Tales of the Disneyverse - Tale #26 (w/ Commentary Notes)

As Dawn Rises…
(The Realm of Hercules)

            “Very soon, that will happen to the entire Disneyverse!”

            Sheryl stared at the silk purple cloth that draped in her arms, still shocked from the sudden disappearance of the Theban baby she found. It was a warning of the dire reality of their situation. She now understood why Jacqueline was so harsh in her attempt to convince her of what was going on. The baby was more of a victim to this rift than everything and everyone else in the Disneyverse. Realizing that, she made her choice to cooperate with Jacqueline.

            When she turned to look at her, her face dropped as she saw a huge creature looming right behind. “LOOK OUT!” She screamed, grabbing Jacqueline by the collar of her robe and pulling both of them of the way, while the creature brought its enormous stone club down where they stood and smashed at the ground. From where Sheryl and Jacqueline once stood, there was a splintered, web-shaped crack left from the creature’s attempt.

            At the side of the street, the two women (and Joanie) got a full gaze at their attacker – an eleven-foot-tall Minotaur with dark red skin, glowing reddish-orange eyes, and fierce, razor sharp horns protruding from its head. “Where did he come from?” Joanie wondered, saying aloud exactly what Jacqueline had thought herself.

(Factual Note: The Minotaur is a Greek mythological creature with the head of a bull on the body of a man. In mythology, one Minotaur dwelt at the center of a labyrinth, an elaborate maze-like construction, designed by the architect Daedalus and his son Icarus on the command of King Minos of Crete. The Minotaur was eventually killed by the Athenian hero Theseus.)

            “I don’t know.” She remarked.

            “You don’t know what?” Sheryl questioned.

            Jacqueline had forgotten she could not hear or see Joanie there with them. “I don’t know…how we’re going to stop this thing.”

            Sheryl gave an assertive grin. “Leave that to me.” She then stepped back into the middle of the street, standing right in the path of the menacing Minotaur and raising both of her arms up toward it. Through her hands, she unleashed a barrage of colorful fireworks that exploded in the Minotaur’s face. But the attack only left the creature dazed for a brief second before it swung its club at Sheryl.

(Disney Note: Fireworks being a magical defense for the Guardian is based on the finale of the Fantasmic stage show in Walt Disney World and Disneyland, in which Mickey Mouse - as the Sorcerer's Apprentice - creates a fireworks display.)

            The impact was intense; her body flew directly into a nearby building, crashing through one of the columns before disappearing through its doors. During the confrontation, Jacqueline teleported herself away, moving to the base of Hercules’s statue and hiding at a side where she could not be seen. Joanie, who teleported with her, voiced her approval in Jacqueline’s tactical maneuver. “Good idea,” she said. “Now what do you have planned next?”

            Jacqueline shook her head, fear evident in her face. “I don’t know.”

            “You don’t know?” Joanie reacted in shock.

            “No, I don’t know! If you’ve been in my head this whole time, you’d know that already!” She sighed, leaning against the base wall with her head hung low. “I haven’t come up with a good plan since the loss of Fantasia. I don’t know how to fight back anymore.”

            Seeing how distraught and afraid she was, Joanie wanted to give her some words of encouragement and break her away from this funk in time to help Sheryl. However, the sudden emergence of the Minotaur (who appeared to have teleportation capabilities of its own) robbed any chance of Joanie providing Jacqueline with a pep talk. The creature towered over Jacqueline, who brought her head back up to see the danger she was in.

            The Minotaur held its large club high above its head, appearing to ready itself to deliver the fatal blow on Jacqueline. She calmly shut her eyes, waiting for her quick but surely painful death to come. It’s what I deserve…for Fantasia. These thoughts of hers were heard by Joanie, who could not believe how quickly Jacqueline was giving up.

            “NO!”

            The club came down fast and hard…but it struck a few feet from her left. Hearing stone smack against stone and not experiencing any pain or death, Jacqueline reopened her eyes to see how the Minotaur purposely missed her. The club was perfectly aligned with her skull a mere second ago. The creature could have easily ended her life right there and then, but – for some bizarre reason – it had chosen to spare her.

            Joanie was surprised by this sudden change of mind as well. “What the heck?”

            Their confusion was soon subsided once they witnessed the Minotaur decreasing in its size and morphing its shape. In the blink of an eye, it transformed from the half man/half beast creature that it was to a face that brought immediate horror over Joanie and Jacqueline – a face neither of the two women had seen for a very long time.

            “Dawn?” Joanie exclaimed upon seeing her wicked alter ego, born from the Aladdin realm, standing there before them in her own form that strongly resembled Joanie’s.

(Narrative Note: From Joanie's perspective, she had not seen Dawn since being her in World of Disney. In that situation, although Joanie had no control over herself as Dawn, she still remembers every wicked deed done as her. This is the only circumstance that we see Joanie standing face-to-face with her evil counterpart.)

            “Hello, Joanie, my old friend.”

            Jacqueline was surprised, seeing her directly address the mental manifestation of her mother. “Y-You can see her?”

            “See her, hear her, and even smell her,” said Dawn, who expressed that last sense with much distain.

            “Hey, I resent that – ghosts aren’t supposed to be funky!” Joanie retorted. “How’s it even possible that you’re here?”

            Dawn smirked. “You already know how it’s possible.”

            “Well, I could care less how you came to be what you are!” Jacqueline said. “I can take you down this time! I’m not that powerless man I once was when you destroyed the Aladdin world!”

            “Yes, you’re a Guardian now.” Dawn observed. “That doesn’t really change the rules for me, Sean. Look at how easy it was for me to kick your other butt back there – it’ll be even more so with you. You’re the weakest of them all – so insecure, scared, and alone. I’d be doing you a favor putting you out of your misery.”

            Angered from her words, Jacqueline hurled a fist aimed for Dawn’s face, only to have it snatched by her as she displayed incredible reflexes. It was evident how she saw the attack coming beforehand when she suddenly palmed Jacqueline’s face with her other hand, practically suffocating her by covering her nose and mouth. It was a trap Jacqueline could not escape from, yet suffocating her was not Dawn’s intention. Her body glowing bright reddish-orange, Dawn began to siphon Joanie’s essence from Jacqueline’s body and into her own. Jacqueline was clued in to this act as she saw – through Dawn’s middle two fingers – how Joanie screamed in horror, sensing herself being taken out, while her ghostly form vanished from sight.

            Once Joanie’s essence was entirely out of Jacqueline, Dawn released her hold on her, allowing her to fall weakly at her feet. “How groovy is this,” Dawn reveled in her success, “I now have both the power of the last Guardian and the essence of the original Guardian to keep me whole! I am above indestructible!” She knelt down to Jacqueline’s level, clutching her by the throat and lifting her off the ground. Gasping for air, Jacqueline watched helplessly as Dawn conjured a deadly, glowing, fiery red orb from her other hand – her primary weapon to end her with. “If only you could see yourself right now—”

(Character Note: Dawn's utterance of the term "groovy" is a common trait of her counterpart, often used by her in World of Disney. In taking Joanie's essence, she unintentionally made herself a little more like her in terms of personality.)

            Her banter was cut short by an object that whizzed past her right field of vision and jabbed at the stone wall from the statue’s base. Looking to see what it was, Dawn discovered what appeared to be an orange lightsaber protruding from the wall. Turning in the direction it had come from, she was met with instant surprise when she found a tall, familiar black stranger wearing a long red robe, Genevieve’s clothes, and Adrienne’s gun belt striding towards her. He twirled a green lightsaber in his left hand as he strode. With his right, he summoned the orange lightsaber, making it whizz over Dawn’s head again, and successfully returned it to him – now he twirled both lightsabers.

            “It can’t be!” Dawn yelled, recognizing the tall, dark stranger and reflecting in anger and fear. “How is this possible?”

            The man smirked. “You already know how it’s possible.”

            With a barbaric howl, the angry, frustrated Dawn hurled Jacqueline at the man. She screamed as her body sailed across the air at incredible speed, certain to cause quite an excruciating impact once it collided with its intended target. Just when she was less than a couple of yards from collision, one other body leaped in between the two. It was Sheryl, who attempted to catch Jacqueline in time to spare her from colliding into the man. Unfortunately, the attempt was futile, as there were now two bodies heading for him.

            The man remained unfazed by this. He stood firmly with his arms outstretched and his abdomen glowing in a bright golden hue. When Jacqueline and Sheryl neared him, their bodies suddenly atomized into specks of light –dissolving together right into the glow. As soon as they were “merged” with him, the glow dispersed and the man doubled over in pain, dropping his lightsabers to the ground and himself down on one knee.

            Seeing now much pain the man was in, Dawn knew the exact reason for it and grew immensely satisfied. She advanced on him, mocking as she did so. “Seventeen different people…seventeen powers…all shared in one body? You’ve got to be feeling like there’s a nuclear bomb ready to explode from your chest! So much for your master plan in saving the Disneyverse and stopping me, Sean!”

            With reflexes as lightning quick as hers, “Sean” summoned his orange lightsaber to the hand he dropped it from and leaped high in the air, coming down on Dawn with the glowing blade. She dodged to the left, leaving him to strike at thin air. The surprise attack amused Dawn more than the idea of being attacked by a lightsaber did.

            “I’ve always wanted to be in a lightsaber duel since I’ve seen Star Wars.” Dawn (or perhaps Joanie) expressed with sinister delight. “And you know which character I’ve always wanted to be? Here’s a hint!”

(Narrative Note: The first World of Disney partially took place during the week of the premiere of Star Wars, a noted favorite film of Joanie Navarro's, as well as her real-life counterpart, Joanie Mars. Much of the story focuses on references to the film, such as Joanie taking the form of a Princess Leia doll in the Toy Story realm.)

            She morphed once again – this time in the form of Darth Vader with a deadly red lightsaber activated in his black-gloved right hand. Without warning, “Vader” stormed in for an attack on “Sean,” clashing his red lightsaber with his orange one. The scene that played out afterward between the two combatants rivaled any from a Star Wars film. They dueled all over Thebes while the Greek city itself fell into turmoil – both from the rift tearing apart the realm and the saber duel. Vicious blackened skies roared with equally ferocious orange lightning high above them; but they paid no mind to it, focused only on destroying each other.

(Character Note: The real Darth Vader later becomes one of the main antagonists in World of Disney 3.)

            The duel reached within a massive crumbling coliseum where “Vader” delivered a cheap shot on “Sean,” elbowing him square in the chest. The blow further intensified his loss of control over the merged powers within him. Unable to contain it, “Sean” was forced to unleash a shockwave from his body powerful enough to send “Vader” flying from him. The faux Sith Lord crashed through several columns until he was out of the coliseum.

            With Dawn/Vader far away from him, “Sean” collapsed again – the pain inside him growing more intense by the second. He looked to his hands, seeing them rapidly shift through the hands of his seventeen reincarnations. He could feel the rest of his body doing the same as his features alternated in hair (he felt Theresa’s lengthy hair come over his ears and over his forehead at one point), eyes, nose, skin, body type, and gender.

            “What’s…happening…to me?” He questioned his discomfort, speaking in seventeen different voices that overlapped and echoed over one another.

            In his agony, he heard a loud roar from the heavens. At first he thought it was merely the sky that erupted with chaos; but he soon recognized the register, having heard it many times before. It was the roar of a creature that was far more beastly and far more dangerous than any Minotaur or Cyclops. Confirming his suspicions was the sight he caught of a green behemoth that soared across the rancorous sky and landed into the coliseum with a booming quake. The landing brought upon yet another shockwave through the coliseum that blew “Sean” away, along with the columns that were still left standing. Much of the rubble buried “Sean,” obscuring him from the view of the new character that Dawn manifested herself as.

(Authorial Note: Dawn's chosen forms of Vader and the Hulk were meant for a sense of foreshadowing and reflection. Vader foreshadows what's to come in the Guardian's journey into World of Disney 3, while Hulk's destructive nature reflects that while under the influence of Dr. Facilier in The Marvelous World: World of Disney 2.)

            For a short time, he was spared from any more of her suffering; but nothing could escape Dawn’s heightened senses for long. She knew exactly where he was buried beneath the rubble, reaching inside of it and snatching him by his right leg to yank him out. He found himself dangling upside down in front of Dawn’s current form – The Hulk – as it angrily snarled at him. “The Hulk” commenced in smacking his body several times into the ground until it went limp in his grasp. With a mighty roar, he then flung the battered “Sean” into the air and watched him ascend at fifty feet high, expecting his body to go into the dark clouds and be eviscerated from the lightning.

            The barely conscious “Sean” was able to catch on to Dawn’s plan and swiftly teleport himself away in time to avoid a bolt of lightning. Witnessing his escape, Dawn – in her Hulk form – let out a roar of fury that could only be a perfect match with the Marvel character she based her form from.

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