Dr. Snip

Merlin was a large imposing man who had achieved a reputation as a Wizard because of his intelligence and knowledge of how people react to various situations. Unlike most of his associates he could read, and used the knowledge learned from this skill to better himself at every opportunity.

He had made the ceremony as impressive as possible, with lots of beautiful young girls dressed in flowing white robes singing Arthur's praise songs. The crowning of the new King with a circlet of solid gold, and of course lots of food and far too much drink.

As an extra ceremony Arthur had ordered Merlin to name his Sword, he found that referring to it as the Sword from the Stone was a bit long winded, and such a special Sword deserved it's own special name. Arthur stood with the sword besides the altar stone and at Merlin's nod he laid it on the sun warmed stone.

Merlin said prayers over the sword and Arthur, calling down blessings on them both, and finally cried out, 'I name this sword Excalibur, light bringer to our dark world, may it and its master always protect us.' Merlin again nodded and Arthur picked up Excalibur and walked over to where three prisoners were kneeling facing the altar stone.

Arthur stood behind the prisoners as Merlin again called out to the Gods, 'Baptise this blade in the blood of the evil ones so it will always know them wherever they hide'. As Merlin thrust his hands up to the Heavens, Arthur swung Excalibur in a horizontal arc, decapitating all three men with one swing.

The watching crowd cheered wildly and they all went off to the feasting tents. Arthur now was finally King Arthur, and he called all twelve of his Lords to his main camp for a meeting. Merlin was a very wise man and he always looked ahead to prevent trouble wherever possible.

He knew that it would take a while for all the Lords to settle down and be content with their lot. He advised Arthur not to rub their faces in his Kingship just yet, he wasn't concerned for Arthur, but he didn't want him to have to kill his Lords if it could be avoided by diplomacy.

Merlin came up with the idea of a ruling council, consisting of Arthur and the twelve Lords, it would free him of much of the everyday worry of running things, as the Lords would be responsible for their own lands and people. As King, Arthur would generally keep an eye on things and of course receive tribute from them all.

To foster the illusion of equality Merlin had a large round table constructed in the center of the main hall, big enough for all Thirteen of them to sit at comfortably. Although Arthur's chair was a bit more ornate than the rest, he couldn't be accused of sitting at its head, because it didn't have one. Thus face was saved all round and they settled down to enjoying the fruits of their labours.

There were of course still external quarrels, Arthur fought Aelle at the battle of Mercredesburne, but decided not to kill him and instead made a treaty with him that actually worked. Arthur's people enjoyed a decade of peace and plenty.

Then in AD 496, in a joint venture with the equally famous Ambrosius, Arthur defeated the Saxons at the Siege of Mount Badon.

Five years later, Arthur fought and killed Geraint, the King of Dumnonia, at the battle of Llongborth and incorporated his kingdom into Arthur's own.

Then in AD 542 as was inevitable he finally received a mortal wound that even the magical Excalibur couldn't save him from.

Arthur was struck and mortally wounded by an arrow at the Battle of Camelot; this was not so much a battle as a lovers quarrel. A few years earlier Arthur had sealed a peace treaty with Abrosius by marrying one of his daughters a pretty young girl, twenty years his junior named Gwenevere.

Unfortunately she had been left alone too much with one of Arthur's Lords who was trusted to guard Camelot when Arthur was away fighting. The Lord was an ambitious man named Lancelot; he perceived Arthur as getting old and was plotting behind the scenes to undermine him. One of his avenues of attack was to seduce the young Queen, she was young and impressionable and Lancelot was tall, blond and handsome.

She had been neglected by Arthur since the arranged marriage, and revelled in the attention given to her by the handsome Lord. When discovered Lancelot declared a coup against Arthur and their supporters met each other in battle.

Lancelot knew that no one could fight Arthur and live, so he arranged for an archer to shoot him from behind in the midst of the battle. Arthur fell and was rescued from the battlefield by his most trusted Knights, and taken to a Castle by a lake.

He knew he was dying and accepted it, all warriors died eventually; it only mattered if they died bravely. What he couldn't accept was that Excalibur would fall into Lancelot's hands.

He ordered his Knights to carry him to the top of the Castle watchtower, and set him down so that he had a clear view of the lake. Arthur then called for his most trusted Knight and drawing Excalibur from its scabbard, kissed it goodbye and handed it to the Knight.

'Take Excalibur to the lake and throw it as far as you can into its deepest part.' He ordered the man, ' I will be watching you, he warned him.' The Knight took Excalibur in his hand and mounting his steed rode to the lakes edge. He dismounted and walked along the bank until he could see the darker water that signified great depth.

The Knight didn't want to see this beautiful and deadly weapon lost to the world, but he knew he wouldn't live out the day if he didn't obey his King.

In full view of Arthur and his Knights on the top of the watchtower he took a deep breath and in one powerful swing of muscles toughened by a lifetime of swordplay, he hurled Excalibur high into the air in the direction of the deepest part of the lake.

As it flew through the summer air and arced down towards the black waters, Excalibur spun and flashed like a falling star. All eyes were on it as it fell to it's death in the lake, but just as it's hilt was about to hit the surface of the lake a pale hand emerged from the dark water and caught it.

For a moment it was held just above the surface, and then the waters parted as a beautiful naked woman emerged from the water until she appeared to be standing on the very surface of the lake. She turned to face the watchtower and in a clear ringing voice said, ' Thank you Arthur, I will return Excalibur to the stars, be content, for your name will live for ever.'

The Knights were torn between staring at Excalibur and staring at the woman's naked breasts, but Arthur only had eyes for his sword. The last thing King Arthur saw before he died was the young woman wave Excalibur in the sun and suddenly vanishing into thin air.

A few days later at Arthur's funeral feast the Knights were discussing the supernatural events at the lake. 'She must have been a Water Nymph' said the Knights that had been watching from the tower. 'I don't think so', said the Knight who had thrown Excalibur into the lake, and had been the closest to her. 'Water Nymphs would be used to the cold of the lake, and I don't think that their nipples would stick out like strawberries from the chill.'

Another witness to that astonishing event was by serendipitous chance Jake the Smith, now a retired rich man, who liked nothing better now than to dangle a hook into the still waters of the nearby lake, and have a peaceful doze for an hour or two.

All the commotion woke him from his sleep and he saw and heard everything the naked woman said, he recognised his greatest work immediately and felt a pang of regret when the woman vanished. 'Well I'll be buggered.' He'd said.

It was Steve's birthday, he had no cards or presents as he had no close friends and his parents were both dead. He had even slept alone the previous night as Angel was off on a mission, he assumed for the B.T.O. She had promised to return for breakfast, or to be precise she had said, 'Cook me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast,' and broke into giggles.

Sometimes Steve just didn't understand her sense of humour at all. Still the kipper was cooked, and dead on time she appeared in his kitchen, stark naked, soaking wet and waving a large sword in the air. As she was six feet tall and the sword was a least four feet long, it ended up embedded in his ceiling.

'Whoops,' she said pulling it free gently and wiping it on a handy towel, until it was dry and shiny. 'Sorry about that love, I got a bit carried away there.' Steve had stood up in surprise and Angel stepped toward him and kneeling naked at his feet offered up the sword to him. 'Happy Birthday, Steve, hope you like it.'

Steve took the sword from her and bent down to kiss her soundly. 'Thank you darling he said carefully, I've always wanted a sword of my very own.' She looked up at him with a wicked smile, 'Ask me the name of this sword.'

Steve smiled and was just about to ask her what she meant when he stopped dead, and focused all his attention on the weapon. He hefted it in his hand and noticed that it was surprisingly light for it's size, there were no jewels in the hilt, and its edge was very sharp.

A ridiculous idea tried to occur to him but he didn't dare consider it possible. Apart from being a Science fiction fan he was also deeply interested in British history and legends, to such an extent that he had named his last cat King Arthur.

She had been soaking wet when she appeared, as had the sword, he was scared to ask her in case it wasn't it. He knelt down in front of her, and taking an enormous gamble whispered 'It's Excalibur, isn't it?' She smiled fondly at his expression, 'I thought you would like it, they were going to throw it away, so I thought if they don't want it I know a man who does.'

He looked at her for a dozen heartbeats before he said simply 'Thank you Angel, you will have to tell me all about it, this will be the second most treasured item in my life.' She frowned prettily, 'only the second, what is the most treasured item in your life then, if you don't mind telling me that is?'

'Her name is Angel' he replied, and laying one beautiful killing machine on the floor, he picked up his favourite one and carried her into the bedroom. Hours later she was splashing in his bath, and he heard her shout out through the door, 'how about Brutus's dagger, interested? But it will cost you more of the same.'

Steve just smiled to himself; he was busy polishing Excalibur.

Peace on Earth.

Steve and Angel waited in the scorching heat by the bus stop, there was no queue, people just waited at the place where the bus stopped and when it did they all tried to board at once. The orderly queue was a quaint British custom and was thought insane by most of the rest of the world.

The old bus finally arrived in a cloud of dust and diesel fumes, and they waited until the crowd of chattering children has swarmed aboard before climbing into its hot noisy interior. Jerusalem was a hot dusty city in a hot dusty country and it was a war zone. The continuing conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians was still dragging on despite endless ceasefires and summits.

As Angel walked up towards the back of the bus it started to move and she was thrown onto a fat Israeli woman sitting in one of the threadbare seats. Angel apologised profusely in fluent Hebrew brushing the startled woman's coat down, and continued on down the bus with Steve trying to steady her as best he could.

Children are the same everywhere and the noise inside the bus was deafening. Steve and Angel had claimed a space to stand at the very back of the bus and were hanging on to the old leather straps as the bus roared along towards the school.

The driver blasting his horn at every person or animal that wandered into the path of the bus. The Israeli armed guard sat beside the driver, a sad necessity in this war zone where the most feared of terrorists could strike without warning.

This was the suicide bomber, a zealot who honestly believed they were on the side of Allah as they walked into crowded areas, and blew themselves and everyone around them to pieces. The only defence against them was constant vigilance and anyone who looked suspicious was stopped and searched by the Israelis.

However all systems had weak points and one of these was that nearly all bombers were male, very few women became bombers but there were some. The guard had given Steve a very close scrutiny but had waved Angel on without a check as she was a woman.

As the bus reached the school it stopped amidst all the other buses full of children and waited it's turn to unload it's precious cargo. It was at this point that the fat Israeli woman stood up and walked towards the front of the bus.

The guard waved at her to stay seated until the doors opened but she ignored him, and as she continued her advance she opened the front of her coat. The guard was stunned to see that she wasn't a fat Israeli woman at all. She was a thin Palestinian woman, with fanatical eyes and a canvas bag of explosives strapped to her stomach.

She lifted her hand to show him the activation device she held and with a scream of defiance pressed the trigger. The guard did as he was trained and even though he knew it was useless, he drew his sidearm and shot the woman through her head.

Her finger pressed the trigger as she fell and the guard shut his eyes, waiting for the blast that he knew he had failed to stop. After a few seconds he dared to open them again, there had been no explosion, and the children were safe.

With prayers of thanks falling from his lips he opened the bus doors and ordered everybody out of the bus. He noticed that the two British people looked sad as they left the bus compared to the happy relief of the rest of the passengers.

The investigating team discovered that there had been nothing wrong with the trigger or the bomb, however the wires that connected them had been severed as if by a razor, apparently without the knowledge of the woman.

She was identified as the mother of a young boy killed recently in the constant skirmishes and in her grief and rage had fallen prey to the militant terrorists propaganda. The failure of the bomb to explode was put down as an act of God and security was increased even further in future.

As Steve walked away from the bus he shared Angel's sadness, he didn't feel triumphant at foiling the woman's plot, just very sad that the incident had taken place at all.

Steve had researched this event thoroughly; the bomber had killed and injured fifty-five children as well as the driver and guard. Israel's reaction had been draconian and had resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians and had put the peace process back years.

Steve knew that it didn't matter anyway as Israel was going to attack her enemies eventually, but he wanted to save the children that were in his power to save.

Angel had simply used her monofilament nails to sever the wires as she fell onto the woman, they were so sharp that there was no resistance to them so the woman had felt nothing as her coat and the wires had parted cleanly.

Before going home he decided to jump to Bethlehem to see the site of Jesus' birth, but the first thing he saw at this most revered of towns was a battle tank sitting in the middle of a street.

Totally depressed he jumped back to his house in Britain and he suggested that they go for a drink at his local pub. She had a better idea and programmed his QT to take him to a place she knew where she was sure she could cheer him up.

They were both wearing full-length black leather coats, which enabled them to fit in with most recent time periods. They arrived in the year 1880, Angel led him out of an alley and across a dirt street to the swing doors of the Oriental Saloon in Tombstone, Arizona.

The place was packed with cowboys, not the Roy Rodgers type of clean living cowboy, but the real hard working smelly cow handlers that drove vast herds of beef across the country in terrible working conditions.

They were hard men in a very hard land and when they finally hit civilisation and got paid they went temporarily mad. Drinking, gambling, whoring and fighting until all their hard earned money was gone and they returned back to their ranches to do it all over again next year.

Angel knew Steve was depressed and had thought of a way to take his mind off the depressing things he had seen in the Holy Land. As he followed her innocently into the bar he had no idea what she was going to do.

The first thing he saw was her going up to a group of men playing poker and without a word of warning tipping the table over, and yelling out that all cowboys were Assholes and couldn't fight worth a damn.

The place erupted into fury as the tables contents splashed over other patrons and men collided with each other as their chairs tipped over. Angel started hitting everyone she could reach, she didn't use any boost, just her own speed and strength.

Steve just stood dumbfounded watching her, wondering what the hell she was doing, until he spotted a man about to hit her with a chair. With a yell of rage he leapt across the room and punched the man so hard he flew back into another group, who took offence at having their drinks spilled and attacked Steve en mass.

Before he knew it he was in the middle of a full blown bar fight, he used his strength and size to keep a clear space around him. He tried to avoid hitting anyone on the chin as experience in the Paras had taught him that it was very painful to smash your knuckles into someone's bony chin.

He aimed for their softer parts and despite taking a few thumps was giving out more than he was taking. Angel had positioned herself back to back with him and was hitting anyone foolish enough to come within reach of her fists.

She didn't worry about her knuckles as they had been reinforced with synthetic muscle fibres and she had taken a drug that numbed pain before starting the fight. Steve had been concerned that the cowboys would start shooting each other. Then he noticed that there were no guns in their holsters, and they seemed quite content to use their fists and feet to fight.

In the middle of the fight Steve heard a strange sound, Angel was singing 'We are the Champions' while she was fighting. He laughed out loud, she was a fighting fool and he loved her, he raised his own voice and joined in with her singing the old Queen hit at the top of his voice as they flattened everyone in reach. His blood was pounding and he felt more alive than he had in years, soon a pile of unconscious bodies surrounded them.

Suddenly a massive concussion slammed into their ears as a shotgun was fired into the air. Standing in the door of the Saloon was a big man with a handlebar moustache and a smoking shotgun. 'Everybody stand still and stop fighting or I swear I will blow your fucking stupid heads off,' he shouted into the sudden hush.

'Thank God your here Wyatt,' said the bartender, 'look at the damage here, I do believe it was started by that young man in the black coat over there.' The bartender pointed to Angel who was surrounded by groaning men.

Wyatt Earp walked into the room; he kept his gun trained on Angel as he approached. When he was close enough he saw that the young man was in fact a lovely young woman and relaxed. He put up his shotgun and turning to the bartender said 'Joe you are a blind idiot, this here is just a young girl and I am sure she didn't start this mess.' 'Are you unhurt miss? I do apologise for this unseemly brawl that you found yourself in and I would appreciate it if you would allow me to buy you a drink.' He offered gallantly.

'Why thank you Marshall Earp, I would be honoured,' Angel replied. 'Allow me to introduce my brother Stephen who is accompanying me in my trip to Washington.' Steve found himself shaking hands with the famous western legend Wyatt Earp; they located an undamaged table at sat down together.