The Amazing Adventures of the Sensational Squirrelman

Reality-Altering Issue Nine!

The world knows me as… the Sentinel! Granted super evolved senses by alien experimentation, I am witness to all that is, was, and might be! The Sensational Squirrelman has carried on his predecessor’s work, fighting crime and injustice. He has been tossed through the sands of time and hurtled through space in his quest, met strange new people and made stranger new friends! He has faced and defeated all but one of his many foes… and the sociopathic serial killer known only as the Arachnid still hunts him, seeking to feast on his heart! Only a day has passed since her escape and the body count begins to grow… Will he bring her to justice? Or will he track her down and be forever known as…

Spider’s Lair Spiderslayer!

Matt never saw that next morning. He awoke sometime in the late afternoon, starving. He went into his kitchen and made himself a huge breakfast of pancakes, sausages, toast and eggs and coffee, then went into his secret room and booted up his PSYFERRET.

“Afternoon, Farrah,” Matt said.

“Good afternoon, Matt,” the holographic ferret greeted him. “Unfortunate news about last night.”

“Excuse me? I caught five out of six escapees under my jurisdiction,” Matt answered around a mouth full of pancakes.

“Yes, and admirably done, but the most vicious one got away,” Farrah explained. She called up news article after news article. All outlining the vicious, bloody murders of men, in a spiralling arc around the city. Six men had had their hearts ripped out and the blood drained from their bodies, left as desiccated husks of their former selves.

Blood drained from Matt’s face.

“Arachnid,” was all he said.

“I suspect as much, yes,” Farrah agreed. “But she’s never struck so rapidly before.”

Matt explained to his PSYFERRET the transformation that had occurred in his archnemesis, that she had become half-spider, like Jungle King was half-feline. Farrah was agitated – twitching along the desktop and hiding behind the monitor. Matt had a memory flash that explained to him that she was considering all the options available to them. Matt waited, considering the ramifications of leaving Arachnid free one night longer.

“She’s incredibly dangerous now, Matt,” Farrah finally said.

“No kidding,” Matt said back, voice low and emotionless. Six men were dead because he had been too tired to go after the sociopathic spider-fixated serial killer. Six men. Six families shattered. How many lives touched by that psycho bitch’s actions?”How many has she killed in total, Farrah?”

“Her actual body count hasn’t been determined, Matt. Depending on her mood, she has claimed upwards of a hundred kills, and, in her most lucid moments, claimed responsibility for less than thirty…. Well, more now.”

Matt nodded slowly.

“In her new mutated form, can I beat her?” he asked the question her didn’t want to hear the answer to.

Farrah ran across the desktop, skittering here and there, back and forth. After a few minutes she stopped and looked at Matt.

“Matt, I don’t think so,” the PSYFERRET said reluctantly. “Her new powers make her too unpredictable, too chaotic to accurately judge the outcome. Normally without hesitation I would say yes, but with were-spider powers… I can’t say.”

Matt nodded again. Then he got up with a suddenness that startled his psychic ferret.

“What are you going to do, Matt?” Farrah asked him as he donned his Squirrelman costume.

“The only thing I can do,” he said, pulling the mask over his face. “Stop her.”

Just as he was about to open his secret access ladder to the roof, the phone rang.

He debated with himself for a moment. Then curiosity got the best of him and he lifted his mask up over his mouth and answered.

“Hello?” he spoke into the receiver.

“Matt?” Ragdoll’s voice came across the wire. “It’s Kimmy.”

“Hiya Kimmy,” he smiled despite the grimness of what faced him. He hadn’t heard her voice for almost a year, by his reckoning. “Listen I was just heading out-“

“I know, and I’m coming with you,” she interrupted.

“Kimmy listen-“ he started.

“No YOU listen – you don’t have to do this alone, Mister Lone Wolf Hunts Alone.”

“Kimmy, she’s my problem-“ he tried to make her listen.

“No dumbass, she’s the whole CITY’s problem – and anything that’s your problem is my problem too, get me? I meant what I said – giving you my name was a big deal.”

“Kimmy-“

“Matt… listen to me. You’re a big deal to me. And no sociopathic bitch is gonna hurt my boyfriend, get me?”

Matt just smiled ruefully. He didn’t need memory flashes to tell him he wasn’t going to win this argument.

“Matt?”

“Yeah, Kimmy, I get you,” he smiled into the receiver.

“Good,” she sounded relieved. “I’ll meet you at the corner of Miller Street and Moore Avenue.”

“You bet,” h e said. Just before they disconnected, he said, “And Kimmy? Thanks.”

He clambered up the ladder to the roof and began to race across town as fast as he could. The sky was heavy with clouds, dark and rainy. Lightning flashed across the sky, thunder dwarfing the rumble of the passing elevated trains.

Like Ragdoll, Matt had noticed the direction the killing spree arc had been placed, aiming away from the Kane Sanitarium and Weirdsville, along the docks of Crater Lake and Lower Uptown. Arachnid always killed in a spiral pattern – she called it hunting along her web – and Ragdoll and Squirrelman both had determined that the infamous corner of Moore and Miller was the site of her current lair. A huge towering gothic Cathedral, St.Ellis of Jerusalem, was the towering feature of the area, fronting on Busiek Park. Across the park, Squirrelman met up with his partner in crimefighting on the roof of Romita and Son Fine Jewellery.

“Ragdoll,” he greeted her with a grim smile. The rain pelting down had him soaked. His tail, although mostly waterproof, was still somewhat stringy and flat from the rain.

“Squirrelly,” she smiled just as grimly. The red pigtails of her wig weren’t faring much better in the downpour. Lightning flashed above them, striking the clock tower. The huge bell within gave off one lonely, foreboding tone, and was cut silent by the deafening roar of thunder that followed.

“Where do we start?” she asked him without preamble.

Squirrelman surveyed the buildings that surrounded Busiek Park. His eyes caught a glimpse of something and he looked across the few trees of the park to St. Ellis’ Cathedral. He raised a hand and pointed.

“There’s a good place to start,” he said. As though hearing the foreboding in his words, lightning crashed overhead with an immediate boom of thunder.

Ragdoll looked where he was pointing. One of the stained glass windows was smashed in one corner, a panel of darkness in the colourful portrait of St. Ellis of Jerusalem.

“Father Morrison’s going to be pissed,” Ragdoll said.

“If he’s still alive, he can be pissed all he wants,” Squirrelman answered. Ragdoll glanced at her partner and looked across the park, the grimness of the situation overcoming the need for quips or jokes.

Squirrelman looked over at his partner. He stepped closer to her.

“Kimmy,” he muttered in a low voice so only she could hear. “It gets worse.”

He explained to her the metamorphosis his archnemesis had just undergone. Blood drained from her naturally pale face, throwing her freckles into stark relief. She swallowed nervously once, but nodded and said only, “You check out the stained glass. I’ll try and find Father Morrison.”

He nodded. He didn’t like splitting up but it was the fastest way to explore the huge cathedral. He grabbed her wrist before she left, pulling her to him. He raised his mask half way and kissed her once, hard and passionately.

“Be careful,” he said. “You’re a big deal to me too.”

She nodded and jumped over the side of the building into the alleyway, bouncing and flipping acrobatically from building to building on her way to the street below.

Squirrelman jumped from the roof of Romita and Son to the Waid Building and along the window sills along Miller Avenue to the gothically inspired monstrosity that was St. Ellis of Jerusalem Cathedral. Looming high into the storm-filled sky, it was at once beautiful and terrible to behold, towering spires and belfries stabbing accusatory fingers into the sky. The huge rosette window at the entrance of the several storeys high building was a marvel of stonework and stained glass, unlike the twin stained glass windows to either side, which were fairly hideous Modernistic depictions of the Saint. On the left hand side, the window had been smashed and rain was pounding against the Saint’s depiction, through the hole into the cathedral nave beyond, a shattered glass mouth of rose red, like a fang filled mouth of some blood sucking creature.

Cautious not to scratch himself, Squirrelman entered the gaping hole. He knew he was making a target of himself, silhouetted against the storm filled sky, but there were few options left to him. He tried to crawl through as quickly as possible nevertheless. He allowed a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness within the cathedral. The only illumination was a few candles in the distance, flickering prayers lit by guilt ridden parishioners. A few pigeons had strayed into the cathedral, trying to escape the storm, and the fluttered away into the depths of the cathedral, announcing his presence still more obviously.

“Beloved,” came the little girl voice of the Arachnid, so strange coming from so statuesque a woman.

Squirrelman leapt from the entrance he had just crawled through and along one of the huge support columns.

“Changed back have you, hon?” Squirrelman called out. “Good thing – I wasn’t sure I liked the new look.”

“Don’t fear beloved…” she answered in the same creepy little girl voice. “I haven’t changed back. I’ve just grown accustomed to my new body. I promise… you’ll love the new me.”

“Why don’t you come out where I can see you then?” he called, crawling to another vantage point, his heart pounding, every nerve stretched to your utmost sensitivity. He was terrified, and knew it. But he had to stop the sociopathic serial killer, stop her before she killed again. No other men would die, no more families would be shattered, because he was too tired. He would stop her. He would do what it took.

“Oh beloved…” the little girl voice called from the flickering candlelit darkness. “Now, that wouldn’t be fun would it? You have to work for it, lover.”

“Yeah, see, that’s not strictly accurate is it?” he crawled along under the balcony level. “I mean, we’re not now, nor have we ever been, lovers. You’re going to make my girlfriend jealous.”

“That redhead trollop BITCH!!?” the little girl’s voice shrieked. “She will beg me for death before I’m done with her, beloved. She will learn what it means to come between the Arachnid and her chosen mate.”

“Chosen mate?” Squirrelman called. As he crawled along the walls of cathedral interior, he was trying to pinpoint her location by triangulation.

“Oh yes, beloved, I’ve decided our children will help me eradicate the human scum from this planet and then I shall rule the world as their queen. Isn’t that perfect?”

“You think? Where do I fit in this scheme? Royal Consort?”

“Oh no, beloved. Once you fill me with your babies, then you WILL LOVE ME!!!”

The attack came so fast and so unexpectedly that Squirrelman was twitch dodging out of the way before he knew which direction to jump. He jumped down to the floor and back flipped away down the aisle. He flipped into a low crouch and looked around, trying to find the source of the attack.

He saw her then – the new body she had spoken of. She had grown four more thin arms, hair covered and insectoid – spider arms growing from her sides. The fangs in her mouth had migrated out and down to sprout from her chin, no longer retractable. Six black doll’s eyes stared out of her face now. Her neck and human limbs were unnaturally elongated – she was over seven feet tall now, her muscles standing taut like cords under her thin, pale skin.

“What do you think, beloved? Am I everything you ever wanted in a mate?” the spider-fixated sociopath posed seductively for him.

“You’re everything I NEVER wanted in a mate, that’s for sure,” he muttered, trying to spot a vantage point he could use to his best advantage, or some weapon he could use against his monstrous arch enemy, or some sign of Ragdoll.

“Oh beloved,” she laughed a peculiar little girl giggle, so very much at odds with her monstrous form. “You’re so silly. Your seed will be so wonderful, and our children will rule the world at my side. Your heart will be mine, beloved.”

“With fava beans and a nice Chianti, I know, I know…” Squirrelman jumped straight up into the air and hung from a chandelier twenty feet above the sociopathic serial killer.

Arachnid cocked her head at an inhuman angle and smiled. The her face went unpleasant and she opened her mouth wide and thick white webbing spat out of her mouth with incredible speed, nearly capturing him, sticking him to the chandelier. He had leapt at the last moment and now was flying over her head and flipping down to kick her hard with both feet. His blow landed with full force, which to him felt as though he was kicking a steel statue, while the inhuman villainess simply shrugged it off without even blinking her six eyes.

“I’m no bug expert,” Squirrelman quipped from high above, “but shouldn’t that web stuff be shooting out of your butt?”

“Oh, beloved,” Arachnid cooed sweetly, giggling her creepy little girl giggle, “You’re so silly.”

Matt barely dodged yet another spout of webbing as Arachnid opened her mouth wide. He jumped from balcony to balcony, then back again as thick webbing filled the air. Matt knew he was in trouble – he couldn’t keep dodging her forever. A plan suddenly struck him.

He jumped across the apse and into the nave, luring Arachnid down the aisle. When she was just where he wanted her, he slashed the heavy chain that was holding up the heavy iron chandelier, sending it crashing to the ground right on top of the homicidal sociopath.

The crashing noise stopped eventually, and Squirrelman hopped down to the floor to survey the wreckage. As he neared the twisted chandelier, Arachnid got up and heaved the heavy iron circle off her with hardly any effort. She cocked her head to the side and looked at Squirrelman with six unblinking eyes.

“Beloved…” she chided him.

Squirrelman twitched out of the way. The hideously strong Arachnid grabbed a heavy oak pew and lifted it like a child would lift a toy bat, then smashed out down on the floor of the aisle, narrowly missing him. The fifteen foot long pew swung around and swatted at him again. Squirrelman jumped straight up and barely cleared the huge pew club swung at him by his homicidal arch nemesis. When Arachnid smashed it down again it broke apart into long splinters of aged oak. Squirrelman clambered up the stone support column and dodged one flying chunk of former pew and was knocked out of the air by another hurled piece of aged hardened oak. He fell hard to the ground. Arachnid moved to tower menacingly over him, a maniacal grin on her face, her blood-smeared lips stretched wide, a little girl’s giggle escaping her sharp teeth, six black eyes glinting in the flickering candlelight. Matt felt a wave of fear overtake him, nausea filling him, and a tingling in the pit of his stomach.

Outside the St. Ellis Cathedral, Ragdoll was moving toward the cathedral along the exterior walk way. Father Morrison was dead – drained dry by the Arachnid, his withered husk left draped carefully on the huge crucifix in the residence. She’d gone outside because it was faster than trying to sneak through the corridors of the Cathedral. Later, she could only remember the fork lightning striking the twin bell towers of the Cathedral – the air lighting with sudden brightness, the crash of thunder that filled the world, the thrumming ringing tone of the bells ringing all at once.

On hands and knees on the ground inside the Cathedral, Matt saw Arachnid towering over him… the huge thrumming ringing tone of the bells high above filling the world… and then everything was different.

In her hidden lair far removed from the world who had spurned her scientific genius, Doctor Webb sneered down at the elegantly dressed British secret agent, Matt Mattheson, Double-Ess-Queue.

Double Ess Queue wiped away the trickle of blood from his lower lip with the back on his fist, looking up at the mad scientist. He had followed her from the casino high above them into the depths of this underground lair, where her scientific madness had reached its zenith. He had confronted her and tried to stop her mad plan to kill men with her Black Widow drug – and here, in her underground lab, he had been nearly beaten. The jacket of his exquisitely tailored tuxedo was ruined now… and the tall lean brunette held his Walther PPK in her hand, aiming it at him, just as it had been aimed at so many of his former foes.

“Do you expect me to beg, Webb?” Double Ess Queue said from the floor, slowly gathering his legs under him. He would have to be quick, very quick. Or he would be dead.

“No,” Webb laughed, “I expect you to die.”

She levelled his gun at him and fired just as he sprung away, the slug ricocheting off into the Black Widow drug processor, splashing the unprocessed chemicals all over the equipment. Webb shrieked as the highly volatile unprocessed drug immediately caught on fire and the laboratory exploded into flames.

Double Ess Queue rolled to his feet and immediately launched himself at the mad scientist, landing her a hard right hook on the chin. Flames were racing around the lab now, more of the unprocessed chemical exploding from the vials and vats and tubes, exploding with an odd rushing ringing noise. He had to get himself out of the underground complex, but he had to find Dolly first – the scientist’s lovely blonde assistant, who he had seduced and convinced to get him into the complex.

The ringing was growing louder, and louder and-

Squirrelman saw Arachnid standing over by the wrecked iron chandelier, just as Doctor Webb had been standing near her wrecked lab equipment, trying to salvage what she could. She slowly turned and faced her grey clad foe.

“Beloved, what tricks are you playing now?” she giggled at him.

So he wasn’t the only one who had experienced that odd… secret agent… vision. He looked at her, backing away slowly.

Arachnid turned and strode toward him… and Squirrelman heard the ringing tone of the bells that hadn’t stopped thrumming.

She was trouble but then redheads always were. She should have learned that by now. She’d come into his office with her sad sack tale of a wife done wrong and he’d fallen for it, like the sap he was, he always fell for blue eyes and long legs. Blondes were trouble – but you knew that, you were ready for it. Brunettes were a coin toss – they could go either way. But redheads… he never met a redhead who wasn’t a bit nutsy. And this dame was as nutsy as they come.

Matt Mattheson, Private Eye to the Stars, had tried his damnedest to find the deadbeat husband, but all his leads led to dead ends. Until he’d found an unmarked grave, and an insurance agent who liked the ponies a little too much, a blackmail scheme, and at the end of the trail was this crazy dame… the Black Widow Killer.

“Mattheson… you couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you? You and that damned nosy secretary of yours… You and Dolly couldn’t just accept my pay and stop investigating. I wanted a good gumshoe, not a damned bloodhound. And you were too good.”

“Yeah, yeah, blow it out yer ear, sister,” Matt said, stalling for time as she stalked him, the revolver in her hand pointed right at him. “Flattery will get you nowhere.”

The dame with the legs got off a round and it cut a crease in his left shoulder, the sound of the gunshot ringing ringing ringing in his ears-

Squirrelman looked at the blood seeping out of his left shoulder, just where the hard boiled private detective had been shot, he pressed his right hand over the wound, trying to stem the flow of blood. Arachnid looked at him and giggled. She pointed her hand at him, extending one clawed finger and said, “Bang!”

She looked at her hand, disappointment clear on her face.

“Aaawww,” she whined. “It didn’t work.” But then she realized what she was looking at – her claws.

“But these will…” she grinned her bloody grin at him.

She leapt at him. He judged her exactly right and somersaulted under her, narrowly missing being eviscerated by her long claws. As it was long scratches were etched shallowly along his sides. Not enough to be fatal, but enough to inconvenience him, slow him down just enough.

He rolled and whirled around to face her, backing into the wreckage of the heavy iron chandelier, scraping it along the floor a bit, scraping and ringing and thrumming and ringing-

In the depths of the underground temple to the Dark Goddess of the Midnight Web, Matthew Spiderslayer clutched his ancient longsword, Nightpiercer. The High Priestess, Arechna, was finished her magical incantation and her transformation was complete. The pale skinned drow elf had metamorphed into a drider – a half-elf, half spider monstrosity, a normal elf down to the waist, a hideously bloated huge eight legged spider thorax where her slender legs had been previously.

“Aahhhhh,” the High Priestess breathed. “My thanks to Thee, O Great Webmistress. Truly Thy gifts are beyond measure.” Her acolytes, mindless slaves that they were, struck the huge gong behind the blood-stained altar, the deep ringing tone filling the cavern.

“Your foul Mistress will not prevail, you fiend!” Matthew swore. His hatred of the drow elves was legendary, his opposition to the Dark Goddess of the Midnight Web without equal. He stood and faced the villainess, lifting Nightpiercer defiantly. “Face me – if you dare!”

The dryder priestess charged him then, eight long spider legs crossing the distance in no time at all. Matthew Spiderslayer had barely enough time to raise his ancient longsword and she had impaled herself on it. She stared down at the razor sharp blade seemingly growing out of her stomach.

“Pure star iron, blessed by the God of the Sun,” she muttered, realizing her foe’s blade was forged from her one weakness. She looked at him, almond shaped eyes looking confused.

“Beloved?” she said, confusing Matthew… but Matt saw Arachnid’s eyes staring out at him, and the ringing of the gong grew louder and louder.

Squirrelman looked down at the piece of iron chandelier that had hung for fifty years in the Cathedral of St. Ellis of Jerusalem. Watched it with mild fascination as it led from his clenched fist and entered Arachnid’s stomach, blood so dark it was almost black in the flickering candlelight.

“Oh, Beloved,” she said weakly, transforming back to her normal human self as consciousness left her. “What beautiful horrors our babies will be…”

The formerly hideous sociopath, now human once more, slid backward off the iron chandelier shard and toppled, bleeding, to the floor. He let the iron chandelier shard slide out of his hand and fall with a loud clatter to the floor. He saw she was still breathing, at least, so she wasn’t dead and he wasn’t a murderer. Squirrelman looked at devastation around him with dismay.

The Cathedral of St. Ellis of Jerusalem was virtually destroyed. The stained glass windows were all shattered, the pews a mass of splinters, the columns smashed, the chandeliers fallen, the candles scattered, the altar desecrated. Outside the open empty window frames the storm raged, rain falling into the Cathedral, lightning arcing across the sky, lighting the interior of the Cathedral with flickering white flashes. But the oddest thing of all was that despite the bright flashing light of the storm, no sound could be heard. Complete silence filled the Cathedral, broken only by Squirrelman’s breathing.

Matt looked down at the blood pooling under and around his foe, glossy black in the flickering white lightning light. He knew if he let her bleed to death he was probably saving lives… but he couldn’t do it. He reached for his police call card and touched the summons button.

Static was his only response. No signal was incoming or outgoing. Matt fiddled with the call card but nothing seemed to work, so he looked for something to wrap the Arachnid’s wound with. He grabbed the altar cloth and quickly wrapped it around his arch nemesis. He picked her up and carried her down the aisle, heading for the tall wooden doors in the nave. He pushed one door open and carried her outside.

The world outside seemed to be chaos incarnate. Deserts, storms, the city destroyed, tall silver glass spires reaching for the heavens, day and night, all merged together beyond a curtain of lightning that surrounded the Cathedral. Still holding his greatest enemy in his arms, he watched the world shatter and reform into thousands of shards, back and forth beyond logic and order, gazing upon a hundred thousand worlds beyond the curtain of lightning bolts, soundless, beyond space and time.

And then he saw something that gave him hope. In one of the lightning-windows, he saw Ragdoll talking with Reed Sterling and the Sterling Squad, pointing excitedly at the Cathedral and Squirrelman. Reed spoke into the control panel of the Sterling flying platform, and there was a rush of white and gold from the storm filled sky beyond them.

Majestic burst through the lightning window and landed on the ground next to Squirrelman. He smiled at the grey clad guardian of Lower Uptown.

“Let’s get you out of here, friend,” Majestic said, looking around with interest at the chaotic swirl of lightning windows crackling soundlessly around them.

He picked up both the escaped sociopath and Squirrelman and flew into the sky. The lightning window seemed to be shrinking, and also pulling away from them at the same time. Majestic poured on the speed, flying so quickly he became a blur of white and gold and suddenly they were through the window, which shut with a pop sound behind them, the world filling with sound once more – the storm raging with hurricane intensity, thunder crashing all around them.

“Holy socks!” Reed exclaimed just as Majestic set down on the flying platform, placing the wounded Arachnid on a folding couch. Ragdoll immediately went to Squirrelman and held him. Julia set about healing the wounds Squirrelman had inflicted as the rest of them watched the lightning bubble around the Cathedral suddenly vanish.

“What happened in there?” Reed asked the grey clad guardian. Matt shook his head, describing the events that he had just experienced – the secret agent, the detective, the drow hating warrior, exiting the destroyed Cathedral to the lightning windows.

“That wasn’t lightning,” Curt said, flashes of lightning sparking from his eyes in elemental sympathy with the storm. “I know lightning, and that weren’t it.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Reed said. “My readings indicate it was alternity flux energy.”

“I don’t like the sound of that, Reed,” Majestic stated. “Let’s go to the Citadel and I’ll call in the Team.”

“We’ll meet you there,” Reed answered. Majestic soared off into the storm.

Carmine picked up the unconscious form of Arachnid and sped her back to the Kane Sanitarium, there and back in a couple of minutes. While they waited, Reed examined Squirrelman and Julia healed his wounds.

“Seems the Gardner Violation you represent is growing in intensity,” Doc Sterling said pensively, making calculations based on the readings he’d just taken. “You’re virtually flooded with alternity energy.”

“Is that good news or bad?” Squirrelman asked.

“It depends… it could be simply a result of your mind riding around in your predecessor’s body… or it could an indication of a greater problem.”

“Predecessor?” Ragdoll asked.

“I’ll… I’ll explain later,” Squirrelman said. “What kind of greater problem?”

“It could be that someone is tampering with the structure of all reality,” Doc Sterling said, piloting the flying platform into the storm.

Curt kept the lightning from frying them and Jeannie kept the wind from blowing them off course, but it wasn’t an easy ride through the storm, and the roar of wind and crash of thunder around them kept conversation at a minimum. When they burst through the clouds into the blinding sunlight of the upper atmosphere, they could speak once more.

“Where are we headed anyway?” Squirrelman asked.

“There,” Doc Sterling said, pointing at a glimmering jewel glinting in the sky.

As they flew closer it grew into a huge flying castle of gleaming glittering crystal. The Majestic Citadel, home of the Majestic Family, headquarters of Team Title.