Ragan Recounts (part 1)

Hey, even the giant sized cousin species, those like Trilling and his mates, accepted him after getting over the initial surprise of him being . . .on the small side.

Betty Ragan, newly restored back to the form she had been born to and no longer a red head, looks around at the odd group before her and shakes her head slightly. Before bumping into (almost literally) the young women with wings and a hair colors that was only found in nature when seen in Japanese anime before today…

Well…

"Uh . . .well," the young woman from the VLA who had been waylaid and then rescued from Game 3 coughed. "You already know my name is Betty Ragan; no relationship to that Republican president who’d been in the White House thank goodness . . .!"

Betty then had to pause when both the elves (the gryphon just cocks it’s head to the side and gives her a questioning look) and the youngest of the winged sisters interrupt her, full of questions; questions that when answered by her lead to more questions.

For the elfin women, Betty quickly realizes that they are rather new still to this "Terra Prime" world. Yes, by some quirk of fate the inhabitants knew of Earth and of the "United States" (and basically what was the throne of power and leadership to that "empire"). Through various encounters with visitors from various parallel worlds and tales passed along by those who adventured through those realms had reached all corners of Terra Prime, the elves here had yet to learn of such places (and things).

Much less as to why she found Ronald Reagan the U.S. President of the United States of America to have been less than agreeable to her tastes.

They settle for her explanation on Reagan having been a somewhat unpopular leader (at least in some quarters like the one she belonged with) before being replaced with another and left at that.

Mutterings of being glad to no longer have to worry about, Kings (or whatever the title of "President" actually meant), "Palace Politics" and humans being welcome to such nonsense now they’d taken up their rightful elfin forms left Betty with the distinct impression that the elves were working under a mistaken impression of what form of government America worked under. Frankly however Betty did not feel like educating the elves about such political matters as democracy and the like, not wanting to go another round of odd questions.

As for the youngest winged girl who went by the name of Yukido; why did she have questions about her surname? Well, it turns out that while her educational system back in Tokyo 3 had included lessons about her version of the United States and her leaders, there had never been a President by the name of Roland Reagan to her recollection.

Whether this was due to a somewhat Japanese centric educational system or more due to school teachers who seemed to be fixated upon more upon the event called Second Impact and the proceeding debacle afterwards Betty wasn’t exactly sure upon but decided that she . . .wasn’t curious enough to ask. While Rei and her kin had been kind enough to take some time out of their still somewhat hetic schedule (they still had a pending Quest for this as "Tabitha" she knew) to answer any remaining questions Betty had on her (Rei had promised to "explain" later), it did not mean that she had all the time in the world here for idle curiosity.

This meet and greet session was pretty much fulfilling that function as it was in it’s own manner as Rei obviously had planned, Betty could see. Nice to be finally been able get some answers and not be rushed from ONE place to another, barely a moment’s peace before being whisked away yet again to see if whatever that bastard Scott Chen had done to her to change her wasn’t somehow trapped to unleash some kind of curse upon her or whoever was going to undo Betty’s transformation in the first place.

…

Yes, it turned out that while Betty’s transformation into a redhead had not been a simple and crude morphic field alteration, it hadn’t been as invasive as those "matrix transformation" deals that she had heard had been done to that other analog of her’s who’d also been trapped in Game 3 or to various "Fred D’Honaire" analogs.

Some of the changes done to that group of people had left Betty Ragan wide eyed

As for what kind of transformation had been done upon her? Well, some kind of magical had been involved though and it apparently had been . . .intricate and booby trapped with all sorts of nasty curses. The exact nature of which Betty Ragan wasn’t privy to (the mages hadn’t said and Betty found she was too nervous to ask), but given the nature of some of what various sick minded Authors at Game 3’s website had written/done to Scott online left Betty with a queasy stomach at what kind of sick and twisted . . .

No, Betty Ragan just didn’t want to go there. No sir. Not even a little bit!! And that is why she had patiently let the mages fuss and dithers over her, taking so long to finally fix her instead of wandering around and seeking answers to questions herself. The deal with how Rei’s group had been responsible for freeing the elves and that gryphon had been telling! Not only was Rei’s group not been a one off thing back there earlier with her, saving the day seems to be a career calling.

"Champions" indeed! She still rather felt like she had somehow . . .let her down in the end by not volunteering immediately to go with them to go and save her analog’s world there. Not being brave or anything like that even though Rei hadn’t held it against her (and had actually thanked her for volunteering to stay behind). Had said something to the effect that while having an extra set of eyes to watch her back it had also meant one less person’s safety to worry about here; six on one hand and half a dozen on another and all that. . .

Actually . . .Betty was wondering if despite having been offered a quick course in how to use a phasor if she’d gone on whether or not she’d been of any real use. She wasn’t the warrior type or anything like that: she was a computer tech from the VLA for crying out loud!

"I had been minding my own business at work and suddenly I get teleported by a guy I had only thought as fiction into a weird land we call Game 3 where almost anything can happen," Betty continues after putting that tangential nonsense aside and getting back to business, more for the benefit of the elves (who’d been wondering about what business their savior had with Betty here) than anything else. "I got zapped by some kind of Author powers by Scott and turned into a copy of Melissa the redhead.

" Got caught up in some kind of Twins of Doom prophecy when we got whisked into the Middle Ages by Scott’s Author powers, only to be saved by the Doctor.

"Got dragged along by the Doctor as he was doing his thing: being a hero and set on saving the Earth . . .an Earth by travelling what turned out to be an analog of me that was . . .just like me except where it turned out she had read about me and the debacles I, the . . .er ‘my’ Doctor and my travel companions had in Game 3 . . .as a work of fiction.

"I’m a work of fiction in their world," Betty blinked, overcome (yet again) by the bizarity of everything.

"Just like how magic and elves are just children tales in yours?" Hilda--a name she had opted finally in keeping despite It being her name as a giantess--asks drolly. "Might know how you feel there right now on the matter, human."

A murmured agreement from Nightfall and Gilda greet that last statement, followed by a bewildered look by Braveheart, who still couldn’t fathom the idea of there being no such thing as magic or elves (or gryphon) outside of fiction in Betty Ragan’s world.

"Uh right," Betty coughed, glancing oddly at the elves (real elves!!) and continued. "But unlike how things went with that other group from Game 3 ending up on Terra Prime and the Doctor there eventually went and married that woman named Inquirer. . . ."

Who looked like the actor who played Ripley from that movie: "Alien", Betty added to herself, having finally met the woman in the power armor from earlier back in the Land of Fiction during that chase with the White Robots and all that.

"No, " Betty went on, shaking her head. "instead Terra Prime after the Master went and hijacked us and the TARDIS after rigging the VLA to blow up and wipe out the human race on Earth so the Master’s clients could move in afterwards and set up shop we ended up in the Land of Fiction, a place where back in the episode The Mind Stealers all sorts of works of fiction were brought to life by the caretaker or whatever there before it all supposedly was destroyed after the Doctor in that episode. But instead of destroyed it got made into a prison . . . .by one Sailor Moon formerly known as Salor Pluto from the anime or . . .manga Sailor Moon for that madwoman Dr. Ritsuko Akagi who had been a VERY abusive medical caretaker for. . ."

"Wait! We know an elf who used to call herself that back when she was a human being," Gilda interrupts Betty, giving the woman a look.

1. "You’re saying that . . ?." Gilda continues, with Hilda (and Nightfall) joining in in an odd triple play.

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