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An Introduction to the Fabulous Flying Fox
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3a
Episode 4a |
Episode 1: "The Birth of a Heroine"After being delivered to Hawaii and stripped of all conscious memory of her former identity, the former Flying Fox takes naturally to her new life as beautiful young native Hawaiian girl named Raven. With help from her "friend," Sylph, she gains employment as a nightclub singer at the Pineapple Palace in Honolulu, and in her new persona proves to be so irresistibly feminine that she quickly catches the eye of Jackson Andrews, the owner of the club. One thing leads to another, and in short order Raven finds herself living at the Andrews estate. Once Sylph is satisfied that Raven has established an intimate personal relationship that requires her to be completely female, she concludes that her vengeance on the man who was the Flying Fox is complete. This leaves Sylph free to respond to a summons from the Inner Circle of DEMON requiring her to appear in person to explain the Hellfire Crown fiasco in San Francisco. She takes her aides Belen and Josie with her, but leaves Heather behind with instructions to keep a close eye on sweet Raven. Heather takes the assignment seriously. After Sylph is gone, she arranges an intimate rendezvous of her own with Jackson Andrews, who turns out himself to be connected with DEMON. After demonstrating her qualifications, Heather is hired to be Jackson's personal accountant and moves in with Jackson and Raven at the Andrews estate. Although deep down inside Raven doesn't like the idea of sharing her man with anyone, she supposes that if she has to share him with someone it might as well be with a friend. Besides, Heather's blonde, really sexy, and with a little prodding just might be amenable to sleeping with Raven on evenings when Jackson is otherwise occupied. In close proximity to Raven, Heather soon learns that Raven's evident interest in her is only one of several warning signals indicating that the change in her personality is not as complete as Sylph had assumed. Even though Raven doesn't remember being the Flying Fox, she still displays his lunatic sense of humor. She also demonstrates surprising physical strength, impossible agility, and an astonishing lightness on her feet. Also, it turns out that the reason Raven hooked up with Jackson Andrews had less to do with any real attraction to him than it did with the fact that Raven is extremely uncomfortable with the way certain kinds of men start drooling over her when she's onstage at the Pineapple Palace, and is using her very public relationship with Jackson an excuse to keep other men at arm's length. Most worrisome of all: Raven is having dreams. In an intimate moment, Raven confesses to Heather that she dreams about flying. In her dreams, she often imagines herself adventuring in a colorful costume. In her dreams, she's known as the Flying Fox, and she has numerous encounters with strong, handsome heroes like Icestar and the Huntsman. But for some reason, in her dreams, these heroes aren't interested in her the way she supposes she ought to want them to be. Rather, it's the beautiful costumed heroines she meets, heroines such as Flare, Rose, and the White Dove, who become infatuated with her. After reporting to Sylph, Heather is instructed to bend every effort to encourage Raven to get herself pregnant, even if it has to be done by that "idiot," Jackson Andrews. Sylph has long-term plans for Miss Raven Gold that make it of vital importance that she be locked irreversibly into her identity as a woman, and the best way to accomplish that is to put her through the process of having a child. However, before Heather can accomplish anything along those lines, there's an incident. While doing some afternoon shopping, Heather and Raven stumble across a robbery. Without thinking, Raven moves with lightning speed, clobbers one of the gunmen, and kicks the weapon out of the other thug's hand. When that second thug breaks and runs, Raven flies after him and knocks him to the ground. It all happens so fast that nobody else is quite certain what they saw, but Heather and Raven know. And Raven is so incredibly excited about doing a superhero kind of thing that she just can't wait to tell Jackson what she did! Raven tells Jackson that she wants to make her dreams come true. She wants to become a costumed heroine. Heather and Jackson both try to argue her out of it, telling her how dangerous it would be, but she won't listen. Moreover, she tells them in no uncertain terms that if they won't help her do what she wants to do, she'll find a way to do it on her own. Heather again gets in touch with Sylph and explains the situation. Sylph considers this to be an unfortunate turn of events, but concludes that it may still be possible to use it to good advantage. She instructs Heather to make certain Jackson Andrews understands that from here on in he is to support Raven completely in everything she does. For her part, Heather is to back away from her "friendship" with Raven and leave the girl entirely in Jackson's hands. Eventually, if all goes well, the emotional bond between Raven and her lover will become so strong that she'll make the emotional commitment to being a woman that Sylph wants her to make. The next morning, Raven is in her sewing room, working on putting her costume together when Jackson pops his head in. Her first assumption is that he's there to try again to argue her out of it, and is delighted to find that he's decided instead to help. He tells her he's spoken to a few people and made some special arrangements with the governor of Hawaii. He suggests that if Raven is serious about wanting to be Hawaii's official superheroine, the best way to go about it is to persuade Governor Kuno she can do the job. Thus, in costume, armed with some special weaponry , the "fabulous" Flying Fox is introduced to the governor of Hawaii, a large, stocky fellow with a bubbly personality who says he just loves the idea of Hawaii having an official superheroine, particularly one who's as cute and adorable as this Flying Fox chick. Since his good friend Jackson has vouched for her, if it were up to him he'd give his approval in a minute, but things are not quite that simple. Since what the Fox is asking for really boils down to some kind of special police authority, the person she needs to impress is Steven Lord, the ex-Marine officer in charge of the special forces unit of Hawaii's state police. There's an electric moment as the beautiful Flying Fox touches hands with the handsome Steven Lord. Raven is dimly aware that some kind of switch seems to be flipping over in her brain, and finds herself becoming all girlish and giggly in a way she's never experienced before. Her abrupt change in attitude doesn't strike Lord as being particularly encouraging. Although he certainly admires the girl's beauty and only half in jest tells her point-blank that if she ever tires of her relationship with Andrews she's welcome to move in with him, he's not going to deputize her as an agent of the state police untill he has more proof than Jackson's assurance she can handle the job. What he wants is a demonstration of her powers. What he gets is a bit more than he bargained for. Anticipating that a demonstration of the Flying Fox's abilities would be required, Jackson has arranged for an incident. While Lord is putting the Fox through standard special forces training exercises, an armored DEMON mech-agent attempts to abduct Governor Kuno. Because he was led to believe that this assignment was real, the mech-agent puts up a genuine fight, but the Flying Fox and Steven Lord team up, instinctively and effortlessly working together to take him down. After beating the mech-agent, Raven and Steven find themselves in a rather awkward situation, with Lord taking her into his arms, and the Fox wanting him to do much more than that. But before their lips can come together, they're distracted by the gleeful governor, who runs up to them suggesting that surely after this, and after the fine performance she gave in the training exercises, Steven will agree that the fabulous Flying Fox can do the job. Steven separates himself from the disappointed Fox, admits that she gave an impressive performance, and says he has only one more problem. In particular, he's concerned about the name she's chosen. Is Raven unaware that there's a costumed criminal in California who calls himself the Flying Fox. The reference puzzles Raven. There's a criminal who uses her name? Fortunately, Jackson Andrews is able to persuade the governor that the name isn't going to be a problem. If this lovely lady wants to call herself the Flying Fox, then the fact that there's someone else by the same name three thousand miles away shouldn't stop her. Besides, there shouldn't be any confusion. He glares at Lord and suggests that no one is going to mistake Hawaii's fabulous Flying Fox for a guy. The upshot of it is that Raven gets tentative authorization to act under the authority of Hawaii's state police as a superheroine under the code-name Flying Fox. Raven is delighted! At last, she gets to fulfill her life-long ambition to be a costumed hero! And she knows she couldn't have done it without Jackson's help. That's why, once he gets her home, she's perfectly happy to reward him and assure him that there's nothing between her and that Steven Lord fellow. But there is. There's also a potential problem. Steven Lord didn't come right out and say so, because under the circumstances it would have been impolitic, but he thinks it was rather a nice bit of timing for a second-rate armored villain to show up at just the right place at just the right time to give this fledgling heroine an opportunity to impress the governor. It isn't that he mistrusts the Flying Fox herself. She seems genuine enough. It's that he doesn't trust Jackson Andrews. He's known for a long time that there's more to Andrews than meets the eye. He suspects there's more going on here than meets the eye, and he's determined to get to the bottom of it, if for no other reason than to assure himself that in falling in love with the fabulous Flying Fox he hasn't fallen in love with one of the bad guys. |