"Come on Asuka, just give it up! And let go of my arm!" Shinji whined. It was actually kind of refreshing, hearing him whine. Normally it just grated on Asuka's nerves, but right now it sounded almost.. normal.
"No way Third! We're going back to NERV and explaining this to Dr Akagi. AGAIN. And this time we're getting a REAL explanation!" Asuka insisted, her voice filled with steely determination.
"I've TRIED that already! It doesn't help! She'll just run more tests. The same tests as LAST time. Do you REALLY want to go through them AGAIN?"
Asuka shuddered, slowing a bit and loosening her grip on Shinji's arm. "You have a point." She grimaced. "Why can't she take your temperature from your ear like every other doctor? Instead she has to use the OTHER thermometer..."
"Ugh. . Tell me about it. So let's just forget about it, alright?" Shinji grinning a bit and worked at extracting his arm from the red-head's grip.
Asuka shook her head after a moment and clamped her hand down on Shinji's arm again, dragging him along once more and picking up the pace.
"No way! You're not going to talk your way out of this! You're going to come with me to see Dr Akagi. You're going to be HELPFUL and explain the situation WITH me." Her grip tightened painfully and Shinji winced. "And we're going to get some ANSWERS!"
Shinji flexed his hand a few times, trying to keep the blood flowing as Asuka kept her grip on his wrist. "But I can already TELL you what she's going to say! She's just going to say 'Temporal displacement or replication is a...."
*********
"..physical impossibility, and violates causality." Ritsuko continued as she looked over both pilot's charts. "In short, it is quite impossible for you to be physically going through the same day over and over."
Asuka glared daggers at Shinji as he rolled his eyes, mouthing the doctor's words a half second before she said each one.
"There may be a medical explanation for why you're feeling a sense of déjà vu each day however. We'll have to run some tests." She started talking to herself, making notes on her clipboard. "I think we'll start off by taking a blood sample. While that's being done we'll do an MRI and then..."
Both Shinji and Asuka groaned.
*********
"Well, I hope you're happy now." Shinji grumbled, checking his watch as they stepped out of Dr Akagi's lab. "You made me miss my appointment!"
"You think I'M happy?" Asuka glared at the third child. "We wasted half the day in there! And what appointment?"
Shinji sighed, sounding depressed. "You get used to wasted days after a while. Anyway, it's not important. Just be glad I managed to get use out of there before she got to the part with the thermometers."
"How DID you get her so distracted anyway? And what was all that technobabble you spouted at her and typed on the computer?"
"Oh, that's all stuff I learned before when I kept trying to get Ritsuko to figure out how to fix things." He sighed, hands in his pockets, shoulders slumped. "I'd make her explain stuff to me one loop, then explain it back to her the NEXT loop to speed things up. Whatever else she figured out I'd memorize and tell her the next day and stuff."
"Why didn't you TELL me you were already doing that! Dummkopf!" Asuka growled and punched his shoulder.
"I TRIED to!" Shinji groused, rubbing his shoulder. "You didn't listen!"
"Well, what did you find out! Why haven't you fixed everything yet? Why aren't you explaining things to her right now??"
Shinji rolled his eyes. "Because we hit a dead end! After a while it took half the day for me to explain all the physics stuff we'd figured out back to Ritsuko, and another half the day for her to UNDERSTAND it all, and then here was no time for her to get any further. Anyway, she was always coming up with the same answer: that it was impossible."
"Oh." Asuka's shoulders slumped a bit too as they walked down the hallway. ~~Well, I guess that explains why Ritsuko went all bug eyed and spent fifteen minutes staring at what Shinji typed on her computer before waving us off when we said we were leaving...~~
"Shinji? How many of these loops have you been through already?" Asuka asked, eyeing him sharply.
"I don't know. I.. lost count." Shinji replied, looking away evasively. Before Asuka could push the question, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her out a door. "Come on, we still have some time."
"Hey, let go!" Asuka growled and yanked her arm back, but continued to follow Shinji, annoyed once again. "Still have time for WHAT?" She growled.
"We still have time before the Angel shows up. Let's go outside and find a good spot to watch!"
"Find a good spot to watch??" Asuka asked incredulously, still following along.
*********
"This is just WRONG." Asuka muttered.
Shinji snorted. "It's not like it matters really. Popcorn?"
Asuka nodded and accepted the bowl of popcorn instinctively, eyes focused on the scene below them.
The two pilots were sitting on a hilltop at the edge of Tokyo 3, a few miles from where the Angel had appeared. From their elevated perch they could see a large swatch of Tokyo 3, and had a nice, clear view of the action as the Angel pressed it's way through town.
"We should be down there helping..." Asuka muttered, taking a handful of popcorn. Her instincts cried out for her to run back to NERV HQ and hop into her Eva. If nothing else it rubbed her the wrong way to run from a fight, or leave someone else defeat the enemy and grab the glory.
"I told you, it doesn't matter what we do." Shinji corrected. "Now shhh! This is where it gets good!"
A few seconds later Unit 00 shot out of the ground on a set of rails, snatching a rifle from one of the weapon storage buildings. The muzzle flash and explosions lit up the countryside around the city, putting on an impressive light show as the battle was joined.
Asuka cringed at each blast, squirming on the ground with each blow Unit 00 took. She might not LIKE Rei, but she didn't like seeing an angel winning either.
Shinji on the other hand was completely unaffected. He just sat there, happily munching on popcorn, doing a play by play of the action. Usually by mentioning events a few seconds before they happened. HE acted like he was watching a familiar and well loved movie, spouting the dialogue a second before the actors. It was just CREEPY.
"Watch this. . the Angel is going to grab her leg and send her flying." He pointed at a nearby, slightly higher hilltop. A few seconds later, events came to pass as stated, with Unit 00 slamming into the hilltop hard enough to leave a crater, and to make the ground jump beneath the other two pilots half a mile away. "And THAT is why I chose THIS hilltop to watch from." He said with a small smirk.
Asuka just stared at him. ~~Is this REALLY Shinji?~~ she asked herself, watching the other pilot calmly chewing a mouthful of popcorn.
"We can't just sit here..." Asuka finally said, sounding a bit queasy. "That thing is going to KILL Rei!" She watched Shinji, waiting for some reaction or response. All she got was a shrug of his shoulders.
"No it won't. They'll have her retreat in a few minutes, after it yanks her arm off. I guess they plan to have her fight it inside the geofront. It doesn't matter anyway. Everything resets before it can burrow down into the base."
Asuka stared at Shinji's profile for another few moments, watching him calmly eat some more popcorn, her stomach feeling nauseous. Then she returned her eyes to the battlefield before her, watching Rei continue to struggle against the Angel until she was finally too damaged to continue and was forced to retreat. The Angel focused on the transport tube Rei escaped through, using it's psuedopods to smash at the doors, breaking the ground and shattering the armored opening.
She was still watching it disappear into the tunnels below Tokyo 3 when everything went black.
*********
"This really really REALLY sucks." Asuka muttered to herself as the stared into the darkness of her room.
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(Posted Sun, 23 Sep 2012 21:28)
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