Rated MA, all characters owned by DC and/or Hanna-Barbera. I do not own any of the photos, courtesy of a Google search for Zan & Jayna is how I got them, all images owned by their appropriate parties.
**
Planet Exxor, equivalent Earth year: 1949
The Laugh-maker looked at the two small infants and gasped “They’re alive!” He’d come to Exxor in the hope of putting on a show but when his space circus arrived, Exxor was an apocalyptic nightmare in the grasp of a terrible plague, most of the population dead with the rest on the verge of it.
He scooped up the pair of bronze skinned pointy eared children and checked them for signs of plague before wrapping them in a purple blanket. Laugh-maker looked around, almost feeling like a thief as he prepared to take the children away. He spied two purple and yellow triangles, each with a design on it.
“My Exxorian is a little off,” he looked at the sigils “But…Zahh, no Zan. And…Jar, no it has a curve so…Jayna” He held the two little bundles tight “Zan and Jayna!”
Planet Tamaran, equivalent Earth year: 1965
King Korithus of Tamaran watched the Laugh-makers troupe; the Thanagarian sword swallower, the Bismollian woman who could eat anything, the Carggian acrobatic trio who was simply one woman, the Khundian strongman and the metamorphic pair of Exxorian nine year olds.
“ZAN & JAYNA!” bellowed Laugh-maker as he directed everyone’s attention to the two purple & violet costumed children in the centre of the Tamaranian courtroom.
“Wonder Twin powers, activate!” The two kids bumped fists, yellow energy pulsing around them.
“Shape of a fish-snake!” said Jayna.
“Form of a waterfall!” added Zan and the pair transformed. The royal court erupted in applause much to the delight of the Laugh-maker.
Planet Rann, equivalent Earth year: 1977
“What do you mean, no?” said Laugh-maker as he double-taked between his star attractions and the audience behind the curtain.
“I’m tired of being a performing seal!” moaned Jayna “Or esquilax! Or bantha! Or rokan!”
“You do not do this moments before we go on!” hissed Laugh-maker “This is a show!”
“Well we’re not going on!” added Zan folding his arms in defiance.
“I save you from a dying world, raise you like my own children, and this; THIS is how you repay me?!?!” roared Laugh-maker “I feed you! Clothe you!”
“You work us harder than kryptonian horses!” stated Jayna.
“And we never stop travelling!” added Zan.
Laugh-maker ran his furry beige paw down his face “Just go, and we’ll talk after!”
“You said that on Colu!” retorted Zan
“And Daxam!” added Jayna
“How about a monkey? I just got a nice blue…”
“And Thanagar!”
“FINE!” Laugh-maker threw his hands up “I’ll just go out there and cancel the show!” He headed towards the curtain, paused and looked longingly at his charges “Please!”
Zan and Jayna looked at each other for several tense moments before Jayna answered “One monkey and some time off!”
Laugh-maker danced in a circled and clapped his hands “Deal!”
Uncharted sector, equivalent Earth time: 1982
The Laugh-maker and his troupe pressed their faces to the glass of their travelling interstellar caravan. Where there should’ve been a planet, there was nothing but pulverized dust and gas.
“What happened?” asked Thern Lah the Thanagarian.
“I’ll tell you what happened,” Laugh-maker went red in his face “We’ve been stiffed! They booked our services and to avoid payment they blow themselves up! Never trust a man named Bail!”
The troupe looked at their boss as he raged over the wasted trip. Zan and Jayna slipped towards the airlock with their pet Gleek.
“Are you sure?” said Zan a little hesitant.
“Look!” snapped Jayna “He’s been lying about a break for years! We’re lucky we got a monkey! I’m tired Zan! I don’t want to perform any more! I just want to be…”
“Normal” Zan finished his twin’s sentence and gave her a hug “Okay. I checked the planner and we’re heading past a nine planet system, middle of nowhere, barely any life. We jump off at the third rock from their sun!”
Jayna smiled and hugged his neck “You’re the best brother ever!”
Florida, Planet: Earth, 1987
Zan, Jayna and Gleek emerged from their escape pod, shaken by the crash landing. In front of them were about forty humanoid figures in weird white and yellow suits.
“Hello?” asked Jayna “Does an…” Her words were cut short as several red tuft darts hit her stomach.
“JAYNA!” roared Zan as he ran to her side, only to suffer a similar fate.
Area 52, Groom Lake Nevada, 1990
Newly appointed Director of The Department of Extranormal Operations, Mr Bones stood in front of the huge blast doors guarded by a squadron of hazmat soldiers.
“If there is a spaceship behind that door?” he muttered as he lit up his cigar “Open it up!”
Sirens sounded and slowly the massive doors rolled open. After all that, there was three plexi-glass cells with a figure in each, two human and one a blue monkey. All strapped to tables with breathing masks on with a bluish-green haze swirling around the cell.
“All this,” he pointed to the room and soldiers “For them?”
“They’re alien’s sir” replied a soldier.
“Are you sure I’m not an alien?” he moved his face closer to the young man “I’m just a skeleton with invisible cyanide skin, that’s pretty alien isn’t it?”
The soldier shook with fear unable and unsure on how to answer. Bones blew a cloud of smoke onto his face and smiled a lipless smile.
“So what do we know about them?”
“Nothing sir!”
Bones scratched his head as he walked towards them “But you know enough to keep them semi unconscious and under absurd lock & key! Open them up”
“I beg your pardon sir?”
Bones snorted a cloud out his nasal cavity “I’m the new head of the DEO son. I need to know what resources and liabilities I have. At the moment I have a massive expense that nobody can really tell me why. Maybe they came all the way from Mars with the cure for cancer and we’ve kept them unconscious…how long have you had them?”
“Since November ‘87, sir”
“Three years! That’s a truckload of ether!” replied Bones shaking his skull in disbelief.
The Department of Extranormal Operations, Washington, 1991
“Are you insane!?” yelled Dr Carter Nichols at Director Bones.
“Possibly” laughed Bones “What’s your problem Carter?”
“I can’t have them live at my house!”
Bones smiled and lit a cigar “You speak their language doc!”
“It’s just modified Swedish”
“Regardless you speak their language! And they seem to trust you. So as dictated to me by our President which I now dictate to you, under the various laws etc etc just do it! You just need to integrate them into normal life until they speak enough English that I can use them” said Bones “It’s either that…”
“Fine!” snapped Dr Nichols “I doubt you could kill them anyway”
“I have faith in Agent Barret if it all goes pear shaped.” replied Director Bones “The better you teach them Carter, the less on an intrusion they are on your life!”
“I liked you better when you were a super villain!” spat Dr Nichols as he stormed out.
The home of Dr Carter Nichols, Washington, 1993
“Hill-loo!” said Zan waving in an over the top manner “Mai name iz Zan!”
Dr Nichols shook his head “You sound like that chef puppet from the television. Hell. Oh.”
“Hee-low”
“Better!” Dr Nichols smiled “And you Jayna?”
“Hello my name is Jayna!” she responded rolling her eyes and yawning “Can we go?”
“Jayna,” Dr Nichols put a reassuring arm around her “You can leave whenever you like. But as soon as you do, you’ll have to work for Director Bones”
“Thart iz not gouda” Zan chewed through the sentence.
“He can become liquid nitrogen but can’t speak properly!” scoffed Jayna “You sound like a Durlan Zan!”
“This language isn’t easy okay!” snapped Zan “I’m trying okay!”
“Zan, Jayna, you know the rules. No Exxorian in the house please”
“Sorry Dr Nichols.” they replied in tandem.
“Now come over here, I have a cunning plan to delay you joining whatever dastardly venture Director Bones has planned for you.” He spread out some brochures ‘You’re going to university as Johan and Johanna Nichols.”
The Department of Extranormal Operations, Washington, 1995
“You’re clever Carter, I’ll give you that” said Director Bones “But no more delays, the kids now work for the DEO. And before you launch into a tirade, the higher ups tell me and I tell you, simple really. You don’t like it, tell the higher ups, who won’t listen to you because you’re not high enough on the pole to warrant talking to. Besides they’re almost doing what I want them to do now! That fire at the university that mysteriously went out and a giant squid saved people? The bank robber who slipped on a patch of ice, ICE on a summer’s day and got punched out by a kangaroo!”
“You want them to kill people!” snapped Dr Nichols
“No, I want them to safeguard my country! If they have to kill, yes but I don’t want some sort of death squad! I need super powered agents to do super powered sneaky things and a pair of alien shape shifters fit the bill!” Bones lit up a cigar “Tell them they can finish the term…”
“The year! They finish the year!”
Bones looked at Dr Nichols “Fine, they finish the year, get their diplomas and certificates and then they work for me”
Kjolski, capital of Kasnia, 2000
“This is so cool!” said Zan as he poured himself out of the shower head and into the cubicle. Jayna buzzed in through the bathroom window as a moth and promptly turned back to her normal form.
“Did you bring the device?” Jayna looked at her brother sternly.
He gulped and patted himself down “Oh no!”
“You i…” Jayna stopped as Zan’s face cracked into a smile “C’mon sooner we plant the device, sooner we can leave”
“But this is so much fun Jayna. Like all those spy movies” Zan crept towards the door on exaggerated tippy toes “Plus with our powers we’re unstoppable!”
“Can we just go plant the device?” Jayna rolled her eyes as she held out her fist for bumping.
“Wonder Twin powers activate!”
“Shape of a spider!”
“Form of steam!”
Qurac, 2004
“Did you see that!?!?” cried Zan as he watched Apache Chief throw a rubber ball out towards the horizon.
“No, because I’m trying to complete our mission?” snapped Jayna as she tapped the keyboard downloading files from the Quraci government.
“That’s cool!”
“After this, I’m quitting!” said Jayna as she pulled the USB stick out “This the circus all over again!”
“This is nothing like the circus. We’re actually helping people Jayna!
“Are Zan? Are we?”
The Department of Extranormal Operations, Washington, 2006
“Quitting?” Director Bones looked at Jayna “And Zan?”
“He’s staying coz he’s an idiot!”
Bones offered her a seat “Look kid, I know it’s hard being different that everyone else. Look at me; I’m a talking skeleton who smokes too much covered in invisible cyanide skin that will kill you. I think you should reconsider quitting but you should take some time off. You’re a guest on our planet and you’ve barely seen any of it. Go explore, have some fun”
“I thought you’d be mad?”
“Only politicians make me mad,” Bones replied “Don’t come back for six months”
“I won’t come back at all!”
Bones smiled “Of course you won’t” Jayna left the office and Bones turned to Zan, quietly standing almost invisibly in the back corner “Well you’d better go too”
“But, I don’t want too!” protested Zan.
“Kid, your powers only work when you’re with your sister. Without your powers, honestly, you’re a terrible agent. Your powers keep you onboard. No powers, I can’t really use you”
Zan looked down at the DEO logo carpet and kicked his feet “I’ll get better”
Bones went to put a hand on his shoulder but stopped himself, nearly forgetting he was poisonous to pretty much everyone and everything “Take a holiday kid”
Zan slunk out of the office, a little hurt by both his sibling and his boss. Bones waited for the door to close when he picked up the phone “…Samurai. Fred and Ginger are on leave, keep an eye on them”
The Department of Extranormal Operations, Washington, 2013
“And?” probed Director Bones looking at the Wonder Twins.
“That was it. It was boring” Jayna rolled her eyes “Can we go?”
“…no” Bones looked down at his papers, ignoring them both.
“Just tell him!” whispered Zan in Exxorian.
“No!” Jayna muttered back from the corner of her mouth.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not fair to him!”
“What are you two muttering about?” growled Bones as he looked up at the pair acting like naughty schoolchildren.
“Discussing whether we quit or not” quipped Jayna.
“Well speak in English; I don’t do your Swedish monkey chatter”
Jayna started towards Bones to slap him when Zan grabbed his sister around the waist and picked her up “We’ll be back in a second”
Zan drag-carried her into the hall and dumped her unceremoniously on her butt “Just tell him!” Zan pleaded in Exxorian.
“NO!” scrambled to her feet.
“He’s just a guy in a suit, nobody special. He was the one stupid enough to get changed into his costume at that party in Gotham.”
“A party that we were stealing codes off billionaires!” replied Jayna.
“I don’t see what the problem is?”
Jayna threw her hands up “If we tell Bones, then we’re ruining that guy’s life! He’s a vigilante trying to do good, that we happened to discover his secret id by being fish in a fish tank when he got changed! Bones will ruin his life!”
“You’re impossible! But fine, I won’t tell Bones that Ted Kord is the Blue Beetle! But you owe me!”
Jayna squealed in delight and hugged her brother. Bones watched quietly from his desk on camera as he picked up the phone.
“I need a lip reader and someone who is an exolinguistic that ISN’T Dr Carter Nichols! I think the twins have found out Batman’s secret identity.”
**
Notes:
Planets taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:DC_Comics_planets
The Florida landing is a reference to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_Breeze_UFO_incident
And most of my info on the Wonder Twins was gathered from what I knew, CV and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Twins
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