Consternation and Revelations

"Hey, waita minute," the red headed model says in a semi-crossed voice. "I and my Betty keep on hearing about us being some type of....what....messenger of doom?! Now, tell me and tell me straight..... what is going on here.

"I mean, if someone would have told me that by answering that answering that slightly....unusual newspaper article about an improvisational play....that THIS is where I'd end up at....I'd have thought them insane! Things just don't happen like this in the twentieth century...I mean, last time I checked the calendar it read 1977 and then I, Betty, and this man who likes to dress like he's going to an opera are bouncing all over time and crazy things like that! I...."

She'd needed the money desperately, for while she'd gotten a degree form college, nobody was looking for a degree in Acting, alas, where she was in need of a job. Finally, in desperation, she'd taken the job offer in the newspaper (the producer had less than savory rumors floating about him), gotten through the interview without a hitch. She'd been told that her understudy would soon arrive, and then things had gotten.....strange!

"1977?" the red headed Betty interrupts, suddenly looking like she just figured out something. "The seventies? The last time I checked before we met the Doctor.....when Addventure threw us into the Middle Ages it had been Thursday. Jan 14 1999, Thursday!"

"Ah....that's when I wrote.....that's when L.E. began.....writing the episode where Scott Chen.... gained the powers of an Author and threw the other Authors into Addventure to be.....protagonists in their own stories." Stacy's Betty whispered. "Then, on February 23, 2000 I met....."

"Them...." Solomon says, tail swishing as he looked up at the startled looking humans in surmise. "This is....of course, due to the fact that perhaps either this time machine of yours and this strange place called Addventure allowed such.....er.....unusual circumstances to take place?"

Melissa and others frown and shake their heads, a bit dizzy from the sudden revelations. Then Melissa smiles.

"I guess so....and in a way that'd would explain your reaction to what I chose to wear when this Doctor picked us up," Melissa says with a smile. "When I answered that this style of dress was.... The cutting edge in fashion....if not a bit avant garde. A true symbol of a woman's breaking with the stodgy 1950's idea of what a woman should wear! But I have a sneaking suspicion....."

"That fashions change from the 70's to the 90's....even the year 2000," Stacy puts in.

"I could see that happening," Melissa says, nodding and frowning. Something about this situation....especially with the destruction of the Doctor's TARDIS and talk of parallel worlds.....is bothering her for some reason. She can't put her finger on it, but something strikes her as....ominous about the whole thing.

"So.....we may have answered some of our questions but there still is the one you asked me," Solomon says. He then relates the story of the Twins. He basically says that the Twins were to bring about the ruin of a leader of a great nation.

"Now from appearances.....it did happen," Solomon says. "But it turned out to not be so bad as we thought! Somehow, the evil entity inside Trilling Blackfeather, an evil man by the name of Zular, has been somehow revealed before it could wreck havoc and poison some officials of a vital meeting for the formation of a Terran United Nations. That's the story we're going to push after the.....Doctor......helps rid Zular from Trilling."

"Ah, well I like that idea....more than I like the idea of getting lynched," Stacy nods thoughtfully. The others nod in agreement. "I'd hate to see somebody killed for something they have no control over."

"And if I ever get my hands on Scott....." the red headed Betty mutters. "He'll wish that he...."

"If you meet the right, one....you mean," Solomon says in a calm voice. "There are more than one, you know. The one I met saved the entire Voyager from being assimilated by the Borg by sacrificing his life....and played a part in bringing a halt to the dreams of conquest by an evil and bald Janeway...." 

(Author's Note: Read episodes 6922 through 6959. I'm not reprinting it here.)

"Jesus," Stacy whispers hoarsely. Unladylike or not, that was....some weird tale!

"And you are from the Voyager?" Melissa asks, curious.

"I'm from that Voyager," Solomon qualified. "The Janeway you spoke with was a Voyager who had the same experience up to a point. That other Voyager got home through several unlikely occurrences, and then went back the Delta Quadrant when the Q....beings with godlike powers.....went and gave them a device to transport the Voyager and her shuttlecrafts...and ONLY her shuttlecrafts between the Alpha and Delta Quadrant in a flash. That Voyager went back to explore and to aid a species that the Q said would Need our help. Then a crewmember went mad and vaporized it and himself, marooning that Voyager in the Delta Quadrant....again. Then, through a twist of fate, my Voyager and the other Voyager nearly run into each other....literally! With jangled nerves, we got a further shock to discover.....we we're twins down to amazing levels. Both were a combined crew of humans and furries. Both shared a history up to a point. Then, when we finally were getting over that shock, the Military showed up and.....brought both the Voyager home."

"I sense there is more coming," Betty Ragan, Stacy's Betty, says.

"Yes, there is," the demifox sighs. "The Military did drop us off. We were able to begin to get our lives back in order when......the God D*** Enemy struck! They dropped countless tons of Omega that exploded. It caused subspace ruptures that prevented warp speed, basically....."

"They made life as you had known it impossible," Melissa says, seeing it. "Warp drive made stars moths or weeks away.....but now they were years and centuries away at impulse."

Melissa was at least familiar with the original Star Trek series.

"Yes....and the bastards would have sweep into an analogous spot in an unbollixed universe where warp drive was possible....raid Federation and other's resources....including the secret of antimatter warp drive...."

(Author's Note: Read episodes 7311 through 7645 AND episodes 7689 through 7722 for fuller details. The Janeways soon find themselves promoted to the Admiralty soon afterwards.....).

"And that is why....the Federation wears this emblem instead of the usual," Solomon sighs, holding up a regular looking Star Fleet Delta combadge....that has a strip of black material slashed across the front of it. It was masking tape looking material. The symbolism being that the Star Fleeters were in mourning.

"And the hell of it that somehow....they stumbled across a cure for the Phage that the Military had been able to seed throughout various Federation and other planets," the demifox apprentice mage sighs. "The Brix were always mysterious and mystical in their views and sciences.....apparently TOO mystical..."

Uncomfortable silence then fell.

"I'm sorry," Stacy says quietly.

"How about you," Melissa asks, trying to change the subject. "How did you come to....become a demifox. You mentioned that you used to be.....a regular human?"

"Oh, this?" Solomon chuckled, pointing to himself (his ears and fox tail). "Well, I made a mistake. I crashed a Military party, thought that they were serving Synthahol....I mean they got their initial technology from that crashed Ferengi shuttlecraft that managed to teleport itself not....back in time as what happened on that Star Trek show Deep Space Nine. Rather, it went sideways in time....."

"Like the Doctor in Inferno!" one of the Betty's say, delighted.

"Right," Solomon says. "Now, the ship was in a heck of a mess....and the teleport had gone badly. Parts of the ship were damaged beyond recognition....which had some interesting consequences. The Military warship is a ship capable of warp speed....but it's done by a modified impulse engine fueled with Tiberium! Strangest mass of engineering I've ever seen, but it works. Warp engines with either dilithium (or a tiberium substitute) are more fuel efficient and such. Oh...."

The demifox clears his throat and apologizes for getting sidetracked.

"I offended a few people and got thrown out in my drunkenness. I was on my way home, running when I ran through my now magic instructor's family. I tripped over one of his kits. It scared her and angered her brothers and sisters. They bit me in their anger before their parents could pull them off. And....."

"They're....some type of lycanthrope?" Stacy asks, suddenly seeing something.

"Without the bestial...evil impulses of the animal within. Another new apprentice said something about a sense of freedom that'd give her....but after a long and heated discussion with Demifox Synizn....about what he went through when he'd been a were-bear under the old style of lycanthropy....about the times he nearly killed out of impulse.....that cured her of her mistaken fantasies," Solomon says solemnly. "Now, a demifox never falls under the sway of the Moon....something a dragon mage called Minestus did to this brand of lycanthropy. Only time we need worry about losing control to instinct is.....er.....mating season. That's controllable with the right herbs and such....."

1. "Now, that was interesting but there seemed to be something for the Twin called Betty?" Solomon says, looking up at the red headed Betty.