Asuka wandered through the Geofront, a perplexed look on her face.
The day had not gone well for Asuka. Shinji was missing, breakfast had not been made, and Misato was waffling between pride and worry. Normally that would have had Asuka fuming. Forget the fact that Shinji had skipped class. AND the afternoon's synch test.
But something was... strange. Odd. Off kilter. She had half expected Shinji to go missing. His skipping classes hardly surprised her. And by the time the synch test came along she was too distracted to even complain about the Third. Even Rei had noticed and commented on Asuka's increasing distraction and lack of ranting.
~~Fffft. I'm surprised Wonder Girl pays any attention to how other people act. Heh. Maybe if she DID pay more attention she'd learn to stop acting like a little robot.~~ Asuka snorted to herself, but even her angry thoughts lacked the usual venom. Something was just WRONG today.
Things hadn't been EXACTLY the same as.. as her 'dream'. Or whatever it was she fuzzily recalled. Lots of little things had been different. But the big things had been pretty constant. Which was why she felt some trepidation as she walked down the hallway. Part of her fully expected to spot Shinji turning the corner any second now and part of her insisted the whole thing was ridiculous. Neither part was sure what she would do if the day continued to follow her dream. She wasn't sure she could stand this feeling of strangeness and repetition any longer.
Which was why she breathed a small sigh of relief instead of cursing when two medical personnel almost knocked her off her feet as they turned the corner with a gurney.
Asuka only had a few second to stare as the medics hurried down the hallway with their patient. Who, oddly enough, appeared to be one Gendo Ikari. Even stranger was the way he had his hands between his legs and his eyes closed in pain as he rolled by.
Asuka shrugged. ~~Well, THAT'S certainly different!~~ She grinned and hummed to herself as she walked down the hallway. The circle was broken! Things were different! Clearly it was all just a dream of some sort. No more feeling of Déjà vu.
Her happiness only lasted a few more moments before klaxons began to wail.
“Angel Detected inside defensive perimeter! All pilots report to your Evas! This is not a drill!”
*********
"Gott im Himmel!" Eva Unit 2 did a backflip, opening the distance between itself and the strangely familiar Angel. While Asuka didn't bother putting another burst from her rifle into the creature, Rei in Unit 0 took the opportunity to empty her weapon into the blob. This time Asuka could see the trails the bullets took as they zipped right through the angel, deflected around its core.
"Asuka, Rei, the Angel is changing it's body's density to deflect... " Misato began.
"To deflect projectiles! I know, I know!" Asuka shouted back in aggravation. The damned monster was as fast as she.. .remembered? And she was having a hard time avoiding a repeat of the last, fuzzily remembered fight.
"Understood." Rei replied, dropping her rifle and pulling out her progressive knife.
The battle raged on for several minutes. Progressive knives could cut the angel, and some of its fluid would leak out, but the wounds quickly sealed themselves. And the core would float to the opposite side of the body whenever they drew close, putting it outside of easy striking distance. The two Evas split up to try to attack from both sides at once.
"This would be a lot easier with the stupid Third Child!" Asuka groused as she circled the blob.
"Nobody knows where Shinji is right now! Section Two still can't find him and they've been searching since just before the angel attack! You two are on your own!" Misato replied over the comm..
"Wunderbar. I don't need that idiot anyway! I can handle thi.. AH HA!" Asuka crowed in victory as the angel's core drifted close to the surface and within reach of her progressive knife. She stabbed forward into the creature...
"Remember, it can change its density!" Ritsuko called out.
Just in time for Asuka to find her arm stuck in the Angel, the tip of her progressive knife hovering a few inches from the core. There was a moment of silence and inaction... and then the blob slid to the side while leaving Asuka in place, turning the area the redhead had stabbed into a psuedopod. A psuedopod which then flexed, lifted the Eva high into the air, and then began slamming it back down again.
"Oh CRAP..." Asuka muttered as the earth and sky spun around her, the ground approaching rapidly. And then...
Darkness.
*********
Darkness...
Asuka bolted upright in bed, her heart pounding, blinking her eyes to clear them. A quick glance at her clock told her it was far too early. But there was no possible way sleep was going to reclaim her this time. She held her hands over her chest, trying to slow the beating of her heart, staring straight ahead into the darkness.
Then she heard it.
"God damn I hate this." Shinji sighed from his room.
Asuka was through the door and across the hall in three seconds. Half a second later she had the thin paper door to Shinji's room thrown open, her hands clenched into tight fists, her heart suddenly filled with rage. She didn't know what was going on, she didn't know what was wrong, she didn't know if she was going crazy or not. But she DID know where there was someone she could take out her frustrations on, thank goodness!
"SHINJI! Just what the hell is going on here! And where the hell were you yesterday! We had an angel to fight!" She shouted at the third child who just turned his head and stared at her from where he was sitting on his futon.
Asuka's anger almost left he was she stared back into Shinji's face. He just stared back at her for a moment, mouth agape, his expression completely and utterly shocked. Why did he looked so surprised? Asuka barged in on him and blamed him for random things all the time. It was fun and easy! Why was he acting so strangely this time? His weird behavior made her so ANGRY! And thus Asuka was able to bounce back to anger and maintain her equilibrium.
"You.. You remember yesterday?" he mumbled, still staring at her blankly.
"Of course I remember yesterday you DUMPKOF! What kind of idiot do you think I am!"
And with that Asuka's anger was blown away, replaced by paralyzing shock and confusion as she found herself with an armful of sobbing Third Child, Shinji's arms wrapped around her waist as he bawled like a baby, crying into her stomach.
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(Posted Sun, 23 Sep 2012 14:11)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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