Note from the author: This was made more for Indigo_X than anyone. She likes the characters involved and has a particular fondness for Angela. It never fails to happen - I make a character for any given game or story as prickly and unlikable as possible, and they're always the one people gravitate toward. Angela originally began as a Hellboy/BPRD non-player character in a game I was running to serve as a consultant and sometimes field agent. Since then she's cropped up in other games either as a PC of my own or as a mouth piece to inform my players and also in a few pieces of fiction I've dabbled in as a freelance paranormal investigator, which is what she is here.
So, yea, here is the Metalocalypse fan fic.
Enjoy, everyone, and especially Indy - who loves ya?
Standard Disclaimer Ahoy:
Metalocalypse and it's characters don't belong to me - they have sprung Athena-like from the noggins of Tommy Blacha & Brendon Small. Angela & Lyle are mine.
Witchklok
by A.M.P.
Prologue
In which we are introduced to Angela Ender; a paranormal investigator who receives an offer of employment
In the end, he probably deserved it.
Monday came as Monday did - without excuse or invitation and entirely too early. Joshua's hand made a blind, amoeba-like grope in the direction of his alarm clock and, failing to find its target, seemed to gain focus and settled for yanking the cord out of the wall. Sitting up sluggishly, he noted an uncomfortable sensation in his stomach and the distinct taste of bile lingering in the back of his throat. Sparing a glance around the room, he cast about for any evidence of what might be the cause (another weekend offered up to his patron saint, Jack Daniels, perhaps?) and, finding none, got grudgingly to his feet.
Joshua's bathroom was the sort of place that cryptozoologists might venture in search of mythic and long-lost beasts of lore. With a bit of luck, they might even find one, considering the multitude of exotic flora and fauna allowed to flourish there free of the tyranny of Lysol or Windex. He observed his haggard countenance momentarily in the mirror before deciding that he'd, perhaps. be better off having not done so. So began the usual ritual - wash, shave, brush, comb and generally try to make himself presentable according to the demands of the outside world.
His thoughts floated as he went about his business, bobbing amid the early morning flotsam and jetsam of dawning awareness. The world of retail employment was calling and he did his best to project himself beyond it - thinking instead of the night to come. Video games, maybe, or perhaps dinner out with some friends.
Denny's - it's late, you're stoned, nothing else is open.
Food seemed a distant desire at the moment, though. Indeed, he felt, if anything, painfully full. A bit of fresh air, however, would certainly do him some good. Checking his watch he saw he'd have about an hour of free time before having to hoof it. Reprimands and other unkind words had been slung about lately concerning his attendance and punctuality, so he wanted to turn over a new leaf as far as his tardiness was concerned. Converse donned, he headed through the door and into the derelict hallway of his less-than-posh apartment complex, opting to take the back door out and thereby avoid his nagging land lord.
A step outside into the initially glaring sunlight proved to be just what the doctor ordered as the young man began to feel his stomach right itself almost immediately. Tinged even as it was with the atmospheric pollutants typical yet unique to the urban sprawl, stale apartment air it was not and thereby preferable.
He enjoyed it for a total of about ten seconds. That he even turned to look over his shoulder and see the one-eyed woman in mid-swing with her blackjack was a miracle. He had never been and never would be the most observant of men. Her own surprise, if indeed she felt any, was expressed only in a casual, "Hi" before Joshua's world went black.
* * *
It was the smell that woke him.
An urban creature, the dank, earthy scent that pulled him unwillingly into the world was alien, yet on some level comforting. His head radiated pain down through his trunk and into his limbs as sensation prickled back along his skin.
He would have preferred that it hadn't.
His first instinct was to cradle his head - useless as it may have been, it was an automatic reaction. He found, however, that his hand was fixed in place, quite securely, with a length of chain nailed fast to a tree. In fact, as his head began to clear and his vision trickled back in again from the edges, he discovered that his back and the rest of his limbs were all lashed against damp, grimy bark. Skin bare and exposed he saw, too, that he was standing in a sizable aluminum trough.
Something unintelligible passed through his lips, a vague expression of confusion and dawning panic.
The one-eyed woman, however, was the picture of calm. She was sitting on a large rock about two yards away from Joshua, and she was working with something in her hands. Her motions were efficient, but unhurried, nothing wasted. Her hair was either black or very dark brown and fell down to her waist. She had long, angular facial features and her single eye was a tawny hazel, the other covered by a black eye patch.
"Wha...what are...who are you?" The words dribbled out of his mouth like alphabetic spittle and the woman gave no sign of recognition. Shaking his head and regretting it a moment later when it rewarded him with little else but a grander echo of his headache, Joshua did his best to pull himself together. "What are you doing?" His growing alarm was, for the moment, doing wonders for his coherency. There was something else, though, nagging at him under the mental fog. Something important.
The woman tilted her face up, but not at him. Instead, she appeared to be giving the object she'd been assembling a once-over. A revolver, she swung out the cylinder and removed a box of ammunition from her pocket.
"Oh, God...Oh, God, please don't kill me! Why are you doing this?" Joshua became acutely aware of the aluminum trough beneath his feet and a surge of adrenaline took him. Forgetting his cold and discomfort, he pulled vainly at the chains holding him, earning himself little more than angry red blotches across his arms and legs for his trouble. His voice became high and terrified. "I'll do whatever you want, just don't kill me!"
His outcry did little to move the woman. Instead, she went about her business, loading the chambers with bullets which the young man found to be made of a particularly bright metal.
His stomach gave a sudden lurch as he reached an epiphany.
Color draining from his face, his tone changed to one of harried quietness. "I'm sorry. Oh, Jesus, I'm sorry. Was it someone you knew? Loved? I swear, I don't mean to do it. It just happens! You have to believe me - I'm a good person! I'm just sick!"
Snapping the cylinder back into place, the woman got to her feet and looked at the boy for the first time since he'd woken up.
"Please! I'm just sick!"
The sun was setting behind her, the glare making her little more than a mottled silhouette as it sank behind the trees. It would be a beautiful evening - clear and cloudless with a full moon shining above them like a celestial silver dollar.
A choking noise began to issue from the chained young man, his chest suddenly heaving and eyes rolling back into his head. Back arching, he strained against his bonds, seeming not to feel them biting into his skin which was beginning to bristle with coarse, grey hair. His body writhed and bent at unnatural angles as joints and bones shifted their positions and shapes. New muscles squirmed like worms beneath the skin of an apple as his stature expanded into new and fearful symmetry. Voice becoming more guttural and less human by the moment, his face, disfigured by agony, seemed to flow forward, mouth and nose stretching out to accommodate his lengthening teeth.
She waited, unfazed, for his transformation's completion. The werewolf that had moments before been a young man snapped its head around in her direction, fixing her with murderous yellow eyes. Among other things, werewolves, as a rule, detest confinement and are exceptional at breaking free of it. As such, Angela Ender had no intention of allowing him the opportunity.
There was a jolt up her arm as the gun fired, the ring of the shot that lingered in her ears, and a neat hole punched between the eyes of the chained monster. The tree behind his head was a mess of gore and cranial debris which left her with the satisfaction of having accomplished this particular step.
She wanted to work quickly because werewolf corpses sometimes had peculiar reactions to silver and the preservation of this one's various body parts was vital. Holstering her gun, she turned and began to retrieve items from the van she'd parked nearby. While she'd been fairly confident in her ability to dispatch the thing before it broke free and caused any major damage, she hadn't wanted to chance the possibility of losing the equipment she'd brought along for this particular job. Setting about the business of changing her attire, she donned a long coat and appropriate gloves as well as a protective breathing mask and goggles. A generator and lights came next, which she set up and aimed at the still-warm dissection subject.
The odor was not encouraging.
It was a situation best approached by keeping a stiff upper lip and thinking of England.
It was after she'd begun the draining process and started about the business of seeing whether or not she might be able to procure two whole and undamaged werewolf eyes that her phone went off. Recognizing the tone that signified she was getting a call from the office, she clipped her earpiece on.
"Lyle, if it's about my high school reunion again, for the last time, I'm not going. And if it's the client for the werewolf case, kindly tell them to keep their pants on - I got him. It wasn't hard. I am, however, in the process of getting my end of the bargain and I'd really rather not be bothered now if it's all the same."
She began to apply herself again to her work, quieting as she listened to the voice on the other end.
"Very well, if it isn't them, who is it?
"Yes, I've heard of them. Please don't insult my observational skills...not that I'd really need any in their case. But go on.
"Oh? That's peculiar. Why?
"That's it? You told them about my fee, right?
"Oh, really now? That's generous of them. Well, how much more did they offer?"
The voice on the other end quoted a truly ludicrous sum. A lesser person might have fainted or had their mind promptly blown at the mere effort of trying to comprehend a number that most mathematicians referred to in strictly theoretical terms.
Angela merely paused in her work and furrowed her brow.
"That...is a retarded amount of money."
She rolled her eye, more at herself than anything else for failing to come up with a better adjective.
"No. That's downright suspicious. It implies a lot more involvement than observation. I can't think of anyone who'd pay that much for reconnaissance work. Even from someone like me. I'm a little puzzled as to why they'd want me keeping an eye on a metal band, anyway. There's nothing paranormal about them, as far as I can tell. Granted, I haven't looked into the matter with great thoroughness. Maybe they want someone with my perspective looking for something they might miss.
"Lyle, the chance of them actually successfully using any necronomic spells, Finnish or otherwise, is extraordinarily slim. If I went after every idiot who got their hands on a necronomicon, I'd be up to my eye-ball in college kids and suburban house wives chasing the latest religious trend to try and breathe excitement into all that is stale and dead in their lives. Honestly, I wouldn't be too worried. Clearly, there's another concern here that our would-be employer is not telling us about.
"Just tell them I've been made aware of their proposition and will consider it. I'd like to learn a little more about our potential benefactors before I take so much as a nickel from them. Good. Now, if that's all, please excuse me while I get back to--"
Angela pulled her instrument away as the monstrous body chained to the tree began to twitch and convulse. There wasn't enough time to pull back any further and she found herself on the business end of a very messy, extraordinarily bloody, projectile vomit. Looking down front of her coat, which now bore a striking resemblance to a Jackson Pollack painting, she released her exasperation in a drawn out sigh before answering the worried inquiries buzzing into her ear.
"...Nothing. No, I'm fine. They just do...really unpredictable and evidently incredibly disgusting things when you shoot them in the brain with a silver bullet. I'll call you if I need anything. Just...would you hold off on sending my things to the dry cleaner until after I get back? Thanks."
Once off the phone, Angela squinted at a particular bloody lump that was plastered to her coat. Removing it gingerly with the tips of her gloved fingers, she held it up to the light.
It was a very small, partially digested human finger. It was still wearing the remains of a ring from a crackerjack box.
Angela's lip curled slightly under her mask as she turned to address the recently deceased lycanthrope.
"I knew you deserved it."