John Gives Rin a Way. . .

A bit earlier, nearby...

John Takahashi (formerly Conner)

Arturia no more, the former human is now Queen Titania, queen of the Fair Folk as Vivian and her fairy allies had MADE her become in the end.

Of course I wouldn't KNOW or see this exactly from where we are held up. Rei had brief us all about the likely outcome of this meet as far as she could know from what we all remembered from our briefing beforehand . . .

. . .

Ah right! You're probably wondering about the weasel words there. Well, let me tell you here and now we got ALL the information about this Quest from the . . .entity who identified herself as Aphrodite (the Greek version of the Roman Goddess of physical love . . .got to tack on that qualifier). Not talking about that shit stain, the jumped-up avatar of Aphrodite who'd bewitched Medea to slavishly love Jason and set her up to be doomed to become an EVIL witch and all that shit. Nope, this wasn't that imposter who'd been left behind to take care of business while the real deal (or whatever) was away to fight off the Enemy who'd been out to destroy the Dark Tower (and all of normal reality).

But you see, the thing here is that while we got a good and thorough briefing on anything and everything we might be facing. Problem? It was such a glut of data, it wasn't able to be retained by us "mere mortals" after the magicks that had been done to do the briefing faded, leaving gaps.

Ah, I was told that is what happens with prophecies or messages from on high (as it were) back on Terra Prime. A lot of information gets lost or scrambled like ya wouldn't believe!

We. . . had to do a rather INTENSE session afterward with Rei and the other magic user types of our group to reconstitute most of what we needed for this Quest. Got the most important part: how to actually perform the ritual (or whatever this magic operation to get all of the people trapped in this Dome to safety without harmful and deadly side effects). That was the most important thing. Other things like how to avoid embarrassing and humiliating situations we had with Rin and the others here from this Nasu world? Not . . .as much.

God, considering that that head to head session with everyone with magic to scrape out any and every last important detail left me seeing triple for something like ten minutes straight before . . .

Ah never mind! BUT let me just say that if Rei was being serious about that session being only slightly worse than her memories of what a Master's Thesis in college had been like . . .

NOPE! Don't feel like getting a Master's degree! Nope!

. . .

Anyway, that and everything else I even say as much as Rin looks like she wants to strangle me when I admitted we'd glossed over the Briefing on how to best handle each and every member of the Holy Grail War.

. . .

And here I was nice enough to go and answer her and the other people's pressing questions and she cops an attitude?!

I'm halfway ready to go and ask her to stop "crawling up my ass" and . . .

"Rin," I say in a soft, calmness I am not currently actually (for REAL) really feeling right now. "We concentrated on core things: like how to actually get everyone here to safety. And except for the exception of us Champions and all of Medea's kingdom? It HAS to be all or nothing, just the way the as. . ..jerks who created the Dome in the first place set things up."

"Ah . . .yeah," Rin muttered, looking away.

"So Rin . . .would you please stop trying to take our frustrations on my group over your beef with Rei and her sisters?" I sigh. "It's getting kind of old and I'm kinda getting tired of it, honestly."

NO! I know that in most circumstances the way we've been acting on OUR part had been somewhat in the wrong. We've been something of a bunch of dicks in response to Rin's bout of bitchiness! But in our defense and forgive me for something of a somewhat long rant!. . .

First there had been MY Validation Quest! We had to go through a mashup/combo of a flying/heavenly city which was actually a racist Disneyland and an underwater city/hellscape where the who philosophy of Atlas Shrugged went wild and everything went to shit! Combine the two where we saw and rescued a married couple who had dared crossed racial lines (one member had been black and the other white) from a mob who had been planning on "stoning" them to death . . .with baseballs. Yeah, It had all be jolly and festive like a day at a country carnival and . . .

Jesus. . . .

And that had been only the start of things. When the mob had been interrupted by us by us rescuing said married couple from the baseball stoning? That was when they all zombified and we had a reenactment of Dawn of the Dead . . .

NO! Don't ask. Just do NOT ask! It was something to do with the way the place had been brought together and fused. All but a handful of inhabitants were NOT zombified (or soon zombified soon after the fact). And even MY sister? Got whisked away. YOuthened and adopted by a real piece of work in Rapture. Which . . .it doesn't matter now that we've got here back. . .

Oh, she didn't get turned into a zombie. but . . . due to again with something about the combining of two places into one? Some kind of magic/mystical stuff had washed over her and other Little Sisters.

. . .

Right! You don't know what those are? Whelp, look it up here what Little Sisters are here. It is . . .a long story that makes me want to kill somebody if I try right now. REALLY want to kill somebody by the name of Fontaine . . . .

https:// bioshock. fandom.co m/wiki /Little_ Sister

Ah, but where was I? That magic wave? For some reason, it transformed each and every last Little Sister (including my sister) into what is known in that one fantasy role-playing game I liked called Advanced Dungeons and Dragons a . . .

. . .

YES I LIKE AD&D! What's it to you?! I might be a nerd because of that but I'll have you know that I am a COOL NERD! And one that can hack your credit cards and bank account so BACK . . .

. . .

Shit, hey I'm sorry. It-it's been a hell of a day.

Okay! What my sister had become was a Dark Elf. Also known as a Drow (and a Drow Princess by what she tells me from her Little Sister induced haze made her think herself as).

Bottom line, it had been a stressful Quest. And right before MY Validation Quest, there had been that Validation Quest for another friend of Rei's from the . . . Sailor Moon franchise which for whatever reason had a Warhammer 40k crossover in it.

I was stressed but Rei and her group had been even MORE stressed out from it all. AND they'd been successful in that Quest!

Then we get whisked up and thrown into THIS quest. Hey! It was great we'd been able to help Medea and all that. God! Am I glad we were able to help, and glad to have her as a friend!! but . . . Hey, we need a break! And things here aren't helping, all this fighting for . . .basically our lives up to a bit ago!

Everything and anything was a constant struggle. Example? Like this maybe? Take Rei and the other magic users as an example? How about keeping topped off on magic to be ABLE to cast magic spell stuff? One where Rei and the other magic users had to keep pounding down manna potion after manna potion (or whatever) to replenish their stock of magical energy to keep casting all sorts of magic.

Which means that as a nice side effect of all that potion intake? It is like drinking LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of caffeine. Rei and the others are REALLY irritable right now because of that...and Rin's bitchiness (understandable due to the unwanted news of what had ACTUALLY been happening with her sister, Sakura) . . .

"But I said I was sorry to them and . . .," Rin begins, ready to start shouting and ranting.

"You apologized to them as a group . . . not as individuals," I interrupt, shaking my head slightly. Like what is this? Can't 'Gillete' do anything right and tell Rin here. . . .

Oh! Right, Mr. Blades for Brains had been mis-summoned as a Servant and had holes in his memories!

"Rin . . .Uh . . . When I told you that Rei Ayanami being a clone soldier/pilot for her robot I didn't tell you about how many 'spare' bodies they had in case she died in battle," Archer coughed nervously, seeming to suddenly remember that little factoid.

So, Servant Archer Emiya (the former Counter Guardian) quickly told an increasingly appalled Rin and others of the group NOT in the know about just what the Pilot of EVA Unit 00.

https ://evang elion.fan dom.com/ wiki/Rei _Ayanami

"Bottom line? NERV made her and her sisters feel like just one of a hundred cheap replacements. Not human and definitely NOT actual individuals."

Yeah! If you don't know your Evangelion lore, Rei had hundreds of empty spare bodies down in that Terminal Dogma place or whatever, ready to have the old soul slapped in and all that for another go at being an EVA Pilot . . .despite wishes from her on the contrary.

Oh, and I will NOT go into the stuff about where Rei's and her sisters' souls came from before becoming the Pilots of Unit 00. Yeah, some are from science experiments in artificial intelligence related to the Metaphysical Evolution Program (or whatever that shit was) with EVA. Rei and some of her sisters came from a program called I.N.F.A.N.T. (and do NOT ask me what the initials stand for, I wasn't told). Some came from what amounts to the Biblical Adam's first wife (and wasn't THAT a surprise when I first heard about it being not EVE but some woman named Lilith), just getting siphoned out of the Angel and into an empty spare. And then there is the one newest sister who just HAPPENED to have been Yui Ikari, the founder of the EVA program. She'd been so changed by her experience in the Salvage operation to get OUT of EVA Unit 01 when things went WRONG and she got sucked INTO said UNIT . . .she was no longer Yui and barely remembered exactly what being Yui had been like when she COULD recall her old life. She'd been transformed by the experience and had become the Pilot for Unit 00. A young girl who had a MASSIVE problem with just LIVING.

That and I add that up until recently the newest sisters' entire purpose in life was being an EVA pilot and were to have NO life or existence beyond that once their FINAL fate was met: the assimilation of humanity into one singular godlike entity. They're only beginning to get a sense of self-worth outside of being EVA pilots, and the youngest sister here has it the worst is the most . . .shy and unsure.

I'm thinking it is partly her age, but still . . .Rin's words had really hurt here more than she'd realized and I'll admit I feel like an asshole for telling her it this way . . . Something gotta be done and I just want to see this awkward and toxic problem between Rin and the others to END.

I leave out the part where Rin kind of did a slight insult to Rei by trying to apologize to the group by approaching Lilith to give the mass apology instead of Rei. Maybe Rin thought that Lilith was actually THE hidden leader? Maybe Rin was taking another approach and thought that an oblique . . .

Whatever!

"So . . .please do not try to do what I think is probably a perfectly normal Japanese form of apology," I finish. "She wants an apology to each and every member of the team. As individuals who are . . .worth a damn."

Last part is said softly to where the young kids of this group can't hear me use words which will get my ass rid of here back to Terra Prime for cussing. I might be a young snot-nosed teenage punk, but at least I know better than to do stupid things like that. I do have at least some good taste and manners, thanks.

Well, on the positive side it appears that Rin is at least taking my advice to heart and is considering doing it that way. . . .

1. Of course, that is when a flash of light and force blasts its way through our area and pretty much knocks each and every last one of us on our asses . . .
2. Meanwhile with a FOURTH Hannah...

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