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Post by dans on Mar 12, 2022 21:55:43 GMT
I thought we had accepted here that folks with Kryptonian genetics hanging out under a yellow sun would eventually become more powerful even if they come from Thoron or Xenon and start off less powerful. It doesn't matter to this story because there is no yellow sun involved, but I thought that was pretty much accepted canon here...
If we have never seen the effects of Kryptonite on Kryptonians under a red sun in the E2 universe, I assume I can establish that one way or another. Which I did in the chapter that showed Kha-Pau as being sick in the Swarm Rider. It this violates something we have already established, I'll withdraw it. Of course, that pretty much invalidates everything I have in mind.
You are correct about Kryptonian names, I should put a hyphen in Kah Pau's name. And I like making it K-Pau. I'll hold off on that change in case there is a debate about Earth 2 Kryptonians not being affected by Kryptonite and whether I can establish that indeed they are.
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Post by DocQuantum on Mar 12, 2022 22:11:28 GMT
On Earth-1 at least the differences between regular green kryptonite and green anti-kryptonite are negligible. They both affect Kryptonians based on whether they're powered by a yellow sun (green kryptonite) or not (green anti-kryptonite). They basically came up with anti-kryptonite in order to explain why the non-powered citizens of Argo City were affected by it (and even then there must have been a great deal of BOTH regular Green K and Green Anti-K in Argo City, since it affected the powered Earth-1 Superman when Argo was dropped over Metropolis in 1985 by a crazed Mr. Mxyzptlk). But I suspect even scientists studying samples of both would be hard-pressed to tell them apart. So I wouldn't worry about it unless you want to make it a plot point.
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Post by dans on Mar 13, 2022 17:09:47 GMT
Actually, Doc, I have assembled the two greatest experts in the E2 universe on Kryptonite on the Avenger. So we'll see what they find out.
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Post by dans on Mar 14, 2022 22:57:03 GMT
The Adventures of Avenger and her Crew Encounter in the Kryptoid Belt! Thar She Blows!Avenger rose up above the plane of the ecliptic in a giant arc which cut a chord across the orbit of Thoron, then arced back down into the target section of the Kryptoid Belt, moving much more slowly the closer the ship came to the center of the Belt. Avenger’s computer estimated that on average, there was probably one kitchen-stove-sized chunk of debris in any given 3000 mile cube of volume even in the thickest part of the belt, but that was only an average. There were pieces MUCH larger than that, and there were millions of smaller fragments in that same cube. Many chunks would be moving much faster or slower than Avenger, and impacting them could be dangerous, regardless of their size. Their computer-generated search pattern moved toward spinward from their starting position, to further minimize any dangerous velocity differences with the debris – and the computer was closely monitoring every sensor on board for anything that might even pass close by. Whenever they encountered anything unusual – a fragment as large or larger than Avenger herself, a group of larger fragments bunched close together, a cloud of smaller debris, or anything with a shape or chemical composition that even vaguely hinted that it might be artificial, they would approach the anomalies and investigate. So far, they had found nothing that matched the spectranalysis of endurite. They only rarely encountered debris which spectranalysis, or even visual inspection, showed to be ‘man-made’ rather than natural, and they always collected samples of these, but never anything they could recognize – everything was crushed, twisted and melted beyond identification. They found no trace of any organic material – the scientists theorized that the tremendous energy released by the explosion had instantly vaporized everything as fragile as living things. While their discoveries were often exhilarating, these samples which might have been man-made much too frequently reminded them of the magnitude of what they were doing – sifting through the rubble of a destroyed world, which had once been the home of trillions of living creatures, rich with natural wonders and the miracles of an advanced civilization. Even the urgency of their mission, to save 2 other planets from destruction, often wasn't enough to distract them from their sad thoughts. A few days into their explorations, during dinner, Avenger made a stunning announcement. “I've discovered another anomaly," Avenger announced. They all turned to the console where the computer’s voice originated in this room. After a pause that the human crew would later swear had to be 'theatrical', Avenger continued. “A Space Dragon!” Another, somewhat shorter pause. “And it may be dangerous to the ship!" A Quick Fable!
For the last hundred thousand years, give or take a few, a small population of 'space dragons' lived in the Oort Cloud surrounding the red giant star Rao. No one is sure where they came from, and for most of that time, no one even knew they were there, as the civilizations on the worlds orbiting Rao never reached the stage of space flight where they explored the Oort Cloud. Eventually, (actually some time in our future, when space travel in the Rao system becomes more common...) some investigators determined that these space dragons appear to be genetically related to the now extinct Kryptonian species of flame dragons and snagriffs. Some scientists theorize that perhaps, during the chaos and destruction caused by the close passage of the wandering star that eventually dragged the planet Xenon away from Rao orbit at that time, a common ancestor to flame dragons and snagriffs was somehow dragged from the surface of Krypton into space, where it mutated in order to survive. In any case, these fantastic animals are able to live in cold and vacuum and somehow propel themselves through space. They survive by eating matter - generally the chunks of rock that make up any star's Oort Cloud, but they can eat anything solid. One scientist proposed that they be called Matter-Eater Beasts, but the name never caught on.
For most of this time, this small colony of space dragons remained in Rao's Oort Cloud, in limited numbers. There was never a time when the nearby food supply could support a larger population, and, if any of them strayed outside the Oort Cloud, they probably starved to death before they could reach other stars. But the explosion of Krypton helped spread the species to other stars - they could fly away from Roa inside the clouds of planetary debris that had been thrown into interplanetary space and travel in culinary style until they reached another system! Superman and Kell-Orr encountered one of these traveling space dragons far from Rao in Superman #119 (around 1953), and they certainly spread in all directions after the explosion. But the one encountered by the Avenger remained in the Rao system - but not the Oort Cloud!
One Kryptonian Space Dragon didn't grow as large as her peers. She was always smaller, and weaker, and was almost always chased away from any food source by the larger members of her species. Eventually she fled inward, towards Rao, desperately searching for a food supply where other, larger and more greedy dragons wouldn't simply shoulder her aside and eat everything before she could even eat anything. And eventually, she made a stupendous discovery. The Kryptoid Belt, trillions and trillions of tons of food, just waiting for her! With not a single other space dragon within a light year to drive her away from this massive, incredible, limitless buffet!
For the first time in her life, she was able to eat as much as she wanted. The density of matter in the K Belt was much higher than in the Oort Cloud, so she never had to go hungry searching for food, and she ate as none of her species had ever been able to eat before! And a good portion of what she ate was radioactive - and as she ate, her body was changed as it adapted to the radiation... and she grew, and grew, and grew, and grew! When she finally encountered the Tiak Avenger, this once tiny dragon was even larger than the mighty ship!
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Post by dans on Mar 19, 2022 0:04:15 GMT
What's a Dragon?
Avenger's four current crew members looked at each other in confusion. "Umm... sorry, Avenger, but... what's a dragon?"
Avengers' instant translators, worn by all four, had been developed and refined by the Galactic Patrol over centuries of use among thousands of species during the GP era, and they made communication so seamless that normally one wearing the device totally forgot that the others might be using speaking different languages. The default 'ship's language' was English. The AI in the Galactic Patrol Glove Jim wore had learned English from Jim and absorbing the contents of the Justice Society's multitudes of databases (stored in English) when Jim was learning to use the Glove, and Avenger's AI had learned English from the Glove's AI, and the longer Avenger was in contact with people who spoke other languages, the better the translations became. But 'dragon' is a highly visual reference that really requires seeing one to understand.
"A dragon is a mythical terrestrial animal, generally described as a giant scaled lizard, usually having wings, and often able to breath fire," Avenger eventually responded. This quieted three of them for a second, but Jess replied instantly.
"OK, so what's a lizard?"
The voracious jungle on her home planet of Juneo had long ago wiped out every animal species except humans and some highly-prized, closely guarded pet species. There probably hadn't been a living lizard on Juneo in tens of thousands of years, and the Juneons were too busy desperately fighting the jungle to maintain their own existence to look for fossil or skeletal evidence of vanished animal species.
There was some discussion. Avenger seemed miffed because the theatrical revelation of 'a giant space dragon who could potentially menace us!" had been wrecked, but in a short time, the AI found some appropriate images in the ship's memory banks and displayed them on the various monitors in the room. By then, only Jess really needed the images to have formed her own frame of reference.
"Ah, similar to a snagriff," Juan finally announced in satisfaction. "One of the several animal species that inhabited both Xenon and Krypton, and still exists on Xenon, though the remaining population is quite small. They are very dangerous when roused, though there are legends of people who lived peacefully among herds of snagriff. They can fly, though not well or for great distances, and can snort methane flame from their nostrils."
Sav and Syra nodded in satisfaction. "There once was a similar species on Thoron, the Raktagorn, which are now extinct but which survived into historical times. The greatest hero in the history of Thoron, Jonit Rehr, was said to have ridden the largest Raktagorn that ever lived into the battle in which he defeated the evil world emperor Valk Doth, after which he established the enlightened government which still reigns over Thoron today."
"Alright, so, there's a space dragon out there..." Jess was still mystified. "Where is it - and why is it dangerous to the Avenger?"
"Lucky for us, it's over three light seconds away and doesn't appear to know we are here!" Was Avenger being a little snarky? "Check the main monitor."
On the largest monitor in the room, they could see a large, lizard-like winged animal. "This animal is perhaps 40% as large as the Avenger." The resolution wasn't great; it took a lot of computer enhancement to produce a useful picture of something that size from almost 600,000 miles away. The computer placed a ghost image of Avenger in the display for reference. "The size is approximate; the estimate will be revised as we get closer. As to why it is dangerous, continue to watch."
The space dragon was not far from a large asteroid, which suddenly exploded. "Initial analysis indicates that the dragon projected an energy beam of some kind - and that beam may be able to affect Avenger in the same way, even through our force fields."
"Well, I'm convince of the danger," Jess replied. She was the nominal captain of the Avenger, and took the ship's safety very seriously. "So why do we need to 'get closer'? Why not just avoid it completely. The KBelt in incredibly large, after all."
Was Avenger's reply the slightest bit sardonic? "Spectranalysis indicates that the asteroid that was just destroyed was at least partially composed of endurite."
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Post by johnreiter902 on Mar 20, 2022 0:25:37 GMT
This story is going very well
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Post by dans on Mar 20, 2022 1:27:06 GMT
Thanks, John!
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Post by dans on Mar 20, 2022 14:16:10 GMT
The view flickered. "This is in near-real time, with the 3 second light-speed delay," Avenger announced. "The space dragon appears to feed on the rubble it creates by exploding the larger fragments." The dragon had a chunk of rubble, perhaps the size of the globe of Earth from the 1964 World's Fair in New York, held in its front claws, and they watched it take a bite and then pause to chew. Then it looked like it had received an electric shock, jerking from the relaxed posture of having a snack into full alertness. The view zoomed out significantly and a flashing oval appeared on the edge of it. The oval was rapidly approaching the dragon. Avenger expanded the contents of the oval - and they could see a prospector's single-ship, moving at exceptionally high velocity, especially for something navigating through the K-Belt. With incredible acceleration, the dragon gave chase, its wings flapping as if the beast were flying in an atmosphere, and within a few minutes, the dragon caught up with the rocket, grabbed it, and swallowed it in a single gulp!
Desperate Escape
Where did the dragon's latest meal come from? To answer that, we need to go back in time yet again...
A Few Hours After K-Pau's Broadcast Ultimatum
Suddenly a light came on in the hall outside Fion's prison, reflected under the door. She instantly shoved her 'nightlight' deep into her pocket, and then the light in the room came on - revealing that her impromptu cell had once been a restroom, with the sink ripped out and a cot shoved in. She'd explored the room thoroughly with her hands and she already knew this, but she'd never actually seen it before. The door pushed open and K-Pau entered the room - and immediately fell to the floor, moaning in pain as he had on board the Swarm Rider.
'Something in Swarm Rider made him sick!' Fion thought in astonishment, as she watched him writhe weakly in pain. 'And something in this room is now doing the same! It isn't me, and whatever it was, wasn't in this room the last time K-Pau came to visit* me.' (*For 'visit', substitute 'torture'...) 'It MUST be the kryptonite!' These thoughts flashed through her mind much faster than you can read them - and almost instantly, she had her escape fully planned!
K-Pau was not carrying any weapons - he was so much stronger and durable than any Thoronan that they were redundant to him. There was nothing in the room that could be used as a weapon to kill him, or restraints in which to bind him. Instead, she pulled out her kryptonite fragment, which she'd whittled into a small disk years ago for shipboard use, forced it into a corner of the room and smiled in satisfaction when it broke into several smaller parts.
'I'll keep most of it with me for protection, just in case he recovers,' she thought. "Time to take your medicine, you horid evil monster! Hopefully, it will kill you!" she snarled aloud, with a satisfied bark of laughter. She dropped a chunk of kryptonite about the size of a dime into K-Pau's mouth. He coughed and swallowed, and moaned again. His moans were so weak that even she, in the same room as he, could barely hear him.
She struggled to pull off his outfit, styled on a military uniform with bizarrely excessive decoration, medals, and braid, and pulled it on over her own now ragged and dirty shipboard outfit. He was barely larger than she; over her own clothing the uniform was a fairly good fit. Then she opened the door, peered cautiously down the corridor, and started making her way to the exit.
Her prison was in the sub-cellar of a warehouse owned by the Operation, which had normally been deserted (except for her) since K-Pau had taken over. She didn't know it, but the warehouse had originally been owned by a legitimate shipping company near Thoronopolis whose headquarters had been destroyed and most of the employees killed by the asteroid smash years ago. A shell company for the Operation, created to launder money, had purchased it, and in fact, that shell corporation had done a decent legitimate business, with the profits swelled tremendously by the laundered funds. K-Pau didn't care about the Operation's profits or former activities but he'd decided that this place would make a good prison to keep his foes. All her modest needs had been tended to by some reprogrammed maintenance robots, so the only time recently there had been people other than her in the building were when K-Pau had come round to taunt and torture his prisoner, or when Lea Thall had dragged her away for the short satellite launch flight in Swarm Rider.
Apparently K-Pau had again come alone this time, as was his usual practice. Hopefully, she'd never know why he'd decided to 'call' on his prisoner!
Once outside she located K-Pau's air car, and not long after that, she'd reached the port and Swarm Rider. She was desperate to get far away from Thoron as fast as she could; she launched as quickly as possible and set the autopilot for Thalon, one of the system's inner planets which orbited Rao more closely than Thoron. Thalon was completely covered by oceans, and the food and fuel synthesizers on Swarm Rider used water as their base component. She could survive there indefinitely. Once in space, she set her drive to the highest acceleration she could handle, and blasted away.
Fion had been running on adrenaline and desperation; she had been poorly fed and penned up in darkness for months, and finally exhaustion and her sickly physical condition caught up with her. She staggered to the medical console and was barely able to don the automatic 'diagnostic and treatment' vest before she passed out. The autodoc decided that rest was the best immediate treatment for her and administered a sedative. She never had a moment to consider that when she'd programmed the autopilot, she'd accidentally selected 'fastest route' rather than 'safest route', and so she was blissfully unaware when, instead of arcing high out of the ecliptic to avoid the K-Belt, Swarm Rider instead dove right in!
Back on Thorn, a couple of hours later, K-Pau awakened alone in the empty cell, fully recovered and with no remaining signs of his temporary seizure. The small chip of green kryptonite Fion had forced him to swallow had been dissolved in his stomach by his digestive enzymes. He had no idea what had happened to him, but was determined that none of his peons would ever know of this seizure, as he thought of it. When they never saw Fion again, his minions assumed he'd killed her and disposed of her body. Their fear of him grew, and with fear, their absolute obedience... and he was satisfied that he turned his secret weakness into a 'good thing'!
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Post by dans on Apr 2, 2022 22:06:16 GMT
Avenger's crew was horrified. But there wasn't much they could do; 3 light seconds is almost 600,000 miles and it would take them at least 6 hours to reach that location. Still, Jess ordered Avenger to proceed to the area at full emergency power, and to start increased scanning for dangerous debris that they would need to avoid as they raced to the scene. And then Syra Tute, who had continued to watch the monitor, called for their attention: "Something strange is happening to the dragon!" *** In the Swarm Rider, the still dazed Fion was jolted into awareness by every alarm the tiny ship had, all blaring at once. Imminent collision alarm, cabin air leak, electrical system failure, and several she'd never heard before... She looked disbelievingly at the main external view screen which showed... a giant mouth wider than a house, with flat teeth as big as air cars? In space, a monstrous mouth? She'd never even heard of any animal that lived in space, except maybe when closing down a bar and swapping yarns with other prospectors... much less, one that was large enough to swallow the Swarm Rider! If the alarms hadn't been blaring so loud she would have guessed she was hallucinating, but nobody could possibly dream up a racket like her ship was making! And then the mouth closed, and she was jolted and bounced around as the beast swallowed. Finally there were a few moments of relative peace, but almost instantly, the ship was being jostled by something. In fact, a LOT of solid somethings, things that kept smashing into the full length of the hull with pounding, grinding noises. She gasped in horror at what she saw on the monitor. Inside a giant beast, she would have expected total darkness but instead, Swarm Rider was surrounded by... thousands of glowing white rocks? Ranging in size from pebbles to chunks larger than her head, all tumbling at random through the limited space in the space monster's gullet. Even though none of these rocks was moving very fast relative to her poor ship, the constant battering was sure to grind the small spaceship into rubble - and it wouldn't take very long! Already she could hear external equipment being broken loose, and she could feel the tough hull material shuddering as it started to stretch and tear.
"These must be gastroliths - stones in the dragon's stomach that grind up the rubble it eats into digestible-sized gravel!" she thought as she watched the view screen in horror.
Swarm Rider was being destroyed! Fion frantically retrieved all the kryptonite nightlights she could find in the lower cabins, putting about a dozen of the glowing green chips into her pockets, then struggled to reach the emergency control that changed the pilot cockpit into an escape capsule. As she was tumbled around, her hand slapped against the bars of the sturdy cage that protected that switch from being activated accidentally - and the she strained to grab onto the cage with both hands, and finally managed to click the release and finally frantically slapped the uncovered button. The hatches to the refresher and the sleeping area automatically slid closed and locked, and all connections between the control compartment and the rest of the ship were severed and armored covers slid into place over the severed connections. A panel covering a hidden storage compartment in the capsule slid aside revealing a space helmet; Fion struggled to pull it over her head and it automatically sealed to her vacuum-proof ship suit. Then the compartment started filling with foam that was intended to protect her from expected upcoming violent battering. Already the foam was protecting her somewhat from the shake, rattle and roll her poor ship was enduring - but not enduring very well! Prospector ships weren't armed, exactly. But a prospecting laser could punch a head-sized hole in a rocky asteroid a thousand miles away and was bright enough that the light reflected from the flash could be captured by the Swarm Rider's spectranalyzer and determine with amazing precision the mineral makeup of the asteroid. While she could still reach the panel, she fired the laser, and there followed almost instantly a series of explosions as the white rocks close to the bow of Swarm Rider exploded as they were struck by the powerful beam. There was an additional explosion from the rear of the small vessel as the storage tank holding compressed air for a three-month prospecting trip was ruptured, releasing about 2000 cubic feet of densely compressed atmosphere in the space monster's stomach. At the same time, yet more explosions, as a series of small charges blew up inside the ship, separating the armored escape capsule from the rear half of Swarm Rider. The poor space dragon suddenly had the worst case of indigestion any dragon had ever had! Several different types of explosions in her gullet, a couple of thousand cubic feet of highly compressed air expanding explosively insider her... and suddenly, she hurled. The entire contents of her stomach came up and were blasted away in front of her. Even surrounded by the foam padding, Fion was knocked unconscious again inside her armored capsule as the wreckage of the Swarm Rider was spewed violently back into space, tumbling away from the dragon in a cloud of glowing white rocks. The dragon was sick and bewildered - she hadn't felt pain or weakness in all the years since she'd abandoned the other dragons in the Oort cloud for the K-Belt. She turned from her receding spew and flew weakly away in the other direction, looking for someplace safe to land and hide. *** Back on the Tiak Avenger, Sav Ont turned away from Avengers' long range sensors. "Now we've got another reason to get there in a hurry! The sensors show that the cloud of stuff shrouding the destroyed ship appears to be... White Kryptonite!"
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Post by johnreiter902 on Apr 3, 2022 12:23:03 GMT
Hurray! The quest is nearly accomplished
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Post by dans on Dec 21, 2022 15:32:29 GMT
Created an image of the Tiak Avenger... probably what it looked like 100,000 years ago when it was brand new!
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Post by dans on Nov 2, 2023 15:11:20 GMT
All, I have finally finished this story, and would like some advice about how to display it here...
Story so far is about 14,500 words, I have made some very minor changes in the published story while working on the rest of it. The remainder is a bit smaller, another 12,000 words total.
I will also admit, it is boring in places and makes pedantic reference to a lot of canonical details that might only interest those who dig into a lot of details in the Superman stories...
So, questions are about how to best post it here? Synopsis of the existing story and then move on to the rest? Total repost the existing content as 1 post followed by the rest? Break the rest up and post one part every few days, or post the full content in a single post? Post the whole thing as 1 single post?
I have a summary of part 1, it is just under a thousand words. Maybe... post the summary, post the complete Part 1 again, then post the first part of the rest, and link the summary directly to the new stuff so after reading the summary you can jump to the new stuff?
I do apologize for taking so long. It seems like I can never write a short story, I'll need to work on that!
Thanks for your feedback!
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Post by DocQuantum on Nov 2, 2023 15:26:37 GMT
I don't think you need to repost the what has already been posted, just make the edits to what has been posted and move forward. A synopsis of the existing story would be helpful, though.
I would suggest posting the rest in smaller increments so we can read each part without it being too long. For a longer story like this, chapter breaks are essential.
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Post by dans on Nov 2, 2023 16:25:16 GMT
So, here is the summary of the story so far. Or, you can go to the top of the thread and read the first or second posts...
Summary of this story so far:
Jim (Strobe) Chisholm, a human granted energy control powers by the Glove he wears, and Vic Valor, a spirit with at least two personalities (Vic Valor, once a human law enforcement officer on a distant planet, and Marnu, an ancient Lord of Order who had been imprisoned for 100,000 years) housed in a super-powered android body based on a design by Ted Knight, are on a star-spanning quest to discover the whereabouts of Wotan, the newest Lord of Chaos, and recover from him the Lens of Allouche, a powerful ancient mystical artifact.
Along the way, they have picked up some crewmates and a side quest. Jessiat Gazil from the planet Juneo is a starship captain-in-training, and is along to pick up some experience in an actual starship while the crew searches for White Kryptonite, to rid her planet from voracious plant life that is threatening to terminate her civilization. Scientist Juna Dondwar, from the planet Xenon, is her planet’s leading expert on Kryptonite – and possibly the leading expert in the Galaxy… The 4 are the crew of a giant cruiser of the ancient Galactic Patrol, the Tiak Avenger, and they consider the ship’s sentient AI to be a 5th crew member.
Their last hyperspace jump placed them inside the solar system of the star Rao, formerly the sun of Krypton. There is a thick asteroid belt, which they are calling the Kryptoid Belt, along the orbital path of the exploded planet Krypton, and constant asteroidal bombardment is now threatening the civilization of Thoron, a ‘super Earth’ orbiting around Rao directly opposite from Krypton’s original location. Thoron science and technology has developed giant X-ray lasers, popularly called zasers, to destroy any asteroids that threaten Thoron. There are currently 2 of these giant zasers, and current predictions suggest that at least 2 more will be needed within a few years in order to keep Thoron clear of devastating impacts with deadly giant asteroids. The only crystal that produces enough zazer energy to destroy giant asteroids is endurite. The small amount of endurite currently available to Thoron was recovered from the K Belt of rubble from the destroyed planet Krypton by the dashing, heroic Ni Van, one of the earliest K-Belt Prospectors.
The proximity of Thoron to the Kryptoid Belt has generated a new class of citizens of Thoron – K-Belt Prospectors – who brave the perils of navigating the dangerous Belt in order to recover valuable mineral resources, and the occasional artifact which survived the explosion. One such Belter is Fion Drim, who pilots a small singleship she has nicknamed Swarm Rider. Like most prospectors, she is always strapped for cash, and rather than use ship's power for electric lights in her ship, whenever it is possible, she uses small chips of glowing green kryptonite, which she herself chipped from a Kryptonite meteor she landed on during one of her first prospecting trips.
Fion had the tremendous bad luck to locate a living Kryptonian in the K-Belt debris. This is K-Pau, an evil lab technician who was sentenced to orbital imprisonment and shot into space in suspended animation for stealing the blueprints for many of the inventions created by his former employer, Krypton’s leading scientist, Jor-L. While he was still on Swarm Rider, K-Pau was constantly weak and sick, but after she had returned him to her apartment, he recovered and displayed incredible strength and toughness, easily brutally battering Fion’s doctor friend to death, imprisoning Fion, and then taking over Thoron’s largest criminal organization, ‘the Operation’, by killing everyone who opposed him. K-Pau was able to reconstruct some of Jor-El’s inventions, and using his super strength and toughness, accompanied by his gang using these recovered weapons, K-Pau was able to steal all the remaining endurite from the facility where new zasers were being made. Then K-Pau made a worldwide broadcast to boast that unless he was made Supreme Ruler of Thoron, he would destroy the existing zasers and without endurite to build more, Thoron was doomed!
Avenger and her crew of adventurers came to Thoron just as K-Pau was making his announcement, and the crew decided to aid the people of Thoron. Avenger was dispatched back to the K-Belt to search for more endurite, while Strobe and Vic Valor remained on Thoron to help fight K-Pau. In a meeting to discuss K-Pau, Valor and Strobe were introduced to Apex – the secret identity of a Thoronan named Halk Kar – who had visited Earth some 30+ years ago and met Superman at that time. Unknown to everyone except Halk, he was given his powers by some Kryptonian artifacts he'd recovered in the K-Belt during his own time as a Prospector. The artifacts of power had been placed in an armored chest by Halk's friend Jor-L before Krypton had exploded, and somehow the chest had survived the explosion.
Valor theorized that K-Pau was Kryptonian, and Apex noted that individual Kryptonians were much more powerful than Thoronans – perhaps unstoppably so. Jim suggested using Kryptonite against him – there were literally millions of tons of Green Kryptonite in the sky – which stunned everyone in the room. Jim assumed everyone knew of Superman's weakness - but none of the others had ever know about it before. This gave everyone hope and they put together a plan to produce weapons powered by Kryptonite.
Meanwhile, Fion had managed to recover some of the Kryptonite chips she had used for nightlights on the Swarm Rider – and the next time K-Pau came to her prison cell to gloat and probably torture her again, she had managed to disable him with one of the chips and escape. She raced to Swarm Rider and blasted off at emergency speed deep into the K-Belt.
Deep in the K-Belt, an unlikely rendezvous occurred. Avenger’s long range sensors detected a small amount of endurite, and a giant space dragon which was apparently eating the endurite! As Avenger raced towards the precious asteroids, Swarm Rider blasted through the same region – and the dragon quickly chased down the small ship and swallowed it whole! Fion set off the explosives that separated the emergency escape capsule from the small ship, and the explosions inside its stomach forced the giant dragon to belch, explosively discharging the capsule and a swarm of glowing white rocks – the gastroliths the beast’s digestion system used to grind up the rocks it ate – and Avenger’s sensors showed that something in the dragon’s digestive system had transformed these gastroliths into white kryptonite. Two of the Macguffins Avenger's crew was searching for - endurite and White Kryptonite - had seemingly appeared from nowhere!
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Post by dans on Nov 2, 2023 16:29:17 GMT
Here is the next new chapter... Part 15 K'Pau and his Forces Attack Again!
Hopeful Announcement... and OminousThreat! Shortly after Avenger departed for her search for more endurite, Thoron Planetary Councilor Lom Atar appeared on a worldwide broadcast. He may have embellished some of the details in his broadcast somewhat, in an attempt to quell the growing unease of the populace before it turned into panic, and perhaps he had another motive… ***~~~***
“People of Thoron… researchers at the Thoronan Institute of Technology and Science have discovered a process for synthesizing endurite, which will allow us to complete construction and deployment of a hundred new Zasers over the next ten years.” He got straight to the point to quell the rising sense of panic that was growing around the world over the loss of endurite. “In addition, Sky Defense has equipped elite rapid response teams on sky sleds with advanced weapons to guard against any further depredations by the villain who calls himself K-Pau. These teams can be deployed to anywhere on Thoron in a matter of minutes.” He went on to explain that the researchers at the Institute were working with the staff of General Illumination to convert a mothballed facility for full-scale production of synthetic endurite, with the first batch expected in a few months. He reassured the populace that the current pair of zasers were capable of dealing with the expected gradual increase of space debris for at least another 3 years, and the first of the new zasers was expected to be put into service before the end of the current year (all times translated from Thoronan). In his hideout, K-Pau only laughed. “Fools! Now that I am aware of this new process, I will personally destroy it and this new factory! And my minions will destroy the current pair of zasers – and we’ll see how brave you sound then!” It was a really bad day to be a super hero on Thoron…Jim (Strobe) Chisholm was flying patrol over and around the Sky Defense 1 Zaser installation on the surface of Thoron’s moon named Thunar, which supported one of the giant weapons that kept Thoron’s sky clear of Kryptonoids. Suddenly he received a communication alert from the base that mass detectors were detecting a meteor shower, but none of the photon-based instrumentation (eyeballs, radar and cameras in various wavelengths) showed anything! And then, there were dozens of massive green explosions battering the meteor protection force field surrounding the zaser. Instantly the radiation detector built into his Glove began blaring, trying to tell him they detected near-lethal levels of ultra-intense Green Kryptonite radiation, but the pain from the feedback battered Jim unconscious before he could even register the alarm, leaving him helpless and drifting in space. ***~~~***
Vic Valor was flying patrol over and around the Sky Defense 2 Zaser installation on the surface of Thoron’s moon named Donar. Without warning, an incredibly powerful lightning bolt, thousands of times more powerful than anything he’d encountered in the past blasted him, knocking him unconscious and throwing him hundreds of miles away, leaving him drifting unconsciousness through space. ***~~~***
Several squads of Space Defense Space Knights on their personal filers patrolled near the mothballed General Illumination plant, which was located in another asteroid crater in a devastated section of Thoron’s surface. Suddenly something began destroying the facilities, and within seconds, the spray-on invisibility dust coating K-Pau was compromised, revealing that it was he who was demolishing the facility. The Space Knights patrolling nearby attacked, firing beams of kryptonite radiation and projectiles made of Kryptonite at the invader. They were stunned and dismayed when their Kryptonite weapons failed – K-Pau merely laughed and ignored the deadly storm and continued destroying buildings. Then from high above, half a dozen beams flashed out from an invisible flier, each targeting a different flying squad, and the Knights caught in the beam were instantly paralyzed! Meanwhile, Apex had rushed from his own nearby patrol to confront K-Pau! “Time to surrender, K-Pau! I’m arresting you on order of the Thoronan High Council!” The villain only laughed again. “If those laughable things you call weapons are the best you have to offer, you’re dead!” He leaped forward and delivered a powerful blow, and Thoron’s hero was smashed backward and into the building behind him – which collapsed on top of him! “I’ve learned that you get your so-called ‘super powers’ from feeble inventions of that dead fraud, Jor-L! You’re no match for my natural powers!” K-Pau was stunned when the debris burying Apex exploded outward and the hero rose from the new crater and returned to the fight. It was a terrible battle! Within minutes, the whole complex was wrecked – and K-Pau was furious when he realized that the entire facility was still in mothballs, with no signs that it was being put back on line to synthesize endurite! “So the speech was a trap all along! You – and Thoron – will PAY!” he screamed, launching an even more vicious attack. He was unable to fly, so he made a long flat leap using all his speed and power, and zoomed towards Apex like an avenging missile! But Jor-L’s cape allowed Apex to fly, and he simple lifted above the villain’s ballistic flight path, and then slammed back down into K-Pau’s back. They smashed to the ground and the villain’s own speed threw him forward smashing through debris until he came to a halt, severely battered but still defiant. He reached to his belt, and before Apex could stop him, he popped something into his mouth – and instantly regained his feet, somehow now looking much larger and more powerful than his normal skinny aged appearance. “My latest invention - these radioactive capsules will increase my natural powers to awesome levels. I am now easily the most powerful being on Thoron and perhaps in the Universe!” He returned to the fight, but it was no longer an even match. K-Pau strength and speed were increased to awesome levels by the capsules (which were not actually K-Pau's invention, Apex found out later) and now he could even fly! He demonstrated heat vision as well, toying with the valiant but now over-matched Apex, taunting him as he battered him. “Even those toys of Jor-L that give you your vaunted powers are useless now. How does it feel to be as helpless as a child in the explosion of Krypton?!” He paused his battering for a second; Apex was pretty much out on his feet. “You and your doomed planet will hear my final ultimatum, when you recover – if you live through this!” Then he put all his natural power and the temporary power provided by Jor-L’s capsule into a single blow, a tremendous uppercut that slammed into Apex’s invulnerable force field and sent him rocketing up into orbit, where he floated in space, unconscious.
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