Ragan Recounts (part 2)

Betty Ragan

”No, she happens to be a friend of mine!” Rei interrupts the elven sisters before they can continue on with mistaken impression. “The Akagi that Betty and Ragan encountered in the Land of Fiction is the kind which gives analogs . . .er. . .dopplegangers the reputation they’ve got in bard tales!

”You can trust her.”

. . .

If it’s all the same to you I’ll just keep my distance for now and leave at that, even if the silvered haired triplets over there. Geeze, what WAS with that Triplet song blending routine back there just a second ago?! I mean winged warrior magical women. Elven female triplets and a honest to god talking gryphon that sounds . . .”special” sometimes as in the “intelligence quotient” sense of the word.

OH! And let’s not forget characters, actual real honest to goodness freaking people from Sailor Moon running around and all that.

I swear it’s just adding to this growing sense of . . . unreality that has been growing and growing ever since I and the others parted ways back in the library. I mean it made a certain amount of sense what happened next there, though I got to SAY that I did NOT expect to have to deal with Sikozu from Farscape of all frelling things and . . .

A Sikozu that was . . .humble?! And with a sister named Eva that I’d swear was the splitting image of Rei if you discounted the Kalish features she had.

Sure as hell was a lot colder than Rei and her sisters, I’ll tell you as much. But at least she was a LOT warmer with me and most of the others than with

Sigh.

And get a MUCH greater appreciation for her side of things while on her ship . . .

Hey! A lot of it for that version had been (if only by her own words) was that she did a lot of things she did that many considered wrong and ethically irreprehensible was because of her people (adopted or not with her being actually a biloid and not born an actual Kalish) if she and people “out In the field” failed to perform at a certain “acceptable” level (re: 77587).

Her words…

We . . .they used to be such a different people. You wouldn’t recognized them if you compared to what they became. The Scarrens did so many things. Took away so much of our . . .

We had to grow smart. Logical. Cold perhaps even. Looking out for ourselves before everyone else because anything ELSE under Scarren rule was open invitation to disaster!

Our best and brightest. OUR FUTURE was always under something of a gilded cage. If we displeased our overlords TOO much we’d not only lose that last trace of our culture, but soon enough we’d get “downgraded” in our living standards.

Grunt work. Menials. Short and brutal under some Scarren overlords and leave at that.

And putting up with all that and finally achieving independence from the Scarrens, only to have the Kalish people act too . . .human and fall into factional infighting and killing each other over . . .power.

Little wonder why it kind of killed her pride in her people, that.

Doesn’t explain everything, though.

” . . .after we parted ways in the library,” I finish up. “I did okay, I guess. I mean the captain of the ship was nice and all that to me. Perfect host, really and decent enough with the others but how her sister Eva, and her partners Shinji and Asuka acted around Willow.

”That was not at all nice how you set her up to being treated like that you know,” Betty finished up, giving Rei a rather hard look. “Between seeing Willow’s feeling getting repeatedly kicked about by Eva there and a sneaking suspicion that I’m going to have massive nightmares tonight because of seeing Akagi and . . .!”

Betty shivered suddenly in revulsion, recalling that hideous wreck of a face Ritsuko Akagi’s face had become. Holographic image or no, having torn her own eyes out in madness had left her looking like something out of one of the gorier horror flicks that had hit her town’s movie theater. Just a LOT more . . .realistic and gory, you see.

Too real. MUCH too real.

Hell! It had disturbed the #%$# Master of all people if his words were to be taken at face value! That should be telling enough as it stood in and of itself!

Indeed, left unsaid but still true enough that had been in part just why Rei had been so “rush rush” at times with the others before parting ways with them. After their Quest she hoped that those who’d been a “guest” of that madwoman Akagi would bee able to get some form of counseling to help get over it (and had made sure to leave some kind of emails to be automatically online sent to the right people at some later date on for those left back in that other world to see to it). Reika was going to make sure that Betty Ragan her at least considered counseling here soon so as to not be forevermore haunted by nightmares (or worse) at night.

Rei and her sisters at least tried to do right by those who get caught up in their Quests; even with the the Master there, in the end (though they would have dropped the Hammer of God on the Time Lord if he should try to wrong them). Oh, they’d watched him (out of the corners of their eyes but watched him) throughout that whole deal up to the end, but they’d be d*med if they’d not do right by him and the others!

”. . . I will have you know that I told on Willow like that so that she wouldn’t be thrown out an airlock by Eva upon the truth of what she did came out,” the blue haired woman said rather primly, frowning. “We should explain more about that in a moment when my newest sister here introduces and explains my group here.”

As well as maybe mentioning that another reason for being rather glad to get you and the Scoobies out of the way earlier their with the Quest had to do with a fear of even more bloody transformations twisting people into new races and even genders, Rei added, sharing mentally with he sisters.

That had been another reason why she’d been glad to be done with Betty Ragan and the cast of characters from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” after she volunteered to stay behind.

1. “But the short of it for right now is that Eva just happened to be an . . .analog of sorts of sister Lilith here and . . .”

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