Chapter 10: New Team Rocket's new Shogun. Erika. Rei clone 3TW-ERP.
Tears of pure joy blurred the boy hero's vision as plates filled to the brim with exquisite delicacies that aped the meals he had worked his fingers to the bone to prepare for his former ungrateful roommates were set before him on a mahogany table decorated in a gold-velvet cloth.
Spiced soup ramen noodles and steamed lobster to name but a few.
"Only the finest cuisine will do for our great and honorable leader and the sole companion of my amazing big brother." Sakura proudly chimed as she took her place in the seat opposite Shinji's.
Mari and Ritsuko had already taken the seats to his either side.
"You really are a fine example to us all."
Shinji blushed crimson. What else was he supposed to say?
…
"Mew. Please listen to me. Your creator has lied to you. Uttered words that bite his tongue even as they escape his lips. He has no intention to save the world. Only to destroy it. And your dear beloved Shinji along with it. Please Mew. I am not your enemy. I am Mewtwo. I am you and you are me.
Two branches from one root. To kill me would be like killing yourself and I will not fight you."
Sailor Saturn bowed her head as she tried and failed to stop a fresh flow of salty tears flooding from her searing eyes.
It was useless.
The Rei clone that was identical in appearance to the original Rei who died in her Evangelion during the second impact only bared her teeth and hardened her glare as she let forth another destructive beam of ions in the pleading leader of Team Galactic's direction.
"Please. Stop. I know that it is your love for Shinji that keeps you going despite your apparent lack of purpose in life. I feel it too in my heart. I too have seen the light of Shinji despite never knowing him well. Let us please, share in friendship his blessing"
The dark haired girl in the purple collared sailor outfit pleaded once more, only to eat a nasty fist to her face for her troubles.
She too had superpowers of her own, but that did not prevent a nasty fountain of blood spilling from her nose so that an apartment beneath the sky she hovered was coated floor to ceiling in disgusting crimson.
"My name is not Mew. And you are but an invader and a threat to my creator's life. Say what you will but I have but one goal. And that is to torture you to death as slowly, painfully and brutally as I possible can" The blue bob haired clone of Rei emotionlessly retorted as she cracked her bloodied knuckles while hovering downward to the rooftop where Sailor Saturn now lay.
"That was once my goal. But no more. Shinji's heroism taught me the value of peace and love. Please Mew... Rei... whatever you wish to be called.
I just want to be your friend... I want for us, both of us to find Shinji together so that we can help him live long and prosper. I have no quarrel against Gendo Ikari, your creator.
And even if I did, that was a long time ago."
"Be silent. Wretch!" "Rei" ordered as she swooped down and gripped Sailor Saturn's neck in her surprisingly muscular right arm.
"And do not think to beg me for mercy for my creator ordered me to take no prisoners.
I am truly thankful for your power. Such great power. I will enjoy killing you so that it can all be put to use under my creator's guidance, to create the beautiful new world he envisions. And in that new world, there will be Shinji also. For my creator has blessed my union to him and we have but to find where he has ended up after the impact."
It would have been all too easy for Sailor Saturn to put this presumptuous megalomaniac in her place.
She knew that no matter how she tried to reason, that Gendo had brainwashed this Rei clone to be blithely servile to him and him alone.
He had also quite obviously shown her not the smallest bit of kindness, nor did he ever intend to.
To kill this imposter would be putting her out of her misery and safeguarding Shinji wherever he was at this moment.
But she knew she could not do it. It would run counter to everything she'd accomplished up to this moment in time and spit on everything the new team galactic now stood for.
To answer violence with violence was a worse crime than violence itself.
It would also be a betrayal to herself and Shinji, since she knew that Shinji loved Rei. All Rei's. No matter what guise they appeared in.
Ape no kill ape. Rei no kill Rei. Mewtwo no kill Mew.
"Go ahead Mew." Sailor Saturn, who preferred greatly to be called Mewtwo agreed.
"Please kill me. And may my death bring you a long-awaited peace if only for a moment. Know that I, and Shinji will always love you even in death."
…
"You betrayed NERV by siding with team magma you little runt. We will be richly rewarded when we cut off your head and bring it back to chief Gendo. We will eat like fat princes as you could have if you had just not sided with criminal gangs"
The two NERV mercenaries self-righteously announced as they cornered the terrified Brendan, his face as white as his hair.
One mercenary had long dark hair and the other short blonde.
Both were dressed head to toe in ripped rags that exposed vast portions of their skin and were shivering immensely from the cold.
Their dusty pistols were clutched in skin and bone hands that could barely maintain their grip.
The terrifying sign of severe malnutrition and starvation.
"Join Team magma and you won't have to starve anymore. Please. I promise I'm telling the truth.
Courtney is a really nice person and Tabitha is good to me too. They will be more than willing to treat you with all the human rights NERV denied you both"
He tried to say only for one man to cosh him in the chin, brutally shutting him up.
"Let's shoot him in the guts until he bleeds out so that he can learn some manners about not disrespcting his beloved elders." His friend suggested as they levelled their guns at his abdominal region with maniacal grins.
A second later and they had no emotion at all.
For a second later, where two bloodthirsty gunmen once stood were only two smoking piles of ashes.
Brendan got to his feet with a pained gasp only to see the new love of his life brandishing a large carton of extra-spicy wasabi, as a spark on her darkened lips died out.
"Never...underestimate...the fire nation...air bending amateurs."
The lilac haired admin angrily chided as she pointed accusingly at the charred remains of Brendan's attackers.
"Whether you...are Aang...Avatar Roku...or Appa."
"Courtney. You saved my..." Brendan gratefully begun only to be stopped as she lifted a shaking finger.
"Please...Brendan. Call...me...Azula. For that...is...how...I... prefer to be...called."
"And as for me. If you're really grateful for how we've rescued you and shown you the right way to help the environment, you can start to call me fire lord Ozai"
The chubby and dark-haired male admin counterpart to Courtney, Tabitha exclaimed as he appeared from behind a tree.
Now Brendan grinned a ginormous grin.
For today he witnessed a truth greater than any he could have thought possible.
That Air lord Aang was a liar and that the fire nation did truly seek to bring peace and prosperity to the backward realms of the world that had shunned science and knowledge out of laziness and pride.
…
"Look. It's Professor Birch's daughter." One bald NERV Sailor bearing the white world government sailing cap and white and blue sailor uniform complete with anchor badge.
"What's she doing in cahoots with Team Aqua?" Asked his almost identical friend.
"Aw. It doesn't matter. She's gone rogue and she needs to be taught a lesson in humility. Mangle her and throw her body in the sea. We can tell NERV she drowned and then be paid handsomely when her father begs us to find her again."
These were the words the seaworthy duo said as they emerged from a hatch and ran with sabers raised towards an absolutely terrified May.
Deer in the headlight syndrome did not begin to describe the utter horror in her expression as she realized how willing NERV was to turn on their own.
Winona had been telling the truth after all and the truth really had set her free.
Shame she never lived long enough to enjoy her freedom.
A ripple appeared on the churning sea below decks as the muscular sailors closed the distance between the trapped dark blonde and them.
May knew that she could not swim and that the water below was teeming with hungry sharks.
"Please. No. Team Aqua will pay you so much more if you just listen to them. They're the good guys."
She managed to gasp, sobs choking her every syllable.
"Enough balderdash out of you, lassie. A pirate's life, and a pirate's death"
The larger sailor spat as he emitted a terrifying battlecry that nearly piercing May's ears.
Words were insufficient in describing the irony May's horror quickly turned to as a huge wave erupted almost instantaneously to drag the two scurvy dogs overboard while leaving her completely unharmed.
She felt a tap on her shoulder and she turned to behold the petite yet well-muscled figure of her new admiral Shelly, left eye covered by her seaweed-like brown hair and blue bandana worn in the exact same fashion May wore her own red bandana.
It was like they were meant to be long before they met and put their differences aside.
And Shelly's hydromancy (or water bending powers as May preferred to call them) were stronger than May first thought.
"See. I can be trusted" Shelly genteelly remarked with a good deal of vigour, beating May to the punch.
"You've done well for your first assignment, Coxswain. You'll be getting two person's worth of treasure once this ship is ours and the hostages are freed. Keep this up and it won't be long until I'll have to start calling you Botswain instead. Then after that, maybe you'll be captain and someday...my admiral."
May's head swam giddily at the mention of the greatest rank of the sea.
NERV had been so dead wrong about the pirates and team Aqua.
The pirates code truly was an honourable one.
The evils of Nepotism did not exist in Team Aqua as it did in NERV. Here in this honest ship in the midst of a sea of treachery and deceits, hard work and honest talent was all that mattered.
The simple fact that Shelly started her as a Coxswain in command of several deckhands and gunners was testament to that.
"Aye admiral Shelly. Aye. I could do that"
...
To the south East of Sinnoh and the Northwest of Hoenn, lay yet another continent.
This one far less cloaked in pollutive fumes than either of its two neighbours.
What it lacked in industrial giants, it made up for in its sheer volume of ancestral halls and holy sites of prayer.
It was named Kanto.
Named for its commemoration of its past and its grassy landscape that its residents did their utmost not to disturb.
It was the region that was in his fading sights as a young boy dressed in a red jacket, red baseball cap and quickly falling apart blue jeans and white trainers prepared himself mentally for the daunting task of leaping from the peak of its tallest mountain, Mt Silver.
His lifetime endeavours had all been for naught.
NERV had firm grip over even this land now and it would not be long before big stacks of ashy carbon monoxide killed every last plant and animal that called this natural utopia their homeland.
His name was Red. Red Charmander Satoshi.
It was true that he loved a good steak burger and veggie salad once in a while. But he could not stand to see the land be exploited so harshly so as to be unable to regrow itself so that it crumbled apart under its own weight.
He had no friends. His old pal Blue had sold out to NERV for thirteen silver Pokedollars, and his long time crush Green had been thrown face first into a pit of molten magma as a message against those who'd dare disobey the new dynasty NERV sought to establish here for their operations.
It was all over for him.
He had even forgotten how to speak out of sheer trauma that no amount of therapy could overcome.
His fights had been going far worse.
NERV had even gone so far as to arm the criminal syndicate suspected in over a thousand crimes last year, team Rocket with state of the art weaponry and to buy out the incompetent police force of the region led by the hopelessly corrupt officer Jenny.
The revolution was over.
Freedom was a thing of the past.
Democracy cancelled.
Fascism, the new way of the world.
The two world wars in which the monuments of Kanto were built to honour, accomplishing nothing.
It took him just a few seconds to launch himself head first from the rocky outcrop he'd been standing upon.
It felt easy. Almost too easy.
He was flying like a bird, just as he always wished he could but couldn't due to how he'd never been able to hold a steady job on account of his anti-NERV sentiments that he tried and failed to suppress.
The last thing he looked at as the ground came at him with lighting pace, was the necklace containing a beautiful photograph of a young Kimono clad shrine maiden.
Her sweet brown eyes. The elegance in her shining dark shoulder length hair arranged so symmetrically
The flowery design of her yellow Kimono with the big red sash in the centre...
Oh how he had missed her. How he'd wondered what became of her after she was taken by the sickness the doctors claimed she had no hope of recovery against.
Well it didn't matter now. If she was gone, then he would see her in the afterlife and then they could be together at long last again.
If she by some divine miracle wasn't dead, his death would surely make the news and she would know through her tears that his love for her was undying and eternal.
"Erika..."
Red blurted out mindlessly.
"Wait, For. Me."
He eagerly stretched his arms out. Soon death would come.
He smiled a ginormous smile. The first he'd smiled in a long time.
It quickly became a flood of shock in the next second as his fall was cut abruptly short and strong hands stopped him mid-air.
His usual wordlessness quickly returned as despite his best efforts to break free of the grasp of his out of left field rescuers, they hauled him into the cramped but comfortable green basket of their silent air balloon.
In the brief moment as he was pulled on board, Red was beyond ecstatic to see that the balloon was painted mink with whiskers and two cat ears on its head.
The ideal image of the sacred feline Meowth.
His joy only grew so as to wholly displace his suicidal depression as without registering any other feature of the two young women now lovingly regarding him with sympathetic eyes the likes of which he'd not seen since Erika and Green's passing away, he found that they each wore on their left chest a big purple-pink badge in the shape of an R.
R for Rocket. The one and only Team Rocket.
The divine guardians Red always upheld as his mirror, his sword and shield. His missionaries ready to go the distance he was not.
Or at the very least, these praises applied to the three lone members who were not homicidal maniacs that could not be trusted as far as they could be thrown.
Deranged monsters that Red would gladly see ripped apart for their endless list of crimes with his own bare hands if he could.
The adorable and indominable Jessie.
The powerful and inscrutable James.
And of course, the loveable Meowth: A talking cat, to complete the trio that Red idolized with every fiber of his being.
To see them time and time again fail to "steal" what was rightfully their property that could be put to better use in their hands, hurt his heart beyond what words could describe.
Much of their failure was caused by a certain raven-haired vigilante who wielded an electric mouse capable of 10-billion-volt zaps as his primary weapon. It was called "Pikachu". It used "thunderbolt"
Ash Ketchum, having thwarted many of Team Rocket's greatest ploys had become a hero to the people of Kanto and all regions neighboring it.
"Perhaps you can deceive others, Ash. But I've no delusions of your evil intentions" Red murmured furiously to himself.
How he so badly wanted Team Rocket to get Pikachu so that they finally no longer needed to starve and thirst in agony as their wicked Mafia boss Giovanni took his problems out on them.
As with the animals that he could not help but like to eat from time to time, Red also believed law enforcement should come in moderation.
He had no problems with a petty thief who had taken a loaf of bread being given one year in prison and some community work while a bomber who killed thousands of innocents got the death penalty.
But to be given the death penalty for a single loaf of bread that cost no more than a few dollars, was where Red drew the line.
He could not stand it. But he could also not do anything about it, since "Pikachu" simply electrocuted him too when he tried to intervene.
"Oh Red. Oh thank goodness you're alright"
The younger woman in a simple white dress and yellow mining boots mildly intoned, covering her face with her shaking hands slightly.
The painful sign of incurable shyness.
Her dark blonde hair was held in place by two golden orb-like hair pins and her anxious eyes were as green as Jasmine crystals.
Red could not help but loosen his frown a little as he nodded back at her to show his acquiescence.
Jasmine Mikan Steelix, a senior student from mineralogy class hailing from Olvine city had not changed one bit in the years he had begun playing traunt.
He could not hide his blush as she managed to take his freezing left hand in her own, her own arm trembling like crazy all the while. The passing of time had given her just enough courage to pull off the gesture that would have nursed her younger fellow student to sanity had it been accomplished back then.
"Good to see you. Partner"
The other girl in a distinctly southern drawl chimed in, somewhat roughly.
She had expensive blue shorts and a white designer shirt with a red zip to match the deep pink of her far more haphazardly arranged locks.
An immaculately polished set of navy Adidas trainers communicated her status as a renowned model whose very image pulled in the mighty payroll she lived on.
"But what were you thinking? If we had not been nearby, you'd have plummeted to your doom and we'd have lost a perfectly good friend that we could never replace."
Such words of wisdom from the mouths of what was once such a crass and short-tempered class snob.
Whitney Akane Miltank had also been one of the apples of Red's lonely eyes for quite some time, but her prior childishness had put him off.
He was pleased to see that a few years no doubt often spent in close proximity to Jasmine, had smoothed out her rougher sides so as to make her a smooth diamond in the rough, so to speak.
Red tried but failed to make his voice return.
He thus resorted to gesturing with his hands, the phrase "I wanted to die."
He thought for certain that he'd fail to be understood and pre-emptively hung his head in disgust but Jasmine quickly reacted with utter shock as she put her hand on his shoulder, also with a frightful shake as with her prior motions that involved human contact however innocuous.
"You know that is NOT TRUE!" she shouted with surprising ferocity as her other hand balled into a fist.
"You know that you could always have come to find us, your friends at any time and that your past kindness to us would never be forgotten."
Finally. Someone else but Green and Erika who bothered to take the time to speak his wordless language. Such dedication...
"But Green and Erika died. Blue betrayed me and..."
Red started to sign, but Jasmine in spite of her usual meekness quickly cut him off.
It was apparent that his self-hatred was deeply traumatizing to her.
"Erika is fine. So is Green. In fact, it was Erika that told us that you'd likely be here in the place where you two often hung out which is why we were able to arrive just in time to save you."
Oh, the eccentricity!
Jasmine, the shy and demure one was doing all the communication while the self-righteous and haughty Whitney listened in respectful silence.
Had he already died and gone to heaven?
"W,Where. I, Is. S...She?"
Red stammered aloud, his burning passion for the resident gardener and tree hugger of the nature-friendly capitol of Kanto (Celadon city) allowing him a brief respite from his usual silence.
"She is in the Team Rocket headquarters of Saffron."
Jasmine explained with a hint of glee in her voice.
"N...No!" Red worriedly bellowed as he stamped his foot and clenched his teeth.
"NO! Team Rocket leader Giovanni's got her and he's going to..."
"Giovanni was dealt with a few months prior. As for your beloved Erika, why would Team rocket, or as I should more accurately call them now, new Team rocket.
Why would new Team Rocket kidnap their own new Shogun?"
Again, nothing from Whitney except a respectful beam.
Red had to pinch himself stealthily to ensure he was not dreaming.
"We are here to take you to her, Red. She wants to see you again as much as you her.
So please Red, just rest up and we should be there in no time"
Jasmine finished, as she gently caressed Red's crimson cheeks causing him to drift into a comfortable slumber.
His fight against injustice had not been wasted after all.
Erika lived and now held a high office in Team Rocket. He never hated the team, just it's leader and its more detestable members like Butch and Cassidy.
Yes, now he could rest easy. Sleep had been brought back to life for him at long last.
He woke to find himself seated on an extremely comfortable armchair perfectly built for his height and build.
A quick look around him through blurry eyes showed him a colorful office with the letter R marked in various places on the walls, the rugged floor and the plentiful ornaments which in large part consisted of potted plants the likes of which he'd never seen.
A cactus, a sunflower, a Venus flytrap and...
Well Erika would have a field day around this room if she could only see it.
"Et Re-Bonjour Monsieur Red. Je Suis le tres bon chef Team Rocket. James. Le Gourmet"
Boomed the small blue-haired male seated before him in a fine dark robe.
Red did not need any form of introduction to be reacquainted with the generous giver whose big heart made him stand out even in a group of generous souls.
It was unnerving and painful to see that the myriad of marks inflicted upon him by Ash's Pikachu had failed to fade completely with time so that much of his face was obscured by a pattern of bandages, but highly gratifying to see him no longer so emaciated and thin as he had been the last time Red watched his failure from afar.
"Ca va?" The new leader of new Team Rocket asked the young red jacket and red cap before him, great concern in his every word.
"Bon" Red managed to squeak out with some effort.
It was also fantastic to see James revert to his native language, making him so much more adorable than he already was when he was forced to speak in poor Japanese that he had no money to learn from a proper tutor.
"Tres Bein. Monsiuer. Faim?"
"Oui. James. Je Faim." Red agreed quickly, rubbing his rumbling belly.
"Vous avez un Gateau?"
"Oui. Comme vous voulez" James eagerly stated, motioning for a nearby attendant to rush to the kitchen with lightning speed.
Before Red could even blink, the aproned maid had already returned bearing a yellow layered cheesecake of gigantic proportions which nearly touched the ceiling atop a wobbling trolley.
"Bon Appetit. Monsieur Red. J'adore vous et mon epouse Jessie et mon chien Meowth aussi."
"Merci James"
Red then became a literal sabretooth tiger as he pounced upon the massive sweet treat to devour it with as much speed as his starved, malnourished form would enable him.
He had been forced to contend with plain bread for the past several years.
The phrase "let them eat cake" had been but a pipe dream for him till this moment.
He chewed, bit, gnawed and slurped as he abandoned all reason to imbibe the cheesecake, just as a shoulder length raven haired young woman with beautiful bangs in a blue legged, purple sleeved kimono and simple brown sandals strode into the room, causing him to spray out a vast chunk of saliva infused cake all over the room in uncontrollable awe.
"On behalf of the new Team Rocket, we wish you a long and prosperous life. Red. It is so good to see you once more."
She politely and wistfully remarked.
"Erika. You're alive!" Red choked out, feeling tears already collecting in his ducts but forcing them back.
"Of course. Red. And I have you as well as James here and his team to thank for that."
The secretly lost slave clone previously known as Rei 3TW-ERP gratefully replied as she held out her arms for Red to fall into them with a fully dampened face of saltwater.
Red's love for Erika was not a simple affair.
It was not a romantic love nor was it a simple crush between good friends.
It was the way a Gotham citizen loved Batman or a Metropolis citizen loved superman or a Hero academia student loved Deku Midoria.
It took not a genius to know that fighting Angels was a traumatizing affair that required a pilot not only lose a close relative, but that they give the last vestiges of human sanity to fuse with the Evangelion and achieve supreme union.
While second child Shinji was a reasonably obscure name, not one person did not immediately get love hearts in their eyes at the mention of first child Rei.
...
In a much-shortened story to him during their time together, Erika had explained that there had been more than one Rei clone even though only one was shown to poor clueless Shinji at any given time to keep him in the dark about Gendo's sinister intentions.
How the world had been in great demand of workers since the Angel incursion drove everyone crazy and made them cruel.
Everyone demanded greater wages and fair treatment. It was a ripe time for the abolished slave trade to become un-abolished once more.
After all, Erika remembered Gendo and Kozo saying once: Were there not slaves in the Old Testament of the bible?
Rei 3TW-ERP had grown rebellious after witnessing Shinji's misery and especially, Asuka and Misato's psychopathic mishandling of him to work himself to death for their amusements.
She had demanded that Gendo immediately find Shinji a better home with the huge fortune he had at his disposal as the de-facto leader for the second largest science and weapons company on planet Earth (SEELE was first).
There was a painful jab in her back and then blackness. A quick glimpse as vision faded revealed a powerful anesthesia dart.
"Shinji. Please go on without me." Rei 3TW-ERP pleaded guiltily as darkness consumed her.
"But one day I will find you once more. Even if I don't remember a second of our precious time together."
Cutting a long story short, Gendo altered the genes of 3TW-ERP to have longer and darker hair and for her brain to produce an excess of Sodium pentothal, to make her wholly submissive to any and all orders given to her by anyone.
In short, snatching her free will. She was sold at a Yakuza slave market for the neat sum of six-hundred sixty-six yen. Bought by a tycoon owner who had her worked like a browbeaten dog for the next two years and a bit in his store handling various jobs, some of which would be wholly inappropriate to even think on let alone discuss.
Though she chose largely to forget that monster, she remembered brilliantly that he had a snappy temper and a deep fondness for his long, hard cane.
She spent at least as much time in hospital as working to near death.
He wouldn't even give her a bed and forced her to lie out in the store garden even in the coldness of winter that had been made worse by the now non-existent ozone layer.
Though it was so icy and unpleasant even on the summer nights of new Hokkaido, the garden was decorated with many nice plants from various orients to attract the customers.
They emitted a pleasing aroma enough to turn any tears to a smile, if only for a moment.
They often sold at great prices at the gardening section, for their immense health benefits that ranged from relieving stress to increasing positivity.
It was through the constant inhalation of these delectable scents as well as eventually being put to work as the gardener of nature's great gifts, that slowly repaired the damaged part of 3TW-ERP's brain and let her see light once more.
But first she needed to escape this wretched slave pen.
Fortunately, this was simply done enough. The appropriately named leaves of the peace-lily that had become 3TW-ERP's favorite plant had a lovely effect of making whomever came into contact with them nicely relaxed and sleepy.
The owner and his cartel loved to relax with a little tea party on sunset evenings.
It was perfect. Better yet, it only caused sleep and no harmful effects.
But now Rei 3TW-ERP needed a proper name other than the derogatory insults thrown her way by her owner when she had been but a lifeless object in the eyes of humanity.
But it couldn't be Rei.
For "Rei" had lost the feelings of Shinji that made her who she once was.
Nor could she go back to NERV knowing that she'd be enslaved to be sold once again.
She went with Erika. Erika Vileplume Nice.
It seemed a nice fit, especially with the violent bouts of coughing, years of being beaten and starved had left upon her.
Mother nature had not abandoned her when her "father" had.
...
"But then, how did you survive your illness? The doctors said it was an incurable lung cuncer."
Red bashfully asked her, rubbing his scalp.
Erika's lustrous eyeballs lit up and she spared a grateful glance towards the now bashfully beaming James.
She was so glad that the two saviours of her life in both the physical and spiritual sense could be together to put their differences aside in her name.
...
Erika lay gagging up a violent stream of crimson blood in the meadow of Celadon alone.
She knew that she'd not see Red again despite her promise that her time in the hospital would be brief and fully nurse her to health.
It had already been several weeks and the hospital had discharged her, saying they had not the time and resources to spare an illness that had no known cure.
NERV and Giovanni had been demanding extraordinary tributes from all of Kanto and this trickle down effect bled even into the heart of the generous Nurse Joys tasked with running the life-ism ward.
A few more breaths was all that it would take for her to pass on in peace.
Just a few more coughs of agony.
She had failed Shinji and now failed Red too.
Two ruined marriages, divorcing two amazing husbands who would forever live on inside her no matter what afterlife she passed to.
"At last. We found it. The feather of the legendary Phoenix Ho-oh. We can make a massive fortune selling this to the government."
Came the shrill yet loveable voice of the long pink-haired Team Rocket Trio, Jessie.
"Oui. Tres bien. Jessie. This feather is said to be able to cure any disease with its healing effect. I'm sure it will really be worth so much."
Her partner James eagerly added.
"And we even found it before the jerks of our organization like Butch and Cassidy even heard of it. The legend was real after all."
"Let's cut the chitchat and sell it already before the twerps and the other rockets come and take it from us like they do every other time we ever find anything good. no matter if we steal it or take it fairly."
The talking cat Meowth urgently suggested.
"Oh good. You're finally not going to have to starve to death any longer. I'm so happy for you all."
Erika managed somehow to whisper out as she staggered to her feet and rounded the patch of vegetation to greet the shared heroes she and Red idolized.
Try as she might, she could not stop another stream of blood erupting from her pale lips as she shuddered uncontrollably.
Her vision was fading as it did when she opposed Gendo and tried to stick up for Shinji.
She wondered if Shinji was already waiting for her at heaven's gates.
"Give it to her." James immediately snapped, trying and failing to snatch the orange feather from Jessie's hands.
"But we need this. We've not eaten for a week and we've had to drink river water. Look at my face. It's cholera"
Jessie snapped back, taking a step back.
James tightened his frown.
"I'm not asking you Jessie. I'm telling you. Give it to her! NOW! She threw us food from her house once along with her friend Red. i will not see such thoughtfulness unrewarded. We can always get more money but she's going to die."
"So are we if we don't eat" Meowth tried weakly to protest.
"Our cholera is not fatal yet. But look at her. She's at death's door."
Then before either of his comrades could say anything else, James pushed Jessie over and wrested the feather effortlessly from her weakly flailing arms weakened by great starvation.
"Oh great mother of the Earth and esteemed emissary of Celadon city Erika. We give you the feather of Ho-oh. Take it, and be at peace with your beloved Red"
He nobly intoned as he forced the feather into the sick gardener's agape mouth which she tried but failed to keep closed from him.
The healing effect which purged all cancer from her shrivelled lungs, was almost instantaneous. Made even faster by her part Angelic bloodline.