Talyesin's Tales

Previously on Squirrelman - Sins of the Past:

The Midnight Avenger invited the Crimefighters' League to make its headquarters in his ancestral home, Masters Mansion.

In the wake of an alien invasion, some of the members of Action City's City Council began to cast aspersions on the actions of the Crimefighters' League.

Squirrelman, led by Red Bolt, paid a visit to Madame Masque's, a high-end brothel catering to the assorted needs of its strictly metahuman clientele. There, he found Physique working under the pseudonym Lisa Libido, in order to relieve her uncontrollable sexual frustration.

It was subsequently revealed that Physique suffered from a particularly personal strain of the metavolution virus, and that the only means to cure it was to treat her with a dose of the dangerous and potentially fatal drug Boost.

Starring!

Matt Mattheson ......... as Squirrelman
Kimmy Sinclair ................ as Ragdoll
Rick Duncan ........................... as Ace
Lisa Dumont ................... as Physique
Stephanie Cooke ............. as Blue Jay
Mike Washington ............. as Dragon
Trevor Andrews ............... as Phenom
Jessica Wagner .............. as Rapunzel
Wayne Masters ... as Midnight Avenger
Steven Rand ............... as Showdown
Jackson Archer ............ as Moonbow
Alistair Crombie ............. as the Mole
Cricket ............................... as herself
Missy Mattheson ........ as Squirrelgrrl
Melody Johnson .............. as Decibelle
Kathryn Hardy.......... as Nightwoman

and

Reed Sterling ....................... as Doc
Molly O'Malley ........... as Glory Gal



"So how is she?"

I look at Rick with my right eye, my left one swollen shut and an ugly dark purple colour. My left cheekbone's broken, too. Left shoulder dislocated, left wrist sprained, couple ribs on my left side broken. All because I tried to hold down a friend while she went into convulsions, forgetting she can throw small cars.

Kimmy brings me an ice pack and presses it gently against my face. Painkillers have kicked in some, so its not like she needs to be gentle, but whatever, I'll take what I can get.

"She's okay," I mush-mouth out, half my mouth not really working, the other half not particularly concerned with pronunciation. "Doc says she'll be fine. Better, even."

"Okay, so explain that part again?" Kimmy asks.

"Doc gave her Boost to counteract the Dumont strain of the metavolution virus," I explain again. "The Boost boosted her powers to burn out the virus, but also had a mutagenic reaction which combined with the virus and changed her."

"So then what happened?" Steph asks.

"I'm a little fuzzy, because that's when she tossed me off her like a piece of paper and I went crashing into the ceiling. But by then, Doc had called in the twins, who jumped her and managed to keep her from hurting herself while Doc tried to stabilize the mutation. Anyhow, long story short, Lisa's in stable condition, but she's mutated somehow. Her powers are seriously different now - she's not as invulnerable, not as strong, according to Doc's scanners, but the weirdest part of it is, she's younger."

"What?"

"Well, here's the thing, right? She's nearly fifty, chronologically. But she was in suspended animation for seventeen years, not aging, so biologically she's still in her early thirties. Now, according to Doc, Lisa's regressed in age to the point of her 'physical prime' - early twenties, looks like. And her healing abilities are through the roof - Doc's keeping her overnight for observation and tests, but she was awake and aware and fine from what I could tell when I left there, half hour ago. Little confused, a little disappointed that she won't be stopping missiles with her skin any more - bullets, probably, but not the armour-piercing kind - but thrilled like hell the little lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth are gone, and her 'boobs and butt aren't sagging any more', her words."

"Oh yeah, they were really sagging before," Steph says to Kimmy, who answers with a smirk and a chuckle.

"What about you?" Wayne asks.

I shrug with my good shoulder. "The eye'll be fine this time tomorrow, the bones by the end of the week. Been hurt worse before." A yawn stretches my face, and I'm glad the painkillers are keeping me from feeling it.

"It's nearly dawn," Wayne says. "We should try and get some sleep. Michaels will wake me if anything needs our attention, and half the team will be up in a few hours anyway. They can take care of whatever pops up." He gives me a grin, one leader-type to another. "Delegation's a wonderful thing, isn't it?"

"Can be, yeah," I agree, then try to get to my feet only the painkillers are making me a bit fuzzy, so Kimmy gets her shoulder under my right one, helping me up and up to our quarters.

I sleep something like twelve hours. When I wake up it's early evening, the sun just setting, and the swelling's gone down on my eye enough for me to see out of it again. Cheek's still sore as hell, shoulder's not much fun but I can move it, and my side still sends little sharp stabs of pain when I breathe in too deep, but I get out of bed, head to the can to empty my bladder, shower and get dressed, jeans and my Actionauts sweatshirt.

When I head downstairs, Wayne's butler Michaels is bringing out supper buffet-style, and there's maybe half the team sitting down to eat or serving themselves to food. They all look up when I walk in, and Missy comes over to give me a hug.

"Careful, honey, careful," I tell her, hugging her with my good arm.

"Jeez, you look like hell," Steve says, coming over to shake my hand.

"You should see the other guy," I quip back.

"Already did, and damn she looks fine," he grins, nodding over my shoulder toward something behind me. I turn around.

He's right, she does. Lisa's standing there, chatting with Mike and Trevor and Jessie, but looking like she's my son's age, maybe twenty, twenty-one. She looks up and sees me, then comes over.

"Oh shit, Matt, I'm so sorry," she says. "I did that, didn't I? Jesus, I wish-"

"Don't worry about it," I tell her. "How are you doing?"

"Much better," she says. "Everything's under control, for the first time since I got sick." She looks me in the eye, tears of gratitude starting, and says quietly, "Thank you. Thank you so much," then wraps me in a hug.

"Careful careful careful!" I say. Maybe she can't throw cars any more but according to Doc's readings last night she's still twice as strong as me, so I'm not taking any chances, but I shouldn't have worried, since she's as careful with me as possible.

I load up a plate full of food - roast beef and potatoes and veggies, home cooked, something I haven't had in years - and grab a seat, let the conversations sort of flow over me as I dig in. Folks are mostly talking about their day, the criminals they arrested, the cases they're following. Seems the Technocracy, WOLFEN and the Krieg took a major hit, and have gone to ground. Still no sign of the Mole, which has Cricket and a few of the others out combing the streets for info all day, shaking down informants all over the city, but so far nothing. Lisa's thrilled that she can eat a normal plate of food and feel full, like a regular person.

By some miracle, the next couple of days are pretty uneventful, which is to say, there's only a couple of emergencies per day, most of which the Crimefighters take care of. Team Title's busy on the Moon, the Sterling Squad have something cooking in the Atomiverse - which loses us Trevor for a couple days, at Molly's invite - and TeenSupreme has a bunch of problems of their own, particularly with the Children of Blood, one of the sub-sects of COVEN, so all in all the Crimefighters' League gets plenty of good press.

Which is fine by me, because I'm meeting with lawyers for the most part, trying to establish that the Crimefighters' League did everything in its power to repel the invasion, and to stop the triad of terrorists from successfully carrying out their plot at the Captain Action Hydro Plant. No matter what our actual position is, the lawyers tell me, at this point it's not about the truth, but opinions. The City Councillors Office is looking to set up a special investigatory committee to look into the 'responsible and accountable allocation of metahuman resources', whatever that means. Bunch of bureaucratic assholes. Anyhow, I set the lawyers loose on it and try to focus on healing up and running my team.

Having the Ultras on the team means kicking up our potential firepower something incredible, so I split them up as much as possible to keep our options open. I keep Lisa on some of the easier stuff, until she's sure she knows her new limits. Regenerative healing powers don't make the damage hurt any less, and she's had a lot of experience just jumping in front of bullets and whatever, experience I want to make sure she unlearns before she's going up against the big guns. She knows what I'm doing, but doesn't even complain once, because she's so happy all the time it's like she's a new person. Which, in some ways, I guess she is.

By middle of the week, I'm good to go. I lead a team out patrolling Lower Uptown, my old turf - me and Ragdoll, Blue Jay, Decibelle, Showdown, Physique, Squirrelgrrl, Moonbow, Nightwoman and Midnight Avenger. Hell of a team, and at midnight, when Wayne's powers kick in, we split the team in two, he leads Nightwoman, Decibelle, Showdown and Moonbow one way, the rest with me.

We move over the rooftops and up and down fire escapes, Physique more than keeping up - her reflexes are much faster now, her balance better, she's practically an acrobat like us - and Blue Jay soaring overhead, keeping an eye out for trouble. And she spots it, calling it in over the nanobead.

"Up ahead, some people, breaking into a skylight," Blue Jay reports.

"Some? How many is some?"

"Looks like three, maybe four? It's hard to tell, they're kind of... shifting in and out of view."

"Invisible or hiding?"

"Invisible."

"Swell," I say. "Okay, a bunch of invisible burglars is never a good thing. Steph, get down here with us. When Steph gets here we're going to go up and over the side of that building, hit them as hard as possible. I didn't enjoy the last time when we went up against invisible alien ninjas. I don't intend to repeat the experience with invisible human burglars."

Steph shows up and I pull on my goggles, switching them over to infrared. I notice Missy's got herself a similar pair and I try not to smile.

We jump across an alleyway, up a fire escape and over the edge of the roof. No one in sight. I switch the goggles over to lowlight, nothing. Clear lens, nothing.

"All clear," I whisper.

"Window," Blue Jay calls down. One of the windows of the skylight is shattered. They're in.

"Blue Jay, grab Physique, lift her over the window," I say. "Physique, you good to take point, take those windows out?"

"You know it, Squirrelly," she grins. Blue Jay grabs Physique by the shoulders with her claw-boots, beating her wings hard a couple times to lift her into the air.

"Get ready," I say to my fiancee and my daughter.

Steph drops Lisa through the window, the three of us going through about half a second later, Steph maybe a second later. In that second and a half, we're completely swarmed. They're all dressed in black dominatrix gear, all women.

The Femme Fatales. World-famous models-turned-assassins.

Lisa's got three, maybe four on her. Missy, Ragdoll and I are dodging kicks and punches from every direction, maybe half a dozen, eight attackers. Steph's got two or three herself, swinging down from the rafters to catch her mid-air.

Normally I wouldn't be worried. Twelve, fifteen, against the five of us? Usually not a problem. But they're fresh, got light-bender gear, and this is obviously an ambush - and with Lisa still not sure of her new limits, and my left side still twinging a little from the new-healed ribs, it's a tougher fight than it should be, kicks and punches, flips and twists, mid-air somersaults, backflips, back to back with Kimmy and Missy, Lisa trying to hold her own and not doing so well, one of the Femmes wrapping her long thin legs around Lisa's throat, squeezing the breath out of her, while the others kept her busy with dozens of quick hard punches to assorted nerve clusters, Steph with her hands and feet full, brought down to the floor by the weight of three of the Femmes.

"Missy, go help Lisa!" I order, and she's off without a word, flipping over the circle of Femmes around us, grabbing the one choking Physique by the throat herself and pulling her to the ground.

Ragdoll and I keep flipping back and forth, switching opponents to keep them off-balance, but there's just too many, maybe ten against the two of us, almost ignoring Blue Jay, Physique, and Squirrelgrrl. One of the Femmes gets a good kick in on my left side, my new ribs don't break but they sure bend, and I let out a grunt of pain, and that's it, they're working my left side like it's my only side.

"Fuck this," I say, then yell to Kimmy, "Split!"

Kimmy goes left and I go right, and every single one of the Femme Fatales goes after me, which explains who the ambush was set for. I jump up into the corner of the ceiling, but they're in the rafters coming after me, so that's no use.

Kimmy's helping Blue Jay deal with a couple and Physique's on her hands and knees, trying to catch her breath while Squirrelgrrl keeps the two or three Femmes from getting at her, while I've got ten of them all to myself.

I'm about to have my ass handed to me by a bunch of skinny, beautiful women, with a serious mad on, dressed in black leather straps and silver buckles.

"There's people pay good money for this kind of attention," I say to them. "Do I get to know who to thank for hiring you ladies?"

"Shut it, worm," one of the Femmes says.

"You're dead, maggot," another adds, and they jump me.

And that's when the night comes alive around us.

Up at the broken skylight, Nightwoman's controlling the shadows, wrapping them around the Femmes like snakes. One of the shadows turns into Midnight Avenger, takes out two of the Femmes, dropping with them to the floor below. Moonbow puts arrows into the Femmes around Lisa, Missy, Kimmy and Steph. Then Decibelle and Showdown drop in, Showdown takes out four of them with four hits, Decibelle lets out a shriek that drops four more. I tackle the one who called me a worm, grabbing her by the straps of her vest and shaking her, hard.

"Who hired you?!" I yell into her face. "Tell me who hired you!"

"Eat me, bitch!" she yells back. I'm about to haul off and backhand her, but I catch sight of Missy and Kimmy looking at me, and I drop her to the ground.

"Call it in," I tell Kimmy.

Nightwoman wraps the shadows around the Femmes so that they can't get away while we wait for the ACPD to show.

"They were after you," Physique says to me.

"Yeah," I say. "You okay?"

"Me? Yeah. This boosted healing ability really comes in handy."

"I'll say."

"Why you?"

"Guess I should have paid the electrical bill."

"Yeah, guess so."

"Honestly, I don't know."

"We should find out."

"Yeah."

"Of course," Ragdoll says, joining us, "if they were really serious about trying to kill you, they would have waited for you to be alone, not surrounded by your team."

"Yeah," I agree. "Still, they don't come cheap."

"You've heard of them?"

"Yeah. Known to make their victims suffer before finishing them off."

"Sounds like you pissed off the wrong person."

"Coulda sworn I paid the electrical bill."

"You did," Kimmy jokes with a smirk. "Did you pay the credit cards?"

"That must be it."

The cops show up and we get the arrest sorted out. For some reason, the cops give us a hard time about it, questioning us about the breaking and entering, making sure we had probable cause, giving us grief over interrogating them about who hired them to kill me. The whole process takes twice as long as it normally does, and leaves everyone pissed off and on edge.

We keep patrolling but things are pretty quiet, just a couple of muggings that are over before they know what hits them, so around four we call it a night and head back to Masters Mansion.

There's a fire lit in the fireplace of the big parlour we've been using for team meetings.

"That's odd," Wayne says as we walk in.

"Sorry to make myself at home," a voice says from the corner behind us.

We whirl around. There's a big guy, older, broad shouldered, barrel-chested, short grey hair, square jaw, piercing blue eyes, dressed in a white shirt, sleeves rolled up, and dark pants, holding a half-full brandy snifter, just sitting in one of the armchairs.

"Your brandy, Mr. Masters, is excellent," he says.

"Who the hell are you?" Wayne says.

"My name is Augustus Octavian Steele," he says, standing up. "I understand you all have been looking for me."