Neon Genesis: Evangelion
Genesis: 0:17: Snowy Days
[A/N:
Anyone figure it out yet?]
[Disclaimer:
Don't own.]
Kasumi slowly opened her eyes. Her stomach was sore, but it was no longer
bleeding or really painful. "H…how long
have I been asleep?" she wondered. She
turned to face the large windows in the hospital room and something caught her
eyes.
She shifted in the hospital bed more to
look at the small bedside table with slight confusion. A small bouquet of flowers was sitting
there, from Shinji, Asuka, and Misato. A small, goofy drawing from Asuka was sitting by the flowers that said:
"Get better soon, dimwit! We still have
a fight to finish!" Kasumi giggled into
her hand and smiled at Asuka's attempt at making her feel better faster.
She noticed something that was buried
underneath the flowers and moved the things aside to find printouts from
Hikari, with a note from Shinji: "Sorry. But Hikari wanted to make sure you kept up on your lessons." Kasumi smiled at the apologetic tone that
Shinji always said things in. The
violet-eyed pilot carefully moved aside the flowers, picked up the packet and
mechanical pencil that her fellow pilots had left, and began to work.
"C-c-cold…" Asuka's teeth chattered
loudly in the front seat of the car. She held her gloved hands to the dashboard of Misato's car,
shivering. "It's so weird seeing snow
after so many years." the Major sighed, staring out the window of the car. Suddenly, the purple-haired woman rolled
down her window and stuck her head out into the cold air. She braced herself with her hands on the
door. "MISATO!" Asuka screeched.
"I got it." Shinji said flatly, leaning
over his seat and holding the steering wheel.
The three made it to the NERV hospital
alive, although Misato often spontaneously stuck her head out the window to
catch a few snowflakes on her tongue.
Kasumi looked over the printout paper
slowly. "What is wrong with me?" she
wondered, rubbing her throbbing temples, "I never have this much trouble with
work." She let out a low sigh and put
the papers aside. The Sixth Child slid
off of the hospital bed and walked to the window. The glass was cold, and the ground below was blanketed in white.
"Like the snow?" a voice
questioned. Kasumi turned around to
find Misato, Asuka, and Shinji standing in the doorway. "Snow?" the purple-eyed girl asked, "That's
what it's called?" "Yep, it came around
every year around this time." Misato smiled strangely, "Winter was my favorite
season." Kasumi barely had time to move
before Misato ran over to the window, staring at the snow with starry eyes and
with a large smile.
"Misato, you haven't been drinking,
have you?" Kasumi asked, only half as a joke. Misato shook her head, her smile growing wider. Suddenly, she ran out of the room, and a few
seconds later, the pilots saw their superior run out into the snow. "And…she hasn't been drinking?" Kasumi
asked, quite serious this time. Shinji
just blinked, then pulled something out of his bulging pocket.
"Here." he said, "We stopped by your
apartment on the way here, because Ritsuko said if you were awake, you could
leave." Kasumi took the items slowly
and then looked out the window again. Misato had fallen over and was waving her arms and legs through the
snow, making the shape of a stereotypical angel. Kasumi suddenly felt a sense of recognition, but she had no clue
why.
Asuka and Shinji waited outside the
room for a few minutes, then Kasumi came out, dressed in normal street clothes
and a winter coat. "So, shall we see if
Misato will stop playing and give you a ride home?" Asuka asked. "It's all right." Kasumi declined quickly,
"I can walk." "No way!" Shinji stepped
in, "We owe you our lives, and the absolutely least we can do is give you a
ride home!"
"Hey, Misato, let's—" Asuka began. She was thrown onto her back by a flying
snowball, then sat up and stared at Misato. The Major was acting as if she was nine years old, and was going
completely insane over the snow. "Misato!" Shinji shouted, "Knock it off so we can get moving!" Kasumi turned to stare at Shinji. "When in the hell has he ever shouted
outside of battle?" she wondered. "Go
Shin-chan!" Asuka leapt up, waving her fists like pom-poms. "And when has Asuka EVER encouraged
Shinji?!" Kasumi stared at Asuka.
"I wanted to keep playing in the snow!"
Misato whined. "We had to give Kasumi a
ride!" Shinji replied, "You can play later!" Misato cheered happily at the remark, and Kasumi stared at the Major. "Have they been sniffing something while I
was asleep?" she wondered. The Sixth Child
stared at her co-workers with a confused glance.
It was only a few minutes later when
Misato had parked on the curb in front of Kasumi's apartment complex. "See ya at school tomorrow!" Asuka said
through the window, and Kasumi nodded with a smile. The car peeled out onto the street with a screech, and Kasumi
stared after it. "I hope they make it
home in one piece." she muttered, remembering Misato's somewhat insane
behavior.
The next day, school was very much the
same. Or so it seemed.
Kasumi walked into the room
tiredly. She had barely gotten any
sleep the night before, and was ready to drift off to sleep during the
teacher's usual lecture on 2nd Impact. Her eyes shot open as she saw Shinji, Touji, and Kensuke running
around on the desks, leaping from desk to desk. "Come on, Shinji!" Asuka cheered. "Go, Touji!" Hikari called, "You're winning, ten to eight to
five!" Upon seeing Kasumi, Shinji
laughed and grinned.
And slipped.
The Third Child slipped off the desk,
causing it to topple over and crash into the other desks. In turn, the other desks crashed to the
floor, and Touji and Kensuke fell. "Aw,
Ikari, you messed up the race!" Rei suddenly said from beside Kasumi. The blue-haired girl had just arrived, and
Kasumi was staring at her with wide eyes. Rei ignored the strange look Kasumi was giving her, and turned around to
look out the door. "Teacher!" she
shouted without warning.
The class scrambled to straighten the
desks and sit down before the old man arrived. Kasumi was in a state of shock. Rei…had just shouted?
The old man was teaching mathematics,
not talking about Second Impact. Kasumi
stared in confusion. What in the hell
was going on? Suddenly, without
warning, a strange sounding siren rang out. "Hey!" Asuka and Shinji yelled, "Jingle Bells!" They sprang onto adjacent desks, hooked
arms, and started singing: "JINGLE BELLS, JINGLE BELLS, JINGLE ALL THE
WAY!" They ran around in a circle on
the desks while doing so. Rei clapped
them on, laughing.
Kasumi's eyes widened to the eyes of
dinner plates and she realized what the 'siren' meant. She grabbed Shinji and Asuka and yanked them
off the desks, and pulled Rei out of her chair. "There's an Angel attacking!" she said, nearly frantically,
"Let's go!" Kasumi nearly had to shove
them out of the school.
"Well, how're we supposed to get to
NERV when it's so far away?" Asuka asked. "How am I supposed to know?!" Kasumi snapped. Without warning, a familiar car roared up and sprang up onto the
sidewalk before stopping. The driver
door opened, and Misato fell out, completely drunk. "ALL HAIL THE QUEEN OF YEBISU!" she cackled. Kasumi's eyes nearly popped out of her
skull, and they widened even more as Shinji, Rei, and Asuka started chanting:
"All hail the Yebisu Queen!"
"Dear
Lord, they've all gone insane. That's
it, Commander Ikari put something in the coffee." the pilot of unit-14's
eye twitched. She shook her head and
slapped them all in the face, which seemed to bring them back to some semblance
of sanity, and said, "We've got an Angel attacking!" "Hai!" the three pilots shouted in unison, saluting Kasumi and
marching to the car. Asuka and Rei
grabbed Misato and piled into the back seat. Shinji leapt into the car, quite literally, and scrambled into the
passenger's side. "Y-you want ME to
drive?!" Kasumi blinked in shock. "You're a quick learner." Asuka laughed lightly from the back seat.
The blue car shot down the road, faster
than Misato had ever gone. "The Queen
of Yebisu orders you to slow the hell down!" Misato slurred, gulping down more
Yebisu. "I hardly even know how I'm
moving this thing!" Kasumi shouted. A
four-way intersection appeared and was getting closer. The light was red. "Which is the brake?!" Kasumi shouted. "Aw, screw it." Rei said, "You already shot through it." Kasumi looked up and stuck her head out the
window. There was a large, seven-car
pile-up in the intersection, and Kasumi sweatdropped.
"Well, that was simple to solve." she
said flatly.
Ritsuko was playing eight different
games of solitaire, waiting for the pilots to get to NERV. "Major Katsuragi seemed half in the bag when
she left." Maya said, "Are you sure she hasn't crashed?" "It did look like she stuffed some cans into
her jacket pocket." Shigeru sighed, tuning his air guitar, "Her jacket seemed a
little tighter." "That's natural!"
Makoto said indignantly, "Take it back!" He leapt up and slapped Shigeru. He reached down into the long-haired lieutenant's empty hands, and the
two fought over Shigeru's air guitar.
There was a loud crashing sound, and a
few minutes later, the four pilots, and a very drunk Misato came running into
the room. "The Queen of Yebisu commands
you to go forth and kick the Angel's ass!" Misato pointed her finger to the
viewing screen. "Hey, Queen of Yebisu,
gimme one!" Ritsuko said. Misato
grabbed a can of Yebisu from her coat pocket and tossed it to Ritsuko.
"All hail—" Rei, Shinji, and Asuka
started. Kasumi slapped them all again
and frantically shoved them towards the locker rooms.
Once the Evas had launched, Kasumi
looked around for the Angel. Four
holographic screens were up, three for the other Evas, and one for the command
center. "Damn it!" she hissed, "Where's
the flippin'—"
"Ah, the brown-haired duck!"
Kasumi's jaw dropped and her plate-sized
eyes turned to the screen of the command center. Commander Ikari had just spoken, and he had a huge grin on his
face. "I may have brown hair, but I'm
not a duck!" Shinji yelled, "Never have been, never will! Well…there was that dream three years ago,
but that's not that point!" Kasumi's
eyes widened even more, if possible.
"And the blue-haired rabbit!" the
Commander said, "My drug dealers have said some nice things about you!" "I am not on drugs!" Rei snapped, "I just
sniff LCL to get high!" Kasumi's eyes
were nearly the size of platters.
"The devil cow!" Commander Ikari
shouted, pointing at Asuka. Before he
could continue, he had a footprint on his face. "I am not a cow!" Asuka screamed. Commander Ikari sprang up from the floor and looked at
Kasumi. "And the other brown-haired
duck!" he said, "I've heard some interesting stories about you and the other
duck."
Kasumi's eyes had opened to the size of
platters, and she stood frozen. "Maybe…I'm the one on drugs." she scratched the side of her head. Inside the plug, Kasumi slapped
herself. "It's everyone else!" she
snapped, "How could I think it was me?!" She looked at the screens that showed her fellow pilots, and her eyes
shot open again. Asuka and Rei were in
a slap-war, and Shinji was pacing back and forth. "I wonder if I'll ever be able to ask Kasumi out on a date." he
said, unaware that Kasumi could hear every word.
Kasumi turned back to the command
center, and nearly choked when she saw Misato and Ritsuko, completely
drunk. Ritsuko had a tie around her
head, and Misato was singing: "I am Yebisu's Queen, and I rule the cans!"
"Finding the Angel would be better than
staying around here for another minute!" Kasumi yelled, breaking all the
holographic connections. She turned and
started off to look for the Angel, when she was held back by something. She turned around and her eyes grew to fill
her face.
A gigantic, purple, fuzzy, bunny was
tugging on her umbilical cord.
Kasumi froze for a moment, and then
started to try and get away, screaming in horror, "DEAR GOD, HELP ME!!!" The giant purple fuzzy bunny let go, but
leapt forwards and grabbed Kasumi in a bone-crushing hug. Kasumi let out another scream of horror.
Suddenly, the Angel's…paws tightened
around Kasumi, and threw her into the air. Kasumi crashed into the ground, fifty feet away, with a loud crash and
shout of bewilderment.
"Nuts!" Kasumi groaned, "That felt more
real than usual! Guys!" But to her horror, the other pilots and the
technicians at the command center were paying no attention. They were still acting as if they were
alone, in their own minds.
Kasumi tried to sit up, but was
flattened to the ground as the gigantic rabbit sprang into the air and landed
onto her chest. "You stupid carnival
prize!" Kasumi shouted, reaching up for the rabbit. The huge creature leapt into the air, becoming a dot in Kasumi's
sight. The pilot of unit-14 rolled the
Eva to the side swiftly, and the rabbit crashed to the ground where she had
been.
"Rei, Asuka, Shinji, stop whatever the
hell you think you're doing and help me!" Kasumi shouted. But the pilots didn't respond to the Sixth
Child, and the rabbit thing leapt at Kasumi like a shot. It slammed into her Eva and threw the
bio-weapon over a hill that made up an invisible barrier of Tokyo-3.
"Is this thing…what I really think it
is?" Kasumi wondered, struggling to stand straight to face the creature.