Talyesin's Tales

Previously on Squirrelman - Sins of the Past:

Squirrelman and members of the Crimefighters' League and the Sterling Squad found a secret laboratory under the ruins of the Living Complex. Within the lab they found a cloning chamber, which held a gestating clone of the metahuman mass murderer, Harvest.

While helping to contain the worst prison break in Action City history, the Crimefighters' League were invited to appear before Mayor Elizabeth Ross-Carter, who was once known as the patriotic crimefighter Maiden America.

As they met with the Mayor, they were attacked by a madman truly deserving of the title "super-villain" - Baron Zero...






Starring:

Matt Mattheson ......... as Squirrelman
Kimmy Sinclair ................ as Ragdoll
Rick Duncan ........................... as Ace
Lisa Dumont ................... as Physique
Anna Kimble ................. as Darklight
Stephanie Cooke ............. as Blue Jay
Jay Allen ........................ as Red Bolt
Mike Washington ............. as Dragon
Trevor Andrews ............... as Phenom
Jessica Wagner .............. as Rapunzel
Katie McCormick ............ as Superia
Hank Scott .................. as Powerband
Wayne Masters ... as Midnight Avenger
Jill Suzuki ........................... as Naiad
Steven Rand ............... as Showdown
Hannah Cohen ................... as Psifire
Kyle Drake ........... as Troubleshooter
Jackson Archer ............ as Moonbow
Alistair Crombie ............. as the Mole
Cricket ............................... as herself

Guest starring:

Elizabeth Ross-Carter ... as Maiden America

Reed Sterling ....................... as Doc
Julia Sterling ................... as herself
Joe Sterling ....... as SuperTwin Red
Jerry Sterling .... as SuperTwin Blue
Jeannie Sterling .............. as Zephyr
Carmine DaCosta ....... as Forerunner
Curt Connor ......... as Livin' Lightnin'
Molly O'Malley ........... as Glory Gal

Cassandra Kent .............. as Princess
Chrissy Fenton ................. as Fantasy
Alexandra Spelling ................ as Hex
Courtney Anderson ........... as Glitter
Juan Juarez ........................ as Resize
Andrew Carson ............. as Go-Getter
Jane Smith ......................... as Quique
Ronnie Schuler .......... as Monkeysee
Donnie Schuler ........... as Monkeydo

Ulysses Kent ................ as Majestic
Athena Kent ........ as Lady Majestic




Baron Zero's a genius who invented a suit of armour that gave him powers. Over the years he's re-designed the suit again and again so that it eventually wound up being a kind of woven circuitry, thin as cloth, that he called cyberweave. What did he do with this miraculous new cloth? Did he try and take over the world like a normal mad scientist?

Nope. See, he was too smart for that. Trying to take over the world gets you stomped on by every mask out there. No, Baron Zero took over organized crime.

Late seventies, early eighties? Family Zero was the name in Action City's organized crime. Stonewall ran protection, Jailbait and Icemaiden ran prostitution, Jekyll'n'Hyde and Crawlspace hid the bodies, Pipedream controlled drugs, and Arachne managed gambling and money laundering. The Family were into every scheme and plot that went down in Action City back then, somehow. And the only thing you needed to join the Family was powers.

Of course, back then, it wasn't just possible, it was easy to get yourself powered up. All you needed was money and a willingness to be a test subject. Lots of boneheads paid thousands of dollars to wind up freaks, or worse.

But to get in Family Zero you needed powers. Which was basically saying, to operate a criminal enterprise in Action City, you needed powers. Which was pretty ironic if you ask me, since the capo di tutti capo of Action City's organized crime didn't have any powers of his own.

Anyhow, he's hovering there, outside the Mayor's office, bold as brass.

"Hello, Mayor Bitch," he says. I mindflash on the fact that Maiden America came out of retirement to help break Family Zero. "Still alive? Don't make it that easy for me."

"Hello, asshole," the Mayor answers, pulling herself out of the wreckage of the wall. Her shirt and suit are scorched rags, so she tears them off and stands there in her bra and pants. "What do you think?"

"I think you're starting to sag," he laughs.

The Mayor looks at me. I'm trying not to look at her bra. She doesn't look like she's sagging at all, to me.

"Well?" she says to me, taking off her cracked glasses and tossing them to the floor.

"Get him!" I order my team.

Powerband slams a protective bubble around the mayoral aide who's pissing himself in the corner, and a good thing too, because a blast of energy from Zero rips through the room. It doesn't fry us, but we get tossed around quite a bit.

It's messy and unorganized. Troubleshooter tosses a flash grenade at Zero, but he's not blinded. Ace throws a bunch of razor-cards that just bounce off the armour, just like Moonbow's arrows. Ragdoll, Cricket, Midnight Avenger and I are out the window, each of us grabbing a limb, but he's slick, coated in a force field or something, and he flexes and there's a pulse wave of energy and we go flying back into the room. But it was enough of a distraction for Physique to pick up the sofa and launch it at him, and that catches him off guard long enough for Phenom to jump out there and start pounding on him. The force field stops a lot of the force of his punches, though, so Phenom's just distracting him. Blue Jay's outside and flies around, looking for an opening, kicking and clawing with her new clawed boots. Dragon joins in a second later - he got the worst of the energy blast, sent him clear out the other side of the building - clawing and tearing at Zero.

Behind me, I hear a rushing noise and I turn in time to see the Mayor spin around in place, surrounded by tiny pinpoint stars, and suddenly Maiden America is standing there, red white and true blue.

She and Superia fly right at the Baron, barrelling into him full force, joining in the free-for-all outside.

"Powerband, get us out there!" I yell over the thunder of the punches landing on Zero's force field.

He forms a platform around the Baron with a ramp leading out to it, and suddenly we're all there, kicking and punching, claws and fists, tendrils of hair and water, blasts of fire and energy and magic, arrows, cards, staff, shield. And I'll give it to him, he's good. He's keeping us off balance, blasting us back again and again, grabbing one of us after another and tossing us off the platform, keeping our fliers busy saving our non-flier butts. Maiden America finally manages to knock him down. We pile on.

I spot Showdown over by Psifire and suddenly Zero's head erupts in green flame. He flexes again and his force field expands or something and we're all thrown off, right to the edge of the platform and over in a couple of cases, caught by teammates at the last second. I'm hanging there by one hand, holding Cricket with the other hand.

And that's when Showdown launches himself at Zero, a quick punch at the buckle on the Baron's belt. A crystal in the buckle shatters.

"No!" Zero says, his eyes going wide.

"Yeah," Showdown smirks, and a roundhouse kick later Zero's on his ass, out like a light.

We head back to the Mayor's office, which is utterly ruined. I ask Showdown, "How'd you know about the crystal on his belt?"

"That's what I spent my life training for, man," he laughs. "I can sense weaknesses, flaws. That first time you guys grabbed him and he did that flex thing, sent you flying? I caught a glimpse of a flash of light from the crystal, got my senses tingling, you know? So I asked Psifire to try and psi-bolt him-"

"Which didn't work, by the way, he's got some serious anti-teep hardware in that suit."

"- and I figured he'd flex everyone off him again, leave him just weak enough for a split second for me to get in there and shatter it. Looks like it worked."

"Good job, all of you," Maiden America says. Powerband lets the aide out of the force bubble, just as City Hall security rushes into the room.

"Not... good enough," Zero says from the floor. Troubleshooter's got him handcuffed and is starting to take off the cyberweave suit to disarm him, when Baron Zero says, "Next time, Mayor Bitch."

"Don't let him-" Showdown yells, too late.

Baron Zero disappears, teleporting away.

"Fuck!" Dragon yells.

"Goddammit," Troubleshooter adds.

"Okay, how is it suddenly everyone can teleport?" I ask. "Squidface did the same thing to me the other day."

"Our preliminary reports indicate that the Revolutionists were handing out these teleport discs," Maiden America says, dismissing her security with a wave of her hand and a sour look. She heads over to her desk and opens a drawer, pulling out a little disc about the size of a quarter and tosses it to me.

"Near as we can tell, they squeeze the disc and get teleported to a nearby location. Range about a half a kilometre, far enough away to elude pursuit and capture."

"He who fights and runs away, huh?"

"Exactly."

"Okay team, you heard the lady," I say. "Standard operating procedure from now on whenever we capture someone is search them immediately for one of these discs. Okay?"

"Mayor Ross-Carter?" the aide says. "I hate to interrupt-"

"I know. The Planning Committee. Alright," she says, and spins in place again, turning back to her civilian clothes, which doesn't cover much more than her outfit did. She heads over to a closet and pulls out a fresh change of clothes.

"My offer?" she asks me.

"Like I said, I'll talk to my team."

"Fine. I'll expect an answer Monday morning."

"You'll have it."

"If you'll excuse me?" she says, dismissing us. We head out.

"Now what, boss man?" Ace asks us as we exit the lobby.

"Who's hungry?" Dragon asks. "I'm starving."

"Well, at the moment, we don't have a headquarters we can go to," I say. "And we still have to play compare the cases."

"Actually, the first thing I'd like to bring up is that... thing, in the secret lab," Physique says.

"Right," I say. "That's gotta take precedence."

"Precedence over breakfast?"

"You want to be the one to tell the press it escaped because you were finishing your pancakes?"

Dragon doesn't have anything to say to that.

"Actually, I'm starving too," Physique says.

"Lisa, it was your - Fine, we'll pick something up on the way."

We head into the nearest Burgerman and while Ace is organizing the order I put in a call to Doc at the Spire. He tells us he's bringing the Squad and they'll meet us there.

We eat on the way. There's an entrance to Downtown that's closer than the Miller's Crossing vampire hotel, and we've got Mole and Cricket to guide us, so we take that entrance, even though it means going through the sewers. The entrance is a storm drain that empties into the White River. Physique and Dragon pull the storm grate out of the drain and we head in, Mole leading the way.

The storm drain leads to a junction chamber and we head down an actual sewer pipe. Big enough to let us walk single file along it, maybe three inches of some gross I'm hoping it was mostly water trickling along the floor, scum caked on the walls to about chest level. And the smell... I'd rather not discuss the smell. Makes me miss my full-face mask. It tended to filter out this kind of crap. The smell makes me regret having eaten, and I don't think I'm the only one.

"Are we there yet?" Dragon asks.

"Almost there, my friends," Mole says.

We get turned around and turned around and eventually my sense of direction is utterly fucked. Finally we're led to another sewer grating.

"Through here," Mole tells us. Behind me I hear Ragdoll popping and cracking her joints.

Phenom's the closest so he moves the grating aside.

We step out into Downtown, at the back of what was an alley once but the building on one side is a tumbled-down ruin of bricks and exposed I-beams. Pretty secluded spot. About half a block from the wrecked brownstone that will lead us to the Living Complex.

"I assumed we didn't want our approach noticed," Mole says.

"Good thinking, Alistair," I tell him. We make our way over to the brownstone. Just as we're getting there we spot the Sterling Squad on their way. They're not alone.

TeenSupreme is right behind them. Majestic and Lady Majestic, too. I step up to greet them, shaking hands with Reed, Ulysses, and Cassie.

"Doc told us what's going on," Majestic says to me. "Team Title is on their way, meeting in the Citadel. In case the worst happens."

"And we can call in the rest of the Weirdsville Nine if necessary," Princess adds.

"Holy socks, Reed," I say. "You don't fool around, huh?"

"I think you underestimate the capacity for terror the name Harvest can elicit in our circles," he says. "Anyone who found out about this wanted in. No one wants the worst to happen." He looks over the assembled teams. There are nearly forty of us here, with more as backup topside. He nods to himself and says, "Let's do this."

Reed leads the way. Once we're through the rubble in the stairwell and we're actually in the complex itself, Reed says, "Good morning, Living Complex."

"Good morning, Doctor," the Complex answers, its voice coming from speakers and intercoms all over the place. "Good morning, everyone."

Lots of mumbled greetings answer it. It's a little odd talking to everywhere.

"Living Complex, has anything or anyone disturbed Project Solstice since we left here?" Doc asks.

"No, Doctor."

"Excellent."

We head down to the secret lab under the Complex.


"I had no idea any of this was here," Mole says, looking sick to his stomach.

"No one did, Alistair," I tell him. "Don't beat yourself up. We're going to take care of it."

He doesn't say anything, just nods.

We get ready. Reed, Majestic, Princess and I are going in first, with Troubleshooter and the SuperTwins right behind us. Jeannie - who's not wearing her Sterling Squad uniform, I notice, so I guess she's here as part of TeenSupreme - insists on coming with, since she's better at computer data-cracking than the twins are. Everyone else is setting up all around the secret lab. No one wants the clone to escape.

"Reed, we should bring Curt, too," I tell him. "In case anything goes wrong, he can short out the system."

"Right, good thinking," he says, calling Curt over.

"I'm coming too," Physique says in a way that doesn't invite debate. I nod.

"Everyone ready?" I ask. General acknowledgement. Everyone's on edge. Kimmy keeps popping and cracking her joints. I know she'd be happier going in with me, but I need her out here.

"Okay Reed, do it," I say. Reed types in the code on the access panel.

The door opens. We go in.

The lab's empty.