Talyesin's Tales

Previously on Squirrelman - Sins of the Past:

Injured in the battle with the gangers, the Junkernaut, and the Boosted cyber-Behemoth in the Praxis lab in Downtown, Squirrelman and Ragdoll had their wounds healed by the back alley black market meta-doctor, Brother Caduceus.

Squirrelman, Ragdoll, and several other Action City crimefighters were trapped through chronomancy in the Kane Sanitarium. Together, they fought the inmates of the asylum, again and again, and were forged into the Crimefighters' League.

During an alien invasion, the Mole never reported for action and remained missing, despite concerted efforts on the part of the Crimefighters' League to find their teammate.

Following the alien invasion, Squirrelman and Ragdoll received unexpected visitors - their grown children, Captain Max 'Hero' Mattheson and Squirrelgrrl, on a time-travel excursion from the future.

On the day of the worst prison break in Action City's history, the names of the Department of Metahuman Affairs' Protected Registry were somehow leaked and posted to the dataweb, resulting in city-wide devastation and chaos.

The resulting breakdown of order fuelled fires of bigotry, jealousy, and fear, thought long dormant, and events soon propelled Action City City Hall to declare unsanctioned crimefighting to be unnecessary and unwanted. Several members of the Crimefighters' League resigned their membership and went into hiding.

Upon their return from Subterra, the Crimefighters' League, Reed Sterling, and Doc Steele gathered at the Sterling Spire, headquarters and home of the Sterling Squad. As they discussed events surrounding the creation of the Crimefighters' League at the hands of a powerful sorceress who was also responsible for the death of Annie O'Day, a former colleague of Doc Steele's, Squirrelgrrl and Max suddenly realized they would be returning to the future. Just as they began to fade from that point in the timestream, Squirrelgrrl warned her parents and their colleagues to evacuate the Sterling Spire.

Just as the Crimefighters' League, the Sterling Squad, and the assorted civilian support personnel managed to evacuate, Squirrelman received a call from the long-missing Mole over his nanobead. The Mole warned them to evacuate the Sterling Spire, that there was a bomb, that "it was Praxis"... and then the Spire blew up...




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
Wayne Masters ... as Midnight Avenger
Steven Rand ............... as Showdown
Kyle Drake ........... as Troubleshooter
Cricket ............................... as herself

Guest-starring

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

with

Reed 'Doc' Sterling

and

Augustus Octavian 'Doc' Steele


That's not, strictly speaking, accurate. There's an explosion, muffled, like it's far away. And then the Spire collapses in on itself, tumbling down into a pile of rubble and a cloud of dust at the bottom of a crater. The Sterling Spire is destroyed.

Cricket's sobbing, saying, "No, no, no," into my nanobead. I pull her close, and she holds onto me like she's drowning. Drowning in grief.

"Holy... holy socks," Reed mutters. Julia transfers over to our Sterlingcar, goes to him, holds him.

"What... what... what..." is all Jerry can say. Joe looks like he wants to puke or punch something or both. Reed looks around suddenly, panicking.

"Where's Jeannie? Where's your sister?"

The whole Sterling Squad looks like they're about to panic, but Superia says, "She's fine! She's fine, she's at the Citadel, she went with TeenSupreme, remember?"

The Sterlings' relief is so great that Joe actually sits down on the edge of one of the Sterlingcars, puts his face in his hands, and cries.

"Right," Reed says, breathing again. "Right. Of course."

"Well, fuck," Curt says. "I just finished redecorating my room!"

It breaks the tension a little. Some folks even relax enough to laugh.

Then there's the sound of another explosion. Off toward-

"Bendis Correctional," Blue Jay says, pointing.

From here we can dimly see that Action City's main prison complex is collapsing in on itself, just like the Spire did.

Another explosion. From Weirdsville. I don't even have to look to know.

"Kane Sanitarium," I say, feeling numb all over. All the times I thought, hoped, wished the place would burn to the ground... I look over, pull on my goggles, switch to telescopic. It's a pile of rubble.

And people are crawling out.

I check Bendis Correctional. Same thing. Survivors.

Escapees.

"Oh Jesus," I hear Blue Jay say. She really is turning into quite the potty-mouth.

"What? What is it?" Red Bolt asks.

"It's another prison break," I say. "And this time the prisons stay broke."

I rub my face.

"Boss?" Physique asks. "What do we do?"

"We do what we always do, Lisa," I answer. "We do what we have to do."

I turn to Reed.

"Doc, is there- was there anything in the Spire that could be, you know, dangerous?" I ask him, realizing how stupid that sounds. I can think of six or seven things off the top of my head that were in Doc's lab alone that I wouldn't want to see in the wrong hands. Some of them I don't like seeing in the right hands. He just nods, still a little in shock. "Okay then. You need to take the Squad and secure the rubble, okay Doc?"

"Of course," he says.

"I'll go with them," Doc Steele offers.

"Do that," I say. "The League and I will..." The Guardians will probably respond to the Bendis explosion first, if I'm any judge of cops and their priorities. "We'll take the Kane."

We re-organize ourselves in the Sterlingcars, the League in two, the Squad take the others, and we head off in different directions.

"What are we going to do?" Ragdoll asks me.

"Keep the psychos from escaping," I say.

"And after that?"

"I don't know. Help the Sterlings, I guess."

"What did Mole mean by 'It was Praxis'?"

"I don't know, Kimmy."

She doesn't say anything after that. I'm concentrating on flying the Sterlingcar, on trying not to think about the psychos that we've put away since the mass prison break, getting out again, and now the public's against us, the cops are against us, City Hall's against us. I told Kimmy this was going to get worse before it gets better... and it just got worse.

A lot worse, we see as we get closer. None of the inmates of the Kane are injured, near as I can tell, like they were somehow protected, shielded from the blast and the debris.

Some of them have even found their costumes and gear.

"Fucking hell," Dragon grumbles.

"You said it," Physique adds.

Before I can even stop her, before I even know what she's doing, Cricket's out of the Sterlingcar, jumping ahead.

"Shit!" I say. Then I yell to the team, "Go! Go! Go! Hit 'em hard! Everything you've got!"

Cricket's not thinking, she's letting her grief and rage do her thinking for her. She lands in the middle of a mob of nutjobs. I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing that there are no normal psychiatric patients in the Kane. After the escape, it was decided that only the worst cases, the powered psychos, would be readmitted to the Kane. So we're facing the worst of what Action City has to offer, here.

Lucky for Cricket, she distracts the mob just long enough for Red Bolt to catch up. Superia, Phenom and Physique are there maybe a second later, the rest of us about a second behind them.

It's not like when we were all trapped in the Kane. Inside, they could only hit us a few at a time, limited by the width of the hallways, the size of the rooms. Inside, we could get them cornered.

Outside, they're hitting us from every angle, surrounding us, regrouping. It's messy. There's maybe four to one odds against us, and they're out for blood. But then, we've been itching for a fight for a while now. We're frustrated, angry, scared, pissed off. They're only insane.

But something happens when I'm busy dodging Squidface's tentacles. There's a lot of debris flying around - people are throwing huge chunks of it - and Midnight Avenger and Troubleshooter have tossed smoke grenades, it's night, it's raining, so visibility is shit.

A huge chunk hits someone. I hear it, clear as a bell, over the sounds of punches and blasts and yells and screams. There's a thump and a sick wet crunch and a loud wet snap and someone yells, "They killed Candyman! He's dead! Candyman's dead!"

And suddenly things get very, very bad. They were out for blood, sure, but they were cocky, thinking that we'd be trying to capture them, not kill them. I don't know who threw the chunk of debris, it could have been one of them for all we know, but it doesn't matter, because they think we're here to kill them, and suddenly we're fighting to stay alive.

I never thought I'd be so glad to hear ACPD sirens in my life, but they're still a long ways off and Ram-Man has me by the throat, holding me up for that dramatic killing blow. A gust of wind blows away the smoke from the grenades just long enough for me to see our situation, and it's not good. I see Ragdoll being kicked around by the Dollmen; Ace and Darklight, back to back, trying to fight off Lurk and some plant guy; Troubleshooter's injecting something into a big fat guy but nothing's happening; Rapunzel's trying to catch people and keep them tied up in her hair, but more than three or four and they break free; Physique and Phenom are being pounded by Gator and Big Bertha; Red Bolt's doing what he can, grabbing people, slapping zap straps on whoever he can, but the second he moves on a little guy with knives for fingers teleports in and frees them; Superia and Blue Jay and Dragon are locked in a midair battle with Fearmonger; Showdown's got his hands full with six or seven lunatics all rushing him; Midnight Avenger's fighting a thin guy with two metre-long metal spikes sticking out of his forearms; and Cricket-

Cricket gets grabbed midair by a bunch of tentacles. She fights to get free.

"Hey Shquirrelly!" he mushmouths. "Thissh ish for wreckin' my life, Mattheshon, you rat fuck!"

"Squidface, don't-!!" I choke out, too late.

Squidface snaps one of Cricket's legs. She screams so loud it actually gets everyone's attention over the thunder of punches and the moans of the injured.

"And thissh ish sho you don't forget!" Squidface yells, and snaps her other leg before Red Bolt, Physique, Phenom and Dragon all pile on him. Blue Jay catches Cricket in midair, carries her out of the fight, out to the street. Superia goes to join them.

I put my feet into Ram-Man's face, clawing and kicking. His grip loosens just enough for me to pull out. I kick him three or four times as I flip away, landing over by the four pounding on Squidface.

"Stop it, stop it!" I yell at them, pulling them off Squidface. I want him dead for what he's just done, but we're not killers, we can't be. Squidface is a bloody pulp by the time I get control of the situation, or at least as much control as I can get.

"You're just going to let him-"

"After what he did to Cricket-"

"Look out!" I yell, and chunks of debris come flying at us from every direction. Red Bolt's already out of the way. I twitch and dodge and jump and flip over and around them all. Physique's doing pretty well at avoiding the biggest chunks. Phenom jumps up and away from the barrage, Dragon's in the air.

And then the ACPD are there, shining spotlights down on us from their flying patrol cars, ACPD SWAT moving in on the ground. The escaped patients begin to scatter.

"Everybody get down on the ground, face down, hands behind your heads," someone says over a bullhorn.

"Wait, just a minute," Midnight Avenger says, hands up and out in front of him to show he's unarmed.

"Down on the ground, mask!" one of the SWAT guys yells.

"Jesus fucking Christ, we're trying to help, here!" Physique yells at him.

"Everybody do it!" I yell.

The League look at me, everyone looking dumbfounded as I get down on my knees, hands behind my head. They do what I told them, stunned.

Except Wayne. He's still trying to talk to them.

"Guys, this isn't necessary, calm down, we're here to help, we're on the same side," he's saying.

The SWAT team aren't listening, they're all yelling "Get down on the ground, mask, get down on the ground!"

"Avenger, do it!" I yell at him.

He turns slightly to face me, saying, "I can handle this," and as he says that, his hand brushes his belt and a smoke grenade falls to the ground and next thing I know there's gunfire and I'm twitching up and away and I hear Midnight Avenger yelling "Move it, go, get out of here!" and I feel someone - Ragdoll - grab my wrist and suddenly we're running through the woods that are on the back lot of the Kane grounds. It's maybe five, six seconds before I even look behind me.

It's a mess. A disaster. We're not being followed, near as I can tell, but through the trees I can see the smoke from the grenade, lit from the spotlights, hear the gunfire.

"Matt, come on!" Ragdoll hisses at me, angry, trying to stay quiet, trying not to draw attention to us.

"This is so stupid," I say, more pissed off than I can ever remember being. "This is the stupidest fucking thing we could be doing."

"What do you want to do, go back there and get shot?"

I don't have an answer to that, so I follow her through the woods, over the wall into Gaines Forest. Through the forest we don't talk, just stay close so that whatever haunts the forest won't split us up. We come through the forest into Charlton Cemetary

"What do you want to do?" Ragdoll asks me.

"Back to the mansion," I say, still pissed.

"Matt," she starts to say.

"Don't. I don't want to talk about it right now. I don't want to say something I'll regret."

"We didn't have a choice!"

"I don't want to talk about it!"

We can't get there, wearing our outfits in plain view. I think for a second, then I head into Lower Uptown, keeping out of sight, making sure we're not visible from the sky, or from the street. We make it to Brother Caduceus' place.

The unpainted metal door's been blown of its hinges. Police tape crisscrosses the entrance. I look at Ragdoll, but she's not meeting my eyes. I tear down the tape and step inside.

It's a shambles. Somebody tossed the place. There's tape outlines everywhere. Two of the outlines are shaped like bodies.

I grab two of the trenchcoats and head back outside, hand one to Ragdoll. I pull it over my outfit, pull off my mask and goggles and pocket them. Ragdoll puts hers on, undoes her pigtails, shakes out her hair, pulls of her mask.

"Kimmy," I start to say.

"No, no, it's okay. We'll talk when we get where we're going."

It's very clearly not okay, but I'm not in a mood to argue with her, and we've got to get back to the mansion. Hopefully the team's heading back there. I don't want to risk the nanobeads in case the signal can be intercepted somehow.

We take the el train and the bus out to the mansion, like normal folks. The newsfeed on the monitors in the bus are playing a story about some citizens' group who have been protesting outside City Hall, calling for the outlawing of unsanctioned crimefighters. It's a futile, stupid protest. A civic ordnance can't overturn a federal law like the Samaritan Act. But people are scared, pissed off, finally free to blame masks and metas for their anger and fear and pain.

We get to the mansion. Jay, Steve, Steph, Katie, Rick, Anna, Mike, Trev, and Wayne are all there. Kyle, Cricket, Lisa, and Jessie, no sign.

"Where's Cricket?" I ask Steph.

"We got her out of the fight," she says.

"Where is she?"

"They were surrounded by ACPD SWAT," Katie says. "They ordered them to put Cricket down, let the paramedics do their job. Superia offered to heal Cricket, but the SWAT team weren't willing to let her."

"They were going to shoot us," Steph says. "They had their guns aimed right at us."

"Superia would have survived, but it would have been the death of Blue Jay and Cricket," Katie adds.

My nanobead buzzes.

"Squirrelman, go."

"This is Troubleshooter. Look.... I'm sorry. I can't have anything to do with assaulting police officers."

"Troub, listen, we're going to-"

"No, Squirrelman, I'm sorry. I hereby tender my resignation from the Crimefighters' League. Good luck."

"Kyle, dammit-" I say, but the nanobead goes silent.

"Fuck!" I yell.

Lisa and Jessie come in the back way.

"We've got trouble," Lisa says to me.

"No shit," I say, then I turn to Wayne. "Just what the fuck were you thinking?!"

"I was thinking that there was no way they were going to listen to reason, that they were going to arrest us, or shoot us for 'resisting arrest,' and I wasn't prepared to let us die on our knees."

"Wayne, the only way-"

"Stop, both of you!" Jessie yells, the first time I've heard her yell.

"That's not what I meant, Matt," Lisa says.

Spotlights hit the windows. We're so on edge we're ducking behind furniture and doorjambs before I know it. I'm on the ceiling, behind the chandelier.

"Wayne Masters!" a man says over a bullhorn. "This is the Action City Police. We have your home surrounded. Come out with your hands up!"