Platypus3333
Platypus3333@yahoo.com
http://xenosource.netfirms.com
It vaguely occurred to me that I might be the only person who can keep
track of all the. uh, tracks. Oh well. That's not really relevant, is
it? The guide to Tracks will be released shortly. And hey... C&C
is the nectar of the gods.
---
Tracks 5
---
Station
---
Shinji sighed mournfully as another car sped by at ludicrous speeds,
given the "35 mph" sign standing right behind him. He was fairly
certain that, at 35 miles per hour, he would at least see the vehicles
as they passed him, rather than dots on the distant horizon. sadly,
such was not the case. He held up his hand and stuck his thumb roughly
westward. A large brown cardboard sign bearing the words "Will work
for Japan" hung around his neck, flapping pathetically in the wind.
To the side, he had duct-taped the platypus to a suitcase to maintain
order.
---
Track A
---
Asuka screamed. If there existed a hell, any hell, it could not
possibly be worse than this. She had hoped for company- preferably
several dozen naked Kajis, although at this point even a single
pathetic Shinji would have been satisfactory- but, as always, the girl
now found herself the unwilling victim of fate's sick and twisted
humor. Asuka had seen many things, but never this. never this.
"Sohryu," several monotonous voices calmly said. "I trust you are
well?"
"Oh my god, there are. oh my god, four! There are four of you!"
The Reis glanced at each other and moved away as one. From their
admittedly limited experience, they had each independently observed
that man had a marked tendency to acknowledge the obvious repeatedly.
Subsequently, each had concluded that human nature prevented man from
believing the objective truth; apparently, an individual would much
rather wallow in his or her own delusions than face reality. The
constant questions regarding something so clearly and blatantly real,
the Reis believed, stemmed from a fundamental human need to invalidate
what one does not want to know. This had become extremely evident when
considering various cases; Ikari constantly refused to believe in his
own worth, Sohryu constantly insisted on hers, and Misato thought
Australia was a city in Thailand. Only one thing could be done.
After careful deliberation, one arbitrarily chosen Rei stepped forward
and walked up to the red haired girl cowering against a rock. Leaning
forward carefully, she said, "Sohryu?"
Asuka ignored her and counted her toes.
"Sohryu. Sohryu." Rei continued calmly. "Can you hear?"
"W. Wondergirl?"
Rei sighed inwardly. "Yes."
"Is. that. you?"
"I believe so."
To Rei's surprise, the other girl leapt to her feet and sprang
forward, hugging tightly. "Oh my god, you have no idea what I've been
through, Wondergirl."
"."
"You. I thought I saw more. like a lot of you. Jesus Christ, Ayanami,
take this however way you want, but I'm damned glad there's only one
of your pasty white-"
"Sohryu," Rei interrupted.
"What?"
"There ARE a lot of. me."
"What?" Asuka opened her eyes and peered over the other girl's
shoulder. Her jaw dropped open as she slowly, involuntarily released
her grip on Rei's body. "Dah. dah." She began backing away again,
hands held in a cross before her as if to ward off evil. "Dah. Shinji,
you idiot, what've you done."
Rei looked back at the others, who nodded. With a slight degree of
amusement, Rei stepped forward suddenly and hit the red haired girl
across the jaw, knocking her to the ground with the satisfying crack
of knuckles against skin. "Sohryu, you must-"
Asuka immediately snapped out of her daze. "What the. you bitch!" She
reached over and grabbed Rei's ankle, pulling the blue haired girl
down. "What the hell do you think you're doing!" She dragged the other
girl toward her and began, to use a cliched 20th century pop culture
reference, to lay the unholy smack down. "Ah! Take." She hit the-
disturbingly- calm Rei in the forehead and stood up, kicking her
opponent in the stomach. "You want some! YOU WANT SOME! WHAT! WHAT!"
Asuka started jumping up and down repeatedly, which while serving no
useful tactical purpose whatsoever, allowed her to expend some of her
abundant energy toward emphasizing her point.
Rei sighed and stood up, maintaining a nice thin AT field; she didn't
bother brushing herself off. "Now that I have your attention."
"The hell you do! No! No!" Asuka attempted to body slam the field.
which, as anyone who has ever tried to overcome an AT field with
bodily force can tell you, kind of hurts. Needless to say, Asuka
zealously repeated her action several times. Thank god for the
adrenaline rush.
The blue haired girl blinked. "Are you done?"
"Ye. yeah." Asuka leaned forward, placing her hands on her knees and
panting. "Showed you."
".Yes. Sohryu," Rei replied. "Are you familiar with our situation?"
"Of. of course I am. Jesus, what a stupid question." The girl
straightened up. "Me and Shinji, we were here like. I don't know, two
days ago?"
"Ikari?"
"Yes. yes, Ikari. hey, what the hell is with you people anyway?" Asuka
waved at the group of Reis off in the distance, apparently engrossed
in watching a school of fish. "Why. you really are robots, aren't
you?"
"No." Rei leaned forward. "Tell me about Ikari."
She scratched her head. "Well, I don't know, we were lying here. he
tried to, you know. I smacked him upside the head a couple times. then
we disappeared to somewhere else and I beat the living crap out of
myself. yeah, that's pretty much right."
".Ah." Rei gestured for the other Reis to walk over; they promptly did
so, coming to a halt behind their compatriot. "Yes. I. see."
"Yah, right." Asuka sniffed. "Is there anything to eat around here? I
don't advise eating that mango crap, though, it messes with your head
like mad."
"."
---
Track B
---
Asuka screamed. She had imagined this moment in countless dreams; yet
now, in reality, she could not comprehend what she saw.
"Asuka?" Kyoko said. "Asuka, stop screaming, you're going to drive the
neighbor's dog crazy again."
"Ma." Asuka grabbed Shinji and pulled him in front of her. "Oh my
god."
"Uh. Right?" Shinji weakly grinned at the tall woman before him.
"Yeah."
She looked at him. "Hello, Shinji. how are you?"
"Fine, fine. Yah. fine." He tried to pull the girl off, with no luck;
she had a death grip on him. "How about you?"
"Oh, same old. same old." She leaned forward and stared at her
daughter. "Asuka, are you all right?"
"Yo-you," Asuka replied. "Stay away from me!" She suddenly shoved,
pushing Shinji violently forward into the older woman; having done so,
the girl turned and ran.
Shinji, as pretty much all anime males do at one point in their lives,
found his head resting on a pair of suspiciously soft pillows. He
frowned and shoved himself upward, straightening up. Rather
predictably, he screamed, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
Kyoko rubbed her head and ignored his hysteria. "Ow. what. Asuka.
Shinji, where did she go?"
He mutely pointed down the street, his face crimson. "She ran that
way."
The woman sighed. "Shinji, if you could do me a favor, you know."
"Um, okay. All right." He turned.
---
Track C
---
Asuka screamed. Of all the things she could wake up to, no matter how
pleasant, two days in a row was just too goddamned much. She got up
and started kicking Shinji in the stomach. "What the HELL are you
doing here! What the HELL!"
"Ah! Ah!" Shinji shouted. "I'm sorry! I'm really sorry, whatever it is
I've done! Oh, god!"
"Shut up!" She looked around. "Shinji, where the hell are we?" Asuka
walked toward a bulletin board, tripping over the unconscious Rei as
she moved. "Ah, Jesus. you're here too?" Giving the blue haired girl a
kick for the hell of it, Asuka leaned against the wall with her arm
and started reading. "Nerv. Shinji, get over here." She waved her hand
back. "Over here."
He sighed. "What?"
"Yeah, explain this Nerv stuff, I don't get it. I've never heard of
it." She turned and glanced at him. "God, Shinji, you look like you're
going to piss your pants or something."
"Uh, yeah. No. No, wait, no I'm not." He thought for a second. It
registered, somehow, in Shinji's oft-traumatized brain that this was,
again, a different Asuka. evident by the fact that she was neither
wearing a hospital gown or bandages. She was, however, clearly still a
violent, disturbed individual. "Nerv." Shinji paused. He doubted she
could accept the truth. Hell, he barely could. In the end, it all
boiled down to a single, solid question. What answer would have her
hit him less? "Nerv is, uh, a corporation that makes, ah, sausages.
My. dad. runs it."
"Wait, I thought your dad was a scientist or something?"
"Yes. my dad. researches. sausages. Many sausages." Shinji fumbled for
something that sounded remotely plausible. "Uh, yeah."
"Shinji, calm down. I can feel you squirming from over here. you're
not looking at my ass, are you?"
"No!"
"Right. Stupid skirts." She stood up and stretched. "Okay, Shinji,
we're going home. We can the dead weight- oh, well, damn."
"Stay away! Stay the hell away! Ah!." Rei twitched and shook
violently. "Ah! You goddamned robots!"
Asuka stood still for a second, then walked over, bent down, and
smacked the other girl's head against the floor. "Hey, slut! Wake up!"
"What?" Her eyes popped open and slowly focused on the two. Rei
blinked. Had it all been a dream? Probably. "Oh, it's you, bitch. What
do you want?"
"Slut."
"Bitch." Rei pushed Asuka away and glared at Shinji. "Help me up, will
you?"
He silently reached forward and tugged her arm, pulling her up.
"Thanks." She brushed herself off shakily and took in her
surroundings. "What the. Oh my god, what the hell am I doing here? You
kidnapped me??!"
"Not exactly," Shinji muttered. "You see-"
"Eh, who the hell would kidnap you anyway," Asuka snapped. "People
tend to go for virgins, you know?"
"Shut up. Just-" Rei rubbed her head. "Ugh, can someone please tell me
what the hell is going on? I want to go home."
"Whine, whine, whine." Asuka nodded. "Well, yeah, okay. I can get us
out of here." She started walking.
"Uh, Asuka- that's not the way out," Shinji said.
"I knew that." She spun around and walked past the others again.
"Jeez, you know what? I want to go home too. me and my mom, you know,
we were going to bake cookies. think."
He blinked. "Your. mom?"
"Uh, yeah? YOUR mom's best friend? Idiot," she said sarcastically.
"Slut, are you coming?"
"Bitch." Rei jogged a little and caught up. "God, walk slower or
something, will you?"
Shinji stood still, fighting back the temptation to run around in
aimless circles. "Wait. Mom. Bitch? Something," he declared, "isn't
right."
"Shinji! Will you get your ass moving!"
"Y- yeah!" he ran after them.
---
Track B
---
"Asuka. Asuka!" Shinji called. He leaned against a tree and wheezed.
Having a large machine perform all of your physical activity for you
did wonders for your physique. He silently cursed Asuka's propensity
for perfection. "A- Asuka!" Where could she possibly have gone?
Shinji looked around. Asuka apparently lived in the suburbs. or, to
put it more bluntly, upper middle class hell. As far as he could see,
some sick individual had placed perfectly aligned identical houses,
each white with black roofing and neatly trimmed grass. There existed,
of course, several minute variations, including white-black house with
mailbox shaped like a truck, or white-black house with a concrete
driveway. Shinji fought back the desire to scream, and instead looked
around for the girl. "Jesus," he muttered. He knew the chances of
actually finding Asuka in this mess of population distribution were
distressingly small. And, to boot, he was hungry as hell. Everything
happened to him.
This, however, was an anime fic. It's important one doesn't forget
that.
"Shinji?"
His head shot up. "Asuka?"
"Yeah."
"Where the?"
"I've been following you, dumbass."
"Uh?"
She hit him on the head. "You're fast, fast for someone as lazy as you
are. You ever do track?"
"What's track?"
"Nothing, shut up." She sat down on the ground and held her knees to
her chest. "Jesus. What the hell is going on."
"Hey- listen." He knelt down. "Listen. For once, I'm sure this is not
my fault. This is, I don't know, not right. It's your mom."
"I know." She stared off into space. "She. I."
"Are you, uh, all right?"
"I just saw my mom, for god's FUCKING sake," Asuka cried. "What the
HELL do you think?"
"I think. Asuka, I can't think straight. This is all wrong- you
weren't wearing that this morning-"
"Yes I was."
"No. No you weren't."
"What the hell is this," she snapped. "Some kind of joke? You were
with me, idiot."
They stared at each other. "Yes, yes I was. And you were wearing your
school uniform. Up until, maybe, several minutes ago?"
"Shut up." Asuka stared at her feet.
Shinji sat down next to her. "It's your mom."
"I know." The girl shook her head. "Fuck you, nothing is making sense.
I have such a headache."
He nervously patted her on the back with his hand and let it rest
there.
"Shinji," she said.
He tensed. "What?"
"This isn't an excuse to molest me."
"S- sorry," he stammered.
"Whatever, it's okay." She closed her eyes and leaned against him.
"God, this place, it's pissing me off."
"U- ah-" Shinji could feel his motor control declining. "I-"
Behind them, several sprinklers activated and began to water them.
They didn't move for several seconds. Finally, Asuka pulled away.
"Shinji, you goddamned idiot."
He sighed.
Behind them, a large man flicked on his porch lights, wielding a
baseball bat. "Hey, get the fuck off my lawn, you damned kids," he
shouted. "Little bastards ruining my fucking lawn!"
"Uh- sorry, sir, I didn't mean-" Shinji yelped as Asuka hit the back
of his head with her palm.
She stood up slowly and turned. "Listen, I have had an UNBELIEVABLY
bad day, and I don't need your shit, and I don't care about your lawn,
okay?" She flailed her arms. "Okay?!"
The man gaped at her and dropped his baseball bat; his arms hung
loosely at his sides.
"What? What the hell is wrong with you now?!"
Shinji wiped his nose. "Asuka."
"Yes?"
"Wet. hospital gown."
She blinked.
"Yeah."
"Well, shit."
---
Station
---
"What the hell am I doing stuck to a goddamned briefcase," the
platypus shouted. "With fucking duct tape, no less?!"
"Calm down," Shinji said. "Believe me, it's all under control, I
think."
"Control?! I'll show you some control!" He started jumping up and
down. "We're in the middle of what, fucking Nevada? What the fuck are
you doing?!"
"Please, would you stop doing that? And cursing? I'm trying to get
someone to stop." Shinji waved his thumb randomly. "Dang."
"I will curse as much as I fucking like! And you're not going to get
someone to stop at- what is it? 1 in the goddamn fucking morning!"
"I told you, calm down. It'll work. My friend, you know, she's called
Asuka- she told me how." He turned around. "She stood there and waved
her thumb, right, and boom, somebody stops."
"Asuka's a girl, right?"
"Yeah."
"I CAN TELL YOU WHY THEY STOPPED, YOU FUCKING IDIOT! AH! TAKE THIS
TAPE OFF RIGHT NOW!" The platypus jumped and tripped.
The next truck stopped rather quickly, albeit its timing was severely
flawed.
---
Track A
---
Five girls sat, in a messy semi-circle, around a fire. None of them
said a word. Even Asuka had given up all attempts at conversation,
even in the form of the invective, several hours ago. Several minutes
had allowed them to gather enough branches to fuel a fire for an
entire night; several piles of rocks held various fruits above the
flame.
"So," Asuka said. "You guys want to play checkers or something? I
think we can get some rocks for it."
The Reis exchanged glances.
---
Station
---
"So, uh, your friend will be fine, right? No, ah, lawsuits?" The
driver, a thin man with a stringy beard and pale skin, regarded Shinji
nervously.
"Lawsuits?" Shinji blinked. "No, I don't think so- what are they?"
"Ah, nothing, nothing. Never mind. Don't worry about it." He turned
back to the road. "So, uh, where you guys headed?"
"Japan."
"Japan?! How the hell-" he turned again. "You have money?"
"No, I don't think so. Why? Do you need any?"
"Nah. It's just, you know, how you getting to Japan?"
"I'm going to hitchhike. Which reminds me," Shinji said, "Where do you
stop?"
"You're going to hitchhike to Japan?"
"Yes, is that a problem?"
"No, I mean, no- of course not." The driver sighed. "Open the glove
compartment and get me some whiskey, will you? Don't bother with the
cups, I drink it straight from the bottle."
"Oh, sure," he replied helpfully.
Behind them, in the cargo compartment, the platypus moaned painfully.
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