Gwen sighed dejectedly and sat heavily on the bed of her cheap hotel
room.  Springfield had been another waste of time.  Not only had she blown
more time than she'd wanted to waiting for that damnable puce forcefield to
come down, but once she got into town and past the defenses of the Grays, she
discovered that the so-called Squirrel Girl was born a human.  She was not,
as her codename implied, an actual squirrel who could turn into a human.
     One more avenue tried, one more dead end.
     It had been years since contact with the demon residue [in Crazy Guy #17
- Ed.] cursed Gwen with this ugly human form, and every attempt to return to
her proper shape had ended in failure.
     Genetic tinkering had had no effect on the supernatural bane.
     Jonkatta had brought back PsykScan technology from the Red Squirrels
inside the Hollow Mars, and they'd tried transferring Gwen's mind into a
cloned body made from her sister's cells.  But as soon as Gwen's mind had
been placed in the new body, that body underwent the grotesque transformation
into a human as well.
     Even the dark arts of the Black Squirrels of Michigan had been able to
do no more than confirm that the curse was bound to Gwen's spirit rather than
to her body, which they had already pretty much known.
     But the worst of it was that she was beginning to think the rest of her
people preferred her this way!
     She could go places, do things that squirrels could not.  She had the
hands to manipulate human technology and the strength to do a day's work for
an average squirrel in a matter of minutes.  Plus, her magical ability to
change metal into wood and vice versa had proved invaluable in the creation
of the new Zeta Hudsonicus suits.  It was as if she was the replacement for
the destroyed Project Squirrelguy, and the others were only too glad to have
her around as a human.
     But she was not happy with this body!  Not only was it ugly and furless
and tailless and clawless and all but toothless, but it was what the HUMANS
considered to be beautiful!  That last was perhaps the greatest of insults,
for she had been a beautiful squirrel, and now she was a freak lusted after
by what should be a slave race.
     To add insult to injury, the leaders of her people had reached a truce
with the one responsible for her condition, and she was not allowed to seek
vengeance!  She had almost had him that one time, if those human women had
not interfered.  [See Crazy Guy #28 - Ed.]  But now he was sacrosanct, she
could not kill him without betraying her people.
     "But have they not betrayed you with this truce?" a voice whispered in
her head.
     Gwen leapt off the bed, whirling about and trying to use her meager
human senses to find the speaker.
     "Show yourself!" she challenged.
     A pale cloak with crimson edging unfurled out of nothingness, and flung
itself open.  A tall man with olive skin paled by lack of sunlight now stood
in the run-down hotel room.  His long black hair was tied back with a series
of scarlet ribbons knotted in complex interweaving patterns, and he wore
armor that seemed to be made from a sort of gold that shone blackly.  It was
hard to describe...it had the luster of gold, but was cold and black.  Pale
green jade was inlaid on the armor in abstract shapes, and threatened to draw
her into a maelstrom of mazes.  At his hip was a scabbarded sword, and it
seemed to sing to her very blood.
     "I am Tybalt, little one," he smiled, showing perfectly white teeth and
perhaps too-long canines.  Looking him in the eyes was even more hypnotic
than staring into the jade whorls of his armor.  "Your people have betrayed
you, left you wearing a form that assaults your senses and insults your
sensibilities."
     "They've done their best..." she weakly countered.
     Tybalt chuckled.  "And they were SO broken up when their best was not
good enough, were they not?"  He took Gwen's silence as answer and
continued.  "They desire the power your new form gives them, and I do not
fault them for that.  It is a power worthy of the princes of the world.  They
fear that restoring you to yourself would cost you those wondrous charms."
     "And you want my power too," Gwen snarled disgustedly.
     "Not I, no.  But I would be foolish to deny that my master, the Gentle
Gift of Crimson, does desire your service, your power."
     "Then get out of here.  I'm not betraying my people just to take on a
different master."
     Tybalt bowed, then pulled a medallion from a beltpouch.  "Very well, I
shall depart.  But consider this a token of my master's good will," he gently
tossed the medallion to Gwen.  "For the span of a day it will allow you to
return to your true form at will.  Consider it the 'benefits package' of
service to my master.  Should you choose to abandon your false friends, the
enchantment will be made permanent.  You may find us in the city once known
as...Topeka."
     With that, he grinned and disappeared inside his cloak, which then
furled up on itself.
     Gwen stared at the medallion for a long time after that....


@>-`-,-`-,-`-,`-,-`-,-`-,-`-     \\   //       -'-.-'-.'-.-'-.-'-.-'-.-'-<@
 .|,Coherent Comics Presents      \\ //        #9 - Simius Alatus
--X-------------------------     E }X{ ARCHS      copyright 2002 by the
 '|`     A Superguy Tale          // \\        Dvandroid (Dave Van Domelen)
@>-`-,-`-,-`-,`-,-`-,-`-,-`-     //   \\       -'-.-'-.'-.-'-.-'-.-'-.-'-<@


     Kat gasped and fell back against one of the tumbled stones they had
brought with them from 934PULPTRAPS.  Her throat was now stone, but it still
felt raw from what must have been a very loud and tortured scream.  Her
breath was ragged, even though she didn't actually need to breathe anymore.
     "Kat, you okay?" Oakthorn asked, placing a hand on her polished marble
shoulder.  She could feel the warmth of his touch, which was a bit of a
surprise.  After the coldness that lanced into the core of her being a moment
ago, she wasn't sure she'd ever feel warmth again.
     "No," she croaked, levering herself up to sit on the stone.  "I don't
think I want to do that again.  Ever."  She grabbed onto the Stone Katena
hanging around her neck like a security blanket.
     "What did you find out?" Skysabre asked.
     "Gimme a minute, willya?" she snapped back.  "I feel like Waveform's
been dancing through my brain with lead boots."  [Waveform is a psychological
warfare expert from Kat's home reality. - Ed.]
     "Yeah, back off," Oakthorn stepped protectively between Kat and
Skysabre, causing Anna to silently raise an eyebrow.  "And be glad the rest
of us aren't as sensitive to the vibes around here as she is," he suppressed
a shudder at what he *could* sense.
     "Cool it, Stan," Kat stood slowly and nudged him aside.  "Okay, it all
came in one big rush, and I don't seem to be as good as I used to at sorting
out rapid data streams, but I do remember it all.  It's just taking a bit of
effort to put it in some kind of order.
     "A few years ago, there was an intrustion from another altiverse.  The
local heroes, called superguys after the first of them, banded together to
fight it off.  But there weren't many of them, and even the most experienced
had only been active a year or so.  The dark lord of the invading forces
managed to slay most of them, even hurling one into space...the Earth lost
contact with that one, anyway.  Eventually Superguy himself entered the dark
spire at the heart of the invading forces...and he was turned.  With Superguy
on the side of the invaders and only a scattering of desperate villains to
oppose them, the world fell pretty fast, and the invasion spread to other
inhabited planets.
     "Then a stranger from another altiverse came, and fought Superguy.
Superguy was killed, probably because the corruption in him wasn't complete
and the remaining pure part of him helped the stranger.  Hard to say.  But
then the dark lord attacked the exhausted stranger and rent his soul in two.
After that, it was nothing but death and darkness.  The whole reality has
died, become a sort of cosmic graveyard."
     Oakthorn let out a low whistle.  "That explains why it feels this way.
Nothing living remains, it's all been blotted out."
     "Anything from the Tarsus on this?" Anna asked.
     "Just that the weapon is getting closer.  Fast," Skysabre replied.
"With any luck, we just wait for it to get here, grab it and go."
     "With any BAD luck," Kat sighed, "we run into this 'dark lord' and HE
has the weapon."
     "Thanks for the jinx, Kat," Anna pointed to the horizon.  "Looks like we
have company!" 
     "How?  If nothing's alive here..." Oakthorn started.
     "Then these things are dead," Skysabre concluded.  "Or, at least,
unliving.  But all things considered, my money's on the walking dead."
     "Flying dead," Anna corrected.  "Kat, can you get a closer look?"
     Kat shook her head, rattling the Stone Katena slightly, its nine granite
segments clashing against her chest.  "I'm down to normal human senses, looks
like.  Aside from my ability to feel the earth, which is NOT an asset right
now," she looked down at the ground and shivered slightly.
     "Whatever they are, there's a lot of 'em," Oakthorn drew one of the few
remaining arrows in his quiver.  "Even that arrow-storm trick my bow can do
won't get 'em all."
     "Do what you can," Skysabre said as he drew his sword and activated the
cloudy blade.  "Maybe I can call up enough wind to knock them out of the
air."  
     By this point, the swarm was close enough that the Exarchs could start
to pick out details.  The creatures were some kind of abomination, twisted
demonic apes with bat wings and cybernetically attached jet engines and
weaponry.  
     Kat's eyes went wide with recognition.  "The Apes of Wrath!"  She
paused, as if paging through the memories she'd gotten from her brief contact
with the ground.  "In the waning days, the supervillains decided they needed
to stop this invasion, and one of them contributed his army of cybernetic
gorillas.  They flew into the darklands and were swallowed up.  The batwings
are new, though."
     "Any weaknesses we can exploit?"  
     "They're gorillas," Kat shrugged.  
     Clouds were starting to roil overhead in the eternal gloom, and there
was a strong wind blowing.  But it didn't seem to have much effect on the
Apes of Wrath.  "Cyborg gorillas," Skysabre mused, and lightning flashed.
     Skysabre raised his sword and pointed it at one of the undead primates.
Lightning leapt from the clouds and struck his designated target, detonating
its jet fuel in a crimson bloom.  Its wings shattered and torn, the cyborg
flopped limply to the dusty earth.
     Oakthorn joined the fray, launching a hail of arrows into the air.  Some
found their mark, while others tore inconsequential holes in the demonic
batwings or simply missed.  But the undead felt no pain, and even direct hits
only slowed them down.
     A few more lightning bolts arced down, but then the wind started to die
and the clouds disperse. 
     "Damn!  The winds are too drained to keep this up!" Skysabre realized.
     By this point, the horde was overhead, eerily silent except for the howl
of jet engines and the leathery slap of their wings.  Their eyes glowed a
dull red that seemed to have little to do with cybernetic enhancements.  They
pointed the guns built into their arms, but only a handful actually fired.
The remainder seemed to be out of ammunition, out of power, or had just
forgotten how to use the implants.
     Skysabre parried several energy bolts, and Kat reflexively whirled her
nine-sectioned staff around in a defensive pattern that protected both her
and Anna.  Oakthorn was managing to pre-empt attacks on him by simply driving
a sheaf of arrows into any ape that pointed its gun at him, but he was down
to his last shot.
     Anna realized that Oakthorn hadn't noticed his problem, and moved to
protect him with her spear as best she could.
     Skysabre leapt into the air and sliced the wings from two of the
cyborgs, only to be clubbed by the empty rifle of a third.  He hit the ground
with a bone-breaking crunch.
     Oakthorn fired his last volley, then reached back into the empty quiver
and cursed.  Moments later, a swooping Ape of Wrath got past Anna and slammed
into Oakthorn with a massive metal fist, knocking him several meters away to
lie very still in the dust.
     A trio of apes was forcing Kat back, despite the fact that every time
she lashed out she pulverized an ape.  A new one simply took the place of its
fallen comrade.
     As Kat stepped outside the circle of rubble and onto the native soil,
the pain of the dead world once more shot through her.  She collapsed.
     Anna went into a whirlwind of attacks, slashing and stabbing blindly,
knowing that pretty much anything would score a hit on something at this
point.  Undead cyborgs crowded around her, and she could finally hear their
voices, a whispering laughter that echoed across the back of her skull,
promising a very painful demise.
     Then one snatched at her spear and started lifting her into the air.
She was forced to let go before she got so high that the fall would kill her,
and dropped awkwardly into the dust.
     The whispered laughter grew louder as the Apes of Wrath circled higher,
contemptuously pelting her with rocks, broken bits of their own cybernetics
and other things Anna didn't want to identify.  
     Her friends seemed to be stirring, but the apes had realized this as
well and were moving to put the heroes down for good.
     Anger burned in Anna.  It COULD NOT end like this!  This world may have
died but they would NOT join it in death!
     Then she saw something in the dark sky, beyond the flapping wings and
mocking laughter.  It was a bright spark, the first source of true light
she'd seen in the sky other than Skysabre's lightnings.  She stopped feeling
the stings of the hurled projectiles against her body as a warmth suffused
her.  It called out to her as it streaked through the deathly still air,
bringing heat and wind back to the skies in its wake.
     Anna raised her hand to catch it.  In her head, she knew this was
insane.  Whatever it was, it was coming in from orbit!  It would smash her to
a bloody smear across ten miles of this wasteland!
     But her dreaming heart disagreed, and she opened her palm to receive the
gift of fire from the sky.
     The apes, dimly aware, finally realized their prey had stopped trying to
dodge.  The laughter stilled as they followed her gaze to the south.
     Then the hammer Forgeheart slammed into Anna's hand and the world was
filled with fire....

     WILL ANYONE BESIDES ANNA SURVIVE THIS INFERNO?

     HECK, WILL *ANNA* SURVIVE THIS INFERNO?

     WILL GWEN JOIN THE GENTLE GIFT OF CRIMSON?

     HOW BAD *DO* BURNING UNDEAD GORILLA CYBORGS SMELL?

     Answers to some of these questions, and maybe a recipe for fudge, will
be found on the next...Superguy!

============================================================================

Author's Notes:

     Originally, I was going to have Anna's mystic weapon be a spear.  Then I
realized I'd given her a spear in Dvandom Force when she became a Dreamqueen
[in Dvandom Force #94 - Ed, whooping it up that he's in the Notes section!],
and figured I might want to try something different this time.  Hence a
hammer.
     Oh, and yes, there's jet-black squirrels in Michigan.  Creeped me out
the first time I saw 'em.