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Post by DocQuantum on Dec 22, 2018 18:16:37 GMT
This really is a fun story! I didn’t notice there was an earlier chapter posted in November, but that just means I have twice as much story to enjoy!
This is very true to the spirit of the Silver Age/Bronze Age Mxy stories. I am enjoying how Jasma is outwitting her daddy’s foe.
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Post by starskyhutch76 on Dec 22, 2018 23:24:37 GMT
lol. Mxy's rep back in Zrrf is really going to take a hit if he's outsmarted by a 5 year old. Of course, mocking him would be a good way for the other imps to find themselves buried in sewage again.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Jan 13, 2019 16:49:27 GMT
The next time the duo materialized, it was on the surface of the moon. Jasma stared around in wonder. “Wow.” She’d been in space once before,* but she hadn’t had much opportunity to enjoy the view. *Editor’s Note: see “Jasma goes to the Zoo” Mr. Mxyzptlk made sure to create a bubble of air around them. Jasma might forget to hold her breath and besides, how else could they talk to each other?
“Now Jasma,” he began. “Out here, where it’s much less crowded, we can really play some while super-games. Watch this.” With a gesture, Mxyzptlk created six giant targets floating in the air.
“Let’s play a game of giant super-darts Jasma. I’ll show you how to do it first.” He levitated several massive lunar boulders into the air, and then with a flick propelled them towards the targets. Each boulder stuck when it hit the target, until the bull’s-eye was hit. Then, the target disappeared.
“There, you see? A fun game! And since we’re playing it out on the moon, you can throw as hard as you like, ‘cus nobody can get hurt.” This made sense to Jasma. “OK, I’ll go get some rocks!”
As the tyke of steel zipped back and forth across the lunar landscape collecting the biggest boulders she could carry, Mxyzptlk materialized more targets in sky. . . with one slight alteration.
When the stones hit the center of these targets – and he was sure they would. Although Jasma’s hand-eye coordination still needed to develop like any other child, she also had her father’s super-accuracy – the stones would pass right through and keep on going.
And going. . . and going. . . and going, until they impacted the first solid object in their path. A solid object the imp was studying right now, the eastern half of the North American continent.
A barrage of meteors, even a small one, would cause untold chaos, and Superman’s daughter would be to blame for everything. “Uncle Mxy! I’m ready.” Jasma called from atop a mound of rocks.
“Alright sweetie,” the imp called back, his voice dripping with false kindness, “go ahead!”
Jasma let fly a half-a-dozen boulders in superfast succession. Each one struck the center of a target and disappeared. “I’m winning! I’m winning!”
“Keep it up kid.” Mxyzptlk chuckled. When you win, I win.
Not all the boulders kept hitting the targets, however. A bunch of them were going wide, often in wildly different directions.
“Try a little harder Jasma.” Mxyzptlk as another rock careened over the horizon. He was a little frustrated. The destruction would be less if she didn’t hit the bull’s-eye more often. What happened to super-accuracy?
Finally, all the boulders were used up. Although many had missed the bull’s-eyes and the targets completely, Jasma’s score was stll way better than the imp’s.
“I won! I won!”
“Yes yes kid, you won.” Mxyzptlk waved to her distractedly, while peering anxiously into space. He whisked up a pair of magic binoculars so he could see firsthand the results of his trick.
He looked up into space, searching out signs of destruction on the planet below.
And what he saw was. . . dozens of giant meteorites coming STRAIGHT TOWARD HIM!
Completely forgetting his magic in the panic of the moment, the imp raced around screaming like a chicken with its head cut off as the meteorites impacted all around him, dotting the landscape with still more craters.
Finally, getting a hold of himself, he created a giant magic umbrella to weather the storm., although he was forced to use magic to dig his way out afterwards, the hail of rocks had buried him completely.
When he did surface, the first thing he saw was Jasma, lying on the ground laughing so hard she could barely speak.
“Y-y-you HA HA, you looked SOOOOO f-f-f-funny Mr. Mixeplik! HA HA HA!
When Jasma saw that the first six targets did not disappear when the rocks hit the bull’s-eyes, she smelled a rat. Tracking the boulders with her telescopic vision, she figured out that Mr. Mxyzptlk wanted to get her in trouble for throwing rocks at people’s houses. So, while she pretended to be throwing rocks at the targets, she was actually throwing them into space so that they would bounce of the other rocks and make them spin around and come back to the moon. Her daddy played that game with her all the time. He called it the ricochet game, and said it would be very helpful in the future, like for deflecting kryptonite meteors.
The game was so much fun, she even let a few more rocks go through the bull’s-eye, just so she could bounce them back and make them land of Mr. Mxyzptlk.
The fifth dimensional imp was so mad that smoke was literally coming out of his ears. Then, in an instant, he seemed to cool of completely. Smiling slightly, he joined Jasma in a small chuckle. “Heh heh, that was a good joke on me Jasma. And you’ve inspired me. I know exactly the place we should go for our next game. Someplace out-of-the-way, were you’ll find excitement like you’ve never seen in Metropolis.”
“Disneyland?” the tyke queried.
“Oh no, better than that.” Mxyzptlk clicked his fingers, and in a flash the two of them disappeared. . .
. . .to re-materialize in a futuristic, alien city, surrounded by beings of many different races.
“Jasma, welcome to Wexr II!”
Base of the Superman Revenge Squad.
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Post by DocQuantum on Jan 13, 2019 20:59:00 GMT
I'm glad you're keeping up with explaining Jasma's feats and her reasoning behind it. This reads like one of the better Silver Age stories because of that, especially since playing a game of "pool" with meteors is a time-honored tradition for the Superman Family!
I didn't really notice until now that Jasma is actually using the name Supergirl for herself, which is a lot better than "Super Tot" as Supergirl was once called when she was turned into a baby (though I like the "Tyke of Steel" nickname a lot). I assume she's still unknown to the world, but using her powers much like Superman did as a Superbaby before he debuted. Or did she become publicly known as the new Supergirl in that Young Justice story? I really need to track that down and put all the relevant info in the timeline for 1988. Hard to keep track of.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Jan 14, 2019 11:13:31 GMT
My interpretation is that she calls herself Supergirl, but is still unknown to the world at large. I just couldn't imagine a little girl willingly calling herself "Super Tot"
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Post by starskyhutch76 on Jan 18, 2019 3:19:50 GMT
I couldn't see that either. Most little kids want to go out of their way to prove they're not babies.
There'd been some talk of her taking up her mother's mantle shortly after the future Supergirl was revealed to be a Martian.
I like the way she's driving Mr. Mxyzptlk up the wall. I hope she's able to handle the revenge squad as well.
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Post by lawrenceliberty on Jan 30, 2019 15:49:08 GMT
I'd like to see a Jasma, Wonder Tot, Zook team up.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Jan 31, 2019 2:21:25 GMT
Zook is hard to write, at least for me
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Post by johnreiter902 on Jan 15, 2020 1:10:52 GMT
At last, I have written anew section. It has been a while, so I hope the writing is still of good quality.
Jasma looked around wide-eyed at the flying cars, massive gleaming buildings, and many different alien races. The cityscape was broken up with high barriers and sci-fi fortresses which looked like futuristic castles, linked with elevated walkways. It was MUCH cooler than the space circus, or even visiting the Fortress of Solitude. It was like being actually inside one of her daddy’s stories. She barely noticed as a smirking Mxyzptlk tipped his hat and faded away “I’ll just leave you alone to explore all the fun. . . rides here Jasma. I’m sure you meet lots of VERY nice people. In fact, here come some right now!” Jasma glanced around the square she had arrived in. Several of the flying cars had landed, and squads of aliens carrying rayguns were pouring out. “You!” one of the unformed beings, an alien with a pointed head and yellow, speckled skin, was yelling at her. “Don’t move! Who are you, and why are you wearing the forbidden symbol?” Jasma glanced down at her Supergirl costume in confusion. She knew what forbidden meant, it meant she wasn’t following the rules. That wasn’t true! She was being a good girl. “I’m supposed to wear my Supergirl costume when I use my superpowers!” “Supergirl?” the uniformed man’s eyes grew wide. “SUPERGIRL?! The daughter of our greatest enemy, here, in our stronghold?” He pulled and handset-like device from his belt and barked into it. “Attention! All planetary units of the Superman Revenge Squad, we have discovered the presence of the daughter of Superman in Vendetta Square, converge on this location and apprehend her at once!” The soldier drew an energy weapon from his holster and began to fire it at Jasma. The Tyke of Steel recognized a gun when she saw it, and thought about letting the bullets bounce off her like they bounced off of daddy. One “energy bullet” hit her, however, and it stung. She wasn’t going to let anymore of that happen. Taking evasive action, she took off into the air and began buzzing around at superspeed, weaving in and among the buildings. Avoiding the shots was not difficult at first. They were fast, but she was faster. In fact, Jasma was just starting to enjoy the game, when the hail of energy began to become more intense. Over a dozen hovercrafts had arrived, circular red platforms with men standing on them in uniforms like the man who yelled at her before. All of them were armed with energy pistols, and all firing. Ouch! Ouch OUCH!. “That hurts! You meannies leave me alone!” Picking up speed Jasma began to zig-zag between the buildings, trying to gain some distance. The Revenge Squad troops, despite the maneuverability of their hover crafts, soon found themselves hard pressed to keep up, let alone draw a bead on their target. Jasma’s mood improved considerably. Like most little girls, she loved games of chase. She began to look for ways to make the pursuit more interesting. She looped around bridges, zig-zagged between parked hovercraft, flew in and out of buildings, and sometime she would even stop suddenly and reverse direction, laughing gaily at the confused faced of her pursuers as they whizzed past her. “By-by bad guys. Nah nah nah nah!” she waved cheerily at them. “Blast it! Corner her already.” The leader barked. “Throw a force field over the entire area.” Fully absorbed in her new game of “cops and robbers,” the girl of steel continued to lead her pursuers on a merry chase. She barely noticed when the shimmering curtain of energy sprang up, sealing off that section of the city. At the last second, she swerved upward in a loop, and the Revengers had to leap from their hovercrafts before they hit the shield. “Oops, that was close.” Jasma considered putting up that shield to be nasty trick. It served them right to run into it, the cheaters. Trying a new tactic, she dived into the ground and began to burrow at superspeed, looking around with her x-ray vision for a safe place to come up. When she did surface, it was in a small, low-ceiling chamber filled with banks of controls and monitors, all very drably colored, with room for no more than one or two people to work. In a puff of smoke, Mxyzptlk materialized. “Well, I’ll be a 4-d snackburst” he muttered. He’d been watching everything invisibly, of course, and while the chaos was mildly interesting, it wasn’t quite what he was hoping for. He wanted Jasma to either, a) cause a terrible disaster, or b) get into a fantastic mess, preferably both, and she was still handling every situation with both care and aplomb that was far beyond her years. But now his chance had really come. By some fantastic luck, the tyke had stumbled onto the Superman Revenge Squad’s Doomsday Room. From this room, any and all of the revenge squads weapons could be activated remotely. It was intended as a final redoubt against Superman in case the rest of the squad was captured. Perfect. “Hey, Jasma!” He grinned enthusiastically. “You know what you found? This is the remote control for all those bullies’ toys. Let’s make things really fun, and turn them all on at the same time. Doesn’t that sound cool?” Jasma smiled up at the floating imp. “Sure, that does sound like fun Uncle Myx-y-plick. But, how do I do that?” With a snap of his fingers Mxyzptlk made a spotlight appear over one of the chairs. “Just hop up there darling, and put the button that says “activate all resources.” While Jasma hurried to her seat, the imp turned to one of the walls and changed it into a one-way viewscreen, showing him the surface. This would be fabulous! He rubbed his hands with anticipation. Any moment now the surface of Wexr II would devolve into complete chaos, and he would be enthroned as the greatest mischief maker of all time, with Superman’s own daughter as his accomplice! Any moment now. . . “Uh. . . Uncle Mxy? Which button should I push again?” Grinding his teeth, Mxyzptlk glided over to Jasma and pointed to the control button. “That’s the one sweetie. Go on now, press it!” Jasma screwed up her face in puzzlement. “Are you sure? I can’t read too well, but it doesn’t look right.” “GRRR!” Jabbing his finger at the control, Mxyzptlk began to lose some of his cool. 6d gods spare from kindergartners! “Look brat, I know I’m right. My magic told me. I’ll read it to you. It very clearly says KLTPZYXM.” For a moment, an eternal moment, the word echoed in the air of the room. Jasma leapt from the chair with squeal of glee. “I did it!” she danced around the room in wild twists and turns, alternately flying and skipping. “I tricked you! I triiiiicked you!!” All color, all expression, drained from Mr. Mxyzptlk’s face. “No.” He voiced tonelessly, as realization slowly dawned. “No. . it can’t be. . . It just. . . I can’t. . .” Still gloating, Jasma planeted her hands of her hips and beamed up at the imp. “You see, Mister Mix-Yez-Pit-Lik” she accented carefully, syllable by syllable. “I’ve got super-smarts. I really CAN read!” At super speed, while his back was turned, she had scratched out the old letters and used her indestructible nails to scratch in new ones. “NOOOOOOO!” Mxyzptlk felt himself fading away, sucked back into his own dimension. “No, no, it can’t be happening, I can’t have been beaten by a little girl!” Those final words faded into a soft echo as he disappeared completely, at last. Wooping and pumping her little fists in the air, the tot of steel did a little war dance around the room. “I tricked him! I tricked him! I tricked Mr. Mxyzptlk!” She chanted in sing-song. “Won’t my daddy be so proud of me when I tell him. . .!” Then, like a cold shower, the realization of her situation began to dawn on her, stifling her jubilation and bringing her to a stop. She was in a sealed, underground room, on a distant planet, and the only people near by were enemies. Even if she had the stamina for long flights through deep space like her father, she had no idea how to find her way home. Jasma’s lip started to tremble. She had never been so lost, so far away from her mommy and daddy. She was suddenly overwhelmed with fear and loneliness. “I wanna go home.” She started to cry. “Please, please somebody, I want to go home!!”
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Post by DocQuantum on Jan 18, 2020 21:08:26 GMT
That was a great chapter, John! I loved seeing Jasma triumph over Mxy. I hope her dad figures out where she is soon!
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Post by lee on Jan 26, 2020 3:10:49 GMT
Well, we've seen the bad "friend". I hope we find a good friend here to help her get home. Love this so far.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Jan 27, 2020 0:42:06 GMT
Well, we've seen the bad "friend". I hope we find a good friend here to help her get home. Love this so far. You are reading my mind. It is another big idea of mine.
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Post by starskyhutch76 on Feb 1, 2020 1:21:18 GMT
I can't wait to see where this goes!
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Post by johnreiter902 on Feb 1, 2020 15:38:13 GMT
As soon as I can, I will write the grand finale.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Feb 23, 2020 2:48:51 GMT
New Genesis
Prometheus was bored. It wasn’t that there wasn’t anything to do. Quite the opposite. Life on New Genesis was a paradise for all its inhabitants, and the children of the New Gods were no exception. True, much of their time was absorbed in education. The lives of the young gods could not be wasted in idle leisure. But even school was no boring trial here. The children were guided in their exploration of the universe by kindly and firm gods of instruction, and personal Mother Boxes that they could use to learn about anything they found. School became, in effect, a game, and the children taught themselves. Yet, even so, Prometheus found himself gliding over fields of multicolored flowers which he had seen a thousand times, past skyscraper-sized waterfalls that failed to impress him, listening to the wild sounds of the fantastic variety of spectacular and gentle beasts, and all he could hear was the echoing sound of solitude. He was alone, and he wanted to play with somebody. Playing by himself was fun, particularly in a world that was effectively paradise, filled with so much to do, but there came a time in the life of every child when fun required somebody else to have fun with. With a dramatic sigh, the adopted son of the Highfather alighted on a rocky outcropping. He bent up his knees, rested his elbows on them, and then propped up his chin in his hands. “Mother Box,” he groaned. “There’s nothing to do.” The bracelet of electronic circuits wrapped around his wrist pinged interrogatively. “No, I’ve played all those old games.” The box pinged again. This prompted a more dramatic shake of the head, which sent Prometheus’s golden locks tumbling. “I don’t want to play with them. Besides, they’ll all say they’re too busy.” That was the core of it. Prometheus had friends. That is, he at least had boys and girls his own age who would play with him. They played with him, but only when the adults were watching, because it was expected. Children of New Genesis do not bully, do not hold grudges, do not exclude people without good reason. His adopted father wouldn’t like it at all. But he was old enough to sense why the children found excuses to be elsewhere, whenever he wanted to hang out, why they were always a little reserved. Because of who his father was, his real father. Prometheus was the son of Darkseid. He felt no shame in this. He loved his father. As terrible as Apokalips had been (and he was under no illusions; it was definitely terrible), Prometheus had never felt anything but love and caring from his father. But he had learned that that was not how the Lord of Apokalips was seen here. The adults tried to shelter him, but had heard the stories, the horror stories the children shared in the dark of night to frighten themselves. When they looked at him, they saw the son of a monster. The loneliness was threatening to overwhelm Prometheus. “M-m-m Mother Box,’ he sniffled, biting his lip to keep from tearing up. “I’m sooooo lonely.” He stood up and stamped his foot, shattering the outcropping of rock into pieces. Giving into a brief tantrum, he kicked and chucked the boulder-sized pieces all around. Mother Box pinged urgently, warning him that he might hurt some innocent creatures in the woods. Immediately feeling horrible about his actions, the boy of steel scrunched up his hands into fists, hugged himself, and sat down on the ground. “I’m sorry!” he called out to the forest animals. “I didn’t mean to scare you!” This behavior was quite unlike his normal, gentle self. He never liked to hurt anyone. When the other kids excluded him, he just smiled, tried to hide how he felt, and be nice to them all the same. That’s just what you’ve got to do, he knew. Everybody needs to be treated nice, even when they’re bad. Mother Box pinged again. “I wish you could make me feel better.” He said. “All I want is somebody nice, who will like me, and play with me!” There was a long pause, so long that he thought for a moment that something was wrong with Mother Box. Then, suddenly, she pinged briskly and loudly. A Boom Tube opened up in the air in front of Prometheus. His eyes opened wipe with excitement. “Really, you think I can find a friend if I go through there?” Mother Box pinged an authoritative yes. For a moment, the prince of New Genesis stood torn. He knew he wasn’t supposed to travel by Boom Tube without a grown-up. But, after a second, his curiosity got the better of him. In a few hesitant steps he had crossed the threshold of the portal, and vanished from New Genesis.
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