Neon Senshi Evangelion
Twenty-one
Asuka sometimes dreamed that she died.
Which wasn't that weird, she supposed. I mean, they were in a life or death struggle against invading Angels. Dying was a possibility. But WHY would she dream of dying in the snow? And surrounded by weird people in Japanese sailor suits?
Part of Asuka wanted to talk to somebody, but the whole thing was just too weird...
"Ahem," someone cleared their throat.
"Sorry," she apologized, realizing she had drifted off.
Asuka was assisting in the research and development/Evangelion maintenance division of Tokyo-3 NERV. That (mostly) amounted to her being a gofer, but even that was helpful in a lot of ways. They were basically going 24/7, and this late into the evening everybody needed coffee.
"Ma'am, here's the files you asked for," Asuka said as she passed the tablet to Maya Ibuki. They were transfering some data via tablet due to concerns that Naoko Akagi could have access to the Magi computers that they were unaware of.
"Thank you," Maya smiled.
Asuka dropped her voice, "I think Ritsuko's been here nearly twenty-four hours at this point. Shouldn't someone send her home?"
"Short of getting Yui or Gendo to order her...," Maya shrugged eloquently.
"Well, excuse me," Asuka left the work station that Maya was at and walked up to the visibly tired Ritsuko.
"Yes?" Ritsuko asked wearily.
"Ma'am, I know you're testing the Unit-02, and I appreciate everything you're doing, but you need rest too," Asuka pointed out reasonably.
Ritsuko just kind of looked at her blankly. "Miss Soryu..." she started.
"I know you're nearly finished," Asuka added, "but being exhausted increases your chances of making an error too."
Everyone in the labs kind of froze, expecting Ritsuko to explode at the young woman.
Instead Ritsuko just slumped tiredly. "Ok, okay...," she conceded. "if you have the guts to tell me that, maybe it is time to go home."
There was yet ANOTHER frozen moment as everyone processed that.
Then the alarms started to whoop...
Asuka cursed in German.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Misato rushed onto the bridge, dressed in pajama pants, her uniform shirt and her usual jacket.
"Nice bunnies," Satsuki noted as she took in the pants.
"Oh shut up," Misato smiled wryly.
"TECHNICALLY you're supposed to be resting," Satsuki added.
Misato just ignored that. "What set off the alarm?" she asked briskly.
"Angel detected coming in just off the coast," Aoba said from his console, "about Evangelion sized, capabilities unknown."
"Visuals?" Misato asked.
"A camera drone is on it's way out," Aoba added.
Yui and Gendo hurried in as the techs worked, even as Shinji, Rei and Asuka all rushed to the Evangelion cages. Unit 00, 01 and 02 were all ready to be deployed, which would be interesting.
"Nice bunnies," Yui teased.
"Yeah, yeah...," Misato smiled wryly. She liked bunny print stuff. It was a thing...
"Do we know...?" Gendo asked.
"We have a visual!" Aoba said, and sent the image to the main screen.
"Human shaped. Again, no face...," Gendo noted. "Isfrael?" he wondered quietly to Yui.
"It's possible," Yui admitted quietly.
"The problem is, we have no idea of it's capabilities," Misato said, mostly to herself. She shook her head as she suggested, "I think we should send all three Evangelions. Two can attack while one remains in reserve."
"Unit-02 is still being recalibrated after it's trip from Germany to here," Ritsuko pointed out to them tiredly.
"Is it functional?" Yui asked. Having designed the Evangelion, she was well aware there was a degree of wiggle room in the technology.
Ritsuko made a face as she considered. "Yes, mostly. I would be wary of it being used in combat," she cautioned.
"All right. Shinji and Rei, you get to engage the Angel, Asuka is backup," Misato decided.
"I guess my debut here will have to wait," Asuka pouted from the hangar level.
"We already know how good you are from the battle at sea," Misato pointed out.
"Besides, if we screw it up, you get to save us," Shinji added as he boarded Unit-01.
The three Evangelion Units were transported there via transport planes, then dropped onto the shoreline. They connected into power cables there via helpful NERV staff, then headed to the site.
The Angel still stood waiting, out in the surf. Now that they were near it they could clearly see it's 'flesh' was colored in distinct strips of silver and red. It also looked bulky, somehow, or at least thicker than the last humanoid Angel.
"Huh. Why is it just waiting there?" Shinji had to ask.
"It should be advancing on the city," Misato agreed back at headquarters. She looked up at Gendo and Yui.
Yui shrugged eloquently.
Misato ordered, "Shinji, Rei, advance on the Angel. Asuka, be ready with the rifle."
"Right!" Asuka took aim.
As Asuka peered at the Angel, she brought up the magnification of her cameras to study it. There was a... odd feeling she got from this, a premonition of wrongness. The face mask, or at least what looked like it, was split in a yin and yang symbol.
"Attack at the same time," Asuka found herself blurting out.
"Misato?" Shinji asked.
"Do it," Misato ordered.
Both Evangelions charged forward and struck with prog knives. The thing shuddered, body twisting, almost like it wanted to pull apart but couldn't. The core was actually in two pieces, which Rei quickly spotted.
"On my mark," she barked at Shinji. Both raised their knives, "Mark!" and struck together.
The Angel's cores shattered, it exploded in a huge burst of power, and the three contained the blast with AT-Fields. As the smoke cleared there was a sigh of relief from the pilots, echoed by the staff back at base.
"Okay, how did you know?" Rei had to ask.
"I don't know," Asuka admitted.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Setsuna Meiou nodded to Yui. "I think you should go easier on Asuka," she said, having observed some of the debriefing.
The pilots had gotten back to base, and Ritsuko, her and Gendo had gone over what happened, trying to figure out how Asuka had discovered the Angel's weakness. And she couldn't really explain it, other than a gut feeling.
"You know something?" Yui asked.
"I've kept in touch with Doctor Soryu, somewhat informally." Setsuna said. She shrugged slightly as she explained, "She doesn't bring it up in any of the official reports, but it appears Asuka is mildly precognative."
"Precog...," Yui blinked as she processed that idea, "she can see the future?" She looked somewhat dubious as she asked, "Seriously?"
"We live in a world where we toss teens into biological mecha to fight alien Angels," Setsuna pointed out mildly.
"Fair point," Yui conceded. "So she sees the future..." she mused.
"In a very unreliable and haphazard way," Setsuna quickly cautioned her.
Yui got the sense that Setsuna knew more than she was telling her, but at the moment that didn't really matter. "All right," she decided then asked her, "is it all right if I pass the information on to command staffers? They need to know."
"Certainly," Setsuna nodded.
As Setsuna walked away, Yui made a mental note to push Maya and Ritsuko on getting a report on her. Clearly there was more to their UN rep than was apparent. Shaking her head, she headed into the room where the others were questioning Asuka.
"Yui," Gendo looked up and smiled, and she smiled back.
"Asuka, thank you for putting up with all of this," Yui said to her apologetically, "we're done. Rest up, I'm sure Misato will be running you all over everything that happened too."
"Gott...," Asuka grunted, then left.
Ritsuko looked at Yui curiously, "We still don't know why...?"
Yui explained the whole 'She's precognative' thing, which Ritsuko and Gendo accepted reasonably easily. They had seen weirder shit, after all. They were both a bit disappointed the ability wasn't terribly reliable.
"We'll just have to keep it in mind," Gendo agreed.
"Maybe we can get Asuka some training," Ritsuko mused thoughtfully.
To be continued...
Notes: Yes, they remember dying at the end of Sailor Moon season one. Tho I haven't decided if the reincarnates will remember much else, yet. And yes, Asuka got a bit of Rei Hino's ESP. Sadly unlike Rei, Asuka never really got training in it...