Well, lookie here, I'm back! My first fanfic was a total flop, so I gave up. However, I felt the time was ripe to try another one, so read and review, tell me whether I should keep writing this fic, or concentrate on my upcoming school certificate. Well, enjoy!
Oh, and of course, I don't own NGE or any of it's characters.
ARCHANGEL
Chapter one: rebirth
The sound of a door sliding open was accompanied by the click of a light switch, flooding the bathroom with light. It was a room typical of any apartment in Tokyo three, with space-saving efficiency evident throughout the tiny bathroom. The girl who had opened the door, however, had eyes for one part, the shower.
Closing the door, Asuka made a beeline for the amenity, stripping off her clothes as she went. She slammed on the hot water with urgency, and just stood there for a moment, the water surging over her body, reminding herself that she was still alive.
Picking up the shampoo, she started to wash her long red hair, flecks of foam landing on her fair skin. Closing her eyes, Asuka Langley-Soryu, the half German, half Japanese girl started to recall the latest events of her life.
"Get up!"
"Mmmmfffff.... Go away, Asuka, let me sleep....." moaned the lump of sheets and flesh that was named Shinji Ikari, long-time friend of Asuka.
"Is this any way to treat your best friend, who came to wake you up PERSONALLY? Now UP!!" She yelled, ripping the sheets from his limp form.
However, one of the disadvantages to this method of awakening was that it gave the sixteen-year-old a full view of what lay under the covers, namely Shinji wearing only a pair of boxers, and, well, an excellent idea of what was under them, too...
"PERVERT!" SLAP!!!
Asuka stormed out of the room, leaving her olive-skinned companion with a large, hand shaped welt on his face.
Snickering at the memory, Asuka then turned her attention back to the present, and the problem now facing her. Sighing at the knowledge that she really had no one to turn to for advice, she reached behind herself and started to clumsily rub soap onto new pearly white, razor-thin wings.
"Jeez, why do you have to be such a bitch Asuka?" asked Shinji, as he walked out of his room, with only one sock on and his ever-messy hair skewed to one side, where he had slept on it.
"Is it your period or something?"
"WHAT DID YOU SAY???" SLAP.
Another identical mark appeared on Shinji's other cheek, where Asuka had hit him for a second time.
"Move it, or we'll be late for scho..."
Asuka's sentence trailed off, as both teens heard the wail of air-raid sirens.
Running to the window, they immediately saw the cause. Something white, six-winged, and positively HUGE was flying towards the city, like some cruel parody of a bird of prey.
Finished with her efforts to get clean, the fiery redhead clenched her wet fist. 'Why did I do it?'
In her mind's eye, she replayed the fighting, imagining she could hear the rat-tat of the machine guns as soldiers tried to kill the beast, and the screams of the ones unfortunate to get hit by the thing's psychic attack, driving them insane.
She had run towards it, always acting all gung-ho, just to prove that she was better than everyone else.
This time, Asuka realised, she had tempted fate once too often. Swooping down, she had been the one to get in its way. Hitting her dead-on, the monster had not smashed her to a bloody pulp as she expected, it had instead turned insubstantial, like a ghost.
Literally absorbing itself into her body, it regained physical form, trying to take her over, like a daemon possessing her.
Images, memories flooded into Asuka's mind, and it nearly drove her insane. Pain exploded throughout her body, as a set of wings grew out of her back. She could taste blood in her throat, as internal organs were liquefied and changed, her heart being replaced completely. Asuka began to have a floating feeling, and as she opened her eyes, she looked on in horror.
This thing is forcing out my soul!
'I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't want to die!!!!'
Fear of death is a powerful motive for self-preservation, Asuka remembered. From the very edge of oblivion, she had clung on, clawing her way back into her body. She could remember actually see the daemon's soul, a thing of deadly beauty, a hybrid of woman and bird. Arael, the name came to her easily, after the glimpses of memories the Daemon had let her see. Over her supine form, each with one foot in her lifeless body, they fought for control, invisible to the world.
Falling down to a flurry of slashes from the unnatural being, Asuka was careful not to let her foot slip. Looking at it, she put a hand in too, as the daemon stood over her, about to deliver the final blow.
"My body, bitch"
With that, Asuka kicked up with the foot tethering her to mortal existence, catching Arael between the legs, lifting her out of Asuka's body.
With a final scream of rage, Arael dispersed into smoke, and Asuka's vision darkened and went black as life flowed back into her.
She had woken up, hours later, and all alone. Picking herself off the ground, she noticed the physical changes that had taken place, and felt surprisingly good. With that, she trudged home, only to find the house deserted.
Asuka turned off the taps, grabbed a clean towel, and rubbed herself dry, and wrapped it around herself. Walking out of the bathroom, and seeing nobody home, she found a packet of potato chips, and sat down to wait for her mother to come home.