Divinity Commentary
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If ever a guy got a bad "first appearance," it had to be Ali Bombay in Episode 68: "Homeward Bound." He comes with no back-story into an episode which really needed some previous appearances to defend it, and spends the whole time getting puked on by Lester Sludge while listening to Ace Riker whine about fishing and do bad John Wayne impressions. Episode 13: "The Creeping Terror" was in my opinion one of the worst first season episodes, full of way too much "Huh?" and "Wtf?" and "Why did they do/say that?" So here is my attempt at taking two bad episodes and making things right. As Zarius said, it's a "fixfic" and I think I've done it justice.
...And it gave me a chance to introduce a bit of metaphysics and mysticism into MASK...
The "energy source" of Episode 13 was completely victimized by script writers that I suspect were working with a looming deadline. So little of the story made sense (see my commentary for "The Elephant and the Orchid for a good example) especially regarding the crystal. When the energy source is discovered, VENOM runs away, the computer says it's overloading, and Alex tells the team to destroy it, which they do by tricking two giant caterpillars into eating it. Huh? So here, I wanted to give the Imeri crystal a reason to survive, and before I knew it, I had tied in the "Star of Life" sitting in MASK headquarters.
The village of Paranari does exist...a named settlement along the Rio Negro in northern Brazil, just south of the Venezuelan border. There is very little there...certainly no airstrip, no hospital, and not even much in the way of buildings. But it gave me a good location to install the elements of the original episode, which was only described as the Amazon Jungle. The Pico de Neblina National Park extends to the river from what I could tell—there really is very little information I could find on this region. What was really funny in doing my research was how many travel companies wanted to book me into hotels or find me a rental car in Paranari...lol...darn cookies. I'll just go stay with Doctor Antonia Ferreira, who didn't even have a name or more than a brief appearance in Episode 13, so I just found a typical Portuguese sounding name for her.
Yes, there really is a legend about a red-haired demon/monster thing in the Amazon Jungle called a Curupira. That I did not invent—I only stumbled into it when looking for a location for this story and thought it was a fun little bit of something to throw in since Alex was there.
My use of Ali was like taking a skeleton and fleshing it out, because really, he's little more than a skeleton of a character in the Racing Series. I think a lot of this is because there were never the "summoning scenes" which gave us so much insight into the characters with just a few strokes of the brush. Also, there was so little plot-wise to the racing series, he didn't get to do much more than ride around dodging VENOM. In some ways, working with Ali was more like developing an original character. I could do so much with him because there is so little known about him. He's chivalrous, independent, a bit naive, and somewhat intimidated by the other agents. He lives in the US, working as a dance teacher and racing motorcycles on the weekends. Despite the change of location, he remains very attached to his life before emigrating. He loves his native foods, speaks Marathi (his native language), specializes in classical Indian dance (but knows and teaches many more styles), worships Vithoba (a manifestation of the god Vishnu), and plans to return eventually to India for marriage and "settling down."
Gloria is completely unaware of his secret worship of her, and at this point, I doubt she ever will be. His feelings for her will always remain those of a secret devotee. He is happy to regard her as his Goddess of Racing and keep her on a pedestal, especially as the Imeri crystal seems to have "claimed her" in his perception. Remember, Indian religion is full of gods and their consorts and relations. For him it would be natural that a god would seek out an unattached goddess as a bride.
I'm planning to bring out Ali and the Anunnaki crystals again in another fic or two. There is so much untapped possibility for them. Ali has interesting characteristics, a great mask, a cool vehicle, and can provide a very different perspective given his foreign background. And the crystals...they're beautiful and can do almost anything needed plot-wise. I did bring out Miss Wu again in my short piece "The Elephant and the Orchid," and if inspired I'll get her back out again. She is a delightful character in that she gives a bit more dimension to VENOM and Mayhem.
Originally, Episode 13 starts with Matt and Alex, and then Brad and Hondo are summoned. I took the liberty of having the computer summon Gloria and Ali as well, and we get a bit of Buddie at the end. Why Gloria? Besides the fact that she's one of my favorite characters to write about, before I began work on Divinity I had written a number of pages, thinking of turning it into a fic set during the Racing Series. It had Gloria and Ali trapped in a large cave together and followed their efforts to survive together in a pitch black, cold environment together. A large chunk of that was lifted into Divinity and adapted (the Gloria/Ali scenes in chapters 5 & 6, as well as Ali's waking and bath scenes in chapter 7). In that piece, he does confess his history to Gloria (that confession went to Matt in chapter 7 of Divinity). There was also a great fight scene involving Ali, Dagger, Gloria, and Rax which I'm planning on using once I get Ali back out into another story. The piece was titled "Seven Years" which was how long Ali had known and loved Gloria.
And, speaking of extras, here's the original final moment of "Divinity," written before I had decided upon closing the story with the celebration for the hospital dedication. It takes place on the transport plane headed home that night.
Enjoy!
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Gloria felt a hand on her shoulder, shaking her softly. She pulled off her frilly sleep mask and opened her eyes to find Hondo leaning against her bunk, his index finger pressed against his lips, his features defined by the blue nightlight above the door to the cockpit.
She put aside the sleep mask and extracted the earplugs from her ears. "What's up?"
"I thought you'd want to see this," he whispered. Hondo beckoned for her to follow him.
She climbed out of the bunk and crept along the short corridor. The others were all asleep. Brad's arm dangled from his bed onto the floor. Alex was snoring. Matt had that funny way of sleeping with his arm across his eyes. Scott was bunched up onto the bunk above his father's with T-Bob. Buddie, though she could not see his face, was obvious from the way he slept with the blankets pulled over his head. And Ali's bed was empty...
Hondo slowly opened the door that led to the cargo bay and they slipped inside, closing the door behind them.
There in the darkened cargo bay, in the gap between Rhino and Thunderhawk, was Ali. Barefoot and bare chested, he wore a pair of loose pants slung low on his waist and an MP3 player on his upper arm. His eyes were closed and his face was perfectly serene. And he was dancing.
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