Post by redsycorax on Apr 25, 2022 23:33:33 GMT
Like many other alternate Earths, Earth-109 experienced an heroic renaissance in the early sixties. But unlike many other alternate Earths, their promising early careers and lives were cut short by the advent of nuclear holocaust as events during the Cuban missile crisis escalated into a brutal exchange in which the Soviet Union and United States destroyed each other and their foremost allies in Eastern Asia and Eastern and Western Europe. However, there were exceptions...
++
June Moone looked out over the deserted streets of Philadelphia as the air raid klaxons blared and people cried and screamed or sought cover. Her heart ached with sorrow. She had known for some time that the Fates had ordained this day and had decreed that she should not vainly strive to hold it back.
Her sorcerous studies had only been for the course of this year and she had insufficient strength, knowledge and expertise at her disposal to defy them and magick the ICBMs from the skies above as they crisscrossed the higher firmament above the city. She had begun her work to initiate a career of self-sacrifice, heroism and intervention on behalf of the weak and vulnerable around her, protecting them from crime and natural disaster. But then, in Tarot, astrological charts and other means of divinationb, she had discovered the imminent end of this world. She would not accept that. She beseeched the Three Sisters known as the Fates, Moirae or Norns and pleaded for the survival of the world around her and the lives of innocents that would be snuffed out if the nuclear holocaust ensued. However, she learnt that the iron laws of determinism stood in their way and that no matter how much they wished it otherwise, even they could not overthrow destiny's decrees. She offered to sacrifice her own life in return for even the salvation of this single city and her friends within it.
No, she was told, not even that. However, she could preserve her own life and knowledge and embark on a heroic career elsewhere in the sprawling multiverse, for her heart, purpose and deeds were pure. For that alone was in their power. At length, she had pondered whether or not she could defy the dictates of destiny and try to halt the forthcoming devastation of Philadelphia, but then realised that not even her burgeoning and developing abilities could yet deflect or neutralise the warhead of a nuclear weapon. And thus it was that, at last, tears in her eyes and with her slumbering familiar cat Nubia and her kittens in a basket, she took one last look at the chaos outside as the room and its contents vanished from Earth-109 forever.
An instant later, Philadelphia was claimed by nuclear hellfire and oblivion. But on distant Earth-24, June Moone looked around her at the strange British Union Jack corner in a very different North America flying across the street and the happy, thronging crowds outside. She may not have been able to save one world but she would make damn sure that nothing similar would claim it. And thus, that evening, was born Earth-24's newest metahuman hero and supreme sorceress, Dr AEgypt.
THE END
++
June Moone looked out over the deserted streets of Philadelphia as the air raid klaxons blared and people cried and screamed or sought cover. Her heart ached with sorrow. She had known for some time that the Fates had ordained this day and had decreed that she should not vainly strive to hold it back.
Her sorcerous studies had only been for the course of this year and she had insufficient strength, knowledge and expertise at her disposal to defy them and magick the ICBMs from the skies above as they crisscrossed the higher firmament above the city. She had begun her work to initiate a career of self-sacrifice, heroism and intervention on behalf of the weak and vulnerable around her, protecting them from crime and natural disaster. But then, in Tarot, astrological charts and other means of divinationb, she had discovered the imminent end of this world. She would not accept that. She beseeched the Three Sisters known as the Fates, Moirae or Norns and pleaded for the survival of the world around her and the lives of innocents that would be snuffed out if the nuclear holocaust ensued. However, she learnt that the iron laws of determinism stood in their way and that no matter how much they wished it otherwise, even they could not overthrow destiny's decrees. She offered to sacrifice her own life in return for even the salvation of this single city and her friends within it.
No, she was told, not even that. However, she could preserve her own life and knowledge and embark on a heroic career elsewhere in the sprawling multiverse, for her heart, purpose and deeds were pure. For that alone was in their power. At length, she had pondered whether or not she could defy the dictates of destiny and try to halt the forthcoming devastation of Philadelphia, but then realised that not even her burgeoning and developing abilities could yet deflect or neutralise the warhead of a nuclear weapon. And thus it was that, at last, tears in her eyes and with her slumbering familiar cat Nubia and her kittens in a basket, she took one last look at the chaos outside as the room and its contents vanished from Earth-109 forever.
An instant later, Philadelphia was claimed by nuclear hellfire and oblivion. But on distant Earth-24, June Moone looked around her at the strange British Union Jack corner in a very different North America flying across the street and the happy, thronging crowds outside. She may not have been able to save one world but she would make damn sure that nothing similar would claim it. And thus, that evening, was born Earth-24's newest metahuman hero and supreme sorceress, Dr AEgypt.
THE END