CROSSOVER PLAIN
AUGUST 12, 2009
* * * * *
The odd-looking quartet rematerialized inside the lobby of I.D.E.E.A. Headquarters. Several uniformed security guards instinctively reached for their sidearms! But, the two agents quickly flashed their badges, and verbally vouched for their two traveling companions.
Ray, of course, did have to surrender his S&W M-39, along with the molecular disruptor. But, realizing the former was a mandatory security precaution for all non-agency personnel, he was not overly perturbed about it. Thereby disspelling the stereotype of Freudian possessiveness, with regard to private detectives!
When they got to the office of the agency's chief moderator, Agent 678 told the two sizechangers they would have to wait a bit. So, he and his partner could brief their superior, first. He added how the receptionist would signal them when it was their turn to give their side of the story.
"In the meantime, there's a waiting room just behind you, complete with magazines and a water cooler."
Ray and Dana nodded their thanks, and went over to the indicated area. The latter tried to interest herself in some back-issues of SIZELOAN NEWS WEEKLY. She finally gave up, though, and looked Ray straight in the eye.
"Talk to me!"
"About what?" he replied (genuinely perplexed).
"Well, for starters; those sizevamps that nearly perforated us with machine guns. You said you _sensed_ them outside my camper! Sensed them how, exactly?"
Ray looked over towards the receptionist's desk. Then, he leaned in closer to Dana and whispered:
"You might say I_feel_un-dead people. It's another fringe benefit of inheriting my dad's semi-vampirized DNA. A kind of...empathic early warning system. It lets me know when there's a full-fledged sizevamp in the vicinity! Unfortunately, I also have the metabolism of a sizevamp. Meaning, I feel cold when most everyone else is sweltering! The only time and place where the temperature feels comfortable enough for me to take off this black leather jacket...is when I'm visiting the folks back in the Size Islands."
Dana was absolutely flabbergasted.
"Does anyone else know? Outside your family, I mean?"
Ray shook his head. So, Dana then asked if he had any other semi-vampiric abilities.
"Well, I have a limited ability to influence people's thoughts. And, even then, they have to be weak-willed or otherwise unprepared for me. Which is how I was able to get that giant lunch lady to buy our story."
"Speaking of which," replied Dana: "What's the story on this Enorma character? Is she really Dracula's giantess daughter?"
Ray nodded, again.
"There's a parallel-Earth where Dracula was never slain by Jonathan Harker and Company. And, for one simple reason: Quincy Morris of Texas wasn't among them for the final showdown with Drac! On that parallel-Earth, Major Morris (CSA) died during the Battle of the Northwest Angle."
According to Ray, on April 30, 1897, the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia (led by their counterpart of GTS-goddess Gabrielle) attempted to invade eastern Canada via St. Albans, Vermont. Her reason for doing so? To finally end the funneling of runaway slaves north of the border! She was intercepted, however, by a Yankee GTS-goddess from Indiana, named Katherine Carroll, plus the 1st and 2nd Vermont Cavalries.
"The only problem is," continued Ray: "...that was all just an elaborate feint! The real invasion attempt was to be made, via Minnesota's Lake of the Woods, by the entire Confederate Army of the Trans-Mississippi Department. Spearheaded by an elite light infantry division called 'Walker's Greyhounds.' Their intention was to march eastward, and link up with Gabrielle's forces at Niagara Falls. But, the Cornfeds got repulsed at the lake by the British army's 24th Regiment of Foot...reinforced by Dame Antonia Banfield. A two thousand foot-tall English GTS-goddess!"
This major divergence (Dana winced at the pun) allowed Dracula to emerge victorious from the climactic battle with Harker and his allies. This, in turn, allowed him to become the ruler of Romania by WWI.
And, when Czar Nicholas II sent the GTS-goddess Valentina to suppress the Bessarabian secessionist movement (a.k.a. "the Moldavian Democratic Republic"), she was met at the Russo-Moldavian border by a sizevamp army led by Dracula, himself.
"The only thing that prevented all-out bloodshed was Drac and Val falling for each other at first sight! Although, personally, I think his vampiric powers of persuasion had a lot to do with that. In any case; Val told the Czar that a marriage of state--between herself and Drac--was the only way to keep the peace between their two countries. And, that's how Romania became 'Gromania.' Eventually assimilating all of central-eastern Europe between Germany and the Ural Mountains."
Dana was nonplussed: "How do you come to know so much about that world?!"
Ray--who had been smiling--suddenly stopped.
"The sizevamp who nearly killed my dad was from there."
tbc
Giantess World
Author's Chapter Notes:
A brief history lesson.
Chapter End Notes:
Obliquely dedicated to my fellow Michael Caine fans.