Chapter 2: And she loved you and she's gone
Synopsis
After escaping with the soulless Rei-Q in the hope of once more being united with the one loveable person that has been with him through thick and thin without seeing him as , Shinji makes the tough and rebellious decision not to go back to WILLE with Asuka and Mari knowing that nothing but more wanton cruelty await him and the new Rei there. Instead, the two of them make the spur-of-the-moment choice to run and hide like dirty cowards and chance it out alone in the cold, bleak world now more bereft of common human decency than ever before with how selfish mankind has become under the iron fists of Gendo, Lorenz and Misato as they continue their petty fight that has already jeaprodized the innocent civillians under their corrupt regime.
Meanwhile, true and honest guilt begins to utterly consume the brutally misused and broken Dr Ritsuko Akagi as she regrets her role in indirectly perpetuating the chain of terrible mistakes that caused third impact, especially her cruel neglect towards Shinji and Rei. The scientist's change of heart soon attracts the empathetic attention of an unlikely old friend of Yui's who is relieved to see another kindred spirit that has not yet forgotten Yui's heroic sacrifices.
Shinji x Rei. Mari x Ritsuko
Author's notes.
Special thanks to everyone who liked and favourited the first chapter of this story I've worked so hard to write. I greatly appreciate all your output and though it may seem selfish to ask, some reviews would reallly help me out too. Thank you all so much for reading however and bless you all, you wonderful people.
Thanking you all for your amazingness, and on with the show.
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"I, your lord am a jealous god. You shall not have any other gods besides me." - First commandment of the Holy bible.
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"It is only when one has taken the leap into the unknown of total self-hood, psychological independence and unique individuality that one is free to proceed along still higher paths of spiritual growth and free to mainfest love in its greatest dimensions.
As long as one marries, enters a career or has children to satisfy one's parents or the expectations of anyone else, including society as a whole, the commitment by its very nature will be a shallow one.
As long as one loves one's children primarily because one is expected in a loving manner toward them, then the parent will be insensitive to the more subtle needs of the children and unable to express love in the more subtle, yet often most important ways. The highest forms of love are inevitably totally free choices and not acts of conformity" - MD Scott Peck, Author of "The road less travelled."
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"When one door closes, another one opens" - Alexander Graham bell.
"The only people in life who've never failed, are the people who've lived so cautiously that they've never tried anything. In which case, you have failed by default." - JK Rowling, Bestselling author of the Harry Potter series.
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"I was fine. With the men.
Who would come into her life now and again.
I was fine. Cause I knew.
That they didn't really matter until you.
I was fine, when you came.
And we fought like it was all some silly game.
Over her. Who'd she choose.
After all those years, I never thought, I'd lose."
Came the sultry, wistful singing voice of one colonel Ritsuko Akagi formerly known as Dr Akagi: chief scientist of NERV laboratories INC. She clutched a worn and faded yet perfectly visible wedding photo of Yui and Gendo Ikari together at their wedding day ceremony. She'd taken the liberty of using permanent ink to X out Gendo's face so that while his smart tuxedo suit on his body was visible, it looked as those someone had beheaded him and Yui was simply holding the hand of a headless corpse still standing from Rigor Mortis. Ritsuko didn't have the heart to tear Gendo from the picture entirely. It was too precious and too fragile a photo and to tear it even slightly risked damaging it beyond repair, and Yui stood so close to Gendo that it would be difficult to tear Gendo out without tearing out a part of Yui alos.
Though her weary voice was clear and strong, it was obviously taking the pained middle-aged fake-blonde all her energy to keep from choking up with tears. She had kept her soundproof cabin door in WILLE's base locked tightly all day long so that her daily evening meal ration consisting of some instant noodles soaked in watery chilli powder and her small piece of steak on a separate plate were now as cold as the winter snow outside the thankfully heated ramshackle base cobbled together out of mostly scrap that had been thrown away and left to soak in the ocean beside the base for goodness knew how long.
Ritsuko tightened her fist as a lone tear escaped the wall she'd thrown up in vain to try to avoid becoming too overly sentimental. It hurt her to think that such a wonderful woman and genuinely loving parent could be deserving of such an awful fate infinte times worse than death itself. How an optimist so cheerful could be brought to her knees as to think that eternity in Evangelion unit 1 was what she deserved after she'd given Ritsuko so much joy.
"Its over isn't it. Isn't it? Isn't it over?
Its over isn't it. Isn't It? Isn't over!?
You won. And she chose you. And she loved you.
And she's gone.
It's over isn't it, why can't I move on?"
When Ritsuko was still young and innocent, she used to dream that one day her lips would build her a castle for herself and her b.f.f (Best friend ever) Yui to live in all to themselves. Just the two of them as children against the world of adult tyranny. Her tendency to turn her most emotional speeches into songs whether anyone was available to listen, was the one shard of her inner child that remained and it too would have been lost to the growing pains of adulthood had she not managed to finally muster the courage to quit her disgusting and ungodly habit of smoking up a storm till her coal black lungs were gagged to the brink of agonizing asphixiation.
Secretly she had confided to Yui that she absolutely loathed her birth name of Ritsuko, believing it to both bland and uncreative to the extent where it showcased to her even in her early infant years that both her mother and father never saw her as anything more than a trophy to be shown off and left to suffer alone in stiff silence. A slave who must always obey the dictum "Be seen and not heard". A mute onlooker from the shadows, a dumb moron when present in any social setting save the once or twice she was asked to fulfil a command of some random stranger her parents cared about impressing more than their own flesh and blood daughter.
So Yui gave her a far better nickname to improve her abysmal self image that had nearly driven the extremely self-conscious Ritsuko to suicide many times prior to their fateful meeting. Yui called her "Pearl". "Pearl Simon Bolivar". A renowned and respected revolutionary leader who ploughed the seas tirelessly, working day and night for the good of the common people left to their undeserved demise by an overstretched and uncaring totalitarian dictatorship against science, culture or any other thing that could advance humanity or give the slightest inkling of hope and happiness.
Ritsuko "Pearl" as if to repay such unparalleled kindness and artful creativity rewarded Yui with a highly elaborate nickname of her own that she used whenever they were together. "Rose". "Rose Marie Quartz". The true heroine of the hour during the war of the roses that liberated much of Europe from the rest of the world's jealous grasp, as well as planet Earth from the brutal dictatorship of the Diamonds.
"My Quartz. My fair, just and honest Quartz who showed me the true value of friendship." Pearl gaily recited each time she saw Rose, taking an incredibly low bow that lasted till her spine gave out from exhaustion so that she fell flat on her face, only to immediately bounce back up without the slightest grimace or sign of pain.
"My Pearl. My precious and loyal Pearl who helped me finally let my walls crack to let the light in, to see the beauty of the world clearly in all its marvellous splendour." Rose would equally gratefully return as the two walked hand in hand to face the struggles of life together as one. Knit to one another closer than husband and wife, closer than teeth and gum. They both thought they'd never lose each other out of sight. The sinister plans fate in store for them instead was a rude awakening indeed.
"War and glory. Reinvention. Fusion. Freedom. Her attention.
Out in daylight. My potential. Bold. Precise. EXPERIMENTAL!
Who am I now in this world without him..."
Her vision had briefly darted to another photo taped to her wall, this one showcasing the three original child pilots of Shinji, Rei and Asuka. This was before Mari had arrived mysteriously on the scene as a godsend from the heavens. Asuka's face had also been X'd in the same manner as Gendo's. It was thankful that she stood at the far right while Shinji and Rei were on the left so that her crossed out face ruined nothing about a beautiful union captured in all its sumptous fineness.
It was not simply Ritsuko's feelings speaking, the Synch rates between Shinji and Rei were shown to have skyrocked beyond all previous paramenters while Shinji's synch rates with Asuka were downright laughable. Solid scientific evidence proved that Shinji and Rei were meant for each other while Asuka was nothing but an evil bully not worth the space she took up in Misato's apartment. And science when not abused or silenced by monsters afraid of themselves, showed proveable fact that could transform and transfigure mankind at its very core.
Asuka's heels, most likely made at a third-world country sweatshop were not worth the leather used to make them. And Asuka's prententious dresses not worth the textile they were shaped from. Yui "Rose Quartz" called the most honorable Kyoko Zeppelin Soryu's spoiled child, an even worse version of Dolores Umbridge. Pearl more sucintly labelled the redhead whose temper was every bit as hot as the red of her hair, Jasper. Meaning that all of Amethyst's, Peridot's and Steven's efforts to contain the single greatest threat to the peace of Earth in their previous lives had all been for nothing. Nothing at all. If Steven was an edible hotdog whose smell was every bit as edible as its taste, then Jasper was a spoiled and burnt hotdog. A bad meal you simply couldn't keep down however hard you tried, so to speak.
Pearl didn't know when the cycle of life and death and love and birth would grant her lost comrades another chance at finding enlightenment as she'd been given. But she did know that it would soon happen and that she needed as the self-titled "Bird mom" of her team to get the world ready for their return if they were going to be succesful in quashing Jasper's even more devilish schemes this time.
Like Link and Ganondorf. Like Mario and Bowser. Like Light Yagami and L and L's endless horde of devout followers. The crystal Gems and the Homeworld armies were destined to clash time and time again. This was a timeless battle. Time could heal but this wouldn't. Not until someone broke the cycle. And the cycle could not be broken through simple denial alone as Amethyst and Garnet seemed to want to believe.
In the words of Pearl's old self: "You cannot walk towards the future without first acknowledging the past. For if we cannot learn from our mistakes, we are only doomed to repeat them".
"Jasper" was the true threat to mankind. Not the Angels. A murderer from the start that NERV and SEELE failed to even suspect. "Jasper" had nearly murdered Shinji the second he woke up, not one bit grateful of the heartfelt concern and old-world kindness that he'd shown her since the day they met.
Pearl still remembered the awful way he reeled back from the powerful punch Asuka delivered to the thin glass window between his cell and the mess hall where she came to give her disgruntled manservant and several-time saviour of her very life, her damning hatred that had not cooled one bit from the impact fourteen years ago.
Asuka er Jasper had been blind long before she lost her eye in the dummy plug incident incited by the head honcho of NERV himself. Blind to the dreadful harm her incurable narcissism caused to those patient and understanding souls she pretended to care about. Those she shared fake laughter with. Those she pretended to cry for.
Shinji nearly died. Knowing the horrible situation outside WILLE's quickly crumbling base that would surely fall away in a plume of ruined rubble any day now, she doubted even Shinji would be able to make it out of this battle alive. And even if he did, what reason could he possibly have for returning to the evil prison he'd been stripped of the last vestiges of his dignity? As far as Ritsuko er Pearl was concerned, Shinji was gone. Dead. Deceased. But this was still Shinji. The titan who'd single-handedly baffled the world's most powerful defenders with his peerless prowess that always came through when it mattered most. The first and only pilot to reach max-synchronization with his Evangelion so as to ascend to a plane of power unconcievable in the wildest of dreams.
To doubt Shinji was to spit on his hard-earned achievments and Pearl knew that if Rose could see her from her self-made torture chamber inside EVA-Unit 1, she would surely be furiously distraught to see Pearl think so poorly of the poor boy who'd never really even had a chance to experience childhood as it ought to be experienced by everyone at least once in their lives. Shinji would come back. That was a fact. He would also find some way to return Rei to her former glory and lift her up to the highest cloud in heaven itself. That was another fact. Pearl needed no crystal ball to know that these miracles were bound to occur soon in the very near future. To her in this moment of pique, Shinji was the future.
"Er, her. Petty and dull with the nerve to doubt her.
What does it matter, it's already done.
Now I've got to be THERE FOR HER SON!"
She very nearly threw her voice out. There was a burning flame hotter than the sun in her throat but she didn't care. She took the deepest breath she could manage with her now nicotine free lungs and continued the song, determined not to stop till she had finished every last word in her guts which she had in mind to spill out to Rose as much as to herself.
"It's over isn't it. Isn't it? Isn't it over?
It's over isn't it. Isn't it? ISN'T IT OVER!?
You won. And she chose you. And she loved you.
and she's GOOOONE!"
She took great pains to emphasize "GOOONE" with as much volume as her now thankfully nicotine-free lungs, throat and diaphragm could muster up. It made a small crack in the glass window giving her a view into the bleak and miserable view of the polluted seas that WILLE had their headquarters situated beside.
Pearl, who now took the deceased Ritsuko's place as Shinji and Rei's new guardian angel had left a lot of unfinished business but this zealous speech in the form of a musical number that would dazzle even the Beatles in their glory days, was not one of them. The fact she'd used an radio very similar to the one Shinji always used to play a mournful piano tune to accompany her singing and the additional fact that she had a tape recorder which she started the second she started singing proved that she was serious. Deadly serious. She was going to take this to Shinji and Rei when she saw them again and play it to them over and over again until they finally regained their trust in her after she'd broken their faith so evilly so many times.
Pearl really was becoming something of a master shatterer. First Princess Rose Quartz and now Dr Ritsuko Akagi now lay deceased in the graveyard where her unfortunate victims lay. Even a benevolent pacifist following in the footsteps of another benevolent pacifist had to have a breaking point. Now both a Royal Homeworld Gem and a disposable rank-and-file human civillian had crossed it. Now Pearl was not simply a murderer but a double murderer. If Pearl would previously have gotten life imprisonment for first degree premeditated murder (even if only done for the greater good and at the behest of the murder victim who sadly was no longer alive to testify in court to defend her murderer), then she certainly deserved nothing less than the brutal death penalty by electrical chair now.
She felt more tears but this time she was able to force them back as she finished her spontaneous song to the finish of the piano tune she had playing on the SDAT that so resembled Shinji's when he still lived in Tokyo-3 with Misato and a she who must not be named. She was thankful to the almighty himself that she had managed to kick her smoky addiction. "Gone" would not have had nearly the impact of "GOOONE!"
"It's over isn't it. Why can't I move on?"
An agonizing pang of heartache. Her chest was burning up even if she hadn't so much as touched a toxic cigarette in years. The inner fire that "Rose" left deep within her soul had never really been put out. It felt so good yet so bad at the same time. She didn't know whether to thank Rose or curse Rose for it. It made her seize up with sentimentality and shiver all over despite the generous central heating system provided only to high ranking WILLE leaders such as herself.
"It's over isn't it. Why can't I...MOVE ON!"
A quick look at the simple mirror she kept in her room beside a vase of well pruned, carefully watered and very lively roses showed her the beautiful yet terrifying changes that several years of kicking her smoking habit and several days of eating no food and living only on cold water had wrought upon the once insane scientist who saw other humans as little more than disposable experiments.
Her skin had turned a pale, sallow yellow with rosy cheeks of pink where her once nicotine-filled veins were now rejoicing their freedom from the tyranny of cigarettes. She had left her blonde hair undyed for a long time now in an attempt to regain her individuality that society snatched from her. The chocolate brown tone that it once possessed had become a faint and radiant strawberry blonde following the deadly third impact which scattered dangerous chemicals onto everyone in its vicinity, scrambling their genetic material irrevocably so that not one of the suriviving members of WILLE could claim to be completely the same person they were on the day Shinji "doomed" them to this "tragic fate that they'd done nothing to deserve.".
Well Ritsuko, or rather Pear loved her new or rather old strawberry bloonde hair which she had carefully cut into a point at the top. It gave her pride and joy in her appearance which she'd previously been disgusted by.
So how did Pearl come back? How did a dead alien formed from nothing more than a common, cheap-as-dirt organic mineral reform after the "shattering" process supposed to blow her to kingdom come with no way back?
Rose called it the circle of life. Pearl more simply called it samsara. Coined by Siddharta Gautama, better known as Buddha. It was the idea that one's karma over many lifetimes accumulated to determine one's spiritual heirachy in the next life and that one who'd not found inner peace had as many lifetimes as needed because of the all-merciful nature of the generous and giving universe.
It even had basis in scientific theory. Material from corpses was slowly recycled back into the soil to be used as vital nutrients for still-living life forms to imbibe and nourish themselves by. In this way as the first law of physics put it, matter was neither created nor destroyed.
Pearl never died. Neither did Garnet nor Amethyst. Nor did Steven, Greg, Peridot, Lapis or any of Pearl's faithful entourage that fought with her to the cold and bitter end.
She just needed to track them down. It was Rose's parting wish and her Ikegai, her purpose in life.
She changed out of her ugly labcoat and blue shirt and painfully tight jeans.
She threw on the simple yet elegant sky blue kimono she went to sleep in every night with the bright yellow star symbol of the crystal gems carved into its pale red belt.
She brandished the highly advanced weapon Misato had seen fit to issue her as second in command of WILLE. A titanium spear with a wicked point as sharp as the scythe of the Grim Reaper himself, and the high-tech ability to deliver a one-thousand volt jolt of fatal electricity at the tap of a button on its handle.
"Uh. Colonel Ritsuko (Misato was the general). You in there?" Came the throaty, gravelly monotone of a psycopathic guardsman, no warmth nor sympathy in his icy tone as he rudely rapped at the tightly locked door which nearly caved in at his harsh pounding.
His savage, unflappable frown quickly broke into shocked surprise as the door was flung open to reveal the true leader of the crystal gems in all her new exquisite finery. It forced him to briefly shield his eyes from her dazzling glamour.
Garnet had been little more than a figurehead and regent while Pearl had selfishly wallowed in pointless self-pity, while Amethyst was just an apprentice who'd never had the discipline nor dedication to complete her full training nor take it with any degree of seriousness.
"Ritsuko. Is. Dead" Pearl proudly announced as she pointed her spear at the bloodthirsty killer who'd lost all composure as his face went as white as snow.
"I killed her like I killed Pink Diamond. Please put down your weapons good sir. I come only in peace to negotiate the terms of a treaty with your great and honourable leader."
Today the crystal gems rose. Again. Like the legend of the phoenix.
To kill an alien race with power far beyond human comprehension, you needed another alien race equally as strong. To catch the bandit who wanted to watch the world burn, you had to burn the forest down.
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"An eye for an eye, only makes the world blind." - Mahatma Gandhi.
Thank you for reading.