A Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons Story
By Cwissy
A Dr Fawn and Athena story
In a previous story, Athena’s cryogenically frozen body was retrometabolised by the Mysterons but because she was a wolfwoman and healer she escaped their influence. She met her grandmother in the afterlife after nearly dying and she was told that her husband Edwin (from her previous life) had been reborn as Edward (Dr Fawn) in this life but he would not be able to remember his former life with her, even though he unwittingly felt a great need to find her. Athena had been greatly drawn to Dr Fawn from the start and was relieved to realise that she had subconsciously known him after all.
“Are you sure this is something you want to do?” queried Colonel White of Dr Fawn.
“Yes, I am sure of it. I realised how much I truly loved her when I nearly lost her that day. Athena is going on leave to visit her family soon and I want to go with her and if we stop off and get married on the way then no one will try to talk her into staying there.”
“Do you think someone will?”
“I don’t know but I want her here with me as much as possible and that is something I do know for certain. I could not bear to lose Theeny now or even only see her now and then, I couldn’t stand it and I’d have to leave here because she means more to me than being here, even though I’d hate to leave.” Dr Fawn was looking a bit exhausted saying all of that.
“We certainly don’t want to lose you, so go off and marry her if that is what it takes to keep you here and I see you have a pet name for her already. There is one detail that might seem to be a stumbling block though,” the colonel mused out loud.
“What?”
“Her age and her birth certificate.”
“I see what you mean, Theeny was born in 1985 so the marriage certificate would look odd, I suppose.”
“That is one way of looking at it and her age now would be listed as being 85 years old, would that bother you at all?”
“No, because she certainly doesn’t look or act that old.”
“People might think you are marrying some old lady for dubious reasons.”
Dr Fawn scoffed, “Let them and they will be the ones to get a shock when they see her in person, that is assuming anyone would bother to look up our marriage certificate in any case.”
“I could always have strings pulled and have her birth certificate altered to protect Athena from unwanted attention about why she doesn’t look her age, which is my main concern.”
“You are right and thank you for that idea, I’d appreciate it and I will ask Athena about what she thinks of the whole thing.”
Athena laughed and was then very thoughtful when he told her of his conversation with Colonel White.
“If it makes you happy, I don’t mind, even though the thought of having a husband who is forty-five years younger is quite titillating in a way and … eek, perhaps a little bit creepy come to think of it! Yes, please change the birth certificate,” she concluded with a bit of face pulling.
With all that sorted out, the pair had decided to get married on their way to visit Athena’s family.
After the marriage ceremony, as a treat, he told his new bride, who had caught a bad case of the giggles, that there was a place he’d like her to visit that she would love and so they caught an old-fashioned steam train that travelled into the countryside.
“Here’s my surprise to you, my dear,” he told her when they had reached their destination, which turned out to be a huge safari park.
She looked up at the signage and laughed. “This looks like a lot of fun and very interesting. I haven’t been to a wildlife park for quite a while and thank you love, this is the best surprise you could have given me.” She gave him a big hug.
“I’m happy that you are happy, Theeny,” he grinned as he rubbed her back. “I thought you’d like it and there are animals here that you have mentioned before and you did say that you liked them.”
“Which ones?”
“I’m not going to tell you as you can have the fun of discovering them for yourself.”
She giggled. “I’m looking forward to it and I bet I will pick up lots of different scents and sounds before I see them.”
“Please, stay in human-form though,” he worriedly told her, noting that she wasn’t quite acting as she normally did and was hoping it was over-excitement on her part.
“I can hear and smell things in human-form and I’m better than the average person at it too,” she said in a slightly defensive manner.
“Good, because I wouldn’t want to see you locked up here and unable to visit your family or return to Cloudbase with me,” he dryly told her as they entered the park gates. “We will see the sights from a specially adapted safari train.”
She looked over and saw a little train with an enclosed carriage behind it that had barred windows. “What a cute little choo choo,” she giggled again. “I take it that some of the animals must be very dangerous judging by the looks of the barred windows that I suppose are there to keep people safe.”
“Yes, there are some dangerous animals here. Now, let me tell you all about the train; from what I have read they have four trains and carriages that have been modified for this park and they didn’t want to cut out really large windows in the carriages and ruin their looks, even though that would make seeing the animals a bit easier. Anyway it is cooler this time of year and those carriages apparently have no heating.”
“I’ll have you to keep me warm,” she chuckled as she gripped his arm and they walked towards the little trains. “I wish I could change into a cat as well and purr.”
Dr Fawn just smiled at her and thought that she did come out with some strange comments.
“Sorry sir, but members of the public have to stay back and wait for the next train. Important people have booked this one,” a guard told them.
“How long will we have to wait?” asked Dr Fawn.
“He won’t have to wait,” called out a man from further down the station. “I know him and his er…”
“Wife,” Dr Fawn finished off the sentence and recognised the man at the same time. “Captain Grey, what is going on, why are you here?”
“Congratulations on your marriage, Dr Fawn and Athena, I’m here watching over someone. A Mysteron threat was announced not long after you two left and I’m guarding a major who might be the target. The other captains are guarding other men in other locations who might also be in danger, as the threat was a bit vague.”
“What was it?”
“After the usual spiel about how awful we all are they said: ‘Valentine will find a tiger in his tank and one of your lions will die,’ that’s it. The major, whose first names are ‘Leon,’ and ‘Valentine’ heads up the tank division that is in this area at the moment on military exercises and, as you would know, Leon is another word for lion. He is here because he wanted to relax a bit and thought he’d be safe in a park full of dangerous exotic animals.” Captain Grey rolled his eyes at the man’s silliness.
“Not a real tiger, I hope,” snickered Athena.
“I hope not either. Come in and meet him,” Grey invited them and led the way.
The major who was a very stern, severe looking man stared at the pair of them and was wondering what they were doing on his train when he was supposed to be under strict security. He queried Captain Grey about why they had suddenly turned up there.
“I was about to tell you; they are from Spectrum, too, and have just gotten married nearby. Apparently Dr Fawn and his wife, Athena, were visiting this wildlife park as well and I found them ready to catch another train nearby and invited them over. Athena, in particular, is very good at sniffing out danger – you could say.”
Captain Grey turned around to Dr Fawn and Athena and attempted an introduction, which initially didn’t go to well at all.
“Major Crack, this is…”
“Major Crack!” cried out Athena with great snorting laughter, making everyone about her quite embarrassed.
“Theeny, watch what you are saying!” admonished her husband to her.
“I warned you, didn’t I, that wine makes me a bit funny and I couldn’t help cracking up at his name, oh dear, I’m doing it again,” she giggled like a teenager.
“It’s all right,” drawled the major, “I’m used to spontaneous laughter when my name is first heard. At least I’m making the general public happy instead of terrifying them.”
“I’m so, so sorry,” sniffled Athena, trying to get a grip on herself and then had another unfortunate thought. “At least you are not a private!” She started madly giggling again and the men shook their heads, tried not to smile but found her laughter too infectious, so gave up and laughed too.
“How long does wine affect her for?” Grey asked Fawn, noting that she had calmed down a little.
“Usually for a couple of hours,” Athena answered for him. “Don’t worry, I never intend to touch the stuff again and I should have stuck to my guns, so to speak, and refused it at that wedding chapel.”
“Why didn’t you?’ the major asked her.
“The man who married us looked so hurt when I first refused that I thought, ‘What the heck’ and had a sip or two.”
“A sip or two! You act like you drank the whole bottle.”
“That is why I generally avoid it like the plague.”
“Just as well, I think.”
Athena giggled again and grabbed her husband’s arm, then snuggled against him. “My Edward,” she murmured, “I do like you calling me ‘Theeny’ I really do.” Then she hiccupped.
“You should call him ‘Eddy’ then,” Major Crack suggested.
“I can’t do that, because that is what my rival called him.” She shook her head.
“She was never your rival,” her husband shook his head in turn.
“She was after you in a most aggressive way and you should have let me bite her on her broad backside, you really should have.”
“Good Grief!” muttered the major as strange images flashed across his mind’s eye.
“Believe me, it is not as bad as it sounds, er … it is a personal joke,” Dr Fawn lied.
“I hope so.”
“I can’t call him ‘Ed’ either because that makes him sound like Methuselah,” snickered Athena after deciding to give him additional information.
“How long does a Mysteron threat last?” asked the Major, getting a bit restless and not wanting to hear anything more about names.
Captain Grey was about to answer when he was interrupted:
“Oh, look, wolves,” Athena shouted out. “Lovely wolves, lovely, lovely wolves over there in the distance; I wonder if they will hear me.” She gave off a great bellowing howl that made everyone in the carriage hold their hands over their ears.
“And you thought it was a good idea to have her here?” Major Crack grumpily asked Captain Grey with a stare of disbelief at him.
“I’m so very sorry but I didn’t know about the wine, I’m afraid,” he explained, feeling a bit silly himself at the turn of events.
“Here they come,” confirmed Athena with great glee. “Aren’t they just gorgeous?”
“As long as they stay outside, I can admire their beauty,” Major Crack told her.
“They would not harm you with me here; wolves love me and always have; besides they are usually very shy creatures.”
“I’ll, er, take your word for it.”
Athena smiled and watched the wolves lope alongside the train.
“Oh my darlings, oh my darlings, oh my darling little wolfies.” She had slid open a window, taken a big breath and sang through the bars, before Dr Fawn nudged her and told her to shush and close the window.
“Why, I just picked up the scent of Mister Ron Blackie.”
“What?” asked Grey and Fawn in unison.
“Mister, wait, his name is Conrad, isn’t it? Mister Con Blackie or would that be Mister Rad Blackie? Which one sounds better?” she cheerfully asked.
“Are you serious?” asked Captain Grey. “In your condition, I don’t know whether to believe you or not.”
“Of course I’m serious,” she giggled back at him, “Can’t you tell?”
“No!” He was starting to feel a bit frazzled.
She took another big breath of the outside air. “It’s gone now, but I can smell a big cat heading this way.”
“Theeny, please don’t joke,” pleaded her husband.
The train jerked to a halt and Captain Grey asked over his cap-mike why that had happened.
“It seems that Athena’s wolves are running all over the track and they had to stop the train for safety reasons, that’s all,” was Grey’s relieved response to the Major’s raised-eyebrow query.
“I’ll just pop out outside and say ‘hello,’” stated Athena and was out the door before anyone could stop her.
“Bloody Hell, they’ll tear her apart!” gasped Major Crack in great alarm; the woman was a bit annoying, but he could see that the other two were quite fond of her and he didn’t want to see her harmed either.
“No, they won’t,” Dr Fawn placated the man. “Seriously, they won’t. She has a real rapport with canines of all descriptions. She’ll be back and I’ll stand near the door to make sure she doesn’t bring any of the wolves back with her to introduce to us.” It was a real possibility and he was afraid that she’d just try to do it too.
A great growling commotion broke out and Dr Fawn and Captain Grey, after telling the major to stay behind, jumped out of the train in time to see a pack of wolves harrying a tiger that had been heading their way.
“Don’t harm him, don’t harm him, little wolfies, please don’t harm that beautiful big boy,” Athena cried out and then gave off a howl that calmed the pack considerably, but they still kept a strict eye on the big cat who took the opportunity to run back in the direction it had come from.
“There, no harm done and we can now move on. Thank you, my friends, thank you,” Athena told the wolves, who were now all about her and licking her face while she laughingly hugged them back in return.
“I don’t believe it, I just don’t,” stated the stunned major at what he had seen out of one of the windows, even though he had been constantly told not to go near them. He ignored such orders, as he had said sarcastically: ‘How could he see the animals if he didn’t look since the train didn’t have a periscope.’
“What lovely animals they have here,” Athena said enthusiastically when she re-boarded the train. She looked at Major Crack and added: “You should have stepped out and given them a cuddle too and that tiger was magnificent and so big, I bet he was a Siberian tiger.”
“I’m quite contented to be where I am, thank you, and I’m looking forward to the journey ending now,” he was more than happy to inform her.
“I’m looking forward to it too,” sighed Dr Fawn with great relief that the threat seemed to be over and the tiger thwarted.
“I wonder if it was a Mysteronised tiger?” mused Captain Grey.
“Nope, I could smell no Mysteron influence in that big tabby cat,” Athena sort of assured him.
Things were pretty uneventful for the rest of the journey, except for Athena exclaiming over animals of differing types and jumping about a bit and the men were quite relieved when the train pulled up and a Yellow Fox Gasoline Tanker was waiting for Captain Grey and Major Crack to alight and be in much safer territory. Captains Scarlet and Blue were waiting nearby for extra security after Captain Grey had relayed a report to Cloudbase about Athena scenting Captain Black and a stray tiger.
“Paul and Adam, how good to see you,” bellowed out Athena as she rushed up to them and hugged them both in turn. “Oh, Brad, you missed out, I’m so sorry,” she told Grey as she grabbed him in a great squeeze that knocked most of the wind out of him. She turned to the major, “I suppose you are feeling left out…”
“No, no, I’m fine,” he hastily reassured her, after seeing what had happened to Captain Grey. He gave Dr Fawn a commiserating pat on the arm. “You are a brave man taking her on, that is for sure,” he told the man with a weary head shake.
Dr Fawn smiled and looked forward to telling Athena all about it when she was sober.
The drawbridge-hatch ladder came down and the men started moving in its direction, but they suddenly found their way blocked.
“Get back, get back,” Athena excitedly told them with her arms out as if to herd them backwards. “The Siberian tiger is in there…”
“What? How?” asked a startled Grey, feeling confused at how that could be so.
“I can smell him of course; a cat that big and frightened can give off quite an aroma.”
“Get back behind us then,” he ordered her and tried to grab her arm to make her go.
“Don’t be silly,” she told him as she dodged him. “What are you going to do, shoot him? Do you have any idea of how dangerous large animals are when they are wounded and angry and full of fighting adrenaline?”
“All the more reason for you to get back,” Grey desperately told her, still not managing to grab her arm.
“Listen to him, Theeny,” Fawn told her in just as much desperation, finding that although the wine affected her mind, it did not affect her reflexes at all and she dodged him just as easily. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”
“Look,” she told them all, “What you have to do is close the hatch until someone gets here with a tranquillizer gun and the tiger won’t be hurt.”
“I’m more worried about us being hurt than a tiger,” Dr Fawn told his wife with sternness.
She giggled again at him; a sound he was starting to find a bit alarming.
“If the Mysterons have control of this vehicle then it would take too long to fight our way in before the tiger comes out,” Captain Blue informed them all. “We have no choice but for all of us to shoot it at the same time when it does jump out.”
“Let me see,” declared Athena, scooting off to the front of the truck and climbing up to look inside a side window where the driver was sitting.
The Mysteronised driver was staring back at her in great surprise and feeling quite startled.
She tapped on the glass. “Mr Whoever you are, may I request that you raise the hatch at the back of this truck so that the handsome tiger inside doesn’t get hurt; a beautiful walking sculpture like he is should not be destroyed in such a needless way.”
The driver died when he automatically shot at her and the bullet-proof glass made the bullet ricochet and hit him instead.
Athena, meanwhile, had slid off the vehicle when her husband had grabbed her legs and pulled her back down in one go, making her land on him and they both ended up lying on the ground.
“Mmm, you are in quite an amorous mood, aren’t you?” she declared giving him a big kiss. “I’m sorry dear, but I usually prefer to be indoors for this sort of thing.” She jumped up onto her feet and pulled him up too.
“Theeny, you are impossible,” he told her straight, whilst brushing himself off.
“But not boring, I hope?” she asked, giving him a big hug.
“No, you are most definitely not boring,” she was assured by her man.
“The door was not locked,” Captain Scarlet assured them all after he was able to go in and have the back of the tanker hatch raised and thereby trapping the tiger in it.
“I’m so glad that tiger didn’t come out with fangs and claws at the ready, since cats can sprint at the speed of light,” was Captain Grey’s relieved comment, as he wondered how much time he would have had to get more than one bullet into the animal.
“He would have been able to scent that there were a lot of people out here and he would have smelt wolf on me, so the poor thing was hiding in fear I suspect. It would have been a different story if you had barged in there all unawares and upset him, that is for sure,” Athena declared and then giggled once again. “There is your tiger in a tank, yep, a big striped pussycat.”
“Pussycat?” asked Captain Blue in great puzzlement at such an understatement.
“Athena has had bit too much to drink,” explained Dr Fawn to the man.
“That explains it then, how many glasses did she have?” Blue raised his eyebrows.
Athena answered him. “A couple of decent sips, that’s all, but I felt it was affecting me so I tipped the rest it into Edward’s glass when he wasn’t looking.”
“You did!” the man in question gasped. “I wondered why the glass never seemed to go down and the dirty looks I received from the people there when I didn’t finish it; after the way they went on and on about some relative making it and declaring how wonderful it was … and it wasn’t – thanks heaps, Athena.”
She gave him a great smacking kiss on the cheek. “You can drink fermented grapes with a fair degree of impunity and I can’t, so I appreciated your help.”
“I’m glad I could have been of service,” he told her, shaking his head. “In the future please warn me of such things.”
She smiled.
“It seems the Mysterons know all about these tankers now,” stated Captain Scarlet with a bit of sadness. “But at least they didn’t get to use this one with dire consequences and,” he looked over to Athena, “the tiger will be safe.”
“I’ll drink to that,” said Athena with a cheeky grin.
“No, you won’t,” corrected her husband, to the great relief of everyone there.
Cwissy
22nd January, 2024
And now some words from my kind husband, Dan:
Dr Fawn and his beloved Athena (the wolfwoman) decide to stop-off for a quick marriage while on their way to visit her family, thus initiating a series of events leading to a fascinating new adventure with the Spectrum Team; complicated, and amusingly so, by Athena’s unfavourable reaction to a couple of sips of wedding wine. There follows a brush with wolves, whom Athena quickly befriends, and later a potentially more dangerous encounter with an enormous tiger.
Along the way we meet-up with the unforgettable Major Crack, who is less than amused by some of Athena’s antics brought on by her adverse reaction to her two innocent sips of wine, then later Athena manages to trick a Mysteronised truck driver into shooting himself. All-in-all a delightful read.
Dan.