Old Tiger part 2 by Dianne Elliott
		Disclaimer:  In this cross universe tale, I had taken characters
from both 'The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest' and 'Fantastic Voyage'. 
Hanna Barbara owns Jonny and company, while Filmation Studios owns
Jonathan Kidd and his team.  I should also mention that I borrowed
Paramount Studios references from Star Trek: Voyager, for a rather lame
joke.  Yadda, Yadda, Yadda.  So sit back and enjoy part 'Old Tiger part
II'. 

	"Ouch!" Birdwell loudly protested, as the thug behind him, poked
him extra hard in the ribs, with the uzi's snub barrel. The professor was
a little too slow descending the dark, narrow staircase.  "I bruise very
easy, ya know!" 
	"If ya don't shut that yapper," Sharky growled menacingly. 
	"Make me!" 
	"Busby," Kidd hissed with an even more dangerous glare.  "Be
quiet, and do what they what." 
	"But ---" 
	"Do it!" 
	"Shuddup Commander," the second tough grumbled.  "Just remember,
you're a bigger target!" 
	Hadji grimly followed their conversation, mutely continuing his
observations of them and their surroundings, his mind still working on
escape.  If it were he, Jonny, and Jessie, they could turn and attack the
nanosecond should their escorts' guard wavered.  Despite his age,
Commander Kidd carried the same detached strength Race did, but Doctor
Kidd, and Professor Birdwell. 
	If a fire fight should break out --- they would die. 
	Erika flashed a tight, timid grin.  She was attempting to be
encouraging, but she rouse only sympathy. 
	"Here we are, lady and gents!"  The stairs ended abruptly on a
tile floor. 
 Suddenly halogen lighting flooded the numbing darkness. 
	Birdwell whimpered out of pain, while Kidd muttered a curse under
his breath.  "That light is blinding us!" Erika hotly charged.  "Shut it
off!!" 
	A ring of cold snickers responded. 
	"They are all around us!" Hadji whispered, blinking tears.  "This
is not good." 
	"We're not dead yet," Kidd recovered first. 
	"But you'll soon be, Commander," the final syllable choked on a
phlemly cough. 
	Three of the four recognized the wheezing voice, as a huddled
figure shuffled into view. 
	"It can't be him!" Busby timidly injected, as Erika shook her head
no.  Her husband stood tall, motioning them all back and behind.  Only
Hadji remained at his side, puzzling. 
	"Mensa," Kidd growled.  "Eric Mensa." 
	A pleased cackle echoed over the tight basement.  "I'm glad that
Edgar J's stooly remembers me." 
	"Hoover?" Hadji tightly whispered. 
	"Ancient history kid," Busby pulled him behind. 
	"What do you want with us, Mensa?" Erika demanded. 
	Mensa cooed, "I still see you're still a hot rocket mama." 
	"Leave her alone ---" 
	"And you, Kidd, her knight in space armor," Mensa giggled, as he
struggled to circle them.  "You've done well, son.  You even got Mister
Birdjay." 
	"That's Professor Bird --- AGGHH!" 
 	Snakelike, Mensa smashed his cane behind the professor's knees.  As
Busby began to crumple, a hard kashink sliced.  Hadji grabbed the blade
tipped cane just short of a killing stroke.  "And --- the tiger eyed
Guru!" 
	"What is the meaning of this?" Hadji coldly demanded, as he only
reluctantly let go of the weapon as several bolts clacked into firing
position. 
	"Such impatience out of one as ancient as you isn't ---" 
	"Father," on the rouse of steadying his parent, the younger Mensa
pulled him away from any closer study of the sixteen year old.  "Please,
don't over exert yourself." 
	"Pagh!  Michael, both you and I know the truth!  Don't worry,
you'll get your inheritance and the family treasure soon enough." 
	"Treasure?" Kidd blinked. 
	"Why, the one you gave me," Mensa taunted.  From an interior
pocket of his old fashioned double breasted suit, the old crime boss
produced a palm sized box, gripping it firmly within his frail fingers. 
	"OhmyGod!" Busby shrank back
	"The very thing you used to trick me, deny me my family for
fifteen long years, and finally crippled me!" 
	"It was your own greed Mensa!" Erika tipped up her nose in
defiance. 
	"And so is my revenge my dear!" 
	Hadji reacted a moment too slow, when the light from the trio of
nozzles bathed him and the others with a harsh spectrum of reds, yellows
and greens.  In mid flight, he was seized in an unrealizable undertow of
gravity, as he tumbled from an impossible height. 
	Some one was gleefully laughing that they were going to met their
deaths as a team. 
	Some one else was shouting his name. 
	
	"GRAB HIM AND MOVE IT!!!" the yell greeted his raising
consciousness.  Hadji found himself yanked to his tingling feet and
dragged across a rough surface.  Suddenly, a tremendous pressure clapped
his ears, as all three of them collapsed into a heap.  The mountainous
thunder slammed down several more painful times. 
	"Ugh, my head!" Birdwell's squawked protest proved a focus. 
"Again!!" 
	"Your pulse is a bit fast," Doctor Kidd bluntly informed the
professor.  "Are you on any medication?" 
	"Yeah, I better have one of my pills," Busby winced, while groping
through his empty pockets.  "They must've taken my nitro!" 
	"As in nitroglycerin?"  Erika instantly tempered her anxiousness
out of her face and voice.  "Busby take it easy, okay?  Jon?" 
	"I've forgotten how my stomach reacted!" he gravely mumbled around
a burp. 
 "But I'm worried most about Hadji." 
	"I'm okay," he mumbled, trying to climb onto unsteady legs. 
"Although I am dizzy." 
	"You better let me make certain of that, Hadji," Erika took his
pulse while stared into his eyes. 
	"What happened?" the recovering teen craned his neck, gawking at
the odd yellow formations towering over their heads.  These weird
formations formed canyons that stretched for miles.  "Where are we??" 
	"Shall I tell Hadj or do you wanta Kidd?" Birdwell nudged him. 
	"You've been miniaturized Hadji," Erika told him, now satisfied
that he suffered from nothing more serious than a headache. 
	"Miniaturized?" he gasped wide eyed. 
	"Yep, shrunk, like the almighty inflationary dollar!" the
professor joked. 
	"But --- but that is impossible!!" Hadji muttered. 
	"So we all thought 'til '73." 
	"Bus-by," Erika sighed.  "Haven't you milked that one enough
already?" 
	"I know about inflation," Hadji grumbled, impatient for an
explanation.  "But actual miniaturization is a scientific impossibility." 
	"Oh come on!  So sez Quest's protogee?" Birdwell challenged with
superior air.  "Today's final project is that you figure out the how!" 
	"I hope it really isn't final," Erika darkly commented. 
	"Impossibilities should not be boundaries, but can be turned into
gates, if one can find the right key," Hadji said.  "One one-thousandth." 
	"Humm, not bad for the math," Busby grinned like leprechaun,
guarding his golden secrets.  "But you've got a lot more figurin' ---" 
	"Which is why we aren't squashed," Kidd interrupted.  "Like four
cockroaches!  Son, the effect isn't permeate.  It reverses in --- eleven
hours fifty-five minutes." 
	"If we're lucky," Busby sulkily sighed, scratching his eyebrows. 
	"Yes, we shall enlarge right in front of their guns," Hadji
worriedly put in. 
	"I don't think Mensa'll wait that long,"  Erika frowned at her
conclusion. 
 "If anything else, he'll gas this room." 
	"Gassing us would not satisfy Mister Mensa," Hadji pointed out. 
"I believe he will miniaturize himself ." 
	"Mensa's crazy, but he isn't a fool," Busby broke in. 
	"Mensa miniaturized us to kill us," Kidd commented.  "Once he
realizes that we --- Hadji?" 
	"This is not good," he began slowly, drawing away from the others. 
"A high pitched whine from over there!" 
	"Then we better move this way," Kidd began to herd his team. 

	"Whaddya we do now Boss?" Sharky coarsely muttered, still shaking
from the effect. 
	"That and where the hell ---" 
	"Still in the basement, you dolts," Michael Anton dangerously
hissed.  "Actually we're in the floor." 
	"But how?" 
	"The Old Man shrunk us, Jackie," Sharky raised his meaty hand. 
	"We're here to make doubly certain that the CMDF team is dead,"
Anton growled, eyeing their automatic rifles.  "Let's see we can get the
job done without being too messy." 
	"Yeah, the Old Boss doesn't like messy," Sharky grunted
	"That should be easy," Jackie evilly grinned.  "Except for that
brat, they're so old, they've probably keeled over by now!" 
	"Don't count on it," Micheal breezily said.  "Come on, they
couldn't be too far off, but keep your eyes open." 
	"Boss?" 
	"What is it Sharky?" 
	"Once we find 'em, an' kill 'em, what's gonna keep the Old Man
from flushin' us down da toilet like you did to the Shyster?" 
	Young Mensa glared at the thug, as if he would smash him across
the jaw.  Then his fist relaxed into a friendly grasp.  "I've come up with
a plan for that eventuality." 

	"I don't get it," Doctor Quest wistfully sighed, as he heavily sat
down behind the newly assembled computer system's controls.  "Either
Professor Birdwell, or Hadji aren't the types to just disappear." 
Reaching for the log, the scientist scanned the pages of tiny precise
handwriting.  "Hadji's been working very hard ---" 
	"Doctor Quest?" Race lumbered into the computer room.  A low
whistle escaped.  "Would you look at this place?" 
	"Hadji took only a couple of weeks to set up the equipment," Quest
admitted proudly.  "Anything from Professor Birdwell's secretary?" 
	"She made reservations for two at the Mai Tai Inn, but the
professor and his party never made it to the restaurant.  I also checked
out Birdwell's house.  His cat's hungry and the mail hadn't been taken
inside.  I don't think he made it home last night." 
	"Apparently Hadji didn't go back to the dorm either," Jessie
amended with a worried expression.  "He didn't sign in, nor was his bed
slept in." 
	"Dad," Jonny trailed in last, hopping off the hoverboard.  "I've
been through the library.  Dean Birdwell had returned some overdue books
yesterday morning, but no one has even seen Hadji!" 
	"Something's happened to them," Jessie darkly concluded.  "Maybe
it has to do with that ghost tiger Hadji's been seeing..." 
	"Jess ---" Jonny began to scold. 
	"What?" Race blinked in alarm. 
	"What tiger?" Quest quietly demanded.  "And when does Hadji see
this animal?" 
	"When he meditates Dad," Jonny shrugged innocently.  "Hadj claims
that the tiger is a yogin master --- humm ---" 
	"Master Tiger Eyes," Jessie finished, to his scowl. 
	"Tiger Eyes," Benton thumbed his beard.  "Why does that sound
familiar?  Maybe if I access my paraphemonological biography files." 
	"Doc ---" Race leaned over the scientist.  "How did you get? 
Those are top secret government files!" 
	"Humm," Quest was more interested in reading the scrolling
biography, as the cryptotranslator subroutine chewed through the ancient
code.  "Apparently, Master Tiger Eyes matches with a Master Taamecei, was
also known as the Master of the Unknown ---" 
	"How can someone be the Master of what isn't known?" Jonny
puzzled. 
	"I'd like to know the answer to that one, son.  Pity, the man died
over thirty years ago.  There's an untranslatable section here --- about
an accident during a top secret mission." 
	"What a minute Doctor Quest!" Jessie pointed, at the
identification photograph as it crept line by line on screen.  "Jonny,
that picture, I've seen him before!" 
	"Where, Ponchita?" Race seriously asked. 
	"In Bangalore," she whispered.  "In the Palace's Portrait
Gallery." 
	"Then that means, Hadji is related to this Master Tiger Eyes?"
Jonny shifted uneasily. 
	"Maybe," Race put in, with a shrug.  "Then maybe not." 
	"Hadji has been working on his genealogy.  Perhaps I could access
--- oh damn," Quest crossly muttered as the screen jumped and went black. 
"The web connections to the university just went down." 
	"There's satellite links," Jessie offered, taking up the chair
beside the scientist.  "But uplinking'll take awhile." 
	Race gravely nodded, at his daughter.  "Meanwhile, Jonny and I'll
keep looking for the Professor and Hadji." 

	"Hey," Birdwell suddenly poked Hadji.  "I've got an idea!" 
	"Busby, can't you turn your voice down to a low shout?" Kidd
grumbled softly.  "Someone's on our tails..." 
	"What's your idea, Busby?" Erika inquired. 
	"Why doesn't Hadj here telepath for help?" 
	Five eyes rounded expectantly on the sixteen year old. 
	"Because, eh," the young Sultan gulped, as his ears burned from
embarrassment.  "The truth is ---" 
	Hot glowing tracer bullets shattered Formica columns.  "Later!"
Kidd dismissed, as they sprinted away. 
	
	"That was dumb," Michael grumbled, as the fine yellowish dust
settled. 
	"Boss, they're were just standing there!  Who'd thought geezers
could react so fast?" 
	"Because you began firing too soon, Sharky!" 
	"Yes, sir," the thug sank his teeth into his lip waiting for the
strike.  It did not come.  Upon turning, however, Sharky saw Micheal's
trigger finger twitching. 
	"Stick to the plan," Mensa growled.  "Nab the kid, and they'll
come like complacent lambs to save him." 
	"Kidd?  Boss, he's big enough to put up a decent struggle!" Jackie
reasoned. 
	"Not Kidd," Mensa struck him hard.  "Guru junior!" 
	"I dunno, Boss.  There is somethin' about that brat, that makes me
nervous!" 
	"Don't think about that!  Come on you two, we've got a simple,
easy job to do on those four, so lets not get jumpy!" 

	 "Did we get away?" Erika cautiously peered around the corner. 
	"Looks like," Kidd affirmed, as he worriedly wheeled toward the
panting professor.  "Busby?" 
	"I'm not used to all of this runnin'!" he complained, as he slowly
straightened, with Hadji's help. 
	"You let yourself go, mister!" Kidd pressed his hands against his
blue jeans. 
	"Ha, Ha, I'd like to see you stand in front of a lecture hall
filled with sleepy freshmen for eight hours, then spend half of the night
going through papers!"  Wiping his mouth, he sighed, "I just wish we had
the Voyager!  Then we'd show those three what for!" 
	"Oh yes, to see Captain Janeway and Seven of Nine would do all of
us some good," Hadji joked, gaining their glares. 
	"First off, Mister Singh, I'm talkin' about my Voyager, not
NCC-74656!  I happened to have designed and built the Voyager, and flew my
ship through worlds Roddenberry never dreamed of!" 
	"Busby ---" Kidd interrupted, then fell silent.  "He's right, the
Voyager was miniaturized along with us.  Decommissioned ships are like old
departed friends, you never really forget them." 
	"Look," Erika fumped, folding her arms across her bulky bear
patterned sweater.  "We can't be standing around like a herd of old war
horses put to pasture!  We've got to keep moving.  Maybe we could slip
under the wooden stairs, enlarge safely in the crawl space and escape!  Or
at least get word out." 
	"I do not know how to telepath," Hadji pointed out, "over a
distance of a meter!" 
	"Now, he tells us!" Busby rolled his eyes.  "Look, Hadj, if I
could get to some house wiring, or even fiber optic cable, I can rig up a
radio.  I usta be pretty good at that sorta thing." 
	"Indeed you were," Kidd smiled down at the smaller man. 
	"Mister Kidd, what if Mensa picks up on the errant radio signal?"
Hadji asked.  "I realize the chances are fairly small, but any
interference on a television or computer screen would be noticed." 
	"Hush," Erika commanded.  "I just saw one of Mensa's goons heading
this way." 
	"All right, follow me, everybody!" 
	"And watch out for splinters!" Busby softly chimed, side stepping
a mound of wood curls. 

	"Damn them all!" Eric Mensa growlled, snapping shut his celluar
phone.  "That boy of mine still can't carry off a hit!" 
	"Boss, it has only been three hours since ---" The dangerous,
rummy glare silenced him. 
	"For a so called professional assassin it shouldn't take this
long!  Ready the nerve gas canisters!" 
	"But Boss, your boy!" 
	"I didn't realize that you were so anxious to join your friends
Sharky and Jackie!"  The trio of hard lights pieced the criminal's chest,
compacting him rapidly to the size of a dust mote in seconds.  "I give you
just an'ther two hours Binky!" Eric Mensa howled at the floor, adding a
hard thump from the tip of his cane for emphasis.  "Then you go swimming
in sarin!" 
  	
	After being pelted with Formica chips, Binky wildly ran into the
canyonous maze.  He had to find his fellows and warn them. 

	"Hadji," Erika poked him, when the teenager suddenly stopped. 
"You've got to keep moving!" 
	"I just heard that sound again," he reported.  "Coming from the
direction we are traveling to ---" 
	A clump of wood dust dryly clicked to their north.  "That's just
reinforcements, gentlemen," Michael Mensa sneered, confidently covering
them with his lethal rifle.  Erika nudged Busby ahead of her, hoping to
sneak away, while still just out of sight. 
	With a spurt of uzi fire, Sharky's ugly mug appeared around the
column.  "You two ain't goin' no where, for awhile.  I got these two,
Mister Mensa!" 
	 "And I got the kid and Kidd," the Boss purred back, reaching into
his pocket. 
	"He's got a cel phone!" Kidd whispered to Hadji.  "I want you to
grab it ---" 
	"No funny stuff, Commander," Mensa threatened, as he raised his
uzi clumsily.  "While I call my father and tell him the good ---" 
	Commander Kidd coiled and pounced the younger Mensa before he
could finish his thought.  Only one tracer knicked the wool of his bulky
sweater, as, the crime heir hopelessly emptied his cartridge into the air. 
Doctor Kidd, also reacted at the same instant, as she roundly kicked
Sharky in the groin.  She grabbed his weapon, just as her husband smashed
Mensa across the jaw and sent him to unconsciousland.  "Hadji, the phone!"
he yelled, throwing him the device.  "HADJ, RUN FOR IT!!" Birdwell crowed,
ducking a valley of bullets, as Jackie emerged shooting from the opposite
corridor. 
	Hadji paused long enough, to see the grandmotherly Erika Kidd,
swing her newly won rifle and took out the rampaging henchman.  'Run,
Young Majesty!' The telepathic command haunted him several times, as Hadji
cut and weaved through the twisting terrain.  For several minutes, all
Hadji concentrated on was his stride and the urgent command, until he
slipped on a pile of splinters.  For a moment he was dazed.  After
straining his hearing for any gunplay, and not hearing any, he groped for
his prize. 

	"Quest Enterprises," Jessie snatched the cellular phone before,
Doctor Quest glanced up.  "Jessie Bannon speaking --- who is this? 
Hadji?!  Where are you?!  Where??" 
	"Let me have it, Jess," the scientist held out his palm.  "And get
that tracer program up." 
	"Got it!  I hope this works, this connection stinks, Doctor
Quest," she complained, thrusting the phone at him.  "I can barely hear
Hadji over all of the pops and hisses.  I think he said he was on a
floor!" 
	"Huh?  Hadji, what's going on?  You've been what?  Son, true
minimization is impossible!  Okay, Hadji, we've got this call on the
tracer.  Hadji?" a surge of static greeted Doctor Quest's impatience. 
"HADJI?!" he shouted as the line became suspiciously quiet. 
	"I think we got a trace," Jessie worriedly swallowed. 
	"I sincerly hope so," Doctor Quest said, as he rapidly accessed
the program. 
	
	"Here's your phone Boss," Binky obediently passed the device back. 
"I think I hit the kid too hard.  I better make sure, huh?" 
	"No," Mensa yanked Binky's rifle down.  "We can't afford to waste
any more ammo --- from the looks of all of that blood, you caved in the
back of his skull.  You better take that ruby.  Father wanted it for a
souvenir." 
	"Sure thing, real pretty, ain't it?" 
	"As long as keep your Velcro fingers off it," Mensa warned. 

	Hadji felt hot, and still smarting from the blow of the thug's
rifle butt. 
 He had a vague memory of laying on a dusty, sticky surface, while two men
stood over him while talking about him being dead.  Suddenly, a sharp
stone struck him in the knee.  "Wha ---?" he slowly became aware of being
dragged, by the hair, over branches and thorn bushes growing out of rocky
ground.  "Who?" 
	Hadji was suddenly dropped into a muddy pool.  "Hey!" he pushed
himself up, sputtering on the tepid water.  As the surface calmed into a
brown mirror, the adolescent gasped at their reflections. 
	The great Tiger's eyes knowingly gleamed, as he continued to lick
the wound at the back of Hadji's skull.  "Master?" he asked wonderingly. 
"What are you doing?" 
	Master Tiger Eyes grunted in amusement, the leapt off of his dazed
charge. 
 Slowly, cautiously, Hadji sat up, as he delicately probed the injured
area.  Although his head still ached, studying his fingertips, he found no
blood.  "Thank you for healing me, Master!" Hadji palmed his hands, and
bowed. 
	The Tiger paused in grooming his face, reeled his tongue in, then
clacked his jaw shut.  Then he stood, and began to dissolve into the
tender dry forest.  "Master, please wait!" Hadji trotted after him.  After
several seconds, he asked, "Master, please I must know, why did you save
me?" 
	The yogin surged away.  'My hunt is over, Young Majesty.  Yours is
about to begin.' The drought strickened forest closed in on the two, as
Master Tiger Eyes heavily sighed, swinging onto a thorn choked path. 
	"Wait, what about your teammates, Master?  Your friends?" 
	He snarled, 'Out of my reach, Young Majesty.  But not out of
yours!'
	"I do not understand," a vicious swipe from a tiger's paw slammed
hard across his face. 

	Hadji jolted awake, his cheek smarting.  "Mister Kidd?  Erika? 
Professor?  --- Master?' His last call, was purely telepathic.  A warm,
jungle breeze came from no where wrapped about him then whisked away. 
'Yes, Dear Master, there is still my hunt.'

	A shadow fell across their hiding place.  Erika Kidd clutched her
uzi, and with a tight nod to Busby, suddenly threw the safety and swung
out. 
	"Jonathan!" she sputtered in surprise.  "I could have shot you!" 
	"You didn't give me a chance to give the signal!" he huffed. 
	"Would ya take it to a marriage counselor?" Busby mildly
complained.  "Though that didn't work for me." 
	The Kidds ignored him.  "Any sign of Mensa?  Or his other two
henchmen?"  Erika quietly asked. 
	"I managed to lead those to on a wild goose chase in the opposite
direction." 
	"What about Hadji?" Busby unsteadily climbed onto his feet. "I'm
responsible for that kid you know!" 
	"Humm," Kidd dropped his gaze, as he produced a bloodied scrap of
linen.  "Busby, I found only this.  I think it's from his turban." 
	The professor choked, as he twisted the strip between his fingers. 
"Busby," Erika soothed.  "We still don't know." 
	"Come on, we still got to get to the stairwell..." Kidd intoned. 

	"That's the last of the gas canisters, Mister Mensa," a
particularly hefty henchman smacked his elegant hands.  "Now what?" 
	"Humm?" the elder crime boss replied dreamingly.  Then his watch
peeped.  "Ahh, the two minute warning.  Let us leave this floor,
gentlemen.  The air is going to get rather bad down here.  Since it is
such a nice day, shall we readjourn on the lawns?" 
 						end of part II