11With Friends Like These, Who Needs Anime?
by Carycomic
A "Brave & Bold" style crossover featuring Japanese cartoon characters.
Usual disclaimer: if you recognize the characters and/or concepts, I don't own/profit from them.
Chapter 1.
NORTH SHORE MEDICAL CENTER,
SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS
(JULY 4, 1940)
Dr. Kent Nelson sat down in the hospital cafeteria, during a lull between rounds. As he had done last year, and the year before that, he had agreed to change shifts with one of the married doctors so that the latter could take his wife and children to watch the fireworks. Nelson, himself, was more concerned with the fireworks going on overseas! According to the newspaper he had bought in the lobby, the Nazis were fortifying their position in occupied France while simultaneously building up their forces for an invasion of Great Britain.
"At this rate," he muttered to himself, "the United States will be entering this war before another year is out. Whether we like it or not!"
"I couldn't agree more," replied a decidedly female voice.
Nelson looked up... and shameless gaped in awe at the young and exotically beautiful woman before him.
She had a smiling face with a lovely swarthy complexion; shoulder-length black hair; almond-brown eyes; a black pillbox hat; and a white long-sleeved dress that matched the trench coat currently draped over her right arm. While in her white-gloved hands she carried a medium-sized box wrapped in brown paper that had been secured in place with crisscrossing gold twine.
"May I help you, Miss...?"
"Inza Cramer," she declared. "Late of Alexandria, Egypt, via London. And I bring you greetings from Lord Belmont of Ravenloft."
Nelson immediately grew more serious.
"How is His Lordship, these days?"
"Not well, I'm afraid. Which is why he asked me to bring these items to you. For safe-keeping!"
Whereupon, she immediately placed the box in front of him. Following which, Nelson uttered a phrase that sounded like a cross between Greek and Latin. But which was actually older than either language! When that had been accomplished, the twine snapped in two and the brown paper unfolded like a morning glory at first light! And what he beheld inside made him gasp.
"Les Morts Aux Morts-Vivants!* And the Seventh Book of Ys?! How. . .? Where. . .?"
Inza's smile broadened into a mischievous grin. "I'll tell you on one condition. That you buy me a cup of coffee."
GRENOBLE, FRANCE
(OCT. 31, 1959)
Dr. Fate waved his left hand over the floating crystal ball while the carefully folded bullwhip in his right-hand dripped blood.
"Behold!" he commanded. "Your grandfather's handiwork."
The image that materialized within the hovering globe showed a small Hungarian village in flames. With a pile of corpses on the outskirts of it! Half the corpses belonged to Russian soldiers. Some on foot; others riding in red-starred tanks; yet, with all of the bodies sharing the same look of horrified shock on their faces. Exceptionally pale faces… with twin puncture marks on or about each dead man's carotid artery.
The rest of the corpses belonged to what could only be described as anthropomorphic bats… with blood-soaked fangs.
Professor Joel Goldsmith III stared at his visitor with what could only be described as 'deferential defiance'. For no matter how powerful Dr. Fate might be, the current leader of the Order of the Red Shield refused to be totally cowed in his own home!
"I'm the first to admit that my grandfather let his scientific curiosity get the better of him. Yet, even you must realize that all hindsight is 20/20."
The lights in the living room of this magnificent Alpine chateau seemed to flicker as the glow emanating from the eye holes in the wizard's golden helmet grew correspondingly brighter.
"Then, he should have strove harder to improve his foresight! For there is a reason Nabu of Ur buried these two lamia queens so far apart. And it was not punitive caprice!"
The professor nodded, looking down at his living room's carpet in apologetic humility.
"What will you do now?" he asked.
"Now, I shall have to banish the whole province of Barovia- -including Castle Vanya- -to a pocket dimension from which there is no return."
Professor Goldsmith's head snapped upward, to lock eyes with Dr. Fate, once more.
"Do even you have enough power to cast such a spell?"
This time, the wizard's reply seemed to have a touch of amusement in it.
"I think I have something that can help me in that regard."
THE TOWER OF FATE
SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS
(DECEMBER 1, 1963)
"Is this what Grundy and the Gentleman Ghost were after?" asked Dr. Mid-Nite.
Dr. Fate nodded.
Twenty-four hours earlier, a trio of European art thieves had been hired by a costumed occultist, calling himself 'The Zodiac Master', to break into the Gotham City Museum of Natural History and steal an ancient Bahdnisian oil lamp that had just gone on display there. A lamp that was supposed to have once been owned by a wizard named Larko! When Dr. Mid-Nite tried to prevent the theft, however, a tug-of-war over the lamp accidentally resulted in the former rubbing it. Consequently?
He wound up being turned into a giant genie -turban, smoky lower torso, and all! One completely obedient to the person holding the lamp. So, not knowing what else to do, Dr. Mid-Nite's feathered friend, Hooty the Owl, sought help from the one human who could speak to all birds of prey: JSA Chairman Emeritus Hawkman. The latter, in turn, then recruited the help of Hourman, Green Lantern, Dr. Fate and the Flash. Together, yet not without some difficulty, they managed to subdue both the Zodiac Master and the art thieves, before restoring Dr. Mid-Nite to normal.
In the process, however, they learned it had all been an elaborate ruse! One intended to leave the Tower of Fate vulnerable to break-in, by the aforementioned duo, likewise hired by the Zodiac Master, so they could steal a certain tome of mystical knowledge. A theft that might very well have succeeded, had not Inza Nelson used some of her husband's training to summon help from the one other being capable of subduing Solomon Grundy and the Gentleman Ghost, single-handedly.
The Spectre.
Where the self-proclaimed Earthbound Angel of Vengeance had taken them, he had refused to tell her. So, Inza had to settle for she and her husband exchanging explanations as to what they had each just gone through.
"So, what's the story with this overgrown almanac?" asked Hourman.
"It's called the Seventh Book of Ys," replied Dr. Fate. "Also known as 'The Book of Klarion'. After a sixth-century spoiled brat whose inherent magical powers could have given Merlin himself a run for his money! Yet, wanting to be even more powerful still, he tried to use it to absorb the collective power of six other magic tomes. Every single one of which kept the island of Ys from sinking forever beneath the Atlantic off the coast of Brittany!"
"Fortunately," continued Hawkman, "he was thwarted by Sir Adol Christin, a knight-errant of the Round Table; and a female djinn he nicknamed 'Rouge' for her braided red hair. Between the two of them, they managed to banish both Klarion and his feline familiar to another dimension."
"And just how do you two happen to know all that?" demanded Green Lantern.
Hawkman grinned shamelessly. "The legend of that battle was written down in the memoirs of Victorian archaeologist Sir Edward Falcon. Required reading for all students of ancient history!"
"I think your being able to store that here, for safe-keeping, is ancient history," added the Flash. "So where will you put it, now?"
GOTHAM COUNTY, NJ
(MARCH 29, 1969)
"Oh, look, Thomas! Here's a birthday present from your old medical school mentor."
Martha's husband looked at the tag stapled to the blue ribbon surrounding the white paper of the gift that had just been delivered by UPS.
"To: Thomas Wayne, M.D.
From: Chas. McNider, M.D."
tbc
