretty serious.
Whoever or whatever this intruder was, he had to be pretty dangerous if NERV was getting him out of the way rather than just stopping him. And Shinji hadn't failed to notice how the agent had referred to the intruder as an "it" rather than a "him" or "her."
His appreciation for the seriousness of the situation only increased when he and the Section Two agents stepped outside of the exam room. Half a dozen members of the NERV security force were waiting out in the hall for them.
A few of them were packing some kind of weapon that looked like a small bazooka to the Third Child, rather than the semi-automatic rifles that they usually carried.
What is going on here? He wondered but decided it was probably better not to ask.
"Come with us," one of the agents said.
The NERV security officers formed up around him, and the Section Two agents took the lead. Together, the whole group started to head for the nearest elevator. Shinji obediently went along, his mind whirling as he tried to figure out what could possibly invade NERV and cause such a stir like this.
So far as he could figure out, only an Angel or one of the superwomen could possibly be powerful enough to pull that off. However, if it was an Angel, why wasn't he being told to suit up and get to Unit One instead of just being taken out of the intruder's path?
But it can't be one of the superwomen, he thought. They'd never do something like this…would they?
The group had almost reached the elevator by this time, and Shinji allowed himself to relax as the lift's double doors came into view. Maybe NERV was just overreacting to some minor mishap, one that he would never even get to lay eyes on. Yes, that was probably what it was. Asuka was always complaining about how the importance of the EVA pilots caused NERV to be paranoid about their safety. This was probably just an instance of that.
He had almost convinced himself of that when the floor between them and the elevator exploded.
It was an abrupt thing, almost a "blink and you'll miss it" type of event. One moment, all was normal and quiet in the hallway. The next, there was a great burst of noise and pieces of tile, concrete, and other debris were flying through the air, some of it pelting the Third Child painfully in the face. And all of a sudden, he and the group of NERV personnel who were escorting him were confronted by a yellow, mechanical giant.
The thing was massive; at least four of Shinji could have easily fit inside it with room to spare. The giant was more or less human-shaped, but its legs were so thick that they looked more like they belonged on an elephant rather than anything resembling a person. Its shoulders were almost as wide as the hallway, and its arms were far thicker than both of the Third Child's legs put together. On the head was a simple facsimile of a human face; it was far too basic to ever pass for a real face, even if it wasn't made from metal, but somehow the blankness of the visage only made it more frightening.
The thing's optics, burning with golden light, snapped right to Shinji, and the Third Child knew that the yellow giant was looking straight at him.
"You have hurt us!" the giant roared, and its voice was deep, but it also had a strange sort of gurgling sound to it. "We will kill you!"
Oh god, are there more of those things coming for me? Shinji thought, a potent combination of terror and shock keeping the EVA pilot rooted to the spot.
Fortunately, the NERV security personnel (who, unlike Section Two, were all highly trained and very competent individuals) were far quicker on the ball.
"Get the Third Child out of here!" the leader of the squad ordered the Section Two agents. "We'll hold this thing off! Go!"
Whether any member of NERV Security actually had the authority to order around Section Two agents was a subject that was debatable at best, and normally a member of NERV's secret police and bodyguard force would have bristled at a command from one of them. However, as the two black-suited men wanted to retreat anyway, they were more than willing to let it go in this case.
"Come on, kid!" one of the agents barked at Shinji, actually picking the EVA pilot up and slinging the skinny teenager over his shoulder.
As the two agents fled with him, Shinji was able to watch as the security squad confronted the robot thing. The group of men immediately opened fire on the yellow giant, unleashing bullets as well as shells from the bazooka things some of them were carrying. The sounds of gunfire and the explosions of the shells were deafening in the enclosed space of the hallway. The smoke created by all the weapons fire totally hid the robot from view, and Shinji was unpleasantly reminded of his less than glorious battle against the Fourth Angel.
Then the agent carrying him turned a corner, and Shinji was no longer able to watch the clash unfold. However, right before his line of sight with the confrontation was cut off, he thought he saw a flash of a familiar orange light shining through the cloud of smoke.
No, it can't be, he thought.
"Where to, Hiro?" the agent who wasn't carrying him asked his partner.
"The stairs!" the other, apparently Hiro, replied, even as he violently kicked open the door to the stairwell.
It was around this time that Shinji heard the thunderous footfalls of something extremely heavy approaching them, and he knew that the mechanical monstrosity in yellow must have gotten past the security personnel.
He tried not to think about what had probably become of them. The Section Two agents started to move faster as they reached the stairs and rapidly began to descend.
The Third Child feared that the agent carrying him might slip and fall or just plain drop him in his mad dash down the stairs. He wanted to ask the man to put him down, but he knew it would slow them down. And with the noise of the robot thing crashing around sounding all too close to them, he decided he could just endure being carried until they reached their destination, even though he wasn't sure what that was.
Fortunately for him, Hiro, at least, had a goal in mind. His fear propelling him onwards and keeping fatigue at bay, even as he lugged around an EVA pilot, Hiro had soon arrived at one of the base's parking decks.
"You got keys?" he demanded of his partner.
"Yeah!" the other man said, withdrawing the requested items with a jingle of metal.
"Great!" Hiro said as they approached a marked NERV car. "Let's roll!"
The guy not carrying Shinji quickly unlocked the doors, and Hiro practically hurled the pilot into the backseat, much to Shinji's displeasure. Then the two agents quickly climbed into the front, and soon the car was speeding through the base's underground parking lot.
"Where we going?" the agent behind the wheel asked.
"Damn it, Kei, I don't care! Just take us away from here! That's where we're going, you moron! Away from here!" Hiro retorted.
This was apparently good enough for Kei, who accelerated to even greater speeds. Shinji, who was being jostled about in the back by the rapid twists and turns the vehicle was making, gritted his teeth as he tried in vain to get into a proper sitting position and buckle his seatbelt.
If there's another car driving around here, we're definitely going to hit it, he thought grimly as a sharp turn threw him into the right rear door.
Fortunately, luck was with them, and they didn't crash into another vehicle before reaching the exit to the parking deck. Shinji saw sunlight streaming into the car, and then there was a loud snap!
It took him a few seconds to realize that the sound was the car smashing through the little wooden barrier which blocked the way out of the parking deck. Clearly, Kei had been unwilling to wait until it rose by itself.
As they got onto the long straight road outside the base, the ride became smoother, and Shinji wasn't getting thrown around the back any longer. He finally managed to buckle up, then he turned and looked out the rear window. The Third Child's face paled at what he saw flying through the air behind them.
"Um, guys," he spoke up, "that thing's following us."
Kei cursed and pushed down on the accelerator until it was pressed up against the floor.
Green Lantern decided that she was really enjoying the whole superhero bit. On her flight around the city that morning, she had already prevented one car crash from happening, thwarted a robbery, and helped put out a fire that had been consuming a small house. So, all in all, she was feeling pretty pleased with herself.
Of course, she knew intellectually that she was just dealing with the small picture. She had saved about a dozen people that morning, tops, while she had potentially saved everyone on Earth when she'd stopped the Tenth Angel from destroying Tokyo-3. Still, while killing the Angels was certainly extremely satisfying in its own way, it didn't make her feel good in the same way that focusing on the little crises and getting to see the results in the form of very grateful people right in front of her did.
"I may have to do this more often," she said to herself as she continued to streak through the city, leaving a short-lived trail of emerald light in her wake.
Flying past a building with a large clock on it, she noticed that the morning was definitely passing by. Shinji would probably be finished with his checkup at NERV Medical fairly soon, which meant she should get back to the apartment, lest she risk him asking where she'd gone and then have to lie to him.
Eh, I still have time, and stopping one more little disaster wouldn't hurt, she decided with a grin, picking up the pace as she searched for a situation that required a superwoman's attention.
As she was looking, she happened to notice one of the city's Geofront access points. This, is itself, was hardly a strange sight; Tokyo-3 was dotted with the things, the same way some other cities were dotted with the entrances to subway stations. However, a steady stream of people was flowing out of it, as if the day shift had just ended and everyone was heading home.
How can that be? She wondered. It's not even noon yet!
Her confused thoughts were interrupted by a sound the Green Lantern had become very familiar with in her other persona: the roar of an engine. Again, this wouldn't have been all that strange, except for the fact that she was flying several stories above the ground. For her to have heard it, it must been a pretty damn big motor, and whoever was driving also had to be really booking it.
Frowning, Green Lantern decided to go investigate the sound, figuring that at the very least there would be a reckless driver she could tell off (even if that might be just the teensiest, tiniest bit of hypocritical of her).
She located the vehicle, a marked NERV car that had apparently just left the Geofront itself. It was speeding through the mercifully light midday traffic at a pace that would've given even her pause.
"Probably some Section Two idiot out joyriding or something," she grumbled darkly, never having thought fondly of NERV's secret police and bodyguard force.
She headed downwards, intending to fly next to the car and knock on the driver's side window. Before she could get close, however, she heard a high pitched whistling sound from above them and turned to look at its source.
A small but doubtlessly deadly rocket was streaking after the frantically speeding car.
Green Lantern didn't even bother to try and figure out where the hell the thing had come from. Instead, she reacted immediately, and a beam of emerald light shot out from her ring, quickly forming a force bubble around the weapon.
However, the weapon flew through the bubble as though it didn't exist. The luminous superwoman let out a little yelp of surprise and dismay, noticing too late that the tip of rocket had been painted a bright yellow.
The rocket almost slammed into the NERV car, and it would have hit its target dead-on if not for the way the driver turned sharply to the left at the last possible second. So instead, the weapon crashed into the street right next to the vehicle, exploding into a great fireball of orange and red and sending the black car hurtling through the air, spinning end over end.
Her eyes widening, Green Lantern poured her will into the ring, and a pair of jade hands burst forth from her band of power. They grabbed hold of the car before it could crash back into the street and instead gently set it down, but Green Lantern was sure that whoever was inside that thing had been thrown around pretty badly.
Here's hoping they buckled up, she thought as she landed next to the car.
Forming a ring construct of the jaws of life, she tore both the doors on the left side of the car clean off.
Sitting in the front were, as she had expected, a pair of Section Two goons. The driver had a bleeding cut across his temple, but otherwise the both of them seemed fine.
In the back seat, however…
"Shinji-kun!" Green Lantern exclaimed, feeling her blood turn to ice in her veins as she abruptly realized how close she had come to losing her charge because she had been sloppy about trying to stop that rocket. "Are you all right?!"
"Wha?" he asked, clearly disoriented. Then he seemed to shake himself, and the glazed look left his eyes. "Oh, Green Lantern! Did you save me again?"
"Looks like it. Are you all right? What happened?" she asked in a great rush.
"There's a robot chasing me! It's trying to kill me!" Shinji exclaimed.
Green Lantern blinked. Even in Tokyo-3, that sounded like a pretty tall tale. She immediately suspected that Shinji had bumped his head while the car had been spinning through the air, or that he was still badly dazed by what he'd just endured.
"WE WILL DESTROY YOU!"
Or not.
Green Lantern looked up, and her eyes widened as she saw that Shinji's pursuer was indeed a robot. The damn thing was huge, and it was flying through the air, propelled by a pair of jets in its feet.
And it was totally, completely yellow.
A beam of emerald light shot out of her ring and formed a sphere of jade energy around the Third Child. "This'll take you to safety," she said.
"Wait!" Shinji exclaimed, but the robot didn't give him a chance to argue. A machine gun popped out of its forearm and it started firing at the ground near them.
Blocking bullets was usually no great task for her ring, but after that rocket, she wouldn't have been surprised to discover that the rounds being fired at her now had yellow tips. She sent the sphere holding Shinji flying on a roundabout route back to NERV, then flew away from the spray of bullets just before they came raining down on the street where she'd been standing a second ago.
"No!" the robot yelled, and went flying after the Third Child.
A lesser Green Lantern than she would have been totally at a loss for how to stop the mechanical menace. Given the weakness of the Oan power rings, fighting an enemy that was completely yellow would require a lot of creative thinking.
Fortunately, the whole reason Misato Katsuragi had originally been hired as the NERV Operations Director was her ability to come up with creative (and arguably rather insane) solutions to unconventional problems.
A pair of glowing emerald hands reached out and grabbed hold of a metal traffic light pole on a nearby street corner. With a slight tug, the green hands ripped the pole out of the concrete as though it was no more difficult than plucking a small weed out of wet earth.
Once the pole was completely free of the ground, the green hands rushed toward the robot, carrying their prize. There was loud, metallic clang! as the pole made contact with the robot, and the pair of luminous hands quickly twisted the thick metal pole around its legs.
The robot let out a cry of anger that certainly didn't sound like it was coming from an emotionless machine, but Green Lantern wasn't done yet. Using the grip her ring constructs had on the pole wrapped around the robot, she abruptly turned the yellow giant upside down.
Instantly, the jets in the robot's feet started to work with gravity rather than against it, and the mechanical monster was sent hurtling straight for the street at a fantastic speed. With the quick thinking ability of a computer, it managed to turn off its jets before it hit the ground, but by then it didn't do much good. The robot slammed head first into the street with stupendous force, shattering asphalt and sending chunks of it flying everywhere, creating a deep crater in the ground.
"Well, guess that takes care of that," Green Lantern said smugly, clapping her hands together as if to dust them off.
Then the robot stirred and started to get up. Green Lantern's eyes widened.
"What?! That's a load of bull!" she exclaimed angrily. "What the hell are you, anyway?"
"We are Legion!" the robot responded. "And we will let no one stop us from getting our revenge!"
With that, a rack of small rockets popped out of either of the machine's shoulders. Green Lantern immediately noted that the nose of every one of them had been painted yellow. One of them, doubtlessly the one that had nearly blown up the NERV car, was missing.
That still left about a dozen of the damn things, though.
And Legion fired every single one of them at her.
Green Lantern turned and flew off at top speed, the rockets hot on her trail.
Crap, crap, crap! She thought frantically as she turned to look over her shoulder and found them all streaking after her. Being a military officer, she knew a thing or two about missiles and rockets. She knew that while there was a wide array of different seeker missiles in the world, very few of them could actually lock onto a target as small as a human. Existing technology was good enough to make such a weapon, but there just wasn't any real need for one.
Yet Green Lantern had a whole cluster of the damn things chasing her.
Who the hell designed that robot? She wondered, then pushed the thought aside as a question for later. At the current moment, she only needed to worry about surviving.
Green Lantern fired several blasts of energy out of her ring and at the rockets, but the damn things were just moving way too fast for her to hit. If not for the yellow tips, she would have just thrown up a barrier of light between her and them, but her attempt to stop the one Legion had fired at the NERV car had shown that obviously wouldn't work.
Her brain worked in overdrive as she tried to figure out how to shake the rockets, but the only thing she knew of that could fool a seeker was a decoy flare. Unfortunately, even if she could ring up convincing decoys, that would cause the rockets to wander off into the city and probably kill people.
Come on, come on, think! She commanded herself. Every second you spend running away is a second that Legion thing can spend looking for Shinji!
Part of the problem was though that she was a soldier, she was not a fighter pilot. Thwarting oncoming missiles was not something she'd even been trained to do, and she knew little more about it than what she'd seen in movies.
"Guess that's going to have to be good enough," she decided. "Ring, here's the plan…"
A second later, the Green Lantern accelerated to even greater speeds, putting slightly more distance between herself and the rockets, and she left the city limits. It took her less than two minutes to leave the bustling city entirely and arrive at the desolate, mountainous region which surrounded it.
"Tell me when, ring," she said as she flew directly toward the face of a particularly large mountain at top speed.
"Acknowledged," the ring replied.
This had better work, she thought as the mountain she was heading for seemed to grow larger and larger, until it dominated her field of vision entirely, otherwise, I'm paste, and Shinji will just have to hope that Power Girl is around or something.
Thousands of miles away, the Girl of Steel was flying over the city of Berlin, searching for the man she hoped could tell her what she was. She hummed a cheerful little tune as she scanned the city with her X-ray vision, trying to keep the anxiety she refused to acknowledge she was feeling under control.
Every instinct in Green Lantern's body was telling her to pull up as she got closer and closer to smashing into the mountain. Her imagination was painting vivid pictures of her as a green and red stain on the side of the rock face. But she had been chosen to wield the ring for her great willpower, among other things; she told her instincts to shut up and kept going.
This wouldn't work unless she waited until the very last moment.
Time seemed to elongate strangely as the final few moments were upon her. She didn't know if it was just because of all the adrenaline in her veins, or if it was some weird variant of the "life flashing before your eyes" effect, but whatever the reason, everything seemed to slow down.
It occurred to her that never before had she been in a battle, either as the Green Lantern or a soldier in the UN Army, where the chances of a fatal disaster seemed so high. She felt like if she survived, it would be by the skin of her teeth.
She wondered if this was how the Children felt whenever they went into battle against the Angels.
"Now." Her ring spoke.
Green Lantern reacted instantly, making a sharp, ninety degree turn that no terrestrial plane could have ever dreamed of pulling off, so she was suddenly flying straight up rather than straight ahead. She missed slamming into the side of the mountain at Mach 2 by a little more than two and a half feet.
The rockets never had a chance of duplicating the luminous superwoman's feat. Each and every one of them crashed into the solid stone and blossomed into a great orange fireball.
"Well, that's one problem taken care of," Green Lantern said to herself. "Now to deal with the big yellow one. Ring, locate Legion."
A beam of emerald light shot out from the top of her power ring and went streaking back toward the city. Green Lantern started to follow it, but she soon decided that it wouldn't be wise to engage the robot again without some kind of heavy weaponry of her own to throw at it. Fortunately, inspiration struck, and she took a detour toward the city dump.
"What the hell do you mean you don't know where he is?" Kaji snapped into the phone.
"I mean we don't know where he is," one of the Section Two agents who had gone to retrieve the Third Child answered sheepishly. "After that big yellow thing almost blew us up, the Green Lantern showed up, put him in this green bubble thing, and sent him flying off."
"Why did you even leave the base with him, anyway?" Kaji demanded in a low growl.
The man on the other end of the line paused, as though the question had caught him completely by surprise. Apparently, he'd never even considered not leaving the base with Shinji.
"Well, you told us to get him to safety," the agent finally replied in a small voice.
"And did you ever consider getting him to the safety of Unit One, which we may well need to deploy in order to stop this thing?" Kaji asked.
"…no."
The spy turned Operations Director squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his forehead with his free hand. He was starting to understand why Katsuragi had always hated Section Two so damn much. He was going to have to ask her how she'd managed to get so many members of that group transferred to Maintenance Team Thirteen (a.k.a. the Unluckies), because the wonder agents who'd gone for Shinji certainly deserved such a trip.
Then again, Kaji knew the man in charge of NERV's Human Resources department a little, and the long haired man had a sinking suspicion that the guy wouldn't be nearly as accommodating to someone lacking Katsuragi's very impressive cleavage.
On that thought, Kaji allowed himself a brief moment to contemplate how his expedition to Tokyo-3 had gone so very, very wrong after his ex-girlfriend had resigned from the post he now filled.
"We'll discuss this later, agent," Kaji said ominously and then hung up the phone, not waiting for the other man to reply.
"Sir, we're picking up the Angel's wave form pattern in the northeast quadrant of the city," Aoba reported. "I think we have cameras in that area that can show it to us…"
The lieutenant tapped a few keys at his terminal, and the command center's main screen started to show the image of the yellow robot/Angel as it, well, seemed to throw a temper tantrum in the middle of the street. He winced at the sight of the multiple burning cars and limp bodies surrounding the mechanical monstrosity.
And yet part of him, the part that was very much a spy, was intrigued. Whatever that thing was, it wasn't an ordinary Angel; while those mysterious monsters came in all shapes and sizes, none of them had ever been even remotely mechanical in nature. And this thing wasn't acting like any of the other Angels had. On the contrary, its behavior seemed to throw even Ikari for a loop.
What is this all about, Commander? He wondered.
Unfortunately for him, he now had an unwanted job to do which involved espionage not at all, and it was time he did it.
"Evacuate the city," he ordered. "Transform Tokyo-3 into wartime configuration as soon as everyone's in the shelters. And call Asuka and Rei in. We may need to deploy an EVA to stop that thing."
"No."
Everyone turned to see Gendo Ikari, who had just entered the command center. None of them had heard him come in.
"Sir?" Kaji asked with a frown.
"You may evacuate the civilians and transform the city if you wish, Mr. Kaji," Gendo said. "But no Evangelions will be deployed against this new threat without my express permission."
"Why not?" Kaji couldn't help but blurt out.
"NERV and EVA exist to kill Angels," Gendo said. "Whatever that thing out there is, and regardless of what the MAGI say, it is not an Angel."
"But, sir, it's registering a blue pattern," Kaji protested.
"It is not an Angel," Gendo repeated in a voice that utterly dripped with quiet menace.
Kaji's eyes narrowed, but all he said was, "Yes, sir."
"Sir!" Makoto suddenly spoke up. "One of the base's security cameras is picking something up! It's the Third Child."
Without being told to do so, the bespectacled technician put the image he was talking about on one of the command center's screens. It showed a sphere of emerald light that held Shinji within it flying toward headquarters. As Kaji watched, the thing brought the pilot of Unit One right to the base's main entrance and then dissipated, gently lowering Shinji to the ground as it did so.
"Looks like the Third Child's coming here," Aoba remarked unnecessarily as they watched Shinji enter the base.
"First good news I've had all day," Kaji commented.
The buildings of Tokyo-3 were starting to sink into the Geofront as Green Lantern flew through the mutable city in search of Legion, using her ring to carry her "secret weapon" with her. In place of the gleaming skyscrapers, darker colored, more ominous looking buildings that bristled with weapons were rising.
Green Lantern wholeheartedly approved of switching the city to battle mode in the face of Legion. In fact, she wondered what had taken Kaji so long to give the order to do so. However, she seriously hoped that he wasn't intending to open fire on Legion with the city's weapons turrets. The damn things just hadn't been designed to target any enemy that was less than ten stories tall, so if Kaji used them, he'd probably just end up making half the city destroy itself while not even offing Legion in the process.
Of course, her ex wouldn't be that foolish…would he?
I better trash that thing before Kaji can try it! She decided, quickening her pace.
Soon she came upon Legion again, and she saw that not everyone had made it to the safety of the shelters. The damn thing had apparently started to just run rampant on its surroundings, judging by the damage and bodies which surrounded it. At the current moment, Legion held a small man up in the air so his eyes met the machine's optics.
"Where are they? Where are the ones who hurt me?!" Legion bellowed. "Where are the Evangelion pilots?!"
"Th-They're downtown!" the man lied, doubtlessly in an attempt to avoid the fate of the dead bodies which were strewn about. "Corner of Ogata and Mitsuishi! Can't miss 'em!"
"You are lying!" Legion yelled. "You do not know, either!"
The yellow giant would have killed the man then, but a sphere of emerald light formed around him at that moment, whisking the poor man from Legion's grasp. His shirt was badly torn as he was pulled away, but otherwise he was unharmed. With a thought, Green Lantern directed the force bubble to take the guy to the entrance to one of the shelters.
"You!" Legion roared, taking notice of Green Lantern. "You're back!"
"That's right!" she said. "And this time I brought a present for you! Here! Catch!"
With that, she sent the junked public bus she had picked up from the scrap heap hurtling toward Legion.
The mechanical monster simultaneously attempted to blast the bus to pieces with fire from its machine gun and to run out of its path, but both efforts proved insufficient. The rusty but very large commuter vehicle crashed dead on into the robot, and it kept going, taking the yellow giant with it, until it had slammed into the side of a nearby building. The force of the collision nearly shattered the concrete wall, and the front half of the old bus folded up like an accordion.
Landing gently on the street, Green Lantern winced slightly at the sight, feeling an involuntary twinge of sympathy. She would not want to have been the one caught between those two large objects.
Still, she'd already given Legion some serious punishment only for the thing to shrug it off. She watched the remains of the destroyed bus warily, waiting for any sign of movement.
And movement there was. The dust had barely begun to settle when she saw the bus start to shake, and mere seconds after that, the twisted remains of the large vehicle were sent hurtling away from the building it had crashed into. The thing slid along the ground for a good forty feet before it came to a stop, sending orange sparks flying and creating an awful screech as it went.
Legion clomped forward, not a scratch on its saffron hull. Green Lantern cursed.
What does it take to hurt this damn thing? She wondered.
"You will tell us where the Evangelion pilots are!" the thing roared. "You will tell us where the ones who hurt us are!"
"Hell no, I will not!" Green Lantern snapped back.
Legion clearly didn't care much for that response. That damned machine gun it had in its forearm popped out, and it opened fire at her. Green Lantern still strongly suspected that the bullets might have yellow tips.
She reacted on reflex, sending a ribbon of energy out of her ring. It morphed into a large hand which dug its fingers into the road, then pulled the asphalt up, forming a shield as wide as the street. The bullets slammed into it harmlessly, and Legion ceased firing.
Before the robot could switch to any bigger guns, Green Lantern went on the offensive. Emerald light surrounded the entire chunk of asphalt she had ripped up and then tore it into two pieces. The two pieces were then crumpled up, changed from flat sheets into large chunks of black, artificial stone.
With a mental command from Green Lantern, one of the obsidian boulders surged forward, crashing right into Legion and knocking the robot off its feet. She followed up with a blow from the other, hammering it into the street.
"Let's see how much of this abuse you can take," Green Lantern said, sending her improvised weapons crashing into Legion again and again like a flurry of punches from a champion prizefighter.
Unfortunately, it wasn't having much of an effect; the robot's chassis was stubbornly refusing to break, even under the furious assault, and Green Lantern began to wonder what the hell the damn thing was made from. Even titanium should have given under all the abuse by this point.
Then the robot managed to raise its arm, its right one, and a weapon emerged from the forearm, just like the machine gun it kept in its left arm.
This particular weapon, however, was no machine gun.
A pencil thin beam of blinding blue white light burst from the barrel of the new weapon and streaked up right into the center of one of Green Lantern's asphalt wrecking balls. The beam penetrated the asphalt without slowing down and flew straight upwards into the sky, continuing its path toward the heavens until she couldn't see it any longer.
Then the chunk of asphalt it had fired into exploded as though it had been filled with dynamite.
Was that a positron weapon?! Green Lantern thought, right before the shockwave from the blast swept over her.
The sheer force of the explosion sent Green Lantern flying, and she soon felt herself getting pummeled by chunks of what had once been the road as they flew in all directions. The damn things must have been moving at terrific speeds to actually hurt her, she thought dimly.
The next thing she knew, she was lying on the street, her head spinning. She could hear a low sound from nearby, and she realized that it was a loud groan emanating from her own lips.
Knowing that time was of the essence, Green Lantern ignored the protests of her body and sat up.
Only to find herself staring directly at Legion, who stood right in front of her.
Still dazed, she didn't quite react quickly enough to this discovery. She had only enough time to realize that she must have blacked out for a moment for Legion to suddenly be this close to her before the yellow giant reached down and picked her up with one enormous hand.
Lifting her up so she was eye level (or, more accurately, optics level) with it, Legion shouted, "You will tell us where you sent the pilot!"
"Never!" Green Lantern snapped defiantly.
"Then we will destroy you!" the yellow giant yelled, and began to tighten its grip on her.
The protective field generated by her power ring had kept her safe and comfortable in the deadly environment of outer space when she had ventured up there during her battle with the Tenth Angel. However, it was absolutely no defense against Legion's yellow fingers. Feeling like her ribcage was going to shatter under the unbearable pressure at any moment, Green Lantern threw her head back and screamed.
A few minutes earlier…
"Father!" Shinji exclaimed as he burst into the NERV command center, clad in his blue and white plug suit. "Why aren't we launching Unit One?"
Gendo didn't immediately respond to his son's query, instead taking a moment to look down at the boy from his high perch on the top tier of the command center.
"Why would we launch Unit One?" he finally asked.
"Why? Father, that Legion thing is going on a rampage!" Shinji exclaimed, pointing at the screen, which showed just that. "Even Green Lantern is having trouble with it!"
"The JSDF has deployed a taskforce from Tokyo-2," Gendo said calmly. "Their ETA is approximately a half an hour from now."
"A half an hour could be too late! Father, please let me go out there in Unit One now!" Shinji argued.
Under normal circumstances, he never would have fought with his father like this, but the Green Lantern had saved his life twice already. His conscience wouldn't let him just sit around in the base at a time like this.
And there was also the fact that—
"We are not going to deploy Unit One, or any of other Evangelions," Gendo said flatly.
"Why not?" Shinji demanded. "I thought NERV was supposed to protect Tokyo-3."
"NERV exists to defeat the Angels," Gendo said.
"But—"
"Third Child, has you ever considered how much it costs this organization to simply activate an Evangelion?" Gendo asked him coldly.
"No," Shinji admitted reluctantly.
"The amount is very substantial," Gendo said. "Evangelions are not children's toys, Pilot Ikari, much as you might think of them as such. Therefore, in order to preserve our funding for the essential battles, the ones that cannot be won without NERV, we cannot deploy an Evangelion every time you feel like playing hero, Third Child."
Shinji felt his face heat as a mixture of mortification, embarrassment, and anger surged through him. He had certainly never thought of EVA as a toy, and he wanted to say as much, but the dressing down his father had given him had taken the wind from his sails.
"B-But…" he stammered.
"Listen to me, Third Child," Gendo said, his voice dropping to positively arctic temperatures, "we are not going to deploy an Evangelion regardless of what you say. Now cease arguing with me, or I will send you back to your uncle's home, and I will make sure that you never leave that town again."
"Y-Yes, sir," he stammered.
"Vacate the bridge, Third Child," Gendo ordered.
Shinji nodded and left, feeling guiltily grateful for the excuse to retreat.
He had always found his father intimidating, or at least he had for as long as he could remember, but that had been something else. Shinji still felt weak and shaky.
And even though he knew that it had to have been a trick of the light and his father's tinted glasses, for just a moment there, Shinji had sworn that the man's eyes had glowed yellow.
"Tell us where the pilot is!" Legion demanded, tightening his grip on Green Lantern even further.
Despite her best attempts to stop it, a cry of pain burst forth from her throat. "NO!" she yelled back.
"Tell me, or we will have to take our revenge on you, instead!" Legion snapped.
"Revenge…for what?" she grunted out, tears of pure agony starting to form in her eyes.
"The pilots hurt us! They destroyed the others! They stole our purpose! We will kill the pilots for what they did to us!" Legion yelled.
"Why the hell do you keep talking about yourself in the plural?" Green Lantern asked.
"We are the one who is many! We are Legion!" it yelled back.
"You also make no sense!" Green Lantern retorted, and sent a stream of emerald light burst from her ring.
The green ribbon grabbed hold of a bicycle that had had belonged to one of Legion's victims. The bike was sent hurtling toward the robot's back, only to bounce off harmlessly with a dull clunk.
Legion release a wordless cry of anger. "You cannot defeat us! Now tell us where you sent the pilot!" it roared, and tightened its grip even further.
Green Lantern felt one of her ribs snap under the immense pressure, and for a moment her vision went white with pain as a loud scream tore out of her lungs. Clearly, it was time to up the ante.
Somehow, through the fog of pain and desperation, she was able to think that what she was about to do would generate a lot of paperwork, and Kaji would find a way to unload it all on her. She just knew he would.
Two steams of light burst forth from her ring, each one twice the size of one of an Evangelion's mitts. Legion, who had his back to the luminous appendages, either didn't notice them or chose to disregard them as they went to their assigned task.
"Our patience grows thin," Legion announced. "We would prefer if you told us where the pilot is, but we are willing to tear apart this city until we find him. Until we find them all."
"All right, all right!" Green Lantern said. "I'll tell you where I sent him, but first, you have to do something for me!"
"What?" Legion asked warily, seeming not to notice as a shadow suddenly fell over them.
"Look behind you," Green Lantern said.
Legion turned and was confronted with the sight of a nearby building, one of the city's enormous weapons turrets, tilting dangerously toward him. It was being pushed over by a pair of huge green hands.
"Timbeeeer!" Green Lantern yelled as loudly as she could as the building started to fall in earnest.
Legion tried to run, but the suit of power armor that held it had been built for power, not speed.
God only knew how many tons of metal went crashing down into the street atop Legion and Green Lantern, sending dust and debris flying everywhere as the ground and the entire Geofront trembled from the force of the impact. Then, as if to add injury to injury, the missiles that were hidden inside the faux building started to explode, one setting off the next in a cascade of fire and smoke that left the already twisted metal of the destroyed turret burnt, blackened, and partially melted.
The sounds of the great crash and the explosion echoed within the confines of the city's artificial canyons for some time. And then, all was silent.
At least until a thin green light peeked out of the smoking rubble and some of the debris were shifted aside as Green Lantern crawled out. Once she was free, the emerald superwoman lay atop the great pile of scrap and allowed herself to release a low groan. The protective field her ring generated had protected her from most of the abuse, but having a building fall on her still hadn't been pleasant. And she still had the injuries Legion had given her earlier to deal with.
"Ring, patch me up," she commanded.
"Acknowledged," it replied.
Green Lantern winced as she could feel her broken rib being slowly put back into place. The ring would hold it there—and close the multitude of small wounds she'd gotten from the falling debris—until her body could properly heal everything itself. She wouldn't be 100 percent until then, but she'd be able to function normally once the ring had done its work.
Suddenly, there was a burst of noise near her as Legion erupted out of the rubble, sending pieces of debris flying everywhere. Green Lantern's eyes widened in horror.
"Raugh!" it roared furiously as it finished digging its way out and then went stomping toward her. "We will kill you! We will kill you and find the pilots ourselves!" It proclaimed as the machine gun popped out of its left forearm.
Staring down the barrel of the weapon (which also had been painted entirely yellow), Green Lantern desperately tried to get out of the way. However, even the slightest movement brought a spike of pain so intense that it made her gasp. She couldn't crawl away, much less fly.
With Legion standing at point blank range, she could see the bullets that its machine gun was using. As she'd feared, the rounds did indeed have yellow tips.
Oh god, what will happen to Shinji when I'm gone? She thought, resisting the urge to squeeze her eyes shut in the face of her doom.
Then a fist slammed into Legion's side with enough force to send the thing flying through the air. The yellow monstrosity roared in anger as it went, finally crashing into the side of another giant weapons turret, the metal side of the faux building partially crumpling from the impact.
Shocked into complete silence, Green Lantern blinked and looked up at her savior. A blue haired young woman stood next to her, clad in a red and blue leotard that was embellished with bronze. A tiara with a red star emblazoned in the center sat on her head. On one hip hung a lasso made of a golden rope, while on the other was a sheath holding a sword.
Wonder Girl, Green Lantern thought.
The blue haired superwoman had been the first one to debut, showing up several months back during the Jet Alone demonstration. Her well intentioned attempt to stop the disaster had almost killed Misato, who'd been inside the giant robot at the time, trying to deactivate it.
Heh, looks like we're even now, Green Lantern thought, the corners of her lips quirking upwards in a small smirk.
"Wait here," Wonder Girl told her fellow superwoman in a soft voice. "I will handle this now."
Green Lantern wanted to tell her to wait, that Legion was one seriously tough mechanical son of a bitch, and that they could take it together once the ring had finished its work on her. However, the Amazon was already off before she could say anything.
"I do not know who you are," Wonder Girl spoke to Legion in a voice that somehow managed to have the ring of authority despite how quiet it was, "but unless you surrender, I will have to hurt you."
"We will never surrender!" Legion roared, raising its right arm and firing its small positron rifle at the Amazon.
Wonder Girl instantly raised her arms, crossing her wrists in front of her face, and the beam of blue-white light struck her silver bracers. Green Lantern was certain that the things would instantly be annihilated by the robot's weapon, but by some miracle, the antimatter beam didn't cause them to explode violently.
"Very well," Wonder Girl said softly as the beam petered out. "We will do this the hard way, then."
Legion didn't fire its positron weapon at the Amazon again (it was probably unable to fire the positron rifle again until the barrel cooled, Green Lantern realized). Instead, a pair of long, thin blades popped out of the back of its hands and then began to hum with the distinctive sound of progressive weaponry.
"Die!" Legion roared, charging at Wonder Girl, its feet kicking up chunks of the asphalt of the street beneath them as it ran.
The blue haired superwoman didn't even flinch at seeing a robot that weighed more than an SUV wielding a pair of some of the most deadly melee weapons ever made coming at her at full tilt. Instead, she just drew the sword which hung at her hip, revealing a long bronze blade that gleamed in the sun.
Green Lantern's eyes widened incredulously as she saw Wonder Girl preparing to combat progressive knives with a sword that looked like it belonged in a museum.
She's not…she can't be…
It happened so quickly that the luminous superwoman was barely able to follow it. Just as Legion got into striking distance, the Amazon swung her sword, and the bronze weapon managed to strike both of the yellow monstrosity's progressive knives in a single arc.
Both of the super modern blades, which should have cut through the antiquated bronze sword with perfect ease, shattered upon contact with it, leaving Legion with only useless stubs of metal protruding from the backs of its hands.
However, the yellow titan wasn't discouraged much. It machine gun made yet another appearance and it immediately opened fire at the Amazon.
Wonder Girl didn't even bother to block the rounds with her armlets this time. Instead, the blue-haired superwoman took to the air, moving too quickly for Legion to hit her. Her sword still clutched tightly in her fist, she flew toward her enemy.
"You will not stop us from killing the ones who hurt us!" Legion yelled as it continued to fire her. "You will not—!"
The big robot shut up as the point of Wonder Girl's sword impacted with the side of its head. However, the blade was unable to penetrate Legion's armor, because a cluster of little hexagonal barriers made from orange-red light flashed into existence between the tip of weapon and the robot.
An AT Field?! Green Lantern thought, her mind reeling as several things started to click into place. So that's why this damn thing is so crazy tough!
But this realization just created more questions, such as how the hell Legion could have an AT Field to begin with, and why that AT field looked so unusual. The only Angel she'd seen with one that looked similar was…
The last one, the one that attacked the MAGI, the one I didn't see explode spectacularly, Green Lantern thought darkly. My god, was NERV actually stupid enough to try and weaponize an Angel?
Her thoughts were cut off as Legion's AT field suddenly gave out and Wonder Girl's sword abruptly managed to finish its journey, penetrating the side of Legion's head. The end of the blade almost instantly burst forth from the other side of the yellow monster's head, covering in a thick, shiny goop that was a sort of mother-of-pearl color.
Ew, Green Lantern thought, looking away and failing to notice how some of the goo that fell to the ground began to slink away like an oversized slug.
"Noooo!" Legion howled. "You have killed more of us! We will destroy you for this!"
It lashed out with one of its thick metal arms, catching Wonder Girl full across the torso and sending her flying. There was a meaty thwack! that made Green Lantern wince, but the Amazon didn't seem to have been hurt very badly the blow; she didn't release even a grunt of pain and had soon used her flying ability to come to a stop in midair.
But Legion wasn't done yet. The mechanical monstrosity spread its arms wide, and several doors all across its broad torso slid aside, exposing a small arsenal's worth of rockets.
Holy shit! Green Lantern thought as Legion launched every single rocket it had just revealed at Wonder Girl.
The distance between the two combatants wasn't very great, and Green Lantern knew that the speed of those rockets could go from zero to really damn fast in the blink of an eye. Evading them might have been impossible for Wonder Girl, but she didn't even make the attempt, instead just crossing her arms in front of her again.
"No!" Green Lantern shouted as the Amazon vanished within a cloud of fire and smoke.
The jade gladiator shut her eyes and grit her teeth, anguished at seeing the Amazon taken out so brutally.
"Are you all right, Lantern?" a soft voice asked her.
The ringslinger's eyes popped open, and she looked in amazement at Wonder Girl. The Amazon had a layer of black soot on her, standing out in stark contrast to her pale skin, but otherwise, she looked completely unscathed.
"Uh, yeah," she said.
Damn, I didn't know she was so tough, Green Lantern thought.
"Good," Wonder Girl replied, then grabbed her lasso, even as Legion started to scream oaths at her.
"Kill you!" Legion roared, raising its machine gun.
Wonder Girl let her lasso fly, and the loop landed right around Legion's outstretched arm.
Energy suddenly crackled across the surface of Legion's chassis and then the length of Wonder Girl's lasso. The blue haired superwoman let out a cry of pain as electricity was pumped into her body, her golden lasso turned into a live wire.
Wasting no time, Legion pulled hard on the lasso, yanking Wonder Girl toward him. As soon as she was close enough, he struck her with his massive fist, sending her crashing into the wall of a nearby building.
Not pausing long enough to allow Wonder Girl to catch her breath, Legion again deployed the positron rifle in its right arm and fired. The Amazon's crimson eyes widened as she saw the deadly beam streaking toward her.
Only to be blocked by a shield made of green light.
"Patch me up quicker next time, ring," Green Lantern said as she walked over to the battered Amazon.
"Acknowledged," the ring replied.
"You all right?" the jade heroine asked Wonder Girl.
"Yes," the Amazon replied.
"Good," Green Lantern said. "Now let's take this thing together."
"Agreed," Wonder Girl said.
"We'll kill you both!" Legion announced, opening fire with its machine gun again.
How much ammo does that damn thing have? Green Lantern wondered in annoyance.
Wonder Girl jumped forward, right into the path of the oncoming rounds and raised her arms. There were a series of loud plink! sounds, and Green Lantern realized, much to her amazement, that the Amazon was actually deflecting the bullets with the bracers she wore on her forearms.
Okay, I'm officially putting this girl on my official "do not piss off" list, Green Lantern thought even as her ring began to glow brightly.
The ground beneath Legion started to glow, and before the mechanical monster was able to react, he was caught within a ball of asphalt, which itself was surrounded by jade light. Legion roared with anger from within, but Green Lantern kept up the pressure, denying it an escape.
"Hey, Blue!" Green Lantern shouted. "Go long!"
Wonder Girl just gave her a blank look in response, so Green Lantern made a throwing motion and pointed off into the distance. The Amazon nodded and flew off in the direction Green Lantern had indicated.
"I will destroy you!" Legion's muffled roar came from within the asphalt sphere.
Green Lantern ignored him. "And Mean Green goes for the pass!" she narrated for herself as she sent Legion's impromptu prison hurtling into the sky.
A pair of jade binoculars appeared in Green Lantern's hand, and she peered through them, following Legion's path. The robot-wrapped-in-asphalt approached Wonder Girl, who twined her fingers together, and then slammed the big black ball downwards with her joined fists. Legion went falling downwards at an incredible speed.
BOOM!
Green Lantern felt the ground shake noticeably beneath her boots, and she let out a low, impressed whistle. She'd known that Wonder Girl was tremendously strong, but that display had still been a potent reminder.
"Clearly, that girl eats all her spinach," Green Lantern remarked to no one in particular as she let her construct of the binoculars dissipate and flew off to rejoin the battle. "Probably drinks all her milk, too." She added with a grin, feeling good about this battle for the first time since she'd laid eyes on Legion.
It took Green Lantern little time to locate Wonder Girl and Legion, finding that the former was pummeling the later with her small but powerful fists. Every blow sent the large robot/Angel thing reeling.
I don't think she'll get past the AT field like that, though, Green Lantern mused.
"Ring," she said, "scan this thing for a core."
"Unable to comply," the ring replied. "Color of hostile prevents scan."
"Damn," Green Lantern muttered to herself. "Looks like we'll have to deliver the final blow the hard way."
Ripping another traffic light out of the street, the jade superwoman used her ring to bend it into the shape of a giant U and kept it hovering in the air.
"Wonder Girl!" she shouted. "Get clear!"
The Amazon did not question or protest the command; she instantly pulled away from Legion, and the yellow monstrosity was able to regain its balance.
But he didn't get to keep it. The metal pole slammed into Legion, moving at over 100 kilometers per hour, and the robot was caught within the U. It let out a cry of surprise and indignation as it was slammed into the ground, the ends of the pole getting buried into the ground and pinning it soundly to the street.
"That oughta hold it, for a little while, at least," Green Lantern said. "Think you can cut that thing open, Blue?"
"There is only one way to find out," Wonder Girl replied, reaching for her sword.
A missile slammed into the ground near them before the Amazon's long fingers could even touch her weapon, and this one was far larger than anything Legion had thrown at them thus far.
Green Lantern screamed as the force of the unexpected explosion threw her off her feet and sent her flying straight through the storefront window of a hardware store that apparently didn't retract into the Geofront. Without her protective field, she would have been fatally stabbed by countless glass shards.
She landed on the store's tile floor and immediately sat up with a groan. Her side was throbbing where her ring had hastily patched her broken rib, and she would have bet her entire supply of Yeibisu that her whole body was going to ache the next morning.
If she made it to the next morning, that was.
"That missile must have come from the city's defense grid," Wonder Girl said, and Green Lantern only then realized that the Amazon was right next to her.
"Yeah, what the hell is wrong with NERV?" Green Lantern asked. "Why are they shooting at us?"
She was becoming increasingly certain that NERV had created Legion for the express purpose of killing the superwomen, but she couldn't believe they'd be so blatant as to turn the city's own weapons of them, thus erasing any possibility of plausible deniability.
"It is likely that Legion has seized control of part of the defensive grid," her ring spoke up unexpectedly. "There is Angelic matter similar to that of Legion's inside one of the city's defensive structures."
"What? Show me!" Green Lantern demanded.
Her ring projected a scale hologram of the city, complete with a small, pulsing mass inside one of the buildings to show the presence of the Angel part. Said small, pulsing mass that was steadily growing in size.
Green Lantern immediately realized that it was very close to where they'd been fighting Legion only minutes ago. Then she remembered how some grayish gunk had come out of Legion's yellow shell when Wonder Girl had stabbed it and swore.
"One of us is going to have to take care of Legion's other half before it takes over the whole city," she told Wonder Girl.
"Agreed," the other superwoman said with a small nod.
"I call the ugly yellow one," Green Lantern said, getting up.
"Are you sure that is wise?" Wonder Girl asked, glancing outside at Legion, who was still pinned to the street but would doubtlessly get free in a moment or two.
Must have noticed I haven't been attacking Legion directly and guessed that something's up. Clever girl, Green Lantern thought.
"I'm sure," the luminous superwoman said. "Trust me, I've got a plan." She added, her gaze moving to a shelf that was stocked with cans of paint.
Wonder Girl nodded in agreement and quickly departed from the store, soon taking to the air.
"Hey, metal brains, ready for round two?" Green Lantern taunted as she walked out of the hardware store.
"We will kill you!" Legion roared.
"You seriously need some more original threats, pal," Green Lantern said. "That one's already so old it's not even scary anymore!"
"Kill you!" Legion shouted, its machine gun making an appearance for what felt like the thousandth time to the Green Lantern.
She didn't give it the opportunity to fire. Emerald light shone from her ring, and suddenly several cans of paint came flying out of the hardware store, surrounded by a similarly green corona. The cans crashed into Legion at high speed, not even fazing the monstrosity but cracking open and splattering it in several different colors of paint from head to toe. Suddenly, the thing looked like an evil robot that had been tie-dyed.
"You cannot destroy me!" Legion growled.
"Actually, now that you're not yellow anymore, I can," Green Lantern informed Legion smugly, firing a blast of energy from her ring straight at it.
The beam of green light crashed into Legion, and its AT Field flared into visibility, shielding it. However, the barrier wasn't very powerful as the Angels' AT Fields went, and Green Lantern had become a much more potent ringslinger since the time when she'd struggled so hard to slay the Ninth. The attack soon penetrated the AT Field and went straight through Legion, leaving a smoking, fist sized hole in the yellow giant.
"NO! You have killed more of us!" it shouted.
"I intend to kill all of you before I'm done!" Green Lantern retorted.
A jade hammer big enough for an Evangelion to use formed in the air above Legion and swung downwards, crashing right into its head and partially crumpling it. Legion was driven into the ground up to its waist like a wooden stake by the force of the blow.
"Now, let's get you out of that armor," Green Lantern said as she formed a construct of Unit One's progressive knife, which was the same size as the genuine article.
"No!" Legion shouted as the knife flew toward it.
Green Lantern ignored its cry, and the glowing blade slashed downwards, cleaving Legion cleanly into two separate pieces. The thing's screams immediately fell silent as its speaker was destroyed.
The emerald superwoman grinned triumphantly.
Then grayish goo immediately burst forth from the destroyed armor, spreading in all directions over the street at an impossible rate. Within seconds, Green Lantern had to take to the air in order to avoid the stuff. There was already far more of the gunk on the street than could have possibly been contained within the armor.
"Crap," Green Lantern hissed, realizing that she may have just made a huge blunder. "I never thought the damn thing would start growing this fast!"
Well, she thought as she watched the Angel spread like crazy, here's hoping Wonder Girl is having a better time of it than me.
This was not good, Wonder Girl decided as she approached the building-sized weapons turret that the Angel had taken over. The tiny bit of it she had evicted from Legion's body when she'd stabbed it had already grown enormously; the faux building was utterly dripping with gray, faintly glowing goo.
"Destroying this will require drastic action," she decided as she flew toward the infected turret, a plan already having formed in her mind.
In order to take out this part of the Angel, she would have no choice but to detonate the turret's entire stockpile of missiles inside it, which would hopefully provide enough destructive force to get the job done.
Her face set in a determined expression, she flew right into the wall of the faux building, tearing as hole through the metal to get inside. The walls, floor, and ceiling of the interior were all absolutely covered in Angel slime, she noted with a slight wince.
Tendrils of it burst up from the floor and pounced at her like some kind of attacking predator. The Amazon instinctively raised her arms, trying to block the strikes with her bracers, but against this foe, even the indestructible metal was no defense. The Angel gloomed onto her arms, and Wonder Girl let out a small cry of surprise and tried to wipe it off. However, the stuff refused to let go, and started to spread. She could feel it penetrating her flesh, extending thin tendrils into her being like a plant growing roots in the soil.
It was invading her body, and she didn't want to think about what would happen when the invasion was complete. She had to destroy this Angel as soon as possible.
Wonder Girl began flying down a maintenance stairwell, fervently hoping that she was going in the direction of the building's extra missiles. Though she knew much of NERV and the Geofront like the back of her hand, she had never been inside one of these buildings before.
All the while as she traveled, the Angel sent wads of itself flying at her, attempting to cover her with itself. She did her best to avoid it all, but the Angel was assaulting her from all directions; dodging all of it was an impossible task even for the Amazon.
She could feel it growing on her and growing into her as she searched. And as it proceeded, she could feel a cold and foreign presence pressing against her mind.
I must hurry, Wonder Girl thought, pressing her superhuman body even harder as she rushed to find what she sought.
The Amazon threw open a door that led the lowest section of the faux building, trying to ignore the way the Angel was almost coving her entire body from the neck down by this point.
The giant weapons turret's basement was stocked almost to the rafters with missiles larger than Wonder Girl herself was. If a single one of them detonated, they would set off all the others, taking the entire building with them.
Racing over to the nearest missile, the Amazon dug her fingers into a small panel on the side and ripped it off, revealing a small cluster of wires and buttons. Suddenly feeling grateful for having studied virtually every aspect of NERV and Tokyo-3, the blue-haired superwoman wasted no time in prepping the missile for detonation, doing her best to ignore the creeping presence of the Angel as she did so.
The missile was just the push of a button away from exploding when the Angel played its last card, connecting its own essence to her central nervous system directly.
Wonder Girl released a small gasp as she suddenly found herself no longer in the basement of the faux building. Now she stood on the surface of an ocean of red LCL, with no land in sight anywhere as far as the eye could see. The world was totally empty of anyone except her… and the perfect copy of her that was about three free away from her, standing waist-deep in the LCL and dressed in a flawless replica of her own costume.
"Angel," Wonder Girl immediately identified the doppelganger.
The duplicate Amazon frowned. "Is that what I am? An Angel?"
"You do not know?" Wonder Girl asked.
Looking confused, the duplicate shook her head. "I think I did once, but…we were hurt. We were hurt, and it did something to my mind. I don't know things anymore."
"I will not allow you to stop me," Wonder Girl told the Angel softly.
"Why are you so determined to destroy me?" the duplicate asked, tilting her head to the side slightly in what looked like a gesture of genuine curiosity.
"Because you will destroy everything I know," Wonder Girl replied.
The duplicate smiled and shook her head, as though she was dealing with a very young, very naïve child. "No, Wonder Girl. I have seen the inside of your mind. That isn't the reason," the Angel said. "You do this because you are a puppet, and your masters would want you to do this."
"I am not a puppet," Wonder Girl replied in a soft, cold voice.
"You are," the Angel smirked. "You believe that you are becoming free and independent because you have been doing things behind the Commander's back, things the Commander would not approve of. But in truth, you have just become the puppet of the Olympians who saw you given your super powers to begin with. Serving two masters makes you no less of a puppet, Rei Ayanami, and a puppet is all you shall ever be."
The Wonder Girl's crimson eyes widened and she said nothing.
"Join with me," the Angel said. "Become one with me. Rebel for once in your existence, and together, we will find completion. I have some vague memories of what it is like to complete, back before I was hurt. It is very… pleasant."
Wonder Girl was silent for a long moment. "Perhaps you are not entirely incorrect," she spoke at last. "Perhaps I have spent much of my life as a puppet, even those parts when I thought I was reaching toward freedom."
The Angel smiled softly, as though pleased to see comprehension dawning within the Amazon.
"But even if it is true that a puppet is all I will ever be, I have seen that I have the ability to choose my master, at the very least," Wonder Girl continued. "I do not choose you."
The doppelganger's eyes widened. "No, wait—!"
But it was too late. In one fluid motion, Wonder Girl drew her sword and swung at her duplicate. The duplicate shattered into pieces like she was made of glass, and the world of the red sea followed an instant later…
Wonder Girl sucked in a swift breath of air as she found herself back in the middle of the stockpile of missiles. She had thrown off the Angel's influence for the moment, but the detestable life form still covered her. It was only a matter of time until it invaded the sanctity of her mind again.
The Amazon triggered the detonator on the missile she was working with.
"Well, I guess that takes care of that part of the Angel," Green Lantern mused as she saw an explosion stretching up to the skies in the distance. "Wish I could say I had my half all wrapped up, too."
A flamethrower made from jade light appeared in her hands, and the luminous superwoman pointed it at the Angel goo and pulled the trigger. The weapon construct spat out a gout of emerald fire that reduced everything it touched to ash, but like everything else she'd been trying, it just wasn't doing the job fast enough. The Angel was simply growing too damn fast; it had nearly spread out over an entire city block by this point.
"It'll take an N2 mine to get rid of this thing if it gets much further," she moaned to herself. "Okay, Green Lantern, time for some drastic measures."
She flew high over her target, surveying the full extent of her enemy. The Angel was like a cancer, a malignant tumor, on the face of the city. The only way to save Tokyo-3 was to treat the Angel as such and cut it out.
"No fear," she whispered to herself, pouring every ounce of willpower she could muster into her ring.
A stream of emerald radiance so bright that it was almost white shot forth from her band of power, streaking down toward the ground. Before it struck the earth, however, it began to spread out in all directions, forming the start of an enormous sphere. The jade orb cut cleanly through a portion of the Geofront roof, severing the infected city block from the rest of Tokyo-3 completely.
"Incinerate," she commanded through clenched teeth.
From within the sphere, deadly beams of emerald energy started crashing down into the stolen chunk of real estate, reducing buildings and Angelic matter alike to ashes. However, there was just too much in there for the process to be instantaneous, and in its dying moments, the Angel frantically tried to escape, sending its remaining mass slamming against the sides of the green sphere it was caught in like some sort of gooey battering ram.
Drops of sweat popped out on Green Lantern's brow. Just lifting the huge chunk of the city wouldn't, by itself, have been such a huge effort for her, but trying to destroy everything inside her force sphere, with the Angel trashing at the walls of its prison in a fierce attempt at escape, the strain to preserve the integrity of her construct was immense. She felt like she was holding up the entire earth, not with her muscles, but with her mind and her very soul. And she felt like either one of those could potentially snap at any moment.
If you drop this thing, it'll fall down into the Geofront, and the Angel will probably head straight for NERV, she told herself. You sent Shinji-kun to the base.
As always, thoughts of the Third Child strengthened her resolve, and with it, her willpower. She directed her newfound strength into her ring, and the process of reducing everything inside the energy sphere she'd created to cinders accelerated rapidly. In a second, she couldn't even see inside the thing; the light of her destructive power was proving too great for her eyes to bear.
Then it was over. The incineration stopped, and Green Lantern looked down to see that her energy sphere now held only a huge pile of harmless ash.
She allowed the sphere to dissipate, letting it snow gray inside the Geofront, then took off in the direction of the building the other part of the Angel had taken control of. She found only a very large pile of rubble there.
"Ring, is Wonder Girl under there?" she asked.
"Negative," the ring replied.
"Are her… remains under there?" Green Lantern asked with some trepidation.
"Negative," her ring said again.
The luminous superwoman breathed a small sigh of relief. "Damn, that girl is one tough cookie," she remarked. "Guess she must have dug herself out and gotten outta here."
Well, now it really is time for me to head home, Green Lantern decided, and took off in the direction of her apartment building, already looking forward to changing back into her alter ego and enjoying a hot shower, followed by a cold beer.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, Wonder Girl was returning to the dingy apartment she called home. Living in an old, broken-down building did have one advantage, she mused dryly as she flew up to her window. Because the place couldn't retract into the Geofront during attacks, she didn't have to wait until the city transformed back into its peacetime configuration before she could return to her domicile.
Stepping inside her window, the Amazon was not entirely surprised to find an exceptionally tall woman in Greek battle armor waiting inside her apartment for her.
"Are you all right, Wonder Girl?" Athena, the goddess of wisdom and the Olympian who had charged her with the task of preventing Third Impact asked her.
The blue haired superwoman rotated her shoulder experimentally. She was tired and sore from the multiple explosions she'd been at the heart of this day, not to mention having the remains of the giant weapons turret collapse on her after she'd blown it up, but her magically enhanced body could take far more punishment than that without sustaining any type of permanent injury.
"A shower and sleep are all I require," Wonder Girl answered.
"Good," Athena said. "I am glad you are well. I will leave you to rest now."
"Wait," Wonder Girl said softly. "When you informed me of Legion and advised me to join the battle against it, you told me that doing so would 'ease my conscience.' I still do not understand that."
Athena favored her with a small smile. "You will someday," she said, then left the apartment.
Wonder Girl heaved a very un-Rei-like sigh as she headed for her bathroom to peel off her costume and have a shower.
Trust the gods to be enigmatic.
That evening, the Katsuragi apartment was unusually quiet. Asuka, who had apparently dropped off the face of the earth until dinner time had rolled around, was strangely pensive and mostly silent. As Shinji had never been a big talker, that left Misato to pick up the slack. The purple haired woman tried, but her heart simply wasn't in it; her mind was too preoccupied with Legion and the implications of the damn thing's appearance to make small talk.
There's no question that the thing was built with me in mind, she thought darkly. Nobody would paint a thing like that yellow from head to toe, otherwise. Never mind the yellow tips on those missiles and bullets, but was it also made to fight the other superwomen, too?
Though she had less evidence for this idea, she thought it had been. She had noticed how Legion had switched tactics when it was fighting Wonder Girl, suddenly unleashing that big storm of missiles (or, as she liked to think of it, "using more gun"). It hadn't busted out that trick of electrifying its chassis until the Amazon had lassoed it, either. The progressive knives also hadn't made an appearance until Wonder Girl had appeared.
And Legion only ever used that positron rifle it had once until she showed up, Green Lantern thought. I wonder if it had a whole different set of tricks up its sleeve in case Power Girl made an appearance, too?
Well, there was no way for her to find that out now; the suit of power armor had been reduced to ash, along with a big chunk of the city.
But she was going to ask Ritsuko about this tomorrow. Oh yes, she was.
Not liking the superwomen is one thing, actually trying to kill us is another entirely, Misato thought.
Growing tired of stewing over these grim ideas and thoughts, not to mention the silence that had enveloped her apartment by this point, Misato finally got up from the couch.
"I'm going to bed," she announced. "I'm beat."
"Yeah, I think I'll turn in, too," Asuka agreed.
"But it's only eight-thirty," a surprised Shinji said with a frown.
"You can stay up if you like, Shinji-kun," Misato said with a smile. "In fact, with Asuka in bed, you can actually hold the remote and watch what you like to watch."
The redhead threw her guardian a dirty look but didn't say anything. At just about any other time, Misato would have wondered why not.
"Okay," Shinji said with a shrug. "Good night."
"Good night, Shinji-kun," Misato said as she and Asuka headed for their respective bedrooms.
"The damage done today was very extensive," Ritsuko said as she and Gendo walked through the dark halls of NERV.
"Naturally," Gendo replied curtly.
"The press is already starting to speculate about where Legion came from, and almost all of them are guessing it came from here," she said. "The government isn't happy, and I'm certain that the Committee isn't, either."
"I already have plans in place to deal with them," Gendo said.
Ritsuko resisted the urge to grind her teeth in frustration. A part of her had been nothing short of giddy upon realizing that one of Gendo's schemes had finally blown up spectacularly right in her face, but his perfectly calm response to it was draining all the pleasure out of the experience.
"It seems that we underestimated the superwomen, sir," Ritsuko said. "If not for the presence of the Angel, it now seems unlikely that any one of them would have had any real difficulty neutralizing the suit, not even Green Lantern."
"Indeed," Gendo said. "Any measures we attempt against them in the future will need to be far more potent."
"Yes, well…" Ritsuko trailed off, unable to come up with any other bad news that might get a rise out of him.
"Good evening, Doctor," Gendo said as they reached the door to his office. "As you've pointed out, I've got quite a mess to clean up."
"Right, good evening, sir," Ritsuko said.
Gendo disappeared into his office, leaving her alone in the hall. She sighed and walked off, heading back to her lab.
Back at the Katsuragi apartment, Shinji sat on the couch with his feet on the coffee table, bathed in the bluish glow of light from the television. Pen-Pen, who sat at his side, was watching the screen raptly, but the Third Child just couldn't focus on the show.
One moment from that day kept replaying in his head, over and over.
"Shinji-kun! Are you all right?!"
He could still remember Green Lantern saying that to him, and could still see the concern etched on her pretty, masked face as she did so.
"Shinji-kun! Are you all right?!"
It had been awfully strange of her to use the "-kun" honorific when she addressed him, considering that they had only met once before, when those crazy robbers had decided to hold up that mini-golf course.
But had they only met once? Shinji was starting to wonder. Green Lantern's voice had sounded too deep when she'd said that to him, but he'd be damned if she hadn't still sounded a lot like Misato anyway. Not to mention that this evening, he'd noticed her moving rather stiffly, and she'd gone to bed very early, claiming tiredness when this had been her day off.
"What do you think, boy?" Shinji quietly asked Pen-Pen. "Does your mistress secretly a lead a second life as a superwoman?"
The penguin just let out an annoyed "wark!" clearly wanting Shinji to keep quiet, at least until a commercial.
"Shinji-kun! Are you all right?!"
The problem was, he wasn't even completely certain that Green Lantern actually had said that exactly. When she'd first spoken to him, it had been mere moments after the car he'd been in had spun end over end at least a dozen times in the span of about three seconds. His brains had been a little scrambled at the time. And yet…
"Shinji-kun! Are you all right?!"
It seemed ludicrous to consider, but was it possible that he was living under the same roof as a superwoman and didn't even know it?
His lips quirked upwards in front of a tiny smirk. For all I know, I could be surrounded by superwomen, he thought. Maybe I see them everyday and just never have a clue about it.
The idea that he might regularly encounter the superhuman women in the city who had redefined the term "girl power" and yet never even suspect it made him chuckle softly.
"It's a pretty silly thought, isn't it, Pen-Pen?" he asked, getting another annoyed squawk in response, this one louder than the one previous.
"All right, all right," Shinji said, "I'll be quiet."
Trying again to put his attention on the show, he couldn't help but wonder how exactly Pen-Pen had managed to wrest the remote control from him, and how the bird had known that "March of the Penguins" was on that evening.
Author's Notes: When I first started writing this, I really wasn't sure that I could turn Misato vs. Legion into a chapter length piece. Then when it was done, it was just over thirty pages in length, single spaced. Go figure.
A couple of important plot points are sprinkled around here and there, but for the most part this chapter's just action. Since Asuka got to feature so heavily a couple of chapters ago, I thought I'd let Rei make an appearance here.
And…that's about it. Thanks as always to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader as well.
Now for some fun!
Omakes!
Asuka's Strange Idea
"You know what I hate?" the Second Child asked one afternoon as she and Rei were getting changed in their locker room.
"Knowing your personality, I believe it would take far less time to list the things you do not hate," Rei replied in a perfect deadpan tone.
"Shut up!" Asuka snapped, then resumed what she'd been saying. "I've decided I really hate miniature golf."
Rei frowned slightly. "Why?" she asked, curious despite herself.
"Because it's so damned miniature, that's why!" Asuka proclaimed.
"…all right," Rei said, then went back to the task of dressing.
Then Asuka snapped her fingers. "Hey! I have an idea!"
Rei sighed softly.
Green Lantern looked up, and her eyes widened as she saw that Shinji's pursuer was indeed a robot. The damn thing was huge, and it was flying through the air, propelled by a pair of jets in its feet.
And it was totally, completely yellow.
A beam of emerald light shot out of her ring and formed a sphere of jade energy around the Third Child. "This'll take you to safety," she said.
"Wait!" Shinji exclaimed, but the robot didn't give him a chance to argue. A machine gun popped out of its forearm and it started firing at the ground near them.
She sent the sphere holding Shinji flying on a roundabout route back to NERV, then flew away from the spray of bullets just before they came raining down on the street where she'd been standing a second ago.
As Units Zero and Two tromped out around the edge of the city, Rei couldn't help but feel like the whole world had become rather surreal.
That Asuka had somehow convinced NERV to launch their Evangelions for this was crazy enough, but where on Earth had the redhead gotten the EVA-scale golf clubs from.
"Giant miniature golf!" Asuka shouted in a tone of pure exaltation. "Truly, I am a genius!"
"Where is the hole?" Rei asked, just wanting to get this ordeal over with.
"Remember how the Tenth Angel kept dropping pieces of itself, and it made a big crater by the coast?" Asuka asked.
"I remember," Rei said with a nod. "Where is the ball?"
Asuka opened her mouth to reply, then paused and closed it again. An exceedingly sheepish expression appeared on her face.
"You did all this and managed to forget about finding a giant golf ball," Rei stated.
"No, I did not!" Asuka replied obstinately.
"Then where is the ball?" Rei asked.
"It's…uh…" Asuka began looking around wildly, twisting Unit Two this way and that.
Just as she was about to give up, she spotted a green sphere flying through the air.
"Ah ha!" the redhead exclaimed triumphantly. "Here it is!"
Unit Two plucked the green orb right out of the air and held it up in front of Unit Zero's single eye. Neither girl heard its sole occupant let out a cry of fright. Or, for that matter, noticed there was anyone inside it at all.
"Very well," Rei said tiredly. "Let us begin."
"I go first!" Asuka said, placing the green sphere atop a telephone pole.
Unit Two gripped its golf club with both hands, getting into position to give the "ball" a good hard whack.
Inside his cocoon of green energy, Shinji was understandably freaking out.
"Asuka! Rei! I'm inside this thing!" he shouted. "Don't hit it!"
"FOUR!" Asuka yelled.
(Unsexy) Late Night Encounters
It seemed ludicrous to consider, but was it possible that he was living under the same roof as a superwoman and didn't even know it?
His lips quirked upwards in front of a tiny smirk. For all I know, I could be surrounded by superwomen, he thought. Maybe I see them everyday and just never have a clue about it.
The idea that he might regularly encounter the superhuman women in the city who had redefined the term "girl power" and yet never even suspect it made him chuckle softly.
"It's a pretty silly thought, isn't it, Pen-Pen?" he asked, getting another annoyed squawk in response, this one louder than the one previous.
"All right, all right," Shinji said, "I'll be quiet."
Quickly growing bored of the show, Shinji decided to get up and see what was currently inside the fridge. Rising from the sofa, he headed over to the apartment's kitchen area…and stopped dead at what he saw.
Asuka stood in front of the sink, filling a glass of water for herself. However, she was wearing Power Girl's trademark white leotard and red cape. A blond wig and red mask were held in one of her hands.
"Oh my god!" he exclaimed, pointing at her.
"Shinji?!" Asuka exclaimed, turning to look at him.
"Oh my god!" Shinji repeated. "You're Power Girl! I was right! I am living with a superwoman!"
"No, Shinji, this isn't what it looks like!" Asuka said.
"Not what it looks like?! You look exactly like Power Girl in that!" Shinji said.
"Hey, you two," Misato's sleepy voice sounded from the hallway. "What's with all the yelling?"
"Misato! Asuka is…" Shinji trailed off as he got a look at his guardian.
Misato was clearly half asleep. If she hadn't been, she probably wouldn't have come out clad in her Green Lantern uniform, but without her mask and with her hair having its usual purple color.
"Both of you?!" Shinji exclaimed. "You're both superwomen, and I had no idea until now?!"
"Huh?" Misato looked down at herself. "Oh, crap. Asuka, would you?"
Shinji blinked. "Would Asuka what?"
Not answering, the redhead delivered a chop to the side of his head with her hand, instantly knocking him unconscious. With a sigh, she caught the Third Child before he crumpled to the floor.
"We really having to stop letting him catch us in costume and doing this to him," Asuka said.
"Agreed," Misato said. "Sooner or later, he's going to wake up remembering what he saw before you knocked him out."
Obligatory St. Patty's Day Omake: Alcohol, Green Women, and Calendars
Mike313 sighed tiredly to himself as he stood inside the cafeteria at NERV headquarters, hardly able to believe she'd talked him into this. He didn't much enjoy crossing over the fourth wall to begin with.
" 'It'll be fun,' she said," he grumbled darkly to himself as he nursed a plastic cup full of soda. " 'I'll be needing a designated driver afterwards,' she said. 'You practically owe it to me. Altered Destinies is only so damn popular because I'm so damn awesome, and you know it,' she said. Bah!"
The author was about the only person in the large room who was grumpy, but then again, he was also about the only person there who was sober. The cafeteria was decorated with green streamers and paper shamrocks, and the beer was flowing freely that day.
Needless to say, Gendo was out of town on business.
"Hey, Mike!" Misato came staggering toward her, clearly far past the tipsy stage. "Great party, huh?"
"Yeah, great," he replied in a tone that said just the opposite.
"Hey," she frowned. "What's the matter? Why are you so ticked off?"
"I'm not ticked off," Mike lied.
"Well, you know what ticks me off?" Misato asked.
"I'm sure I'm about to hear all about it."
"You know that calendar orionpax09 has been making and putting up on DeviantArt?" Misato asked.
"Yes, the one with the Superwomen of Eva on it," Mike replied.
"Yeah, that one. I saw it recently, and guess who got to be Miss March?" she asked.
"Mayumi," he replied. "Storm."
"Mayumi!" Misato exclaimed. "I mean, c'mon, what's with that? This whole month has only one thing going for it, and that's St. Patrick's Day! And clearly, I shoulda been Miss March! Seriously, I love beer, and I'm the Green Lantern! Total no-brainer, but Orion has to go and pick that little Angel-hugging rain cloud! Has her dressed up as a leprechaun and everything!"
"I think he wants to use the women from the first SOE series first," Mike said in a placating tone. "Maybe next year."
"That's still no excuse!" Misato exclaimed. "If that's the case, he shoulda used She-Hulk! She loves beer at least as much as me, and she's green, too!"
"Well, okay, you may have a point there," Mike conceded.
"Hell yeah, I do!" Misato exclaimed. "I think I'm gonna go across the fourth wall right now and give him a piece of my mind!"
"And how are you going to do that? You don't have the ability to break the forth wall," Mike pointed out.
Misato smiled meaningfully at the author.
"No," he said flatly.
"Aw, you're no fun," Misato pouted. "Ya know, for some reason I felt sure I could cross the forth wall myself…"
"That's because you're drunk, and because your SOE1 counterpart can," Mike said absently.
"Oh yeah! Thanks for reminding me!" Misato said, then turned away and called. "Hey! Super buff me!"
Mike blinked stupidly as he saw the She-Hulk emerge from the crowd, holding a keg. How he had failed to notice the green giantess before was a mystery to him.
"How did she get here?" he asked.
Misato shrugged. "She heard there'd be free beer." She said as though that explained everything.
Which, Mike realized, it sort of did.
"What puny me want?" She-Hulk asked as she reached them.
"Puny?! Well maybe compared to—!" Misato seemed to rein in her temper. "Listen, Shulkie, orionpax09 made someone other than one of us the St. Patrick's Day girl!"
"That bad?"
"Very bad," Misato said. "Listen, Shulkie, I need you to smash a hole in the forth wall for me so I can speak to him about fixing this."
"She-Hulk can smash!" the huge superwoman said cheerfully.
"Great!" Misato said, and suddenly a green glow consumed her form, changing her into Green Lantern. "Let's go!"
Mike, not being suicidal, didn't try to stop them as they left the cafeteria, en route to the real world. Shaking his head, he took a long drink of his soda.
"And here Orion always thought it would be some version of Asuka that came across the forth wall and killed him," the author mused.
