Talyesin's Tales

Previously on Squirrelman - Sins of the Past:

Members of the Crimefighters' League unearthed evidence that the Krieg and WOLFEN, two paramilitary terrorist groups, were working together for some unknown purpose. Coupled with the knowledge that the Krieg was already working with the Technocracy, this boded ill for Action City.

While meeting at the Sterling Spire with some of the Crimefighters' League to discuss their various cases, Squirrelman and Ragdoll received a surprise - their grown children, having travelled back from the future.

During this unexpected family reunion, the Spire was attacked by a group of Xerxian Advance Stealth Scouts - or, as Squirrelgrrl put it, 'alien ninjas.' These alien ninjas were a sure sign that an invasion was imminent.

As they fought the alien ninjas, Ragdoll received a wound to her leg, causing a lot of blood loss.

Once they had eliminated the alien threat to the Sterling Spire and gotten the power back online, Squirrelman and his teammates saw dozens of black alien spacecraft hovering in the skies over Action City...



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

with

Max Mattheson ................... as Hero
Missy Mattheson ........ as Squirrelgrrl

Guest starring

Reed Sterling ....................... as Doc
Carmine DaCosta ....... as Forerunner



"Squirrelman calling all Crimefighters! Action City's in peril. Meet us at the Sterling Spire!"

"In peril?"

"Quiet, you. Okay team, listen up."

We're in the med lab, not exactly the greatest place to be organizing a resistance to the alien invaders. Most of my team is still groggy from the knockout gas. Kimmy's still unconscious from loss of blood. It hasn't exactly been a good day, and it's about to get worse.

"According to Doc, the City officials are still trying to contact the invaders. They're not doing anything except floating there. State and Federal responses are also being mobilized, but it's not everyday that an alien armada just appears on our doorstep, so to speak."

"It 's not?"

"So what are we looking at, Max?"

"These look to be standard Xerxian battlecruisers. If their designs and abilities are anything like what they'll be when I'm from, these will each have three dozen personal combat vehicles - fightercraft - for their warrior caste, who make the advance stealth scouts look like fuzzy cuddly bunnies by comparison."

"How many are there, Reed?"

"My equipment is telling me that there are seventy two of them."

"Right," Max says. "Which I'll tell you indicates a phalanx, not a full armada. If the phalanx is here, the main attack will fall somewhere else - probably the other side of the planet."

Kimmy moans a little and her eyes flicker open. I smile down at her.

"Hey," I say to her. Doc starts checking her vitals.

"Can we take them?" Phenom asks. "If Team Title goes after the main attack, I mean?"

Reed says, "I've sent word to Team Title but they're a little preoccupied - something nasty happening in Antarctica."

"Swell."

"Who's going to take the main attack, then?"

"Let's focus on what we can do here," I say. "One cataclysm at a time."

"Who have we got here, in town?" Ace asks.

"Us, the Sterling Squad, TeenSupreme, the Weirdsville Nine, and a bunch of solos and duos."

"That's not much."

"It's gonna have to be enough."

"And the bottom line is we don't have much time. They're powering up as we speak."

"I was hoping to wait for the rest of the team to get here but-"

An energy-beam blasting the Ordway Center stops our conversation short.

"Okay people, move it!" I yell. Kimmy starts to sit up but I stop her. "You are staying here."

"I'm fine, Matt."

"Doc?"

"You're not, actually."

"You heard him. You're staying here. Missy, you're staying to make sure she stays here."

"Daddeeeee-"

"No, and that's final. You're staying here, and you're making sure she stays here. I don't have time to argue with either of you, so please, for me, for once, just do what I ask you to do?"

"Fine," they both say, crossing their arms. Missy looks so much like her mother it's eerie.

"Max, you're with me."

"Okay Dad."

Max and I follow the others to the express elevator to the Spire Launch Pad. I know Reed's got a bunch of Sterlingcars up there. Everyone else has already headed up, so Max and I are alone in the elevator.

"You've fought these guys before, I take it," I say to him.

"Plenty of times."

"Sounds fun, when you're from."

"I guess."

Terse kid, I think, but it might be pre-combat nerves.

We get to the Sterlingcars, I take the controls and pilot us out into the air.

Outside, it's gotten pretty bad. Like Max told us, the individual ships are releasing dozens of smaller craft, each of the smaller craft attacking selected targets, big black bugs giving birth to small black bugs.

"Squirrelman calling all Crimefighters, report in," I say into my nanobead.

One by one the team reports in - all except Ragdoll, Physique, Mole and Cricket. I'll worry about them later.

"Okay, this is what I want-"

"Dad."

"Everyone who can't fly get as high up as you can-"

"Dad."

"We'll swing by in Sterlingcars to pick you up-"

"Dad!"

"I want to hit these guys right in the-"

"DAD!"

"What, Max?!"

"God I can't believe you ever flew this drecking bad here they come MOVE!"

He shoves me out of the way and takes the controls and suddenly I'm hanging on for my life. We dive for the streets, a dozen fightercraft on our tail, beams of energy flashing past us, Max keeping ahead of them, by the skin of our teeth, pitching and rolling and banking.

"You know how to use a firearm?!" he yells at me.

"Not really!" I say.

He hands me his ray gun and says, "Learn fast!"

I take it and start shooting, missing everything completely. It's embarrassing how completely I miss.

Max starts zipping in and out and around a variety of skywalks and airbridges and support pylons, too fast for the fightercraft to keep up, pulling out of dives at the last second, taking out the fighters by getting them to fly into buildings and skywalks and each other.

"Where'd you learn to fly like this?" I ask him at one point, hanging upside out of the Sterlingcar as he barrel-rolls to avoid three of the fightercrafts at once. They smash into the support pylon that Max flies through like threading a needle.

"This? This isn't flying, Dad. This crate handles like a bathtub. You should see me in my starjet. That's flying."

"You haven't answered my question."

"You taught me, actually," he grins over his shoulder at me.

I grin back at him, then say, "I'll keep that in mind, Captain Hero."

"Nobody calls me that, Dad. It's just Hero, okay?"

An energy beam goes just over my shoulder - I twitch to the left just in time - and blasts a building ahead of us. Debris rains down on us as Max banks and spins, going evasive.

I look behind us. One fightercraft, bearing down on us. I steady myself in the back of the Sterlingcar and start shooting, but he's too good and we're dodging around too much.

"Frack, he's good - I can't shake him!" Hero yells.

"Slow down!" I yell back.

"What?!"

"Do it!"

Hero banks and slows us down enough that the fightercraft catches up to us and I jump the distance between us, hot-squeeze out the claws mid-air, grab onto the fightercraft and hang on as he tried to shake me. He's clubbing me with his rifle but he doesn't have any leverage, I'm tearing out wires and hoses and whatever I can slash at.

I get a good look at him. Six eyes behind the faceplate, staring at me, full of hate. He's kind of merged with the machinery of the fightercraft, part alien, part machine. Two arms sticking out of the main body, two arms inside, probably working the controls.

I punch through the faceplate and smash him in the face, twice, hard as I can, ripping out wires as I go, then there's yellow goo everywhere - alien blood, I guess - and we're spiralling out of control. I jump, hoping Max is somewhere close.

Shouldn't have worried. He catches me, perfect time and place. Kid can fly, I'll give him that much.

"Okay, Hero, get us into the air, I need to see what's the situation."

"Sit rep."

"What?"

"We call it the sit rep in combat."

"You can call it Aunt Fanny if you want, just get me in the air."

"Yes sir."

We get a better vantage and the situation is much better than I expected. Not good, mind you, but better. There are Sterlingcars and ACPD SWAT assault craft in the air, and dozens of crimefighters doing what they can. Of course, the alien fightercraft outnumber available defence forces ten to one, but, you know. We're fighting for our homes, here.

There's a lot of explosions. Mid-air, on the ground, everywhere. I'm tempted to tell Max to drop me off so I can help the civilians, the way I would have back before the League, but I know there's more to it now than that.

"How do we take them out, Hero?"

"It's just a phalanx. It's strictly one by one with these drecks. They're just here as a diversion, so they swoop in, make as much of a ruckus, cause as much damage, as possible. And they know they're expendable, and they're pissed about it, so they aim to take it out on us."

"Why us? I mean, why Earth?"

"I don't know, by which I mean, I know, but I don't remember."

"That's going to get real annoying."

"How do you think I feel?"

"Get us up there, will you?" I say, pointing.

We soar into the air, coming up alongside Doc Sterling and Carmine in a Sterlingcar, coordinating the people in the Sterlingcars with the ACPD.

"Yes Captain, I fully understand," Reed's saying into his headset, "but we merely need to hold them off long enough for the 101 st Armoured Airborne Infantry to arrive... Yes, the Governor's already authorized the National Guard."

"Doc, what's the plan?"

"I'm working on something to jam their communications but it will take a few minutes."

"I'm not much use up here, but they don't seem to have any ground troops. Small favours, I guess."

"Uh, Dad?"

"What, Max?"

"About those ground troops?"

"Yeah?"

He points out toward Crater Lake. A different shaped ship has materialized midair, dropping toward the ground.

"Troop carrier?" I ask.

"Yeah."

"Shit," I say. Into my nanobead, I say, "All Crimefighters, head for the Lake. We've got ground troops incoming."

Max turns the Sterlingcar around and heads toward Crater Lake.

"Wait, the Lake, or the Monument?" Ace asks.

"Why would they attack Captain Action?" Blue Jay asks.

"Not the statue," Phenom answers. "The hydroelectric power station underneath."

"Red?" I ask.

"I'm already here," Red Bolt answers. "They're unloading troops, heading for - Holy shit! There's - Shit! WOLFEN, the Technocracy and the Krieg are already here!"

"Aw fuck," Dragon says. "Any good news?"

"They're fighting the aliens?" Red answers

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend," Showdown says.

"Not this time, I fear," Darklight answers.

"Move it, people!" I order. "Max, get us there, now!"

"There's about a hundred sixers in the way, Dad."

"Sixers?"

"Six eyes, six limbs, six-sided ships, figure it out - duck!"

I was already ducking so the energy beam goes through empty air and we're barrel-rolling, banking and weaving through a cloud of fightercraft. Somehow Max manages to get them to fire at each other by flying between them. It's about ten seconds that feels like ten hours of twisting and looping and barely keeping ahead of the aliens, but then we're clear and Max pours on the speed to get us to the Captain Action Monument.

"Land us on his shoulders!" I tell Max, and he steers us in.

Down below, things are ugly. The terrorists have dug a hole in the island down to the hydro station, and they're defending it against the aliens, who want to get in there. I don't want to think about what the Technocracy, the Krieg, and WOLFEN are all doing there. I pull my goggles out of my jacket and slip them on, activating the telelenses so I can see them a little better. I recognize Colonel Fenris from WOLFEN, Nikki Tesla and the Cybernaut from the Technocracy, and Hauptmann Hassen from the Krieg. Swell. Whatever they're up to, it's big time bad news for us.

The rest of the team finally catches up and rallies to me on Captain Action's shoulders.

"What's the plan, son?" Ace hollers to me. The battle's nearly five hundred feet below us and the sound is deafening.

"We need to know what those terrorists are up to!" Phenom says.

I don't want to split us up, but there's terrorists on one side and alien invaders on the other, and all of them need to be stopped.

"Naiad, can you swamp them?" I ask.

"I can try, but there's no way for me to summon up that much water and keep it from the hole they've made," she answers. "The hydro plant will be flooded."

"Not a good idea to flood a hydroelectric station, boss," Powerband says.

"Can you put a field over the hole?" I ask him. He nods.

"Right," I say. "Jill, when I give the signal, wash the island clear. Hank, get that field in place. Go!"

Naiad jumps off the Sterlingcar she was in with Phenom, a perfect swan dive five hundred feet into Crater Lake.

"We slap a field over the hole, the Techs, Krieg and WOLFEN will be trapped inside," Phenom says. "Whatever they're up to, we need to stop them."

"I know," I say, putting my goggles back in my pocket. "That's why we're going in. Follow me."

We dive into the battle. Energy beams and bullets are flying every which way, grenades going off, Technocracy Tinmen blowing up, Krieg Clockrockers losing parts, WOLFEN agents dragging their wounded comrades back to the hole, aliens lying dead all around us, a really perfect hell, with us in the middle. Superia heads in first, flashes a concussive wave of energy when she lands that clears us enough space to land next to her, then we're there, surrounded by aliens and terrorists, all of them trying to kill each other, and us.

It's a bit of a nightmare. I can't believe how many there are, coming from all sides. I try to keep an eye on Max but soon all I'm aware of him is the whine-blast of that ray gun of his, somewhere in all the chaos. Later, all I can remember is flashes, images. Ace takes a bullet in the arm, Anna right by his side; Phenom bending the barrel of a Tinman's main gun; Superia angry, no, furious, really letting loose, holding a Clockrocker's leg like a club and sending aliens flying; a red and yellow blur that saves my life by taking out a WOLFEN machine gun nest; Dragon getting swarmed by a dozen Krieg soldiers, all of them with electro-batons; Psifire and Showdown standing back to back on a pile of bodies as they're rushed again and again; an arrow suddenly erupting from the throat of an alien who was rushing me, Moonbow nodding to me as the alien slumps to the ground, dead; Troubleshooter and Midnight Avenger working together to take down a Tinman; Rapunzel swinging a half dozen aliens around her, keeping them from rushing her; Blue Jay grabbing Max out of the middle of a gang of Technocracy technauts; Powerband lifting a huge Clockrocker into the air and crashing it into a Tinman. It's a blur of colours and sounds, red human and yellow alien blood and brown mud and green grass, screams, explosions, gunfire, red and grey WOLFEN uniforms, grey and black Krieg uniforms, green and white Technocracy outfits, the dead flat black of the Xerxians, and us - bright colours of our individual costumes mixed with the navy and silver League uniforms.

"Hank, the field!" I finally have time to yell.

Showdown, Midnight Avenger, Troubleshooter and I jump to defend Powerband as he lifts both arms and a huge yellow force field covers the hole, trapping most of the aliens and terrorists outside.

"Jill, now!" I yell.

An enormous wave of water crashes over Memorial Island, sending hundreds of aliens and terrorists into the lake. Hank's field holds, no problem. We still have dozens of Krieg, Technocracy, and WOLFEN to deal with. A few aliens got caught inside, too.

An explosion from inside the hydro station knocks us off our feet. Hank's field goes down.

Action City goes black as all the power goes out.