Disclaimer: I do not own Neon Genesis Evangelion or any of the things I want to in this world of ours. The only thing created by me on the NGE area is this fanfic series. If you sue, I'll sue back.
The camp was unsettlingly quiet during dinner, afternoon and during the evening meal. These events were spent in the usual grouping, with Shinji and Rei cuddling in front of their tents standing close to each other and Asuka spontaneously glaring at them. Shinji did his best shrugging these stares off, but it kept getting harder and harder. Shinji also noticed that Rei was beginning to act a bit more nervous than before, sometimes glancing at Asuka with fright in her eyes. Asuka kept cursing them in all the languages she knew in her mind, or at least cursing Rei for "stealing 'her' Shinji". The couple was therefore thankful when the dark once again settled upon their small camp and the shadows of the Eva units were looming longer and longer over them. The last light gave an eerie glow to Asuka's red hair. She smiled and shook the small bottle of pills in her hand. The small plastic window on the side gave her a good look of the small yellow and red pills jumping around rattling. The skull on the side of the bottle giving her thoughts a body as Asuka started walking towards the food crates.
For the third time, the teens were awoken by a loud sound. It was another explosion crashing through the silence of the morning. Shinji rushed out in the chilly morning air, cursing over not for once getting a good night sleep. He slapped the side of Rei's tent and let her know that they were in a hurry. A heap load of hurry. He ran over to the slightly isolated tent and shouted at Asuka that they needed to get ready. The setup went quickly thanks to everyone sleeping in their plug suits. The Eva's were soon moving cautiously towards the angel. It had the usual mask-like face; it looked like a ring of porcelain with a hook down wards in it almost looking like a nose, splitting the face in three for the eyes and the mouth. It was big and looking like a sort of chubby penguin with extremely small and thin arms. They looked like paper almost. And these were the angels' greatest weapons. Zeruel hovered in the air a good hundred metres away from them and watched as the Eva units all pulled out their weapons and cocked them. A red spot danced over the torso of the angel as Shinji searched for and found the core, located where the heart should be located if the thing had been human. Rei looked down the scope of her laser rifle and Asuka simply pointed the bazooka at the angel. The angel wrinkled its face almost looking like it was smiling. Then it unfolded its arms and they shot forward before any of the pilots could react. Rei could only watch in shock as the paper-thin arms jetted towards her. Then Shinji leapt out in front of her and took the impact. Despite the fact that the arms were paper thin, they were incredibly strong, and the force of the impact should have launched Unit 01 several tenths of metres, but Rei stood behind him and he crashed into her who helped him back up on his feet. Asuka gritted her teeth and watched the angel retract its arms, preparing for another blow. But before it even had retracted the arms completely, it was struck to the ground by a small, concentrated explosion to the face. Asuka stood grinning with the barrel of the bazooka smoking. Shinji didn't care to pick the rifle up from where he had dropped it and charged towards the somewhat startled angel. The eyes of Zeruel glowed with a fiery, yellow glow that suddenly burst out like an explosion from the eyes, tearing the left arm of Unit 01 off by the elbow. The underarm crashed down on the ground fifty metres away from the place where the purple Eva unit now were beating the angel senseless with its remaining arm. A crack appeared in the core. Then the angel made a last, dying try to escape or at least make some difference in the battle. An arm shot out at Rei again, and this time, no one was there to protect her. This time, it went vertically through the air and cut through Rei's units' left shoulder by the joint easily as through butter and severed it. She screamed and gripped her shoulder. It was still there, but she felt the pain of her unit, and she was paralyzed by it. Shinji looked behind him and went all pale as all of his blood flowed away from his face.
"Rei-kun!" He faced the angel again, but was met with the other arm to the face, vertically too. Shinji jerked his head sideways and just barely missed it. He punched the angel square right in the face and the mask-like face crumpled a bit to Shinji's pleasure. He started kicking the angel, but he was thrown off the angel by a tremendous amount of force and landed by the feet of Asuka's Eva unit. He got up and watched as the angel floated up in the air again. He felt something slip into his remaining right hand. It was Asuka's axe. Apparently, the angel had hurt her too. He looked on her Eva unit and gasped. The right leg was off by the knee-cap. Some of the fluids running through the artificial body dripped down on the ground. Then he realized what the explosion had hit in the morning that woke him up. Asuka abruptly turned him around and shoved him towards the angel. Shinji did not put up much of a fight, as filled with rage as he was. He dashed towards the angel and swung the axe dangerously towards the angel who let its hands dart at Shinji. He angrily stomped down on one of the arms and buried the axe in it. It went off clean and he proceeded by digging the axe in to the ground and meet the other arm with his right arm. He gripped it and pulled Zeruel towards him as he kicked up the axe with his foot. It flew through the air and Shinji grabbed it as he let go of the angels' arm and swung the axe. Zeruel flew forward by the force of the pull and looked at the axe that came swinging down on its face. Shinji used all of his power and met the angels' face with the axe that buried itself in Zeruel's face with a crunching sound and blood gushing out everywhere. Shinji threw himself back from the angel, pulling the axe out with him and landed by Rei, picking up the rifle as he threw the axe back at Asuka who used the axe as a crutch. He looked down the scope of Rei's rifle and saw the crack he had made in the core of the angel. He clenched his teeth and squeezed the trigger, not stressing himself. The blue ball flew from the barrel and impacted with the core. The explosion echoed and stretched itself out over the field as the angel was torn to shreds.
"Are you alright?" Shinji put an arm around the trembling Rei after he had made sure that Asuka was completely alright. Rei nodded, but winced from the jolt of pain from her shoulder. Her brain still imagined that it was her arm that had been cut off. The pain slowly subsided and she started to regain the feeling in her arm. She tried to bend her fingers and threw herself onto Shinji's shoulder as the nerves didn't respond.
"It's alright, it'll come back to you, I know it will." Rei looked at him and knew that he was right. They had both experienced the severing of limbs of the Eva units and knew that it would be alright after a while.
"I'll get you something to eat." Rei looked up at him and watched as he got some food from one of the crates. Asuka smirked. Her plan was working. But her subconscious tried to make contact with her delusioned mind that screamed 'kill her!' at Asuka who gladly obeyed. She watched Rei take a bite out of her food. Then another one. Then the cramps started.
"Rei-kun! What's wrong!" Rei pointed towards the food. She whispered something over and over again.
"Antibiotics…antidote…antibiotics…antidote…" She lifted a quivering hand and pointed at a purse. Shinji darted towards it and started digging in it. He found a small needle. It was a needle of the kind the military uses for morphine, just rip it out of the wrapping and stab it into the leg of the person. He ran over to the now twitching girl and raised the needle to stab it into Rei's leg when Rei shook her head, it was almost impossible to make out from between the twitches, but Shinji saw it and looked at her. She leaned her head back and pointed at her throat. Without hesitation, Shinji pressed the needle into a main artery and saw the needle being emptied of its clear liquid content. Rei soon stopped shaking and twitching and passed out. Shinji checked her pulse, found that it was okay and carried her into the tent where he sat down beside her futon and watched her. He went out once and came back with Rei's purse, just in case of another attack. The hours went by painfully slow as the colour gradually returned to Rei's face. Shinji waited at her sleeping form for the rest of the day. Asuka's eyebrow twitched a bit in frustration over the failed murder attempt. Her subconscious mused at its success.
"Allergic to any kind of penicillin or antibiotics, huh?" Rei nodded. Shinji still sat by Rei's futon and watched her fragile body trying to recover from the allergic reaction.
"Lucky you that you recognized what hit you and got some antidote with you." A faint smile flashed across Rei's face before she returned to a feverish sleep. Shinji raged in his mind, but kept up a calm façade on the outside. He was so going to get Asuka for this as soon as they got home. But for now, they needed her to help take out the angels. Then the thought struck him like the shinkansen.
'How in hell are we going to get back to our own dimension?' He shrugged the thought off as Rei turned in her sleep and put a hand on his knee. The returning was a matter he should deal with later. Shinji smiled and took her hand, gently stroking it. He softly planted a kiss on her sweaty forehead and resumed playing with different thoughts in his mind to make time fly faster. As usual, time only seemed to slow down, but Shinji was only glad, he kept watching Rei sleep and felt oddly at peace doing so.