The Adventures of Tee Bone Man – Phase One: The Squirrel Saga
Chapter 16:  A Crazy Crazy Night (Part 3)

This is it. Tee Bone Man. Superdekes. The Snowman. El Moustachio. The four heroes have fought their way through Wicked Lester Blackwell’s Carnival of Lost Souls and now face their greatest challenge: Stop Mr Blackwell himself before he can gain untold power. But standing in-between our heroes and the megalomaniac is the Psycho Circus, and it’s a full house tonight.

Tee Bone confidently strode forward towards the entrance to the Psycho Circus, but he was pulled back by Deke.

“Surely we need some sort of plan for this?”

“You’re right, but don’t call me Shirley.”, Tee Bone smiled back. “So how are we approaching this?”

Deke thought for a moment.

“Snowman, can I see the map a second?”

The Snowman obliged, and Deke studied what layout information the map gave him of the building that housed the Psycho Circus.

“Alright. We’ll sneak in through the service entrances here and here. Two of us will continue up to the orator’s booth here. I bet that’s where Lester will be. The other two will go down into the ring here and engage whatever thugs he has. It will draw his attention too while the stealthy team get into position.”

The others considered this for a moment.

“We’ll need Tee Bone in the middle there then. That’s where the thick of it is going to be.”, El Moustachio chimed in.

“Yes”, Deke replied. “And my grappling hook makes me ideal to go up high. So that just leaves which two of you is better with heights.”

The Snowman and El Moustachio looked at each other.

“I’ll go with Deke.”, The Snowman said. “I’ve got some ranged weaponry that’ll work better from up high.”

“Can’t argue with that.”, the Australian replied.

With that settled, the two groups confidently strode forwards towards their respective service entrances. Entering was easy, and once they were in the chanting and cheering was louder than ever, which actually came in handy in masking the sounds of our heroes dispatching any guards stationed around the place.

 

 

So it wasn’t long before both squads caught sight of the task before them. And it wasn’t going to be easy. The building was essentially one large arena. A giant ring of seats surrounded a large open area in the centre, with scaffolding and support platforms littering the outer ring and the higher levels.

And there, high up and right where Deke said he’d be, was Wicked Lester Blackwell. His suit was torn in places and his top hat was similarly afflicted. He was old and weathered, much like the Carnival itself, but he still radiated a sinister and dangerous aura.

Perched atop a platform illuminated by spotlights he conducted the crowd below, whipping them into a fever pitch.

“Brothers! Sisters! Freaks! Monsters! I’ve been waiting for this night to come! Today we are reborn! Exiled from the human race no more! While the city sleeps, we have been digging down towards the well of souls buried beneath this very circus. The mining is almost complete. We are moments away from untold power! The carnival has just begun! And soon we will return to the world- forever!”

The crowd cheered, and it was at this moment that Tee Bone decided enough was enough. He strode out into the centre of the arena and struck a power chord that echoed around the room for several seconds. The crowd went completely silent.

 

 

“Who dares!”, Wicked Lester roared furiously. “I will not have this night marred by anyone! Let alone someone so unholy as you.”

“I’ve had enough of this posturing and these proxies. Come and face me, right here, right now! I’ll fight hell to hold you back!”, Tee Bone yelled back.

“Hahaha, here’s your chance, foolish one. Come, my faithful, let us indulge in some excitement.”, Lester boomed back, as countless psychopaths and cultists; human, almost human or otherwise charged forward into the arena towards Tee Bone and El Moustachio.

“Show them… a world without heroes!”, he crowed from above, as all hell began to break loose in the arena.

And Tee Bone and El Moustachio were at the centre of it. The hooligans and delinquents were no trouble alone, but together with the seasoned killers they posed a bit more of a threat. El Moustachio was constantly watching his back, while Tee Bone did his best to keep the fighting focused on him. It wasn’t a million to one, but they were definitely outnumbered.

To make matters worse, Wicked Lester was not giving up any opportunities to display his showmanship and had now taken to hyping the crowd up like a sports announcer.

“Here comes the Torpedo Girl! Look out boys, she’s got a heart of chrome and she’s equipped with as much ballistics as she is ballast!”

The woman in question responded with a volley of torpedo shots that our two heroes just barely avoided. They lodged into the ground and bore deep holes down. One foot wrong and El Moustachio would be in for a long drop off a short pier.

Wicked Lester continued above.

“And don’t forget Little Ceaser! He really puts the ‘X’ in ‘sects’!”

A very short man with a wreath on his head emerged and began ordering the droves of psychos into regimented battalions. This was going to be a problem.

 

 

Up above on the service walkways, Deke and The Snowman were also engaged in battle. There’d been more people up here than they’d initially banked on, and they’d been spotted about halfway up to Mr Blackwell.

“Saints! Sinners! To the gantries! More interlopers!”

“Blast!”, The Snowman cursed.

A cadre of Lester’s men ran up to their level and unleashed a patchwork assault from all manner of makeshift ranged weaponry. Their firearms were rudimentary, but they were certainly functional, and they forced the two heroes to take shelter behind a wall. For now, they were pinned down. Down, but not out.

 

 

At least down below Tee Bone and El Moustachio were beginning to make some headway. The phalanxes had been scattered after a well-placed boomerang, courtesy of Tee Bone actually, had knocked little Caesar out.

Torpedo Girl, meanwhile, was taking a bit more effort to topple. Tee Bone Man had to take a dive to dodge her last volley of shots, and he’d copped a boot to the face while he was down there. The culprit was summarily pounded upon Tee Bone’s return to an erect walking position.

El Moustachio, meanwhile, had worked to put as many cultists as possible between him and her. This, of course, put him within punching distance of said cultists. But this didn’t bother him too much; it also put them within punching distance of him. Plus he had Ripper on his side.

In short, other than the problematic-projectile woman, they were prevailing. Well actually the correct way of saying it was that they had been prevailing, because it was just when Tee Bone and El Moustachio seemed to have the upper hand that a great rumbling sound filled the room.

And it was at this point that, despite their victories in the preceding battle, the two heroes realised that they had been manoeuvred far away from each other. The rumbling got louder and louder and the ground in the middle of the arena began to fall away.

“And on the eighth day!”, Wicked Lester cried above as the ground continued to crumble away far beneath him. “Out of the ashes came the dawn and the shape of things to come!”

Too far from his partner to help, Tee Bone took off heading straight for Wicked Lester, fist outstretched. His flightpath, however, was intercepted by a well-placed firework that sent him spinning down onto one of the gantries.

Meanwhile, down on the other side of the arena, El Moustachio ran for one of the scaffolding towers. The ground cracked under his feet, and he saw chunks fall away around him as he ran. With a final, desperate leap he was just able to reach the tower as the entire arena floor fell away into the void. But he wasn’t safe yet.

 

 

The cracks continued outwards, and the scaffolding he was clinging to began to break loose. This was fairly alarming, and the Australian tried to hasten his ascent. But it was no use, it was too far to the top.

Ripper clambered up ahead of him and desperately began pulling on his finger.

“No use buddy”, the Australian smiled gently. “Go up there and help the others, ok?”.

The squirrel was vehemently against at the idea of leaving the Australian to his fate.

“I’ll be fine”, Moustachio said with a wry smile. “They need you more.”

And, not taking no for an answer, El Moustachio grabbed the small ball of fur and hurled him high up to safety. He knew he could count on the little guy. Mere seconds later he was falling backwards towards the green pit as the scaffolding beneath him completely collapsed.

Enveloped by a tawny-coloured explosion on his way down, the Australian vanished without a trace.

“Noooooooooo!”, Tee Bone cried from above, more rage in his voice than he had ever mustered before. Wicked Lester was going to pay, if it was the last thing he did.

Up above, largely oblivious to the proceedings below, Deke and The Snowman were ready to make their move. Their overconfident assailants had moved in towards where they were taking cover, which was right where The Snowman wanted them.

He tossed a little round device over his shoulder and it landed with a clink at the feet of the huddle. Seconds later it exploded in a shower of snow and hail and all the attackers were encased in prisons of ice.

“Nice work on that”, Deke admired. “I gotta find out how you packed so much in that little casing.”

“Maybe after this I’ll let you in on the secret ingredient”, The Snowman replied as the two men ran up a flight of stairs.

Down below Tee Bone was rapidly approaching the top level, pounding anyone in his way. But his anger might not be enough. Wicked Lester had begun absorbing the spirit energy from the pit and was growing more and more dangerous by the minute. Closing his eyes and sucking in a long breath, he proclaimed his superiority for the 100,000^th time this year.

“I’m a legend tonight!”

 

 

With a green glow in his eyes, the madman fired a verdant blast of energy that missed Tee Bone by an inch, scorching the metal pylon beside him.

Tee Bone’s hit back hard and fast, but the return volley of power chords failed to strike home. Lester cackled as Tee Bone took cover.

Then great big cracks appeared across the ceiling, as chunks of it began to fall down around the arena. But this was not the work of Wicked Lester. Something was forcing its way through the roof. Something big.

And then Tee Bone saw it. Huge and silver. It looked like the Destroyer, but Thor wasn’t here. Reaching into the building it fired a powerful blast into a gantry containing reinforcements for Blackwell. The blast rocked the entire building as the would-be attackers fell a long way down into the void below.

Lester did not take too kindly to this intrusion and readied a blast of his own. Sickly green energy swirled around his fist, but before he could fire, a grappling hook wrapped itself around his wrist.

Deke pulled hard on the rope and Lester’s shot went wide. The elder man attempted to spin around to face the source of this insult, but his left leg was suddenly encased in a thick layer of ice courtesy of The Snowman.

His other leg was kept in place by Tee Bone’s lariat, and upon discovering this, Lester let loose a feral growl. This growl soon turned to a scream of pain as Ripper jumped on his face and sunk his claws into the older man’s flesh.

Essentially paralysed, Wicked Lester Blackwell could only stand there as the mechanical marvel readied both its arm cannons and took aim. Ripper vacated the man’s face with just enough time for him to comprehend the full scope of the firepower about slam itself into him.

 

 

And then the machine fired, sending Lester hurtling down towards the well of souls below. He momentarily disappeared beneath the surface but quickly began to furiously claw his way back out.

But only for a moment. Ghostly hands reached up and dragged him back down into somewhere between heaven and hell.

And much like the cauldron in Infernum Keep all that time ago, this green repository of evil did not take kindly to the powerful foreign object that had forcefully inserted itself into it. It writhed and hissed as the ground all around the island began to shake.

“I think we’re done here”, Deke said.

“Agreed”, Tee Bone said, grabbing his friend and flying upwards. He looked around for the other heroes but found that it was taken care of.

“Where’s El Moustachio?”, the Snowman asked.

“He didn’t make it out of the pit”, Tee Bone grimly replied.

The Snowman’s face fell. But they couldn’t allow themselves to get caught up with grief. Time was running out to vacate the area. The mechanical saviour above extended its arms into the building and spoke for the first time in a booming robotic, but familiar, voice.

“Climb on!”

The Snowman did not need to be asked twice, clambering up onto one of the two large cannons on the end of the mech’s upper appendages.

And not a moment too soon, as the majority of the now-abandoned Psycho Circus broke away and fell into the void of death. The rest of the ground began to follow suit, as anything solid began to sink beneath the waves along with the portal to the Cthulu-knows-where.

 

 

But the escape from the island turned out to be quite uneventful. Those manning the firework towers earlier were now far more concerned with leaving the sinking land mass they now found themselves on. The flying mech made a brief detour to pick up Deke’s bike and they were on their way out in no time at all.

Our heroes flew to a nearby island to catch their breath for a minute.

“That was intense.” Deke said.

“Yeah, we’re going to need quite the vacation to relax after that”, Tee Bone replied.

The Snowman was about to chime in about needing one too, but everyone’s attention was captured by the large machine with them. Hissing as steam erupted from several places, it gently set itself down, before the chest cavity opened up and a ramp extended.

And who should walk out but none other than The Braniac.

“Of course! Who else!?”, Tee Bone smiled.

“I say, it’s great to be on the hero side of things now, rather than being the one rescued”, The Braniac smiled back.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way”, Tee Bone replied, clasping his hand in The Braniac’s in a firm handshake. “You were amazing out there.”

He then motioned towards the silver mech.

“This thing is loaded!”

“Oh yeah, this thing hits like an 18-wheeler. Let me show you.”

The Braniac got back into the machine and fired it up. Turning his arm cannons to the sinking island, he unleashed a volley of armaments

“Woah”, Deke exclaimed. “I can’t wait to find out how you made that thing.”

“So what do you call it?”, Tee Bone asked.

The Braniac smiled.

“I call it the Large Ordnance Outlayer Featuring Assisting Human.”

“Haha, that’s quite a name”, Deke laughed.

A short silence followed, and our heroes’ attention then turned to their fallen comrade.

“Do you think he’s gone forever?”, The Snowman gently asked.

“No.”, Tee Bone firmly replied. “We’ll get him back. Even if we have to go to Hell and rip him from the jaws of the devil himself, we’ll get him back.”

Everyone nodded solemnly. Then the ashes of the once-intact Carnival of Souls began to blow over, like glitter in the air.

“We’d better get going.”, Deke stated.

“Yeah”, Tee Bone agreed. “Are you good to get back?”, he asked The Snowman.

“I’ll get him home.” The Braniac said from his mech. “Climb aboard man.”

“We’ll work together again. I’ll make sure of it.” Tee Bone called out, as the group parted ways.

Deke and Tee Bone immediately headed Northwest, whereas The Braniac dropped The Snowman off before heading back to Canada.

When the Thunder Bay duo got back to Deke’s Palace they found a familiar face waiting for them. He saw them land and ran over, totally jubilant.

“You did it!”, Mr Books exclaimed, having come all the way from Owen Sound to welcome back our heroes.

“We did”, Tee Bone replied. “With a little help from our friends.”

“So I heard. Forgive me for foisting such a daunting quest on you, but I knew you were up to the task.”

“You wanted the best, you got the best.”, Tee Bone smiled.

“That I did”, Mr Books replied, toasting the heroes’ success and taking a drink of Scotch.

And many more followed as the sun rose over Thunder Bay once again, the future looking just a bit brighter.

 

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Someone, somewhere, sometime, somehow…

 

El Moustachio appeared out of thin air and hit the ground with a wet thud, rolling twice before coming to a gentle rest. He gingerly picked himself up and observed his strange new surroundings. He knew he wasn’t in Hell because he’d been there before and it was a lot more red. In fact, the world he now found himself was actually really green. He was in a city, but there was more plant life here than he’d ever seen before. Thick vines snaked up the buildings, and the ground was more like sodden earth than concrete.

But all through it all there was something familiar. A scent he was very used to, but stronger than he’d ever smelt it before. Even stronger than the aroma of the small item he still carried in his back pocket. And it was only getting stronger.

El Moustachio stepped out of the alleyway into the city. The cool night was dimly lit by the bioluminescent plants around him. In the distance he spied a figure, and a low rumble filled the air. Suddenly he realised just how alone he was.

The figure took a step forward. And then another.

El Moustachio took a step back and steeled himself.

One way or another, things were never going to be the same again.

 

NEXT TIME…

Witness the world tremble when Tee Bone Man and Edie Van Heelin’ finally collide!

 

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THE ADVENTURES OF TEE BONE MAN:  PHASE ONE – THE SQUIRREL SAGA

Chapter Zero:  Tee Bone Man – Origins (by LeBrain)

Chapter One: A Friend in Need (by LeBrain)

Chapter Two: Hell Freezes Over (by Harrison Kopp)

Chapter Three: Hell Ain’t A Bad Place to Be (by LeBrain)

Chapter Four: Tee Bone Man and the Rink of…Doom? (by Aaron KMA)

Chapter Five: The Super Duper Vault (by John T. Snow)

Chapter Six: Tee Bone Man Goes to Camp (by LeBrain)

Chapter Seven:  The Revenge of Common Knowledge (by LeBrain)

Chapter Eight:  Tee Bone & Deke’s Time Travelling Adventure (by 80sMetalMan)

Chapter Nine:  Castle Communications (by Harrison Kopp)

Chapter Ten:  The Case of the Lost Iron Maiden Socks (by LeBrain)

Chapter Eleven:  A Tee Bone Man Christmas (by all five of us)

Chapter Twelve:  Lost In Space (by John T. Snow)

Chapter Thirteen:  Clip Show (by LeBrain)

Chapter Fourteen:  Tee Bone Man and Superdekes Discover the Tao (An Intermission) (By Aaron KMA)

Chapter Fifteen: Status Acoustic – The Really Big Deal (by Harrison Kopp)

Chapter Sixteen:  A Crazy Crazy Night (part 1) (by Harrison Kopp) 

Chapter Sixteen:  A Crazy Crazy Night (part 2) (by Harrison Kopp) 

Chapter Sixteen:  A Crazy Crazy Night (part 3) (by Harrison Kopp) 

Chapter Seventeen:  Tee Bone Man vs. Edie Van Heelin’ (by LeBrain) Coming this summer – conclusion to Phase One!

THE ADVENTURES OF TEE BONE MAN:  PHASE TWO – THE MULTIVERSE SAGA

Chapter Eighteen:  Shinzon – Origins (By LeBrain)

 

THE WRITER’S ROOM

The Writer’s Room: Chapter One

The Writer’s Room:  It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like a Tee Bone Man Christmas

The Writer’s Room:  Welcome to the Writer’s Room!

 

 

THE ADVENTURES OF EDIE VAN HEELIN’

The Adventures of Edie Van Heelin’:  Edie vs. Tommy Lee in the Bouncy Castle of Doom! (By LeBrain)

The Adventures of Edie Van Heelin’:  Edie and the Quest for the Lost Lego (By LeBrain with Harrison Kopp)

The Adventures of Edie Van Heelin’:  Edie Van Heelin’s Canadian Vacation (By LeBrain)

The Adventures of Edie Van Heelin’:  Edie Van Heelin’s Canadian Vacation Part 2 (By LeBrain & California Girl)

The Adventures of Edie Van Heelin’:  Edie Meets the Wolf (by LeBrain)

The Adventures of Edie Van Heelin’:  Edie’s Winter Vacation (By LeBrain & California Girl) (coming soon)