So upon realizing that this year's Olympics are being held in Paris I felt in honor of Glass Joe's Heritage to restart this story when the Olympics got started, however I couldn't think of any other plots to write so consider this a warm up chapter for the good stuff that's to come because this chapter is about getting to the Cave where they will get the Macguffin
So of course trust Bear Hugger to know the best place in NYC to get spelunking equipment...After getting everything needed, Glass Joe and Dana went again to the portal to go to First Earth's Northern England. There was a Toad-Man Humanimal who would ferry people through the Mystical Swamps...When Joe told him where they wanted to go...The Toad-Man got an expression on his face showing he knew they were in deep trouble if they were headed there but he said nothing but instead he got his raft that was for when he had two human sized passengers and slowly made his way northwards toward the Mystic Fairy Cave.
There were no seats on the raft, Joe groaned...Piston Hondo and Great Tiger might be accustomed to sitting without chairs, but for Glass Joe he was sitting like when he was a kindergartner during story time, flat on his bottom with his legs straight in front of him and still feeling the pins and needles feeling in his legs!
Joe looked over his shoulder and saw Dana was sitting like a normal dog, on her haunches with her hands in the same postion a dog's front paws would be in…She was quietly staring off into the swamp, her expression still rather blank...Joe was worried about how much time they still had before the meek sex slave personality completely took over...He hoped they weren't already too late…
Thinking back to earlier...He thought about how her old persona and voice seemed to come back whenever she had to use her brain for a subject that didn't involve serving a human man in anyway…
He looked at her 'head-fur' as they Animal People called it, after she had taken her bath last night, it was clear her previous spiky hair do had been kept in place with hair gel, now her black head-fur was down fell down do the neck...Joe wanted to say he liked her hair more like this but he dared not to...He did not want to encourage the slave personality to become stronger with praise...He thought about what he could talk about instead and sighed when he realized the only thing he could talk about was what was on his mind, the task at hand...But he decided he would talk about the conversation he had with his Fellow Boxers while they were shopping for the supplies for this quest…
"...While I was doing the shopping…" Joe said (While the Boxers were shopping, Joe dropped Dana off back at his apartment so to not to raise anymore suspicion) "...We talked about what we had just learned...About your previous life…"
Dana turned her head toward him "Oh?" She said
"Us...Western Men…" Joe wasn't quite sure how else to phrase it "...Were talking about how unfair it seemed in the vision we saw...That you and your fellow Humanimal Spirits should be treated so harshly just for being….How you say...Catty women…Yes we could see there were a few Male ghosts in the group, but it was clear most of the Ghosts were woman...We thought that was such a petty offense for such harsh treatment...But...Great Tiger gave us some perspective…"
Flashback
"Think about News stories that we've all heard in one form or another…" Great Tiger said while they were shopping at the outdoorsy goods store "...Of a poor teenage girl who committed suicide because she was bullied by her peers? Those bullies rarely if ever suffer any legal consequences because nothing they did technically broke any man written law...But there I believe is where the spiritual comes in to fulfill where man can not and should not...And the moment we have no way of seeing exactly what Dana's old self and those like her did...But from what I heard the Judge say...And it seemed like Hondo and I were the only ones paying attention to that...The crime they were all guilty of was the old 'Crabs in the Bucket' thing...They made there lives miserable being conformists so they had to ruin the life of anyone who sought to do different and potentially become something great because they couldn't stand to see someone else happy! Think for a moment if you or someone you loved were the ones being pulled down by those bullying conformists to keep you from following your dreams?"
End Flashback
As the Toad-Man listened to this conversation...He couldn't help but feel amazement at what he was hearing...That these Mutant Animals of the newly discovered Third Earth, some of them had the souls of reincarnated Humanimals from this universe! Of course the Toad-Man would tell no one, like the Taxi Driver the Toad-Man knew he was bound to hear stuff from his Passengers but gossiping about what he heard would get out itself and he would lose paying customers if they knew he was an incurable gossip!
Same could not be said Gerbasi…
So hopefully a nice warm-up chapter for what's to come