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Post by dans on Jan 16, 2021 20:52:52 GMT
Author Note: If you want to read this whole story straight through, you can find it here: The Excellent Adventures of Alex, Atom, Carol and JoannaCarol Clews and Atom Blake - Crown Quest
Search for the Crown of Scales
Cold Case Revisited
"Say, Dan, do you remember our last case before our little... time trip? It's the only case we ever took that we didn't resolve." Beautiful blonde Carol Clews asked her partner in The Daring Duo Detective Agency, rugged, handsome Dan Dare. They were both sitting at their desks in their recently opened brand new office, reviewing records and files that were often close to fifty years old. The were still getting established in their new time frame, and their lives hadn't yet returned to the mile-a-second globe-hopping always-on-the-job pace of their late 1930s - early 1940s adventures. Neither was really sure they enjoyed the downtime - reading dusty files wasn't nearly as exciting as flying around the world at a moment's notice, gathering diverse and obscure clues and dodging fists and weapons before closing yet another impossible case - and collecting their big rewards! "I DO remember it, doll..." He stopped as Carol frowned at him, started again. "I DO remember it, partner." She smiled. "But I haven't had much time to think about it. And it seems hard to believe that 45 years later, it might still be open..." "Yeah, that Atom Blake Boy Wizard kid snapped us out of the spell, and we get dropped into a battle with a bunch of left-over Nazties, and then Jim and Sue helped us find an apartment and you took a case and tried to jump off of a speeding truck and broke your leg..." Carol was holding up a hand and ticking off her fingers. As she paused for a second, Dan chuckled and took up the narrative... "And while I was laid up, marveling at the wonders of modern medicine and oogling the nurses..." (Carol frowned and Dan moved on quickly), "... you and Jim and Sue and Lance and Mr. Hogan got in trouble in the South Seas again, and you got your 'sunny side up' powers and then helped save the entire world from Battleworld along with a gazillion other heroes out in space near Mars... and then Jack Weston, who renewed your acquaintance on the Rock of Eternity, asks us to help him with a case in the Southwest..." Carol ticked off the rest of her fingers, then opened her hand back up and joined in again, "And just when we wrapped that one up, we got hired as security for Lawrence Library and Doc Quentin, and then we fought Oya, the Orisha of Energy, and most recently, as we finally got our new Agency off the ground, we get attacked by that ancient whacko, the Spider Sinister... yeah, it isn't like we've had a lot of time to sit around and just relax. But now that we've had a few minutes of free time, I've had enough relaxing already..." "So what did you find about our 'last case first time around'?" Dan asked. "You remember, we were hired by the San Diego Natural History Museum to recover a stolen artifact, the Crown of Scales, reputedly a magical relic of the rulers of the sunken South Sea continent of Lemuria, and we decided to track the thief and flew to the island of Maloana in the South Seas to hire Lance O'Casey as a guide to the islands where we thought the thief had fled?" "Actually, I DO remember all that," he replied, a little annoyed that she felt it necessary to recap the whole adventure. "So what's your point?" "I checked with the museum - the Crown was never recovered. It's the only case we never solved." "And you want to recover the Crown and return it to the Museum?" he asked, starting to sound mildly interested. "No, I checked with the Museum, they don't really want it back at this point. While we were 'away', there has been a growing movement to return valuable ancient artifacts from museums and private collections to their places of origin where they were stolen from. So they would just as soon not have to go through the publicity of involved in recovering it, and then the hassle of figuring out who it really belongs to. But I was thinking, maybe you and I could recover it, and finally return it where it belongs." "Not our usual kind of case, b'you... partner - but since we got nothin' else on the docket..." He was interrupted by a banging on the door. "Telegram! Telegram! Telegram for DAN DARE!" An hour later, they got back to their discussion. Dan: "So we're agreed. I'm gonna take this new case to infiltrate the all-male Kerry Le Block Fan Club which is suspected by the FBI of subversive activity. And since there is no way you can get into the fan club, you're going to follow up on the Crown of Scales." "You got it, Sherlock!" They high-fived, one of the newfangled social rituals they both approved of, and began making their separate plans. Consult with a Wizard
Carol dug out all their records on the Crown of Scales case and spent some time refreshing her memories of that 45 year-old case, even though to her it seemed like it had happened only 3 or so years ago. In the mid-1890s, the San Diego Natural History Museum had purchased a collection of artifacts from a famed archaeologist/adventurer/treasure hunter/island pirate named 'Skipper' Faber, artifacts he had collected (read: looted) from hundreds of South Sea islands during a half century career of knocking around from island to island. The most spectacular artifact in that collection had been the Crown of Scales. This collection had been a major draw for the San Diego Museum for around 40 years when a number of the artifacts, including the Crown, were stolen in 1939.
The Museum official who had originally hired Carol and Dan, almost 4 years after the theft, had suggested that a former employee named John Smith was the chief suspect - he had not reported to work since the Crown had been stolen, and he hadn't returned to his room in the boarding house where he lived in that time either. Dan and Carol had investigated. Smith's appearance and accent had indicated to everyone who knew him that he was of South Sea Islands descent, and he'd told people that he was an immigrant from Tahiti who had changed his name to 'fit in better'. They had never uncovered his original name. They'd found no photos of John, but they'd put together a composite drawing by Dan, who was a surprisingly good artist. They still had the drawing in their files; of course it was somewhat faded after over 40 years packed into a trunk! They had also determined that Smith had booked a commercial flight back to the South Seas and shipped a number of trunks, but instead of going to Tahiti his destination had been Rarotonga in the Cook Islands.
Carol had a friend who had vacationed in the Cook Islands a couple of years ago (early 1940s). Her friend had been fascinated by a handsome rogue sailor during her vacation, and for the past 2 years constantly she had frequently gushed over this wonderful, amazing, handsome, roguishly attractive sea captain, one Lance O'Casey. The detectives had decided that O'Casey might be a great guide to the islands. They flown to O'Casey's home of Maloana, and arrived only a few minutes before the island's shaman S'ville had unleashed his time-stop spell. (See The Castaways for more details of Carol and Dan's adventure with Lance O'Casey). 'The rest, as they say, is history! Now, though, how am I going to get to Rarotonga?' Carol mused. 'We're not going to be paid for this one, so as the Chief Financial Officer of Daring Duo Detectives, I'd prefer not to pay for a commercial flight. I'm not sure I can fly that far on my own; it would be bad news if I ran out of power over the Pacific a thousand miles from shore!' After a few seconds of thought, she had an inspiration. She opened a locked drawer on her desk and pulled out a 4 x 6 inch notepad of lined yellow pages, a gift she'd received from a young friend a couple of years ago. There was a handwritten message on the top page dated last December; she smiled at the perfect cursive penmanship as she re-read it. " Thanks for the Christmas wishes, Miss Clews. School is going great; I'm learning a lot and me and my instructors think we'll figure out how to lift this darn curse soon. It would be great if you could drop in for a visit sometime, otherwise maybe I can drop in to see you on a school vacation. Love, Atom." Six year old Atom Blake had developed a crush on Carol almost as soon as they'd met in 1985 (also recounted in The Castaways) and he didn't even try to conceal it. Well, he wasn't exactly six... and he was certainly not an ordinary boy! She lifted the page as if to tear it off; the writing vanished as the page pulled away from the one below it, and when the page was completely clear, she released it, smoothed it down, and then starting writing her own note. Atom Blake at SchoolAtom Blake, a small boy with black eyes and black hair, who looked like he might be barely six years old, leaned forward in his seat at the table in his dorm room in Samekh House at the Grimoire Academy of Applied Knowledge on Grim Island in the South Pacific, squinting and frowning in concentration as he glued another small plastic piece to his latest World War II airplane model, a 3' long B-29. Hanging from the ceiling on thin, almost invisible threads were another dozen models of WWII planes, though none was quite as large as the Flying Fortress. Almost every horizontal space in the room was covered with magical apparatus, the bookshelves were filled with mystic tomes, and incongruously, the desk was dominated by an advanced computer workstation. Atom jerked upright at a muted chiming, muttered and wiggled his fingers over the model, then moved to his desk where he pulled a small pad of yellow lined paper from one of the drawers. He started smiling as he read the message that was appearing on the top page of the pad. Back on the table, a plastic piece floated to the tube of glue which carefully discharged a small dab of glue on the floating piece, which then floated over to the partially-completed model, carefully fitting itself into place. "Hi, Atom! Hope you're well and keeping up with your studies. Say, I need transportation to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands - wonder if you can help me out? Carol Clews""Sure, Miss Carol! Just tell me when you're ready to go! Today would be a good day; the wards around the school are relaxed today for Intramural Game Day," he cleared the incoming message and quickly wrote back. After their years of working together, both Dan and Carol had learned to keep a packed 'go bag' in the office. The reply was almost instant: "I'm ready any time, Atom - just say when!" "WHEN!"Atom picked up a crystal from his desk, quickly crushed it with a mortar and pestle, and then, while chanting, he sprinkled the dust over the flame of a small oil lamp. There was a flash as it vaporized, and the popping of displaced air as beautiful blonde Carol Clews appeared in his room carrying a bulging backpack. "Why are you going to Rarotonga?" he asked, and she told him the whole story.
"OK, I'm ready to go," he added when she was finished. "No classes today," he explained, sounding a bit sad. "Today's Intramural Class Athletic Day, with intra-grade athletic competition, no magic allowed. But I'm so much smaller than anybody else in the class, nobody wants me any of our athletic teams. So I was going to spend the day building some new models." Then he brightened considerably. "But going with you sounds like it will be a lot more fun than hanging out here all day!"
Even though he only looked six, and his curse forced him to usually behave like he really was six, he'd been twenty-five in 1950 when the demons Blaze and Satanus had cursed him with six-year old immortality. Adult male Atom was still living in his brain, and he really looked forward to spending the rest of the day with his beautiful crush.
"Well... sure, why not?" she replied. "Can you put us down at the Rarotonga Airport?" "Yup. Here we go!" Atom sprinkled some more dust over the flame of the lamp, there was a soft "bamf" of displaced air, and the room was empty.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Jan 17, 2021 15:51:38 GMT
I love this! I'm so glad we are returning to Atom Blake. I find his character fascinating, particularly because, as a result of being perpetually 6, he is the most different of Adam Blake's counterparts. It's so cool that we are going to see the Earth-S counterpart of the Serpent Crown (the Earth-1 version appeared a a few Aquaman stories on the site).
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Post by dans on Jan 18, 2021 3:09:35 GMT
Carol Clews and Atom Blake - Crown Quest
Search for the Crown of ScalesAtom and Carol materialized in an empty concourse at the Rarotonga airport and headed for the airport entrance. "So I need to find out everything I can about this 'John Smith' fella. I expect that will be difficult; after all, everything I know about him is 45 years old, at least!" "Well, actually, Miss Clews," Atom tugged on her sleeve, and she turned to look where he was pointing. "Isn't that him?"
In the middle of the airport rotunda was a statue; the statue sure seemed to be the man in Carol's sketch of John Smith. The plaque read "Amiri Matapo". He'd risen to fame during WWII, first when he'd returned to the government hundreds of Island artifacts and treasures he'd 'redeemed' from museums and collections around the world, then as a war hero helping keep the islands safe from invasion, and then as the Prime Minister for years, although he had passed away 5 years ago. And, he had claimed to be descended from the ruling family of Lemuria. "Well, that appears to resolve the case," Carol commented,sounding a little disappointed. She thought for a few seconds. "I guess I'll just have to do some shopping, buy a new bikini, and hit the beach. Total bummer!" She sounded quite a bit happier, and she thoroughly enjoyed using modern slang. "What about you, Atom - do you want to stick around, or go back to school?" "Actually, I'd like to see the artifacts on display. Some of them might be good topics for my next research paper," her tiny companion piped up. The plaque mentioned that all the artifacts Prime Minister Matapo had recovered had been on public display in a downtown museum called "The Museum of Mu" for the last 20 years. "Will you come with me? I really don't want to go back to school yet."
"I guess I'll take a photo of the Crown to put in our files," she agreed, and a few minutes later they were standing in front of the exhibit case which held the Crown of Scales. "Wait! Those things aren't real!" Atom whispered to his friend in alarm. A little louder: "In fact, they're not even really there, everything in that case is just a magical illusion!" And then, he was yelling: "It's a TRAP!" And then there was the gentle "bamf" of displaced air, and Carol and Atom disappeared.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Jan 18, 2021 12:49:53 GMT
So, the plot thickens
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Post by dans on Jan 23, 2021 13:14:45 GMT
Carol Clews and Atom Blake - Crown Quest
Search for the Crown of Scales
"It's a TRAP!"
The Museum of Mu didn't look like the museums Carol had been used to in the States growing up - instead of a massive brick and cement multi-story fortress, it was a sprawling, airy, single floor veranda that looked more like a house. But there was something about it that raised her hackles - as soon as it came into view, she felt a chill, and as their cab got closer, she began to experience pangs of concern, as if there was something in that building that she should beware of. ' Stop it, Carol!' she ordered herself, mentally. She glanced surreptitiously at Atom, and saw no signs that he was experiencing anything similar, so she forced herself to continue smiling and acting normally. She missed his similar surreptitious glance at her... It was difficult to approach the building as if she was experiencing nothing out of the ordinary, but as they exited the cab, she forced herself to walk casually forward though her sense of danger was still growing. 'Damn it, Carol!' she scolded silently. ' It's only a museum!' But then she remembered some of the research she'd done; some of the artifacts in this museum were rumored to grant vast magical powers to those who possessed them. ' And you've had personal experience with vast magical powers... so take it seriously, lady, and be ready for 'sunny side up' at any instant!' She mentally strengthened the shield around her mind she now maintained continuously against mind control, ever since the Spider Sinister had tried to control her mind, and instantly felt quite a bit better. ' That proves there's something real going on. Stay on your toes, Ms. Clews!' Both she and Atom were doing their best to act normally, so she was unaware that he was making similar mental, magical preparations. In the cab, he'd wiggled his fingers and drummed them on the tops of his thighs as he cast a silent, low powered warding spell. This worked quite well; he felt almost normal again as they entered the museum. For now, they skipped past all the other artifacts on display and went right to the main display. It was the main room in the museum, a very large room, divided in half by a glass wall. Above the diorama was a sign: "Merodak Mu-paku, the last Emperor of Mu, wearing the legendary Crown of Scales", while behind the glass, an ornately but garishly decorated room dominated by an 8' throne apparently carved from coral. On the throne sat a majestically-robed mannequin wearing a massive crown of platinum, worked to look like it was covered in scales, and studded with gems and jewels - the Crown of Scales. Atom took a second to study it with his magical senses, and then... "Wait! Those things aren't real!" Atom whispered to his friend in alarm. A little louder: "In fact, they're not even really there, everything in that case is just a magical illusion!" And then, he was yelling: "It's a TRAP!" And then there was the gentle "bamf" of displaced air, and Carol and Atom disappeared. At the word "TRAP" Carol instantly created a shining yellow force field bubble around the pair, and Atom snapped the ring fingers on both his hands with his thumbs, the final gesture in a protective spell he renewed every morning, and an invisible ball popped into being around the two of them, just outside of Carol's yellow bubble. There was an instant of darkness and disorientation, and then they were falling through fantastically powerful flaring orange-yellow-white light that was so bright it was almost blinding through closed eyes. Even through their combined protective shells, they could feel incredible heat, growing as they fell. And they were assaulted by an awesomely powerful rumbling noise, louder than any thunder they had ever heard, shaking their protective shell like a rattle and actually causing their bodies to shudder - and then Carol screamed "UP" louder than she'd ever screamed before while she issued the most urgent mental command to her power that she'd ever given and the two were rocketing toward space faster than she'd ever been able to fly before. The intensity of the light, sound, and heat diminished quickly; after about two seconds, the two were able to open their eyes. Carol squinted and looked down; they must already be at least 2 miles high and directly below them, through the left-over dazzle effects, she could make out the circular gateway to Hell! Still they continued to zoom towards space... "That's the caldera of a giant active volcano!" Atom piped up in awe. "What a deadly trap!" Carol didn't really appreciate the tone of approval in his voice. "Atom! That trap damn near killed us! If I hadn't flown us out of there, we'd be nothing but a vapor cloud of super heated atomic steam by now!"
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Post by dans on Jan 26, 2021 1:51:00 GMT
Carol Clews and Atom Blake - Crown Quest
Search for the Crown of Scales
"Where the (BLEEP) Are We?"
"So where the hell are we?" Carol demanded, then looked abashed at what she'd said, "Oh, I'm sorry, Atom! Where the heck are we?" "Listen, Miss Carol, no matter what I look like, in real years of living, I'm like 35 years older than you are! So cut it out with the kid stuff, huh?" Adam demanded back, his strong, stern words sounding strange in his high, piping, six year old voice. "Oh, yeah, sorry! This 'magic mucking with normal time' stuff magically mucks up my thinking, too..." Carol replied, contritely. Then, "But the question is still the same - where are we?" "Ummm... by now we're about 20 miles high and still going up like a rocket!" Atom replied a little nervously. "I think we've escaped from the trap; maybe you can take us a bit lower?" He pointed; below them she could see the curve of the Earth, and could tell that they were above the coastline of a continent whose shape she didn't recognize, and Atom was pointing at a group of small islands not far from the coast. The volcano was still directly below them, and the terrain around the volcano seemed to be rugged and mountainous. She could see the lights of what might be cities farther away on the coasts of that unknown continent. She canceled the "UP" command, and started flying back down toward the islands he'd indicated. "I didn't know you were SUNBEAM?" Atom gushed enthusiastically. "That is SO COOL! You're my favorite hero, even more than Mary Marvel!!!" "I'm trying to keep it top secret; please don't tell anyone," Carol asked. 'Top secret, Ms. Clews, only known to Dan, Lance, Mr. Hogan, and Sue and Jim Barr. And now Atom. Yup, utter tip top!' she snorted in her mind, while commanding her clothes to change to her action costume, a cute yellow long sleeved mini-dress with a short cape, sash at the waist, and a yellow domino mask over calf-high yellow boots. 'Who are you going to tell next? By next week, the whole world will know.' She changed the subject. "Do you have any way to tell where we are? That land below us doesn't match any of the continents I know about. Maybe a new one popped up from under the ocean while I was taking my magical beauty nap?" she quipped to hide her nervousness. She'd been in space once before - but to a woman who'd grown up in the 20s and 30s, space travel still seemed like Saturday serial stuff! Atom had pulled a handbag seemingly out of empty space, now he pulled out a couple of small glass vials, mixed the contents in the palm of his left hand using his right index finger, and then made a complex gesture with his right hand while pouring the dust from his left over his head. "It's pretty hard to tell, Miss Carol... somehow my magic isn't working quite like I expect right now. But my best guess is that we're pretty much where we were in the museum, near the island of Rarotonga in the Pacific South Seas, only we're 25 miles straight up now, and finally not going any higher - but we're like 100,000 years in the past, and I'm not sure this is even our own Earth, it feels more like the one everyone calls 'Earth 2'." Grim Island, where Atom attended school, was accessible from the Earths of several different vibratory universes, and one of his classes had made short field trips to each of them. Carol shook her head; she'd worked with super heroes who were allegedly from another universe when she'd helped stop Battleworld but she wasn't sure she believed in the concept. They hadn't seemed like they were from another universe; they acted just like everyone else! Shouldn't they be at least just a bit... alien, if they were from another entire universe? Combined with currently being in orbit and 100,000 years in the past, 'where are we?' was an almost overwhelming concept. She needed to concentrate on their current situation, and think about these outlandish concepts of time and space at some other time, in some other place. So... "That was a pretty nasty trap," Carol mused, shuddering. "We were only a really short instant from death. I don't know if anyone else ever triggered it before, but we're probably the only ones who ever survived." "I'm not so sure, Miss Carol - look over there." Atom pointed. Carol's gaze followed a magical pointer of white light that extended from his finger through their protective globe and across space; a few miles below them it touched a glowing yellow sphere that seemed to be a twin to the one that surrounded the two of them, and then outlined that sphere in a glow so she couldn't miss it. It was zooming toward space directly above the volcano but slowing rapidly.
Suddenly, the section of bubble they were looking through changed into a magnifying lens and the other bubble seemed to be only a few feet from them. The color of the bubble was very similar to that of Carol's protective shield, and it was just barely translucent; they could vaguely make out two humanoid shaped shadowy figures inside that bubble. "It blocks my magic, too," Adam reported. "Guess we won't know who it is until they drop their shield. My magic should keep them from seeing us, too, though."
"So, surprises all around," Carol announced. "Sometimes I HATE surprises!"
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Post by johnreiter902 on Jan 26, 2021 14:32:30 GMT
This is very interesting. i can't wait to see who they are about to meet.
I wonder if it feels like Earth-2 because they are on another Earth, or because magic is stronger in the past.
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Post by dans on Jan 26, 2021 14:47:02 GMT
I wonder if it feels like Earth-2 because they are on another Earth, or because magic is stronger in the past. Yes
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Post by dans on Jan 26, 2021 22:37:17 GMT
Carol Clews and Atom Blake - Crown Quest
Search for the Crown of Scales
"Hi-YO SILVER! Away!!"
"Uh oh!" Atom said in alarm. "Incoming!" He pointed in another direction. "Looks like surface-to-air missiles!" The magnifying lens shifted and many miles below them they could see a swarm of fat arrows aimed in their direction, spewing fire behind them. He reached into his bag and pulled out... a short broomstick?!?! Short as it was, it was way too big to have been in that bag. Then he touched the bag to his belt and it vanished. "Let me out, quick!" Carol hesitated, and he yelled, "In school they train us for just this kind of thing! I'm my class champ at missile tag!" She still hesitated. "They're going to be here in under a minute," he said urgently. "I can't zap them through your shield - and we'll each be way more maneuverable apart. And besides - I'm not 6, dammit, I'm 63 years old and I grew up dodging asteroids in space!" Carol made her decision. "Good luck, Atom!" Her yellow bubble vanished, replaced instantly by a glowing yellow sheath that outlined her body. Atom was already seated on his broomstick. His clothing had transformed as the bubble vanished; now he looked exactly like a tiny Lone Ranger, complete with gray shirt laced at the neck, leather riding boots, red bandanna at the neck, a white half-gallon hat and black mask - plus crossed gun belts, each with holstered pistols that seemed to be as big as his head! He pulled off the hat and waved it in the air. And his steed had altered form somewhat, from a plain broomstick, it now ended in the head of a horse and Adam was seated in a saddle, complete with saddle horn, stirrups and saddlebags. "Yah HOO! Ride 'em, cowboy!" "Let's try and lead them away from that other bubble," Carol used her power to amplify her voice. She was startled at the response. "Thank you, sister, but you needn't worry about us," another amplified female voice sounded, slightly above and behind them. "Instead, we'll join you in your battle with that pesky swarm!" Carol and Atom turned and were surprised to see two flying women. A blonde, outlined in glowing yellow, dressed in a short-sleeved yellow miniskirt, with white belt and shoulders and thigh high yellow boots, floated next to the speaker, a woman with long, straight black hair, dressed in a simple tunic colored Kelly green and navy blue in flowing, constantly changing patterns, a tiara holding her hair back from her strong face, with massive brown leather belt and jeweled necklace. Atom was silent for just a second as he stared in awe, then he turned back to the approaching missiles. "Hi-YO, SILVER!!! AWAY!!!" and he zoomed down toward the approaching swarm. The path of several of the missiles started to bend slowly to track him. "Hey, girls, we can't let him have ALL the fun," the new blonde yelled. "Let's sic 'em!" She darted down and away, and another sheath of missiles turned painfully to try to intercept her.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Jan 27, 2021 14:28:45 GMT
I wonder who these people are? This is a great story.
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Post by dans on Jan 28, 2021 19:10:15 GMT
Carol Clews and Atom Blake - Crown Quest
Search for the Crown of Scales
One Shot Blake Atom whooped and hollered as he rode his magical 'steed' directly at 'his' swarm of missiles. As they got closer, he changed his flight patterns, and kept changing directions every few instants. None of the missiles could change directions that fast, the best they could do was trend gradually in his direction. He pulled out his oversized pistols and started shooting first one, and then the other; the recoil of each would knock his wrist back and he'd yank it back down in line, almost as if he were playing a set of drums with the pistols as drumsticks. The pistols made funky noises when he pulled the triggers, "Pweewwwwww, pweewwwwww, pweewwwwww, pweewwwwww!" and with each shot, one of the missiles simply vanished with a loud, but not explosive "POP". "Boyoboy, can I shoot, or WHAT?!?!" he yelled in excitement. "Wait till I tell the guys back at school!" Atom really was the reigning school champ at missile tag - although he was the smallest student in any of the upper classes, his magic was as powerful as any other student, and he was faster and more maneuverable than any of them. 'I've never enjoyed being left out of 'Class Athletic Play Day' so much!' His attention was drawn to the shape of these missiles - after all, he'd been building model planes only a few hours ago, and he WAS obsessed with World War II era planes. 'They look at lot like tiny XS-1 rocket planes - except they have NACA ducts! They're not really rockets at all - they must be air-breathing jets! It would give them much greater range, but they wouldn't be nearly as fast as a rocket - and they'd be limited to lower altitudes where the air is thicker...' Suddenly he realized that one of the missiles had changed course and now was coming directly toward him - and it wasn't very darn far away. "JUMP!!!!" he commanded his steed, and rocketed straight up, and the missile was going to miss and pass directly under him and instead it exploded "kerBLAAM" and even though he was racing up, up, and away at high speed and surrounded by a magical force shield, the concussion shook the tiny Lone Ranger and his broomsteed Silver like a bean in a rattle, and he was woozy for several seconds, and he couldn't concentrate enough to keep flying and he started falling. Not far away, a blur in the air unblurred to reveal the woman in the blue and green tunic. "Winds that also keep me aloft, catch the lad in arms so soft!" she chanted, and instantly, Atom slowed, and then stopped falling, and rose again to her level. With a few instants to recover his composure, he reached shakily into one of the saddlebags, and pulled out a... red pull-top soda can with white lettering? He popped the top and downed the whole can in only a few gulps, and instantly perked up. "Ice Cold Energy!" Then he looked at his new best friend. "Thanks, ummm... say, who are you, anyway?" | |
"My name is Zephyr. You are welcome - but we'd best beware, here they come again!"
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Post by dans on Jan 29, 2021 0:31:19 GMT
Carol Clews and Atom Blake - Crown Quest
Search for the Crown of Scales
Clear the Skies Carol and the other blonde woman also zoomed towards the incoming swarm of missiles. The closer they got, the more dense the swarm appeared - there must be hundreds of them! "Somebody really doesn't like us," Carol mused. "I wonder if it's the same somebody who dumped us into the volcano? Seems like a totally different MO..." It wasn't long ago when she'd played 'missile tag' with two ICBM-sized rockets with anti-matter warheads... 'Maybe they can be distracted?' Another Carol appeared and then another, and some of the missiles corrected course to chase each of the illusions. Carol was surprised at how easily she created the duplicates, and how fast they moved. She realized she'd never felt so powerful before! In fact, the illusions were easily outpacing the missiles; she concentrated and forced them to slow down. "Nice!" the other flying, yellow-outlined woman approved. "Where are you going to send them? Maybe you could fool them into diving into the volcano where they can't hurt anyone?" The illusionary Sunbeams broke sharp left and right, drawing some missiles away, and and then each slowly swerved towards the caldera, still several miles below them. A few instants later, there were two streams of missiles chasing two flying women, each stream pointed directly toward the peak of the volcano. A beam lanced out from the other woman's right hand, and two more illusions appeared, again swerving to draw more missiles away from the two yellow costumed flying women, and then aiming toward the volcano. Still, a few of the more stubborn missiles insisted on aiming at the real heroines rather than their doppelgangers. "I'm Corona," the new blonde said. "Why don't we take care of the rest of these pests?" She waited for the standard response to her name, but it didn't happen. "I'm Sunbeam," Carol replied. "Do you have anything fancy in mind, or should we just smash them?" She pointed at a missile, a yellow beam lanced from her hand, and the missile exploded. Corona swatted the next closest one with a giant yellow fly swatter, and another missile bit the dust. "There's rather a lot of them," Corona noted. "Suppose we hover back to back so none of them can get behind or between us?" "Sounds like a plan!" The two women hung in the air, back to back, and shooting and swatting every missile they could see. The pair spun slowly in place, so none of the sneaky missiles was able to approach them from the sides. Carol got more missiles, as she was able to fire spears from both hands while Corona was limited to fighting with her right hand. Sunbeam had been worried that she would tire rapidly, and after a while, she could tell that her lances were getting slightly weaker, but she wasn't tired in the least and she had never had this kind of power before. They were able to keep the air around them clear, and they could see that it wouldn't be long before they'd finished off the last attacker, so they took some time to chat.
"So, Sunbeam, how do you do that? Do you have a 'magic' ring too?"
"I was going to ask you the same thing. No, I don't have a magic ring - I just think what I want to happen, and the yellow energy does it. But I don't know how I do it." Corona just happened to be facing the volcano when they finished off the last of their missiles. "Say, Sunny, you ought to watch this. Those others of us are about to complete their missions!" Carol made sure there were no other missiles in her field of vision and turned to watch as 4 flying 'women' surrounded in blazing yellow dived fearlessly into the caldera, followed by what must have been almost a hundred missiles, which vanished without even a flare. At the same time another hundred or so missiles simply fell from higher up, no longer blasting but just falling freely. And then the skies were almost empty, but then, from even higher up, two human figures zoomed down towards Corona and Sunbeam, as their friends Atom and Zephyr flew to join them.
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Post by dans on Jan 29, 2021 2:05:37 GMT
Carol Clews and Atom Blake - Crown Quest
Search for the Crown of Scales
We're not in Kansas any longer... "We got them ALL!" Atom crowed as the four came together. "That is SO cool! Wait 'till I tell them at back at school!" "Um, Atom... first we have to figure out how to get you BACK to school, before you can tell anyone. Which means we need to figure out where we are and how we got here!" Carol replied, sounding worried. "You guys too?" Corona asked sadly. "We were hoping you guys might tell us." "Well, why don't we land while we try to figure it out?" Zephyr suggested, and led the way down to one of the islands maybe 10 miles off the coast of the unknown continent. They scouted an island a couple miles across, which had 4 mountainous peaks at the center and determined it was unpopulated, so they landed on the beach. The first order of business was to complete the introductions. "I'm Atom Blake, Boy Wizard!" Atom told Alex enthusiastically. Joanna continued. "I'm Zephyr, or Joanna." "Carol Clews, and I call myself Sunbeam." "And I'm Alex DeWitt - a.k.a. Corona," Alex cringed internally as she introduced herself. 'Here it comes...' "Like the..." Atom piped up enthusiastically. "No, Atom, not like the beer," she spoke almost crossly. But before she could say more, Atom eagerly interrupted her. "No, no, Miss Alex, I was gonna ask if you're named after the Advanced Laser Targeting System component of the new Star Wars Missile Defense plans?" He was still enthusiastic. "That is SO COOL!" "Say, there's a beer named Corona?" Carol asked with interest. "I'm sort of a connoisseur of beer; my partner and I have visited all 48 states and all the territories and half a dozen foreign countries and I always check out the beer - and I've never heard of it. If it's any good, I'd love to try it some time!" She shook her head. "Oops, I mean all 50 states - I sometimes forget what happened while I was asleep!" Alex was a little abashed. "I'm sorry. I get asked that - I mean, about the beer - almost every time somebody learns my name, and I'm SO tired of it... but you know, the next time it happens, it will remind me of right now, and I'll just smile about it. Thank you. Atom! So..." she turned to Carol and smiled to show she was joking, "Nobody ever asks you if you named yourself after the electric razor? Sorry, I couldn't resist!" "It's kind of funny," Carol returned, very seriously, sounding more than a little puzzled. "You guys both speak fluent East Coast American, in fact, I'd say, somewhere near New York City, and I'm originally from Fawcett City, just outside of New York, myself - but I've never heard of either Corona Beer or Sunbeam Razors."
"We're from Gotham City, right next to New York City - and I've never heard of Fawcett City," Joanna replied, also sounding puzzled.
"I told you!" Atom almost shouted in his enthusiasm. "I said so! We're not on our own Earth any more! This really is Earth-2!"
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Post by johnreiter902 on Jan 29, 2021 3:11:36 GMT
Interesting. So, they aren't in the past at all?
2 questions spring immediately to mind. 1) How did they get to Earth-2? and 2) How is this connected to the Crown of Scales?
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Post by dans on Jan 29, 2021 13:19:20 GMT
Carol, Atom, Alex and Joanna
Space/Time Quest
A Quiet Moment's Discussion
"I don't know what you mean about 'Earth-2', but my magic senses tell me we're in the past. I'm pretty sure the continent we saw from the sky is Lemuria - which sank beneath the Pacific Ocean around 100,000 years ago. Er, I mean, 100,000 years before I was born!" Zephyr replied to Atom's excited pronouncement.
"See, I said that too!" Atom crowed triumphantly to Carol.
So of course, Alex, who had learned about vibratory universes and multiple Earths in her training with Green Lantern and the JSA Reserves, and whose yellow power ring had come from yet another vibratory universe, and Atom, who had learned multiple Earth theory early in his training at Grimoire Academy, spent the next few minutes bringing Zephyr up-to-date. Alex had just reached the part about the barriers separating the different Earths ever since the Crisis, when Joanna interrupted with a question.
"OK, so if these barriers are so impenetrable, and we're convinced Alex and I are really on our home Earth, and Atom and Carol didn't change Earths via Grim Island, then how did THEY get HERE?"
Carol had been feeling a bit left out of the discussion, but she realized that something she'd learned in the Battleworld Crisis could help everyone make sense out of the current information exchange. She was starting to realize that she'd almost sleepwalked through that crisis; afterward it had seemed like it must have happened to someone else, but with more experience, the memories were starting to make more sense. Anyway, "I heard Mary Marvel say that she'd found a way around those barriers." Everyone stopped talking and looked at her. "Ummm... Mary realized that if she traveled back in time to before the barriers existed, she could cross to another universe - and then travel forward through time back to the present and she was on the other side..."
"Novas and Meteors!" Adam piped up enthusiastically. "So the trap we sprung in the Museum of Mu not only threw us back in time, but it tossed us over to the vibratory universe of Earth 2!" His 'six year old tiny tot' appearance made it easy to forget that not only was Atom a super genius, he had many years more real life experience than any of they women around him, even though they were all in their mid-twenties.
"You guys were in the Museum of Mu on your Earth? That's where we were too, in the future," Alex told her companions excitedly.
Then, of course, she and Joanna had to explain why they had been in that museum together. Alex, a freelance photojournalist, had successfully pitched a feature series on the lost continents of Mu and Atlantis to Continental Geographic Magazine and the publisher of the magazine had enthusiastically accepted the proposal. Alex had recently attended a lecture on ancient Egypt by Gotham City University Associate Professor of Archeology Joanna Andre, who had mentioned the influence of Atlantis on Egyptian civilization, so Alex had arranged a meeting with the professor as part of her research.
"I almost didn't believe it when Continental Geographic accepted my proposal and decided to sponsor my investigations. And it was so great of Joanna to change her vacation plans so she could come with me to Rarotanga!" Alex ended her story.
"Well, you can't really say I had 'plans'," Joanna replied with a smile. "If I hadn't come with Alex, I'd probably be back in Gotham now, probably helping them catalog dusty artifacts in a dusty storeroom at the Gotham Museum of Natural History. If 'right now' actually means anything when time travel is involved, but you get what I mean!"
Neither Alex or Joanna mentioned that at the beginning of their trip neither had known the secret heroic identities of the other, but keeping their identities secret had become a very minor issue when the trap had sprung! "And you guys got caught in a trap similar to the one that caught us," Carol concluded sadly. She held up her hand, fingers outstretched. "So, all we have to do is..." she touched her fingers with the pointer of her other hand to enumerate her points. "Get back to our own time, find out who attacked us..." her voice turned grim with anger, "...let him know how we feel about people who try to kill us, dismantle the traps so they won't kill anyone else, and get me back to my own Earth and Atom back to Grimoire Academy."
"Well, actually..." Atom piped up, "I'd like to find out why this is called Earth 2, and what number our Earth is, too." Even given their dire situation, the others had to laugh at that.
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