ic Savage History

[Raveled]

Miras shrugged. "Can't hurt to give it a shot, I guess," she said. "Of course even if there is some harmless practitioner in town, what are we going to do? We can't just tell her to pack up and take the new Greyhound out of town, can we? Even if we run her to Boston or Philadelphia, or hell even to Paris or Hong Kong she'll be alone. I'm not sure I'm willing to --"

 

She was cut off when a scream rose above the crowds. She stood, and with the long practice of someone used to living in a crowded metropolis she weaved through the crowds to where their attention was focused. It turned out to be a church near the center of town, a steepled building with a life-sized crucifix out front. A woman and a small child were on the steps of the church; she was on the ground shielding a him, and while they were both wearing crosses around their necks and the same sort of clothes as the rest of the townfolks, their complexions marked them as natives. Four other colonists, all big men with angry expressions, were hemming them in and keeping them from escaping. One man strode forward, grabbing the woman's arm and yanking her to her feet only to throw her down again. "Where are they, witch!" he demanded. "Give us our children back!"

 

She screamed and fell again, and again folded herself over her son. "Please, please! I've never done anything to you, I don't have anything to do with this! On God's name, we've never hurt any of you!"

 

The men's faces colored with rage and one hefted a heavy blacksmith's hammer. "On God's name? You heathen witch, we'll show you what we do to those who talk the Lord's name in vain!"

 

A dense, irrational anger filled Miras up as she watched it, made her skin hot and her muscles tremble and her vision turn red. She moved almost without thinking it; in a moment she was standing at the edge of the crowd and then in a green blur she was standing between the men and the natives. She towered over them, six-foot-plus and full of rage. "Get the hell away from here," she spat, locking eyes with the leader. "Or I will show you just why you should be afraid of witches."

[Avenger Assembled]

Oh, jeez! 

 

Richard could see it now. The time police moving in and arresting them both. Calling Paige to bail him out again and then having to explain to Will and Holly how he'd been dumb enough to get caught by the cops again. 

 

So he ran. He ran - and was back before anyone had noticed his departure. "Gentlemen, gentlemen, please!" He'd guessed that Charity's clothes would fit him and a super-speed trip through the man's wardrobe had confirmed that theory, and not incidentally left Richard in a particularly snug 18th century outfit, from tricorn hat to leather shoes looking like any other man on the street. Only his slow pace showed a slight hobble, a symptom of the too-tight shoes and too-tight breeches. "Are we savage brutes as they believe in London? Or are we men of reason?" He strode right into the middle of the scene. "Miriam, this is no time for a sermon. Your pardon for my servant's temper but she is a woman of deep conviction and to see her new faith used in such a way naturally arouses rage in one so giant." 

 

He had, despite all his talk, interposed himself between the crowd and their targets. "Come come, what brings forth such a rage?"

[Raveled]

The man seemed unwilling to actually throw the first punch at a woman, and when Richard intervened he backed off further. "She is killing people in this town!" their leader insisted, pointing past Richard and Asli to indicate the native woman. "All of her savage kind! They creep into town and slit throats and abduct children. They're monsters, and if they keep eluding the city guard, then someone must be helping them!" The men with him raised their voices in agreement; it was iron-clad logic to them.

 

"Please!" The woman stood uneasily, backing away towards the doors of the church. "My family has lived among you for years now. My husband shoes your steeds and mends your wagons! I've never done anything to hurt anyone here, we are just trying to live."

 

"Your lies ring false in the ears of righteous men," the angry man spat. "You and your kind are killing us, so we'll kill you in return!"

 

Miras took a step forward, pressing herself against Richard's lanky back. "That is such utter bull%(@#! You don't have proof that this woman has done anything, you want to kill her just because she's different!"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Okay," said Fast-Forward, his voice and face steady. "Let's do this." Miras seemed to blink - and just at the edges of her own speed saw Fast-Forward move like a lightning bolt through the crowd of civilians, battering them aside like a miniature hurricane. In the space of an eyeblink, he'd taken down the entire crowd of civilians - and had shucked his stolen outfit for his costume. He pointed a finger at Miras and said in a tone of great annoyance, "If my wife has to bust me out of time-jail again, lady, you are answering to her!" Looking at the startled 'witch' and her Native companions, he extended a hand. "We are running for the damn forest, or you can stay here and be hung or shot when they wake up. Take my hand if you want to live." 

[Raveled]

There was a collective gasp from the crowd as a whirlwind of movement surged among them, and suddenly the reasonable-talking colonist was gone and a man in shockingly white garb was standing in his place, and the ruffians were on the ground and groaning. Miras took a step back from the confrontation and nodded sharply, satisfied for the moment and reining in her anger. The native woman, though, seemed more scared than ever, but she tentatively took Fast-Foward's hand, wrapping her other arm tightly around her child.

 

Miras nodded at Richard and they sped out of town, the timber and stone construction passing in a blur until they were standing in the forest again. Miras pumped her fist in into the air, feeling jubilant about that confrontation. "Okay," she said to Richard, "racists 0 and superheroes 1, so far. Now we just have to figure out what's going on with this way-too-literal witchhunt and we can stop anyone else from getting hurt." She eyed the native woman, who was still shielding her child and looking around fearfully.

[Avenger Assembled]

Fast-Forward looked, and felt, considerably less confident. He paced around, barely restraining the urge to zip around faster than the eye could see. Running from the authorities had been fun when he was a young man - but now, faced with the real possibility of the temporal authorities showing up and busting him, he really was unhappy. God, I did get old. That wasn't a happy thought either. "Gonna search the forest," he finally said, "make sure nobody saw us come this way, white or Indian. Far as I know, we're way out there - the spot with the Revolutionary War marker is way off that way," he said, pointing to the right. "Get 'em talking, get their story. I'll be right back." With that he turned and ran off into the forest, not actually vanishing at super-speed until he was already invisible among the trees. Running through a forest in the days before park rangers wasn't a fun experience - but it was just that kind of day. 

[Raveled]

Miras watched Fast-Forward dash off into the trees, pushing her cowl back and shaking her head in his direction. "I cannot understand that man's problem. Back in the past and with a chance to fix things and he's just worried about running home." She turned when she heard a piercing cry ring through the woods and saw the native woman picking up her son and trying to sooth him. "Oh. Sorry, that probably sounds pretty bad. I didn't mean it like that. Listen, I know this is all pretty weird, but..." She stuck out her hand. "I'm Asli. Really, we're here to try and help you."

 

The woman shook her head and didn't take her hand. "I'm called Sarah. I don't know what you people are here to do, but I wish you had just left me out of it."

 

Asli frowned. "That crowd would have lynched you, lady. You want to let that happen, instead?"

 

Sarah shook her head sharply. "Everyone in town is scared of witches killing their children. Now a witch came into town and took me out of it. How do you think that's going to work?"

 

Zooming through the forest wasn't exactly hard for Fast-Foward, but it did slow him down; he had to carefully step around massy knots of old growth trees, it was just that he stepped so much faster. It didn't take him long to confirm that they were far, far away from town. It didn't take him much longer to find the Indian village. It didn't look anything like Hollywood would paint it as, being a collection simple log houses inside a circle of trodden grass. He could see a dozen or so individuals around the perimeter of the village, holding longarms and looking out into the forest, and a few more gathered around a body at the edge of the settlement.

[Avenger Assembled]

One thing Richard knew about Native villages of this period was that the Hollywood thing about nobody speaking English was a bunch of bull - in fact, from the look of things, there'd been a lot of intermarrying over the years. He came out of the woods, unarmed and with his hands up, casually confident in his ability to dodge a slow-moving musket ball, but not wanting to push the already-altered time stream too far. "Greetings to you and yours! I'm Richard, I'm from the city. If you people are looking for your friends, my friend and I left them back in the forest there. I can get them over here, or show you where they are, whatever's easier." He looked around, without moving anything but his eyes, seemingly a quick glance, but absorbing the scene at super-speed and taking in everything at once. "The people down on the coast are getting pretty paranoid. Don't go down there for a while till things blow over." 

[Raveled]

Richard's appearance raised a cry from the sentries when he stepped out of the forest. Muskets were raised to point at him, orders were yelled, and several more armed natives stepped out of their longhouses. One native in particular stepped up to Richard, almost jabbing him in the chest with the longarm. "Stay back, white man," he snarled. "We've seen what your kind of people do to us!"

 

The Indians examining the body started walking towards the confrontation, a pair of elders in heavy cloaks trailing behind everyone else. A loose crowd began forming around Richard, the Indians having dark expressions on their faces.

-------------------

 

Back in the clearing, Asli shook her head and glanced back towards the town. "I don't know," she said. "If you can tell me where your house is, I can go find your husband, get your entire town. We can... Me and Richard, we can take your family somewhere else. Up to Boston, or down to the Carolinas, or even all the way to Quebec if you think you'll have a better time in Canada. I didn't... mean to make things harder for you."

 

Sarah shook her head, stroking her son's hair and calming the boy down. "The people are looking for Indians, right? Then they won't hurt my husband."

 

It took a moment for Asli to make the connection, but after a moment she nodded slightly.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Oh, geez!" said Richard, his eyes wide as he looked at the corpse for a long minute. Well, for him anyway - from the perspective of those around him, his eyes would have been on the man with the gun the whole time. "I'm so sorry. You should know that this is happening in the towns down on the coast, too," he said, cocking his head back towards 'Freedom City'. "Somebody's killing down there and they're trying to blame it on Indians. That's why we're helping your friends run away." He took a breath, thinking more about the time, the place, and what these people had seen. "I know things have been bad here lately, with the war. Just tryin' to put things right." 

[Raveled]

The elders walked up to Richard, the circle of armed guards breaking to allow the aged men and women near him. One stepped right up to the hero and flicked his fingers against Richard's leather jacket. "You are dressed oddly for a British man," he said. "Most of them dress in those heavy coats, like the soldiers did during the war. You look more like the fur traders my father used to deal with." He shook his head. "But they haven't been here for a long, long time. Now the people we trade with want to be called Americans, even while they shoot at us."

 

One of the younger natives, one of the ones with a rifle, took a step towards Richard. "He's a spy for the Americans!" he shouted. "He must be one of their hunters, sent out to find us. If we let him escape, he'll tell the entire town where we are! We'll all be killed before we can leave!"

[Avenger Assembled]

Ah, crap, maybe this is an alternate timeline, or maybe one of those temporary bubbles in the timestream that eventually reconnects with the main reality but is no less real for that. Ugh, why didn't I pay more attention when Tomorrow tried to explain this to me? 

 

Forty years earlier - and also two centuries later 

 

"You sackacrapNazi bastard!" Clock Queen was yelling at Dr. Tomorrow, shoving her son behind her and putting her twin swords in his face. "I told you to stay away from my family ya prick - and that includes my kid, goddamit!" 

 

Oh yeah! 

 

"Listen, I'm here, I'm unarmed, there are a lot more of you than there are of me. If we're gonna fight, it's gonna be real quick and it's gonna hurt, so let's just skip that stuff and get to the part where we help you get outta here, okay?"