Art by OrionPax09.
After the Fifth Angel is destroyed, Rei is both confronted with new possibilities...and given a gift from Lilith the Second Angel.
Superwomen of Eva: Lilith's Herald
is another Superwomen of Eva story by OrionPax09, and sees Rei Ayanami becoming a version of the Silver Surfer.
Having had enough of the two warring conspiracies involving the misuse of her power, Lilith resolves to set into motion a plan to stop it. That plan involves Rei Ayanami, by granting her the power to act against them as the Silver Surfer.
Tropes:
- Abusive Parent: Gendo. (What a shock.)
- Crossover: Spirit, who has the same origin as in her own story, although she goes through some drastic changes here as a result of the Silver Surfer's assistance.
- Cryptic Conversation: Lilith rarely gives direct advice.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Matarael the Ninth Angel is quickly dispatched by the Surfer.
- Enemy Mine: Done by the Surfer and Storm at one point.
- Good Thing You Can Heal: Silver Surfer is nearly destroyed by Asuka, but is saved by this.
- Healing Factor: Most of the heroes.
- Kick the Dog: Gendo's thug Chiron, the head of NERV's Section-2, gives this treatment to Shinji by literally kicking him in the side. Making this even worse is that Chiron had already spent a considerable amount of time brutalizing and torturing Shinji under Gendo's orders, and he's already severely injured to the point where he can't even move.
- Logical Weakness: The Board is Rei's power source, and she has to be in physical contact with it to become the Silver Surfer. If she loses contact with it, she loses her superhuman powers.
- Make an Example of Them: Gendo already crosses the
Moral Event Horizon by asking Section-2 head Chiron to beat the living hell out of Shinji because he spoke out against him, mainly over his standing order to kill the Superwomen instead of asking for their help. Gendo then goes even further by ordering Chiron to parade Shinji's unconscious, devastated body all over NERV Headquarters, while announcing that this is what anybody who speaks out against Gendo's orders will be looking forward to (and then having Chiron dump Shinji at the Katsuragi apartment, while also ordering all doctors in the Hakone area to not attend to Shinji for a couple of days, or else he will do that to them). - The Mentor: Lilith to the Surfer, and Spirit.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Rei tries to end everything early by killing Adam before it even arrives in Tokyo-3. Unfortunately, this both gets her marked for termination immediately by Gendo, and drives the Angels into a frenzy, who now have no clear goal besides attacking humanity because Adam is gone.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Rei thinks this of Pen-Pen, since they were both artificially created for a specific purpose, and is initially astonished that Shinji and Misato would accept Pen-Pen as being as 'real' as they are.
- Power Copying: Spirit finally gets to make use of this power, after not doing it as much in her original story.
- Elemental Shapeshifter: Spirit can become crystalline like Ramiel, turning into organic diamond.
- Eye Beams: Ramiel's energy blasts.
- Feather Flechettes: Sahaquiel's ability to detach parts of itself and detonate them.
- The Magic Touch: Spirit can charge inanimate objects with explosive energy.
- Prehensile Hair: Shamshell's energy whips.
- Wolverine Claws: Sachiel's energy claws.
- Refusal of the Call: Rei isn't interested in being the Surfer at first. When Misato is nearly killed in the Jet Alone disaster which Rei had known would happen in advance due to Gendo telling her about it, Shinji is grief-stricken, blaming himself for what happened. When Rei sees this, she changes her mind.
- Running Gag: Rei being a comically hard-to-deal-with actress during the Omake. Examples include:
- Her getting research on how to handle a surfboard for the role and trying to speak like a surfer (a la the version of her role on The Super Hero Squad Show), with her words coming out sounding odd (an Emotionless Girl sounding like a stoner surfer is just... odd).
- Her being very ticklish (leading to some "scenes"
losing their punch and having to be reshot repeatedly).
- Shout-Out:
- Rei's Logical Weakness is a shout-out to Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (the comic book version of the Surfer doesn't have this power; the board acts as an Amplifier Artifact instead).
- Swiss-Army Superpower: Rei's board is capable of creating clothes, food, and other objects, and even creating an exact double of her. It is also capable of transmuting matter, something that proves useful when the Silver Surfer repairs Misato's damaged car.
- Transformation Trinket: The Angelic Arms, which include Rei's board.
