Collision, Part 1
Note, the parenthesis indicate languages other than Japanese, in this case, English.
Please Read and Review. I'd like to know what I'm doing right (to keep doing it), and what I'm I doing wrong (to correct it).
Tokyo-3
GeoFront, NERV HQ
Commander's Lair
3 Days Before Sahaquiel
"Understood. I'll depart immediately." Commander Gendo Ikari pushed a button on his telephone set, and after receiving an answering beep, put the device back on it's cradle.
A minute later, Kozo Fujutsuki entered the darkened room. "Any news?
"Yes. The search teams finally located it. We are to supervise the recovery and bring it to Terminal Dogma." There was a certain eagerness in Gendo Ikari´s voice. As if the universe was folding down to his wishes.
Hiding his disgust, Fujutsuki looked away. "I hoped it had been destroyed along with Adam." At least that would have delayed the demented plans of SEELE and the even worse scenario Gendo Ikari had planned years before.
"Impossible. There is nothing on Earth that could damage the Lance of Longinus. Get ready to depart in two hours. We will rendez-vous with a helicopter sent by the Pacific Fleet in Tierra del Fuego and continue by air until we reach the main group." He paused. "It seems the damages to the Over the Rainbow weren´t serious, despite Gaghiel´s efforts."
"Indeed; still, they had to refit or replace a flight elevator and the main propeller. It wasn´t really designed to be carrying Unit-02´s weight around." There was no enthusiasm in Fujutsuki's voice.
"We should be at the site of Second Impact in a couple of days."
Fujutsuki sighed and rummaged in a hidden cabinet. He pulled a bottle of whiskey and two shot glasses. He put everything on top of Gendo´s gargantuan desk. "As if I didn´t have enough nightmares already." He poured the liquor and downed one drink in a single gulp. It would not be enough to settle his nerves, and he wouldn´t dare to drink more, although he was really tempted to do so anyway. "That place is an unending sea of horror."
Gendo examined his glass, and drank measuredly. "And yet, it´s the purest place on Earth." He almost smiled at the thought.
Kozo looked at him sideways, they had always been at opposite sides of that particular philosophical point. "I should go. I´ll arrange the transport before I leave. Chopper or VTOL?"
"I have no preference, you arrange it to your satisfaction. I´ll manage the administrative front." The Commander pulled a series of folders and proceeded to sign several forms by hand. His neat script flowed easily over the paperwork. It had been prepared months before, waiting for the time.
"Who will stay in charge? Dr. Akagi?"
"No, Dr. Akagi is busy tracking... a possible problem with the Evangelions interface; unless there´s an emergency, she and Lt. Ibuki will continue with that. Captain Katsuragi is a better choice. Despite her bout with insubordination on behalf of the Second Child."
Fujutsuki raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure she´s ready? Even on a temporal capacity?"
"There´s no one better suited for the role than her. Her desire for revenge makes her easy to manipulate, plus, the reinstatement of the Second in the combat roster will keep Katsuragi on her feet. She will do nothing to risk the pilot´s status." Gendo tented his hands in front of his face, thinking. "Even if there is an Angel attack while we´re away, I´m sure she will manage to pull off a victory. Somehow her mind is up to the challenge posed by unearthly entities bent on our destruction."
"Which one is next?" Fujutsuki poured himself a second drink.
"Sahaquiel."
"The Angel of the Sky? I wonder what kind of monster it is?" The eyes of the old professor unfocused as he thought on the next eldritch entity to come to Tokyo-3.
Gendo´s deep voice brought him out from his musings. "The Dead Sea Scrolls are not clear on its shape. SEELE speculates about the way it will look, but if the previous Angels are any indication, we can´t even imagine it until we see it. There are several hints, but no definitive description."
"Hrumph..." Fujutsuki downed his drink. "I guess it would be too much to ask what kind of abomination are we facing next."
"Indeed."
Tokyo-3
GeoFront, NERV HQ
Commander's Lair
Spiritual Plane
"(Hmm... I wouldn´t say no to one of those, Ol´Man. Pity I can´t risk hijacking either of you.)" Deadman shrugged and jumped down from an imaginary platform. Gendo´s office was seriously lacking on any furniture except for his desk, and it annoyed the vagabond ghost to no end. He liked to have improbable thing to sit on. And sitting on the desk stopped to be fun a long time ago.
"(Anyway, the Phantom Stranger will want to know about your trip.)"
Quintessence Plane
Four Minutes Later.
"(Are you absolutely sure that´s what they said?)" it was rare, and very disquieting, to see any sign of agitation on the Phantom Stranger´s face. Usually, the mysterious man was stoic to the point of apparent callousness. Hard emotions, like anger or desperation, only surfaced during or after a difficult magical battle. Even during the Crisis in Infinite Times, the Stranger had kept his cool.
"(Yeah, I´m sure. It was either the Spear or the Lance of Longinus, I don´t really know the difference, and in Japanese is even more confusing. Anyway, Commander BadBeard said somebody had located it, and they are going down to at least Tierra del Fuego to get it. It must be down in the Antarctic Sea, wherever Adam kicked the bucket.)"
"(These are grave news. The Spear´s resting place must have been knocked down from orbit by Second Impact." The Stranger shook his head, dreading to think of the possibilities. "If NERV or SEELE gain possesion of the Spear of Destiny...)"
"(I hate to ask, and I know am gonna regret asking... but... What is the Spear of Longinus? The name sounds a bit familiar, but I can´t remember where I have heard it before.)" Deadman floated around the Earth globe, still floating serenely in the eternal night of space, enveloped by a soft greenish glow, evident only in the night side. Deadman continued, "(I guess it can be a game changer.)"
"(Have you met the Spectre?)" The stress in the Stranger´s voice was pretty much in evidence. He looked like he needed to sit down.
"(Can´t say I´ve had the pleasure. I´ve heard some ludicrous stories about the guy, like he is a pompous drama queen with a nasty sense of humor, and that he can do practically anything he wants, like growing to the side of a mountain, or razing a whole country to the ground like he was the wrath of God.)"
"(The stories are true. The Spectre is the incarnation of God´s Wrath. Literally.)" Deadman gasped, and the Stranger continued. "(Vlatava, a country in Europe, permanently besieged by civil war, exists no more, destroyed by his hand. It only took him a moment to kill every single living creature on Vlatava. Not even the microbes were spared from his anger.)"
Deadman whistled his amazement "(And this Spear, what? is it his weapon?)"
"(No.)" The stranger conjured an image of the Spectre, tall as a mountain, shouting his anger to the heavens as a wave of fire ran through the land. He held a man in each fist; one was dressed in a military uniform, the other looked like a metahuman, clad in a green and black suit, with a long black cloak with green lining, that hung limp at his back. Both men screamed in horror at the destruction the Spectre wrought on the land.
Deadman could not speak after seeing such destruction. Men, women, children, animals. All burning to death at a gesture from the pale-skinned giant.
Somberly, the Phantom Stranger concluded, "(The Spear of Destiny can kill the Spectre.)"
Tokyo-3
Aida Household.
Two Hours After School
"Hey, Kensuke!" Toji spoke in the intercom at the door. "Are you there? Open the door!"
The door beeped open. "Sure, come in. I´m in the dark room. You got it?"
Toki kept speaking at the Pin-Pon unit, even though the door was already open. Anyway, it was easier than waiting until Kensuke finished whatever he was doing in the dark room. And he didn´t have any wish of barging in and ruining a batch of pictures, or worse, the negatives. It had happened one, and it took them a while to recover from the loss. "Yeaup. I got you your package. Mr. Takashima says you still have some credit, but it´s not enopugh for another pack. He says you have to build up your account again."
"Well, bring it in; just let me finish with this batch and I´ll see you at the living room. I´ll go to the store later to get more credit. There´s some sodas in the fridge, go ahead and get one for me, please."
Toji entered the small house, and put the package on the coffee table. It wasn´t large, but it was heavier than it looked. He wiped his forehead. Luckily it hadn´t rained, yet. A few days before, he and Kensuke had to ask Shinji for refuge from the rain.
A couple of minutes later, Kensuke appeared. "Phew, man! Who would have guessed that Rei would become so popular?" He rubbed his hands together, and opened the box Toji had brought. "Ah, yes. With these supplies, we can print a lot of sets of Fire and Ice pics!"
"I know!" Toji smiled, thinking of the money they had raked in since they decided to include Rei in their sets of girls pictures.
Tokyo-3
Ayanami-Soryu Apartment.
Same Time
"Bless you." Both girls had sneezed simultaneouly.
Asuka furrowed her brow in annoyance. "Somebody must be talking about us, Wonder Girl."
"How do you know it?" Rei put the book she had been reading down on her lap.
"We both sneezed at the same time. And I don´t remember having seeing you do that before."
Rei thought about it for a moment. "It is rare, yes. But I don´t see any causal relationship between talking about a person and said person sneezing."
"There shouldn´t be, but believe me. It happens."
High Atmosphere Orbit.
Above Spain
The airless expanse of space wasn´t conductive to any type of sound, but had there been air enough to conduct the sound, there would have been a small boom and a series of ´Pings!´ surrounding a strange, segmented cylinder. One that was longer in the inside than in the outside. At the center of the tube, a small box floated, analyzing the interplay of several forces. Gravity, electromagnetism, cosmic rays, residual air, etc.
A few minutes later, there was a second boom. And the "Ping!"s vanished.
There was nothing there anymore.
However, valuable data had been obtained and relayed.
Somewhere outside the Material Dimension
Same time
A titanic sphere stirred in its slumber. The processing core at its surface ran through several simulations, and decided that the insertion point previously selected wouldn´t work after all. It ran through the available data, and selected another place. A new booming noise followed an energy discharge, and the next probe was sent.
Tokyo-3
Katsuragi-Ikari Apartment.
Same Time
Shinji sat down at the table, rigidly working on his homework. Wildcat had really worked him over in their last session. He had been at Nanda Parbat several times during the previous days, and thanks to the strange properties of time there, Shinji had accumulated a couple extra days to his life, for a moment, he thought idly it would affect the date of his birthday, but shrugged the thought away.
The young pilot rolled his shoulders for a few seconds, trying to get rid of the residual pain. He had no bruises, it was just muscular fatigue. Wildcat had assured he would be feeling fine after one or two days using the ointment he had given him back in Nanda Parbat.
When the man said that the kiddie gloves were off, he meant it. Shinji had learned more in the few scant hours he had spent in the solitary temple, than in all the time he had been sparring with Asuka and Rei.
The old veteran had demonstrated a lot of fighting maneuvers, responses, attacks, holds, grapples, weapon improvisation, situation awareness. Shinji barely could hit the big man. But every time he dis, Wildcat just smiled crookedly and stepped up on his own fighting style.
It was a mix of many different disciplines.
Shinji turned out to be a natural. He learned easily and fast. However, it seemed he could only catch Wildcat once with each new technique. The man was slippery and faster than he looked.
During one of their occasional breaks in training, Wildcat had revealed he was a fan of the old Jackie Chan´s movies. And suggested Shinji should watch a few. "(The man is a gifted athlete, a comedy genius, and a very fine combat coreographer.)" Mr. Grant had said. "(Watch him improvise weapons anywhere, and you will start to see the world in a different way.)"
He took a cup from the table. "(Just an innoffensive cup, right?)" Shinji knew where he was going. He nodded back at his teacher. "(But, it can also be a weapon, a distraction, even a shield.)"
"(You are progressing nicely. Soon you´ll be able to actually fight back at me. Then I will show you ways to take down enemies bigger than you.)"
"Using superior fighting techniques?"
"(Nah, kid. I´ll teach you to fight dirty!)" The grin on Wildcat´s face was disturbing. He pulled a big, wicked looking knife from a stand, and twirled it on his hand. "(But that´s for later. Right now, we are going to make dinner! First thing to do, cut the chicken in pieces.)"
Undisclosed Location
Unregistered Island Near the Coast of Madagascar
Underground Building 12
Assembly Cell; 12:23 AM (Tokyo-3 Time)
The Queen Bee of H.I.V.E. looked around her, weighting the atmosphere. She waited for any of her drones to speak. She was in an extremely foul mood. There had been no news from the recovery team sent to Tokyo-3.
She pointed at the drone sitting at the other end of the table, the lowest of the group in terms of the pecking order. "(Inform.)" She whispered, choking down on her anger.
The man answered. "(My Queen, there have been no communication from the team. Not even an emergency signal. They simply disappeared from the radar. Even their sub-cutaneous trackers stopped working.)"
"(Find them. Bring them back here.)"
"(Yes, my Queen. I´ll send a group after them. We have the contact data fro the seller who got them the equipment they used.)"
"(I don´t care for the details. Do whatever you have to do to find them and bring them back here.)"
The drone nodded, gathered his documents and prepared to exit the conference room.
"(Stop right there.)" The Queen stood up. "(You better work on infiltrating a new drone in NERV. As you are going there, we should take the chance. Check the roster for any drone who can do the job. The higher the place you can get them, the better.)"
"(Yes, my Queen. I´ll depart as soon as I have selected a team and chosen the infiltrator.)"
"Don´t forget to check with Doctor Cyber, I want you and your team to have an extra incentive to do your work."
The man paled. He was very familiar with the kind of incentives Dr. Cyber liked to put into use...
...and into drones...
Author Notes
I´m not completely sure if Deadman has interacted directly with the Spectre or not in DC canon; but for this story, he hasn´t.
Back in The Spectre run by John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake (1992 to 1998), a story arc dealt with a severely unhinged Spectre (issues 13 to 22, collected in The Spectre, vol. 2, Wrath of God). And indeed, the small, war-ravaged European country of Vlatava was wiped from the face of the Earth by a catastrophe of biblical proportions, courtesy of the Spectre. Having judged that the very land was so soaked in hate and anger the only way to save it was to annihilate it (issue 13, Dec 1993). The only survivors were the supervillain Count Vertigo, last member of the royal family; and the leader of the opposing army, General Hafza. And only because the Spectre decided that letting them live was more of a punishment than killing them with the rest of their respective peoples.
There is a Lance of Longinus in the DCU, but it´s better known as the Spear of Destiny. Very different from the one in Evangelion. It has had s long and conflicted history. Starting with being the one a roman soldier used to pierce Christ´s side. During WWII, Hitler had it in his possesion, and almost set off Ragnarok with it. Only the intervention of the Spectre and the JSA stopped the world´s destruction. (check the Last Days of the Justice Society of America TPB, collecting the original one-shot from 1986, plus several Secret Origins stories about the JSAers.)
Hitler´s hate tainted the spear, slowly turning any wielder into a paranoid tyrant.
Sometime in the future, the Spear will be purged from Hitler´taint, and will be used in the very far future by a heroine, Avatar. This is shown in Legionnaires Annual 3, from 1996. This is a future that might not happen in canon.
I made a mention of Crisis in Infinite Times. I have always wondered just how the Crisis in Infinite Earths was remembered in the Post-Crisis DCU...
About the only mention I´ve seen was in the Justlice League miniseries Incarnations (especifically, issue 5), written by John Ostrander, and it was a bit lacking in detail. It showed a bit about how the Crisis itself happened, but no details on the aftermath.
For this story, the Anti-Monitor tried to wipe-out alternate futures, erasing many of the possible futures DC used to have. However, some of them still survived as posibilities, like Kamandi´s world or the Legion of Superheroes XXXIst Century.
Personally, I wonder what happened with Kensuke and Toji´s bussiness of selling girls pictures to the male population at school. I don´t remember it even being mentioned again.
Maybe the demand dried up, maybe they were caught, maybe they simply decided to stop. Or maybe they kept on it until the evacuation of Tokyo-3.
Sure, Jackie Chan´s movies are far-fetched, and mostly comedic in nature, but there is a solid background in the way his characters fight. A more serious style of improvisational weaponry is Jason Statham´s trade, especially in The Transporter movies.
Wildcat´s approval isn´t canonical. I just thought the man would really enjoy watching a short guy pummel wave after wave of enemies by using whatever he has around. And scared silly most of the time, but still fighting.
Dr. Cyber is a little known member of Wonder Woman´s Rogues Gallery. After Second Impact, she ended up working for H.I.V.E. as a tecnical advisor. Queen Bee has tempted her to her side with expensive restorative treatments and surgeries to repair her disfigured face.
Lest´s just say that her incentives are very... motivational...