Sunlight had just started to trickle down the western face of the mountain. The breeze blew with a temperature and a direction appropriate to the season, but since the Author really has no idea where in continuity this story fits, it could be anything from dew-laden ocean breezes to Santa Ana winds to a blizzard. Well, not the last one, it's not that cold yet. Although it has been unseasonably cold and snowy on the west coast this year, and.... /Chitter!/ Oh, sorry, right, time to get on with it. Fluttering slightly in this breeze of unknown quantity are the tails of two small furry creatures. Squirrels, to be specific. RED Squirrels to be even more specific. In fact, if you wanna get REALLY specific, their names are Max and Dexter, and they're the leaders of the Red Squirrel Nation. Not that this will ring any bells among human readers [It's a little known fact that a significant portion of the Author's readership is, in fact, composed of quadrupeds with University accounts - Ed, bucking for a Grunion as Best Footnoter or something]. /Chitter, squeek,/ said the first squirrel, who then reached out and cuffed the narrator a good one to remind him to turn on the autotranslator. "As I was saying, Max, our Mount Graham operatives assure me that the tall-ugly-skinbags ["Humans" would be a better translation, but the autotranslator tends to be literal - Ed, vote for me!] are totally distracted by their actions. No one suspects a thing, they think our geographic range is still limited to that one mountain, when in reality we've established secret bases around the world!" Dexter crowed. "All well and good, but the distraction will only last so long. Are you sure we can complete Project SquirrelGuy before someone stumbles onto the truth?" Dexter held up a small crystal. "The final data gained from scans of Superguy is in this datacrystal. It took years of painstaking effort, since he never stays in one place more than a millisecond or two, but we finally have enough information to engineer an army of squirrels with Superguy's power! The tall-ugly-skinbags will fall within minutes, and then we can turn our efforts to the real enemy." "Indeed. The hated Grey Squirrels will taste our superpowered wrath before the flowers bloom again. Is that our only copy of the data?" "Yes, but don't worry, once I leave you I will take this to our emplacement nearby and the information will be transmitted to our scientists around the world." "Good. Say, what's that?" Regular readers shouldn't be at all surprised to find that Jack chose this very moment to reach the ground, pulverizing both squirrels and cracking the crystal (along with most of his bones). Coherent Comics UnInc. Presents: ___ __ __ ___ _ _ ___ _ _ _ _ CRAZY GUY #14 / '/ | / | / \/ / ' / / \/ "Nun Shall Pass" / /--' /--| / / / __ / / / copyright 1996 Dave Van Domelen `___ / | / |/__ _/ `__/ \__/ _/ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ "Ow," was Jack's first word upon regaining consciousness. His bones had knit and his burst organs repaired themselves, but little things like bruises and cuts were still fairly fresh and unhealed, which always seemed to be the way with his immortality. Plus, it was more dramatic to have a hero stagger around bleeding from a dozen cuts, so he knew he'd have to get used to it. "Must have landed on something pretty soft, I don't seem to have bounced down the side of the mountain any," he noted. Good thing, too, since down there were a whole lot of Chinese demons howling for blood. And with his luck, they were all buddies of Eng Fan Boi's [the demon Jack helped dispel in Crazy Guy #10 - Ed.]. He looked up. The mountainside was fairly shallow as mountains went, and he could see the monastery perched atop the mountain maybe a mile away, maybe two. A road snaked around the mountain, looping twice before reaching the top, but no one seemed to be driving on it. Of course, anyone trying to get in or out would likely be ripped to small pieces by the demons, so you'd kinda expect traffic to be light. A glint of light caught his eye near where he'd landed. Stooping over, Jack picked a small shard of cracked, blood-spattered quartz out of the ground. Shrugging, he pocketed it like he would a bit of small change and looked back up the mountain. Jack pulled his staff out of his wristband and shook it out to regular size, then started to huff his way up the slope. Times like this he really wished he had a plan of some sort.... * * * * "...over this way," chittered a squirrel, pausing to sniff at the ground again. "It doesn't smell good, though..." he added, knowing that he didn't really need to. The others weren't expert trackers, but even they could smell blood when it was this strong. A pair of armed scouts rushed past him to secure the site and avoid risking a tracker to unknown attackers. He heard them gasp, and a moment later he rounded the corner and saw why. "Those filthy Greys killed our leaders!" one of the scouts screeched, his face contorted by rage (inasmuch as a squirrel's face can contort). "Wait," the tracker held up a paw for silence as he sniffed around the area. "I don't smell any Greys...just a very recent scent of a human [we fixed the translator - Ed.]. There's a great deal of his blood here as well, but...odd, only one trail. Must have doubled back on himself after being wounded while slaying our leaders." "Could this human be a pawn of the Greys? It wouldn't be the first time, after all," posed one of the squirrels who filed in after the perimeter had been secured. "We can get that information from him by force when we find him, Larry," the tracker replied. "Look at all that blood...he can't have gotten very far in his condition." "Sir! The datacrystal...it's gone!" "That tears it. A human might senselessly slaughter our kind for no reason other than their sick need to assert their false dominance on nature, but he wouldn't have taken the crystal unless he was on to our plot. It is imperative we find him and kill or capture him before he can return to his masters! Jasper, you head back for reinforcements, the rest of us will try to find the human!" A squirrel with a bent tail from years of fighting experiences nodded and scampered off in a cute but deadly serious way. "Let's go, Reds!" * * * * Jack paused at the side of the road to rest for a moment, shrinking his magic sea-fixing pin down and stowing it for the time being. That last bit had been steeper than the rest, and it looked like he had another ten to fifteen feet of near-vertical climb before it leveled off again, since this bit of the road had been dug into the side of the mountain to a greater extent than the rest. He sauntered across the road and leaned against the rock face to catch a breather while deciding whether to climb it or walk down the road a bit to find a shallower slope. Then he heard the rumbling of the engine, a rumbling he hadn't heard until then over the pounding of the blood in his ears and his own ragged breath. Someone was coming up the road, someone who had managed to make it past the demons! He leaned over to catch an early glimpse of the car. It was a Lincoln Continental. And while it was still pretty far away, he could just make out the form of the driver, wearing one of those funny little nun hats [The Author spent 8 years in Catholic school and can't remember what those things are called...and he's pretty sure it's not "wimple," that's the really big version. Go figure - Ed.]. A synapse fired and a memory of watching the Road Race From Hell (TM) on TV came back to him. A nun. On the road. This was gonna HUUUUURT! No one gets around the Nun On The Road, you simply go under her wheels and pray for the best. Jack shut his eyes and braced for the inevitable impact. And waited. And waited. And...you get the picture. "Excuse me, young man? Why are you standing there looking like you're about to have the mountain fall on you?" came an alto voice from the now-idling car. Jack carefully opened one eye, to see a trim hispanic woman in a black dress and funny little nun hat sitting behind the wheel of the car. On opening the other, he noticed a few small dings in the fender of the car, as well as a rust spot or two. A wave of relief swept over him. She wasn't THE Nun On The Road, she was just A nun on the road. "That's the fifth time since I rented this car I've seen someone react like you just did. How strange. Are you headed for the Mission, or just out mountainclimbing?" Jack peeled himself off the wall and stepped forward. "Ah, the Mission. I've been sent to help out with the little, er, problem they have there." The nun looked at Jack for a second. "Okay, you're obviously not the plumber, come to fix the sink. Not with all that blood on you," Jack looked down and realized he was something of a mess, then tried to brush some of the dried blood off. "And you don't have strong enough demontaint to be working with them, so *why* are you here fighting demons?" Jack did a doubletake. "How...?" "Get in, we can talk on the way up. I'm Sister Sara, and you are...?" "Jack," he replied, getting into the passenger side. "I was sent to help either defeat the demons or evacuate the priests." "Hmmm. You a Taoist, then? I thought they said they couldn't spare anyone." "Er, I'm an independent agent, actually. Stunt man's my day job, to be truthful. But I was raised with a little bit of everything, and I've fought a Chinese demon before." Sister Sara snapped her fingers. "That's where I've seen you before, I knew you looked familiar. You worked on that Crazy Guy movie, didn't you?" "I didn't know nuns went out to see martial arts movies." "We don't. But...well, better start at the beginning. I used to be a cop in L.A., but after a while I started to see I wasn't doing much good there, so I went into public service and eventually found my way into the Order. Ironically, for someone who sought out the Church to get away from fighting, I got tapped for the special unit the Vatican founded in the wake of Hell's attempted invasion, so I'm back on the beat, but now my gun's loaded with silver bullets instead of lead. I watched news reports of your fight as part of my regular briefing." "Wait, you said Hell(TM) without the TM," Jack realized. "Jack, if anyone can ignore Hell's trademarks with impunity, it's us, okay? Anyway, I was sent to try and give some relief to the Mission up there. The trunk's full of supplies they can't make on their own, mainly medicine and gasoline, they grow most of their own food. And to get a closer look, since we obviously don't want to leave those demons ringing the place, regardless of which infernal region they call home. You're welcome to help out if we need to kick some tail this time around, and I can get you out of here without too much fuss if you don't feel like going out the way you came in...I blessed the car," she explained. There was a slight bump on the floor of the car. "What was that?" Sara asked. Jack looked back through the rear window. "Looks like we hit a squirrel. Even bent his tail." "Poor thing," she replied. * * * * "The tracks end here. He got in a car...going uphill." "Do you think he's headed to our base? If he knew about our leaders meeting down below, he might know about our secret installation," Larry chittered nervously. "If he does," the tracker noted with as much of a hint of doom in his voice as a squirrel can muster, "then he's got a little surprise waiting for him. It may be no SquirrelGuy, but the Mobile Suit Hudsonicus should be able to seize the crystal from him...we can save the day yet, lads. Come on!" The small band of squirrels rushed uphill towards the mission buildings, vengeance on their minds. * * * * Sara pulled the car over to one side of the dusty courtyard and engaged the parking brake before killing the engine. "Well, here we are. The Holy Mission of Santo Andreo, lesser patron saint of pack animals." "Pack animals?" Jack asked. "What else are you going to praise after reaching the top of a mountain in pre-automotive days? Come on, you can help me bring in the gascans." The two got out of the car and fetched several jerrycans from the trunk, then headed for the entrance, where a youngish man in overalls and work gloves had come to meet them. "Ah, hello. You must be Sister Sara, the bishop said you should be arriving soon. I'm Brother Leo, pardon the dirt, I was bringing in the beet harvest. And your companion is...?" "His name is Jack. He's been sent to help with your problem as well, although he's not with the Church," Sara answered, handing Leo one of the jerrycans. "Hi," Jack nodded. "Well, we welcome any help we can get...it's starting to get a bit lonely up here even for monks," he grinned. "Come, Brother Charles is in the garden, feeding the squirrels. I'll take you to him, and maybe we can get to the bottom of these...problems before anyone gets hurt." WILL THEY GET TO THE BOTTOM OF THESE...PROBLEMS? IS BROTHER CHARLES IN LEAGUE WITH THE RED SQUIRRELS? WILL THE RED SQUIRRELS REGAIN THEIR LOST DATA? WHAT *IS* IT WITH THE AUTHOR AND THESE RED SQUIRRELS, ANYWAY? All this, and some holy two-gun-blazing exorcism the hard way, on the next... SQUIRREL...er, SUPERGUY! ============================================================================ Author's Notes: The Red Squirrel, Tamiasciurus Hudsonicus, is at the center of a major environmental debate on the Ohio State University campus, among other places, due to the school's involvement in the Graham Mountain telescope project and its impact on the Red Squirrel population. Red Squirrel stickers have been put up all over campus by deluded pawns of this sinister species, including all over the doors of the building I work in. And they're really hard to peel off, too. In case anyone thinks Sister Sara is a ripoff of Warrior Nun Areala, she isn't. At least not intentionally. About halfway through writing this episode I realized with no small horror that Sister Sara was starting to look like a Warrior Nun (albeit one in modest clothing). Her real origin is the Two-Fisted Priest archetype, but as a nun. Sorta like Left Hand of God, but without the fraud. Plus, I really wanted to use the "Nun On The Road/NOT Nun On The Road" bit. }-> Excuse me, I must go answer the door. Oh look, it's a bunch of squirrels with a bazooka. How cu/NO CARRIER/