Hopeless, Part 7

Please Read and Review.I'd like to know what I'm doing right (to keep doing it), and what I am doing wrong (to correct it.

Day Four After Return

Tokyo-3, Japan
GeoFront
NERV HQ Hospital Wing

"You sure the Red Devil is okay, Shin-man?" Toji Suzuhara asked, as he flexed his fingers experimentally. He winced at the pain from his broken bones made itself known.

"No. She is not okay. She invested a lot of her… of herself in being an Evangelion pilot. Without it, she is… lost. She doesn't know what to do." He shook his head, sadly.

Toji looked ahead for a few seconds. "Um…" he said. "I kinda know how that feels, pal." He tapped the cast with his other hand. "I'm not a big brain, you know that." He half-shrugged. "I'm muscle, and I prefer to move, a lot. I really like best to train, to tire myself with exercise."

He sighed before continuing. "Back when I woke up after that Angel almost killed us un the mobile HQ, Dr. Akagi warned me that my arm and leg might have some nerve damage. I'm…" he shook his head too. "I'm afraid that when they get these things off me, I won't be able to go back to play basketball… I had hoped to get a sports scholarship or something, but I have some loss of feeling in my foot. She says that could be a sign of that nerve damage she told me about. Toji breathed deeply. "I… I think we will move to another city. Dad has been asking my uncles if they know of a place to rent in Tokyo-2."

Both kept silent for a long time, thinking.

"Toji." Shinji said finally. "You risked much to help us, and I thank you. Your Father is thinking of you and Sakura. He wants to protect you both."

"I know, Shin-man. But it feels like fleeing, you know. Like I'm letting the Angels win." He looked at the distance. "And I don't want to leave Hikari to fight alone."

"She is not alone." Shinji nodded brusquely.

"I know you guys will protect her if I can't, but I feel like that's my job and I'm failing at it."

"Tell you what, Toji." Shinji patted his friend's shoulder, "Keep on your therapy, get back into fighting shape. I'm sure if they see you're able, they will get you back into the plug."

"With private classes?"

"With private classes." Shinji agreed, "We didn't really got to the actual piloting stuff."

Toji nodded gravely. "You better teach everything to Hikari."

"I will."

The Past

SEELE Holochambers
Before Second Impact

Lorenz Kiehl looked around him, his optic visor observing each and every one of his co-conspirators in turn, letting them wait for his opening. He turned his face towards the American member of the committee, a squat and heavy man who looked like he had been an athlete in hus youth, but had let himself go since then. He still had a full mane of hair, cut short; along with an impressive mustache. The man adjusted his eyeglasses, waiting for Kiehl to speak.

"Report." The leader of SEELE said, his voice tense.

"Estimated casualties, seven million people, all infrastructure was completely destroyed. According to all reports, there's nothing left. No survivors have been found. The fire has reached catastrophic levels, Santa Barbara was evacuated and consumed by the fire. The whole West Coast will need decades to recover, even with Metahuman intervention."

Kiehl nodded gravely. "Then, it is decided. The Human Instrumentality Project will proceed. Tine is running out for the human race. Mankind is too far into the evolutionary dead end for it to recover in time to thrive after this cataclism effects fade. And we are, even now, exposed to another, maybe worse, cataclism." Kiehl's fists tightened for a moment. "Has Adam been located?"

"Not yet." SEELE-02 reported. "The projected area has been reduced to the Antarctic continent itself, not under water fortunately. Our agents in the UN have sent multiple expeditions, under the guise of cartographing the terrain, geological evaluation or fossil hunting. The Fortress of Solitude has not been located, and all the teams have been instructed to stay clear of Superman's turf."

"Good, we don't need uncontrolled Metahuman interference." Kiehl nodded gravely, "any other matters?" He waited until he was sure no one would add anything else. "Meeting adjourned."

SEELE Holochambers
After Second Impact

Lorenz Kiehl opened the meeting with a progress report. "The Empty Vessel Project proceeds at a good pace. Professors Morrow and Ivo have succeeded in stopping souls from attaching themselves to purely human bodies. Memory copying and implanting is just a matter of them descyphering Dr. Donovan's work. The man was a demented genius, but his clones are perfect copies of himself. I doubt the original even exists anymore. Or that any of his copies realices they are not the original. To last count, fourteen copies had been identified and eliminated; there is an unknown number of copies loose in equally unknown places, either active or dormant."

The Russian member of SEELE snorted. "Protocols have been set up to identify and nullify any Donovan copy who even gets close to any GEHIRN installation. The staff doesn't know about them, so they cannot betray the presence of the security measures."

"Have those protocols been duly tested?" The French member asked, his weak eyes blinking repeatedly over his long and pointy nose.

"Yes. We used the remains of the Donovan copy Morrow killed. Any trace of Donovan's genetic code, or the genetic markers he uses, were immediately identified, and destroyed within two minutes of their detection inside the sensors range."

"Why so long?" The English member asked, raising an eyebrow. "Two minutes are enough to cause untold damage in the wrong places."

"You misunderstand me. The traces are detected and attacked immediately, the two minutes time is for all remains to be destroyed, by then, any individual organism related to Donovan has been dead for over 119 seconds."

"Impressive." The man responded.

The Russian smiled crookedly. "The Rodina (1 and 2) may have not the astounding amount of Metahumans and independent mad scientists loose the Western has, but it is because Lenin and his successors either had them killed or… convinced to work for Mother Russia. I've used my access to some interesting tech left from the Cold War to smooth some problems for Instrumentality to proceed."

Reluctantly, the American conceded the point. The Russian continued, "Soon we will have the means to clone mixed individuals, using human DNA spliced from Angelic matter. My scientists have studied blood samples taken from Mikhail Arcadin, both as himself, as Pozhar, and as a copy of Firestorm. (3) We already made a copy of Firestorm, but it was… uncontrollable (4). Still, we need only Angelic genetic material to begin the adjustments. Add your soul-blocks, and we will have the means to create replaceable pilots with mental continuity."

Day Four After Return

Tokyo-3, Japan
Ayanami-Soryu Apartment

Asuka sat motionless at the chair in her room. On her desk, a copy of an old magazine rested, open at an article. The magazine belonged to Shinji's collection, of course, and he hat lend it to her after she asked.

"The JLI is here" it claimed proudly. A two page spread held a picture of the initial roster of the newly reorganized Justice League, now sponsored by the UN as a truly multinational group, protecting Earth as a whole. They had posed for the picture right under the UN symbol.

There were several known faces there, one she had even met in person. Oberon. The dwarf man smiling proudly at the very front of the group, in a suit that had been obviously made for him.

She read the footnote that identified the JLI members, and her eyes looked for them in the same order, left to right. The Martian Manhunter, standing stoically at the edge of the group. She had the impression he felt himself apart from the others, but wanting to fit with the group. Next to him, the Batman, who tried to hide himself in a non-existent shadow, or maybe become a living shadow himself. Black Canary, daughter and heir of the original, now wearing an awful costume. Asuka smirked, the heroine seemed to have a penchant for outdated outfits, like the fishnets and half-jacket she debuted with, and now that 1980s disaster! Booster Gold, clowning for the camera. The original Mr. Miracle, waving at the public. Guy Gardner, the least reputable of the Green Lanterns, looking antagonistic towards the big guy in a white and red armor next to him. Rocket Red number 7, the USSR representative, whose face was completely hidden behind the mirrored face plate. Captain Atom, the USA representative, who looked like a chrome statue with military pose. Captain Marvel… Asuka sighed sadly, she had known him for a little time, grieving and lost. In the picture, he looked so innocent, so optimistic it broke her heart. At the front and center, Blue Beetle, cheerfully joking with Oberon, in a way that made them look like old friends. And lastly, the man who had organized and sponsored the group. Maxwell Lord, an entrepreneur with a ruthless reputation.

She read the article, as it detailed the new operative parameters the group would operate under. All of them were recognized as citizens of any and all countries affiliated to the UN, with high-level clearance to operate within their frontiers. They were not allowed to command armies, but the leader of the JLI would have authority to organize emergency responses to natural catastrophes. In a way, they were to be a combination of police, firefighters, and coast guards.

Surprisingly, the Batman had relinquished command to the Martian Manhunter, arguing that he was the only one in the group to have a truly global perspective.

Asuka looked intensely at the pictures of J'Onn J'Onzz, an alien lost in a world not his own. His own world dead. But still, quietly enduring.

Tokyo-3, Japan
NERV HQ
Commander Ikari's Office

"Pilot in Training Horaki." Commander Ikari said, his voice level and efficient. "As soon as you're certified in Evangelion Unit Operative Procedures, you will be taking over Unit-02. I expect you to apply yourself to your training. Both under NERV trainers, for theory and approved procedures, and with Pilot Ikari for actual operation of Unit-02." Light reflected over his tinted shades, his eyes fully hidden. "Do you have any questions?"

"Just one, Sir." She waited. Shinji and Asuka had told her what to expect from Commander Ikari, and what to do to keep him believed he was in full control of the situation. Basically, let him think he had the upper hand.

"Go ahead." He said. "Under the understanding I'll only discuss matters under you're clearance level. Any matter not covered by it won't receive answers."

"Could… ahem… could Pilot Soryu be reinstated as a reservist? I-I mean, she has training, experience…"

Commander Ikari didn't answer for a long time. His cold eyes examining Hikari's face with such intensity the girl feared he was another telepath, baring her secrets one by one, until he exposed her true nature. Hikari struggled to repress her own underdeveloped skills.

"It's been considered." He finally said.

"Thank you, sir." Hikari recognized a non-answer, but kept her disappointment well hidden.

"Dismissed. Return to your training."

"Yes, sir." Hikari left the hideous office as fast as decorum allowed.

"Her question has merit, Ikari." Vice-Comander Fujutsuki broke the silence.

Commander Ikari nodded minutely. "It does. Discarding a pilot with a full decade of training is wasteful. I'll let the situation progress. I want a controllable amount of mental stress in the pilots."

Fujutsuki sighed discretely. It was the best he could hope for. Not enough. But it was better than nothing.

Tokyo-3, Japan
NERV HQ
Commander Ikari's Office
(Spiritual Plane)

"I wish I could say I live for the day I'll be able to show you two exactly how angry I'm with you two rubes, but that would be the wrong wat to say it." Deadman growled. "For now, I'll content myself with telling your secrets to the aggrieved parties. Meaning the Phantom Stranger and the kids!"

Day Five After Return

Tokyo-3, Japan
Horaki House
Garden
Early Morning

Hikari sat primly over a small mat, facing a big clay pot. It was a very simple pot, nothing fancy. The kind of pot that's sold by the hundreds in any prefecture of the country.

The rich soil it contained was also a very normal soil. Carefully set with compost and water, under the vigilant (and very surprised) eyes of Hikari's Father and Grandfather.

She had spoken with them about the Phantom Stranger and his revelations about the truth behind Second Impact. Only the appearance of the Stranger himself had stopped the pair from assaulting NERV.

Barely.

Now, Hikari took care of always starting her day meditating in front of that simple, unassuming pot, that contained a plant that had not evolved on Earth, and needed telepathy to grow and bloom. (5)

The Zo'ok.

The simbiotic plant that was granted to each teenager on Ma'Aleca'Andra upon reaching adult age. Until then, the younglings were to use their shapeshifting abilities to make clothes from their own bodies, but that required constant concentration. A useful way to practice holding a form for longer and longer periods until changes were easy to achieve. At that point, shaping clothes was a distraction.

A small sapling grew from the soil in the pot, entwining itself on the stick provided, so it could grow tall and strong.

Day Six After Return

"You took your time, Stranger." Asuka said with a hint of annoyance in her voice.

"My apologies. Circumstances didn't allow me to reach you." The Phantom Stranger bowed his head.

"At least I had time to think on what you showed us." She squeezed Shinji's hand. "I am ready to see more."

The Stranger nodded, and faced each pilot in turn. "I must warn you before proceeding. Our next trip, unlike the stories of J'Onn J'Onnz and Kal-El, has not reached a…" he seemed to reach for the right way to convey his thoughts. "A satisfactory conclusion."

Asuka glared at him, but kept silent.

"She of the Decay's hold can be terribly powerful, even for the greatest heroes." He swept his hand in the air. "The story begins with the Excalibur."

The trio gasped as one. Hikari exclaimed. "You mean King Arthur was actually real?"

"He was, yes. I met him and Merlin. I was there when Camelot was built, and was a witness of its fall. But no. I didn't refer to King Arthur's magical sword. I meant this Excalibur." With a gesture, they were once again standing in space, close to a space shuttle, proudly named 'Excalibur'.

"The crew of this ship was busy in what was supposed to be a routine mission for Lexcorp. But fate had other plans."

A bright stream of light hit the ship, going through it as an angry ghost. "A solar flare. Insuficiente shielding due to Lex Luthor's greed. And maybe, just maybe, the interference of the Kryptonian artifact known as the Eradicator, thrown into the Sun by Superman days before. The confluence of these factors began a domino effect that drove a hero into She of the Decay's trap. And millions of people to a cruel death." He said solemnly.

"For now, this is the crew of the Excalibur, brave astronauts that are practically family (6)." Now the group stood inside the ship, and could see three men and a woman writhing in pain. "Hank Henshaw, the man in charge of the mission." He pointed at a tall man, who desperately tried a series of controls. "His wife, Terri Henshaw." A red haired woman struggled to put a space suit on, with the help of a young man with a strong family resemblance, "Stephen McCloud, his brother in law" the fourth man was big and strong, but the ship resisted violently his attempts to recover control, "And Jim Garrison, test pilot and friend of the other three."

Bright, sickly colored lights flooded the space shuttle. "The radiation, possibly altered by the Eradicator's energies, changed these four astronauts into fantastic creatures. At the highest possible cost."

Now the group stood in a high-tech lab, as the astronauts, now horribly changed, fought Superman. "Hank Henshaw's intellect increased beyond human limits, but his flesh rotted on his bones." He had turned into a ghastly parody of himself, a walking corpse that barely held himself together. "Teri Henshaw became immaterial, but loses cohesion constantly." She tried to lean on a wall, only to ghost through it. "Stephen McCloud has turned into living radiation, his body destroyed by his own power. And Jim Garrison's mind now possesses a grotesque golem made of rock, dirt and fragments of their ill-fated ship."

The three pilots had to watch helplessly as the astronauts died. Stephen flew to outer space, where he joined the cosmos radiation, his radioactive body joining the cosmic rays. Hank Henshaw was the next to die, working out a way to save his wife, his flesh falling from his bones until there was nothing left. But his sacrifice was enough to give Garrison the clue to reconstitute Terri Henshaw's body, by using a magnetic resonance chamber to recreate her own atomic bonds. But that same magnetic discharge ripped all metal from his body, killing him too.

"In the end," the Stranger said, his voice low in respect, "Only one of them survived. But his mind broke."

Shinji's head whipped around. "His? But the only one to survive was Terri. Her body was restored, wasn't it?"

"Unfortunately, her ordeal drove her into madness, catatonia, and death." The Stranger closed his hand, and the group now stood on a white void. "It was her husband, Hank Henshaw, who returned from death some time later, now a disembodied intellect, capable of controlling and animate any kind of machinery."

"He decided to abandon Earth, and roam through space in search of knowledge, using Kryptonian tech and materials taken from Superman's own birthing matrix."

"Oh, Kami…" Shinji swayed on his feet, struck by a horrible realization. "Kryptonian birth chamber…" his eyes darted around in helpless alarm.

Asuka grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him twice. "What's the matter, Doll-Boy! What's wrong?" Worried, Hikari squeezed Asuka's shoulder, distracting her.

Shinji stood rigidly in the white void. "I know who he became, what he did!"

Hikari joined the dots, her head low, she whispered. "He became a monster."

"Who?" Asuka demanded.

The Stranger waved a hand, and a monstrous shape coalesced before them. It was an unholy union of flesh and metal, cast in the shape of a hero, and even more monstruos for it.

The three pilots gave a step backwards.

The monster before them wore a familiar shape, a proud pentagonal shield upon his ravaged chest, an arm, half of the torso, and a leg had been replaced by metallic prosthetics, his face was a robotic skull, with only a quarter of a recognizable face. One blue eye looked at them, burning with fury, and a black string of hair formed a curl over his forehead.

Shinji croaked two words, breaking the horrified silence.

"…Cyborg Superman…"

Author Notes:

1. Mother Russia, or more properly, Mother Homeland, the anthropomorphic representation of Russia as a country. I'm not aware the Rodina was ever shown as a character in the DCU, but in any case, she will not appear in this story.

2. Allow me to digress a bit from the main narrative, In the DCU, countries can have personifications. Avatars that channel the people's perception of their nation. The United States of America, for example, have had multiple personifications, the best known is Uncle Sam, who debuted in National Comics issue 1 (Jul, 1940). During John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake's run in The Spectre, a recurring idea was the use of mystical entities fused with dying or dead humans, much like the Spectre and the Swamp Thing (the best known of these composite entities). Other avatars were implied, including the idea of a National avatar for at least, the USA, this idea was explored during the story-arc The Haunting of America (The Spectre, issues to 37 to 50, from Jan 1996 to Feb 1997), showing a succession of previous avatars, from the early Minuteman and Brother Jonathan during the Independence War, to Billy Yank and Johnny Reb during the Civil War, to 1870s first incarnation of Uncle Sam. This composite entity was renewed during each World War, with the implication that their respective human components were different. Finally, Uncle Sam was replaced in the last chapter of the arc by a new avatar, the Patriot. BTW, the Patriot version didn't last long, and soon it reverted to the Uncle Sam version.

3. Things are way more complicated than what the Russian thinks. Mikhail Arcadin was a victim of the Chernobyl disaster, and got uncontrollable powers that were killing him. He was sent by the Soviet government to fight Firestorm under the alias Pozhar, but ended up fusing with Ron Raymond, one of Firestorm's human components, replacing the dying other component, Professor Martin Stein; but now Firestorm was an entity independent of both. Eventually, Professor Stein came back to life, and finally, he was the only human component of the newly revealed fire elemental. Both Ron Raymond and Mikhail Arkadin were depowered. Pozhar debuted in Firestorm Annual 5 (1987). For SV, Firestorm is still the fire elemental, again with Ron Raymond and Prof. Stein; and is part of the life-sustaining circuit channeling life force into Maya, the world spirit.

4. Svarozhich, a seemingly soulless clone of Firestorm. He was created using genetic material stolen from the elemental Firestorm, however, the process only could copy the body, along a rudimentary copy of the mind/soul. Svarozhich was a flawed copy of Firestorm, rebelled against its creators, and eventually was absorbed by the Firestprm matrix. He debuted in Firestorm issue 83 (Mar, 1989).

5. Im elaborating on the little data that was shown in the Martian Manhunter issue that included the Zo'ok. In short, they are plants, the flowers can be symbionts for Martians, they are semi-sentient, they shapeshift under telepathic contact, and they are used to make clothes for their symbiotic partners. Everything else, I'm just making up, in ways I believe are credible in the DCU.

6. The crew of the Excalibur and the events presented here, are clear homages to Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four and their origin story. Hank Henshaw is a Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic) expy, his wife Terri is Sue Storm/Richards (Invisible Girl/Woman), Stephen is her brother (the Human Torch), though he didn't get a surname. I chose McCloud as a substitute for "Storm", and Jim Garrison is equivalent to Ben Grimm, the Thing. The Excalibur debuted in Superman issue 42 ( Apr, 1990), and her crew in Adventures of Superman issue 465 (Apr, 1990). The crew, except for Terri, all died in Adventures of Superman issue 466 (May, 1990). Terri Henshaw's last appearance was in Adventures of Superman 468 (Jul, 1990), and this issue is credited as her death in the DC Famdom site, though at the end of the issue she was catatonic. It can be inferred she died some time after this issue.