“Your dead Easter rabbits will cause the end of the shapeshifter’s wolf,” declared a grumbling voice of the Mysterons.
“Well, my dear, this is one mission you won’t be able to talk me out of,” Athena declared to her husband, Dr Fawn. She was sitting in the Officer’s Lounge with various captains and angels when the Mysteron threat was announced.
Dr Fawn gave a great sigh. “And when have I ever come close to being able to talk you out of getting involved in any of the missions you have gone on?”
“There have been plenty I have had nothing to do with.”
“That is because you weren’t interested as they didn’t involve animals you liked or were a direct threat against any people you cared for.”
“How well you know me,” she smirked as she grabbed his arm, leaned over and kissed his cheek.
He shook his head. “This threat is the worst one they’ve ever made…”
“No, the worst one was the one against you and we all thwarted that.”
“To me it is the worst one and I hope we can in turn prevent it happening.”
A call came out for all of them available to report to the Control Room, so they all proceeded there with anxious faces.
Colonel White, looking stern, addressed them all. “Lieutenant Green has found out that there have been reports of sporadic outbreaks of some new rabbit virus that seems to kill off all the rabbits infected and anything that eats them in turn.”
“What has all that got to do with Easter, though?” asked Captain Blue.
“The rabbits that have died have been pet ones and they are quite popular at this time of year and have been sold as being ‘Easter Bunnies.’” Colonel White pulled a face at having to say those last two words.
“How do they know that they are deadly for other animals to eat them then?” was the puzzled question Symphony asked him.
“A dead dog was found next to a pet rabbit’s corpse and veterinarian tests showed that it had the same virus in its system. The other dogs at the same place that didn’t eat the rabbit showed no virus in their systems at all so it seems the virus at the moment is just passed on from rabbit to rabbit and anything that eats them.”
“This could be terrible if this virus escaped into the wild,” Athena said with a frown. “Rabbits are eaten by so many different creatures that this could be catastrophic in the animal kingdom. I wonder if anything that eats the dead eaters would in turn die too.”
“That is yet to be determined,” was the colonel’s answer. “Also, no one knows if the rabbits are deadly when they are cooked as there have been no tests done to determine that.”
“Have you ever eaten one raw?” asked Rhapsody Angel of Athena with a grimace at the thought of it.
“Yes. My grandmother and I would go on long trips living off the land in both human and wolf-form and she taught me how to hunt. One test was to catch and kill a small mammal really quickly and to eat it whole, skin, bones, innards, the lot. You must remember that in my wolf-form I can kill and eat many things that I’d get all squirmy about doing in human-form.”
“So did you manage to catch, kill and then eat something?”
“Yes, I eventually caught a young rabbit and gobbled it down. As a wolf I found it very tender and tasty.”
“Ergh!”
Athena laughed. “I passed the test and any rabbits we caught after that we cooked over a campfire we would make up each day. Gran taught me how to cook wild game and what wild herbs and fruits to use to make them very flavoursome. Mmmm, I owe her everything I ever leaned about survival and she taught me a lot of herb-lore too.”
“I wish I could have met her then,” Colonel White declared. “I think she would have been quite an asset on survival training courses here.”
“She most certainly would have been and she would have enjoyed putting all of you through your paces for sure.”
“Could you do that?”
“Not as well as she could have. She had a real gift when it came to teaching; she was an excellent teacher and she was incredibly patient with me that is for sure. She rarely became angry when I did silly things as I was a bit prone to doing in those days.” Athena sighed deeply at her memories.
Big grins from the others greeted her comment, as well as thoughts that maybe she was still that young girl in many ways.
Dr Fawn didn’t smile however. “This new virus must have come from a laboratory somewhere and I’m betting it is one nearby to where outbreaks of the disease have occurred, which shows great carelessness as far as I can see.”
“It might be on purpose to draw our attention to it,” was Captain Scarlet’s idea. “I think it would be a good idea if Athena kept well out of it altogether.”
“I’ll second that,” the doctor concurred with feeling.
“How about if I promise not to eat any rabbits in the foreseeable future?” Athena jibed at her husband with a smile.
“Not funny, Athena!” he snorted back at her.
“Oh, come on, they said they are after my wolf, not me and I can’t see how rabbits could come into the equation at all unless I eat one, which I’m not going to do – cooked or raw, or even a chocolate one for that matter.”
“You and your wolf are one; so to harm the wolf is to harm you, can’t you see that?”
“Yes, I can see that, but I’m trying to stop you from worrying about it,” she sighed.
“Fat chance of that,” declared Symphony Angel. “We are all worried about you.”
“Okay, okay, I won’t go near this supposed rabbit lab then or even near any rabbits at all, how about that?” she asked, hoping to placate them all.
“It is a start,” Colonel White told her. “In fact, I want you here in the Control Tower the whole time this threat is happening, so that Lieutenant Green and I can keep a strict eye on you.”
“I’m not some naughty child, you know,” she said in her defence.
Scoffing sounds met her ears at that remark.
“Right, now that is settled, I want all of you to find out exactly where this lab is that has created this threat,” the colonel told them.
“A deadly rabbit disease created like that, why would anyone do such an awful thing, why?” asked Symphony Angel, who was quite fond of rabbits, especially cuddly pet ones with soft velvety fur and floppy ears.
“To kill off wild populations where they can cause a lot of damage, like in Australia where there aren’t enough predators to keep down their numbers. Rabbit diseases have been used before to bring them down to manageable levels, but the rabbit populations seem to build up natural immunity and the numbers go up again; it seems to be a constant battle,” the doctor explained.
“Something has gone wrong with this latest disease as it seems to kill off whatever feeds on them and might continue along the food chain to kill off whatever eats the predator’s bodies. A dreadful thing and a lot like that 10:80 poison that was used to such devastating effect in the past to whatever animal ingested it first or second hand,” Colonel White informed them.
“I’ve heard of that and that poison was one of the worst to ever exist, it caused carnage all over. People’s pets died of it and in the most painful horrific way too; I have read some really dreadful accounts that people have written about this happening.” Dr Fawn pulled a face.
“Anyway, from everything I’ve found out, this latest rabbit disease seems to be fairly quick and painless, which is a small plus I suppose,” said the colonel in a grim tone. “Now, off you all go, the sooner this threat is over and done with, the better.”
* * * * *
“Sir,” said a concerned Lieutenant Green to his superior. “I can’t raise Captain Grey or Dr Fawn since they have visited a laboratory nearby to the rabbit disease outbreak.”
“What?” sputtered Athena, now on full alert and dropping the magazine she had just been reading.
“Calm down, Athena,” Colonel White told her. “This sort of thing has happened inside buildings before and it is nothing to get all worked up about.”
“Then why are you both looking so worried?” she demanded.
“It has been a while since he entered the building with Captain Grey and it is a wonder that no one has contacted us before now and it has been over an hour.” The colonel looked at the time and shook his head.
“That’s good,” said a relieved Lieutenant Green. “I’m now getting a call through from Dr Fawn, so all is probably well.”
“Put it over the loudspeaker then,” insisted Athena. “I want to hear too and talk back to him.”
“Very well,” the colonel allowed it to happen.
A different voice was heard however.
“The Mysterons want the shapeshifter Earthwoman to come here alone or it will be the worse for her husband. We will give her an hour to turn up or he will die.”
“Who the hell are you and what have you done with Edward?” demanded an anxious Athena, but the message had been cut off.
“I will send Captains Scarlet and Blue over there and they will get him out,” Colonel White told her.
“I’m going there too,” she told him back.
“There is no need and we will not be allowing you to take the bait and get yourself hurt, I’m sure Dr Fawn would agree with me on that point.”
“I’m sure he would too, but I’m going anyway.”
“How are you going to get there?”
“Hmph, I’ll jump off Cloudbase with a parachute or hide in a jet or helicopter of some sort, I’m determined to do this and I’ll cause quite a ruckus if you try to stop me.” She then added in a heart-pleading voice upon seeing the colonel’s raised eyebrows. “Please, don’t you see? I have to go; if they kill Edward they will kill me too, I could not stand by and not try to help him, please.”
“Colonel,” said Lieutenant Green, “I think she is right, though maybe that is what the Mysterons had in mind all the time.”
“I’m sure you are right on both counts. Very well, Athena, you may go but you are not going alone and the two captains will be there with you – don’t argue,” he told her, seeing she was about to interrupt. “That is a condition I do insist on, you are not going there without backup of some sort. They can be kept at a discreet distance and perhaps they can find and rescue Captain Grey if that is at all possible.” The colonel was hoping he didn’t have another dead captain on his hands.
* * * * *
A wolf circled the laboratory building and found Captain Grey knocked out and trussed up in a small outbuilding. She signalled, now in human form, to Captains Scarlet and Blue that she had found him and that he was okay. She untied the man, applied healing hands to him and he woke up.
“What are you doing here?” he groggily asked her.
“Finding you and then I’m going to find Edward; then I’m going to find that damned Mysteron agent that threatened to kill him and I’m going to tear him limb from limb, see if I don’t!” she hissed in anger.
“Wait, wait, I thought you were going to stay on Cloudbase.”
“I was but they threatened to kill Edward unless I came here and I don’t want that to happen.”
“This is clearly a trap; you do realise that.”
“Of course I do,” she snorted at him for stating the obvious.
“Where is my gun, I’m going in there with you.”
“You are not and your gun is over there in that corner,” she pointed it out. “Captains Scarlet and Blue are nearby and you will stay back with them, I’m to go in alone or else they will harm Edward.”
“But…”
“But nothing, that is the way it has to be,” she sternly told him. “Find the other captains and work with them as I’m sure they are plotting something between themselves.”
He went to get up onto his feet, but Athena stopped him.
“Sit and stay,” she ordered. “Let the Mysterons be distracted by me before any of you try anything, right?”
Captain Grey sighed. “All right then,” he acquiesced in an unhappy manner.
“Good boy,” she smiled at his frowning face, fighting the urge to pat him on the head and left him there.
Athena warily walked into the building alone, finding that it was very quiet and she could not see anyone about, which in itself was very troubling. She found where the main laboratory was and pushed open a door, peeked in and saw her husband standing in a tube made of clear perspex. She quickly ran up to him.
“Get away, Theeny, get out and find help from the others,” he forcefully told her in a harsh whisper, hoping she would listen to him and do just that before it was known that she was there.
“So, you have come at last,” was the arrogant sounding voice coming from a man in a lab coat.
Athena spun around and glared back at him. “What is the meaning of this?” she demanded, slapping her hand against the tube.
“It keeps him from leaving here with certain information; would you have preferred to have found him here tied up with pretty ribbons and bows like a large, decorated Easter egg?”
“Very funny, Mysteron man, I didn’t know humour was a part of your repertoire.”
He ignored her jibe. “So, you can tell I now serve superior masters, can you?”
She made a snorting sound back to him. “I can smell your Mysteron scent from here, what is it that you want from me that would make you trap my husband like this and what have rabbits to do with it all?”
“Did you Earthmen really think that we would care about a few miserable dead rabbits? It was always you we were after and they were the bait to get you here. Wasn’t that obvious from the threat?” He tapped on his keyboard and water started trickling into the tube Dr Fawn was in.
With a little scream Athena put her hands on the perspex and felt it all over, looking for a way to make it open but she couldn’t find one.
“It won’t open until I put in the code-number and I won’t be doing that anytime soon,” she was informed, much to her chagrin.
“What do you want?” she harshly asked, still tapping and shaking the tube in a futile attempt to dislodge something.
“Did you bring your wolf with you?” the Mysteron agent asked her with a smug grin. “The Mysterons will be pleased to be rid of her once and for all.”
“My wolf is always with me as I suspect you damn well know,” snarled Athena back at him.
Dr Fawn called out to him. “I suppose this is payback for that wolf’s lament that she gave on Cloudbase all those weeks ago, that caused the sound to go all over the solar system through satellites and would have affected the Mysteron complex as well.”
“No, the Mysterons worked out somehow what she was doing and so didn’t take any action against her for that, even if she did make them very angry at the time and you’d be well advised not to try it again,” the Mysteron told Athena with narrowed eyes.
“I hope I never have to give another lament as it takes so much out of me and it would mean someone I love has died,” Athena stated with sadness.
“It is your shapeshifting ability we want to destroy, Earthwoman. With it you have interfered with our vengeance plans too many times.”
“I wouldn’t if you Mysterons didn’t go about threatening members of my pack like you do.”
“Your pack?”
“My friends, my extended family if you like. I don’t like them being menaced like that and I can’t help myself; I have to try to defend them, it is inbuilt you could say.”
“What nonsense you do speak.”
“It isn’t nonsense, it is instinct and I can’t help my feelings on this matter. The urge to guard and protect those I care for is really powerful and I personally find it almost impossible to ignore.”
“This virus which conveniently kills rabbits and allowing us to lure you here, will take away that need as you will no longer be able to shapeshift,” he declared as he walked towards her with a loaded syringe. “Don’t try to resist because your husband will die if you do.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Dr Fawn called out. “Don’t let him take away an integral part of your being.”
“What choice do I have,” she called out back to him in distress. “Without you all is lost and nothing else matters.”
The needle plunged into her arm and she winced.
“Now let him go,” she fiercely demanded of the Mysteron agent.
“And if we don’t?”
“I will conclude that the Mysterons have no honour and do not keep their word. If you kill my husband they will hear such a lament that will rock them to the very core of their miserable lying selves.”
“An idle threat from you as you won’t be able to change to a wolf now.”
“Want to bet?” She peeled off her wolf dress.
“Sexual allurements don’t work with the Mysterons, so don’t waste your time trying,” was the scornful response from the Mysteron clone.
“I’m more than glad to hear it,” she retorted with a sneer at the man whom, to her own mind, she thought of as being like a desiccated weasel with a moustache. Her body seemed to glow all over as she changed to wolf-form and, with a mighty shake, she shook a spray of liquid from her body; she then jumped up and put her paws on the startled agent’s shoulders, did a wolf glare right into his face and growled with real menace.
“How the hell is that possible?” gasped the man back at her in shock, he knew full well he had not made a mistake with the serum he had injected into her.
She changed back but still with her hands on his shoulders.
“LET HIM OUT,” she again demanded with true anger in her eyes and voice as she gave his whole body a massive shake that made his head wobble a bit.
The agent seemed to go into a trance and then snapped out of it. “Very well, you win this time shapeshifting Earthwoman; they were actually impressed with how you were able to do that.”
He shrugged her hands from his shoulders, walked over to his computer console, typed in a number causing the perspex to lift and Dr Fawn to go free.
Athena ran up to her husband, gave him a huge hug and started crying on his shoulder from the terrible fright she had just gotten.
“Sssh, calm down Theeny, we are not exactly out of the woods yet?” Dr Fawn told her, patting her on her back.
“He is right,” the Mysteron told her, with a gun pointed at both of them. “We kept our promise of letting him out, but that doesn’t mean we will let either of you walk out of here.
“Which is where we come into it,” called out Captain Scarlet, as he and Captain Grey charged into the room and shot bullets into him allowing Captain Blue to then zap him with an anti-Mysteron gun.
“Oh thank you, thank you, thank you, I will have to hug the lot of you now,” Athena stated with great relief as she let go of her husband, who promptly held her back.
“Not like that you aren’t,” he declared, with an eye roll.
“Huh?” she quizzed and then noticed she was unclothed. “Oops, I’d forgotten I’d taken off the wolf dress.”
“Here it is,” Captain Blue told her, picking up the previously discarded garment and tossing it in her direction.
Dr Fawn caught it and quickly pulled it over his wife. “The things you do!” he told her in exasperation but gave her a big hug in return.
She squeezed him back and then let go of him to run over and thank the captains in turn for saving them in the end.
“Your husband is a spoilsport,” smirked Captain Grey, after she hugged him and the others for their help. “Just joking!” he quickly added upon seeing a frown on the doctor’s face. “My mind was on firemen rescuing damsels in distress as one of the perks of their job, that’s all.”
“I was unaware that firemen made it a habit of rescuing naked women,” dryly stated Captain Scarlet.
“Actually, it is plausible,” Athena told him. “I knew a girl who slept in the nude and was quite paranoid about her house catching fire and wondering what she would then do if it actually happened. I told her to keep a dressing gown on standby and that in any case the firemen would have tried to shove each other out of the way to rescue her as she was quite beautiful.” She smirked at Captain Grey. “You would have thoroughly enjoyed carrying her out of a blazing inferno; although she would have probably biffed you in the ear once you let her go as she was a bit temperamental and had a really low opinion of men, even if they were rescuing her.”
“That would have made interesting footage for the news media,” Captain Blue cheerfully told them all and other heads smilingly nodded.
“Not such a perk after all,” grunted Grey, subconsciously rubbing his ear.
“Why did you take your dress off in the first place?” was now Captain Blue’s burning question to Athena.
“Did you see him inject me with some foul substance?” Athena asked him.
“Yes, that was the distraction that allowed us to move into position.”
“Well, when I change into a wolf, I can leave things behind like that horrible serum that was put into my veins, so I took the dress off so that I could shake that liquid completely away from my wolf-fur.”
“Why did he seem to think that virus would prevent you from doing that?”
“I don’t know,” she answered, still wondering why the Mysterons would think such a thing in the first place.
Dr Fawn jumped in. “I would surmise that this particular virus has been used in the past in other worlds to stop other beings from shapeshifting and that the Mysterons had come across this information somehow but for some reason this didn’t work on Athena. I suspect it might be because she is a healer as well. How could you be certain you could shrug off that virus?” he asked his wife.
“I wasn’t, I just hoped and prayed I could leave it behind when I changed; and I did,” she told him.”
“Whaa! I just thought; Athena, you shook that stuff all over the place – will it now affect us?” Captain Grey asked in great alarm.
“No,” answered the doctor. “The virus has to be injected or swallowed, and even if you were standing with your mouths agape, all of you were too far away for any droplets to be unwittingly ingested. Although now that you mention it, we all will have to be decontaminated to be on the safe side and…”
“Great,” all the captains groaned, thinking about having to vigorously wash themselves down with some stinking chemical, then cleaning the laboratory and their clothes and then being in quarantine for possibly a long period of time and perhaps being bored silly by some of Dr Fawn’s lectures that he was sure to give them, thinking it was entertainment that was for their own good.
“Didn’t you see me glow before I changed shape?” she asked them. “I neutralised the virus before I changed shape to leave it outside my body so all of you are quite safe from it.”
All the captains nearly collapsed with relief at that remark, making Athena smile.
Cwissy
9th February, 2024
My darling Cwissy,
Another great adventure in the continuing battles between Spectrum and the malignant powers of The Mysterons, with the catalytic presence of Athena to add more zest and a new twist to the old classical duel between the forces of good and evil. Unlike the chemical reagent, this agent not only enters into the action of the drama, but also undergoes a death-defying transformation thought to have been impossible by her Mysteronised tormentor; quickly putting an end to yet, another diabolical scheme of the evil Mysterons.
Did I forget to mention that her husband, Dr Fawn, managed to get himself encapsulated in a gigantic test tube? Well he did, and what’s more it began filling with water! All this action was, in a most Sakian fashion, brilliantly compacted into a mere nine pages. Highly recommended to your readers.
Dan
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