Chapter 4 – Despair
"Holly, check over there!" Mittens said as the two of them pulled out more and more survivors. Holly had just finished pulling out another girl about her age from a nearly collapsed building; the girl was unconscious so a few of the other survivors tended to her. "On it!" Holly said as she jogged towards the magical cat. Mittens jumped into the window of a destroyed apartment building, every time she did this she'd find someone dead or blood splattered everywhere beneath a large chunk of stone, however this time was different, this time there was nothing. "Ho, thank heavens!" Mittens said as she looked around. The stairs had been collapsed, but for some reason or other the actual room she was in was almost untouched. Broken TV's and radios scattered everywhere amongst shattered tables and a single chair with a missing leg was all she could find. "Hello?" she asked, "Anyone here?"
"There, see?" she heard a hushed female voice ask, "I told you doubling back was a bad idea."
"Shut up will you?" a man's hushed voice said, "That wasn't him anyway!" With a quick swipe of her claws she carved another circle into the ground, a circle that had another symbol in the middle, with two wavy lines on both sides of it. "Carliam!" she said, and one of the larger slabs in the room moved aside, revealing the stare case. "Who said that?" the girl asked as Mittens simply walked up to the stairs and hopped up, climbing them easily as she made her way to the second floor. "Shh! Quiet and they might just pass us by!" the man whispered. Mittens closed her eyes as she listened intently, her pointed fury ears swiveling side to side as she tried to pin point the sounds. Her eyes suddenly snapped open and she silently ran up the stairs, Turning at the top and running down to the middle of the floor. "MEROW!" she called out and used her stone claws to scratch the door. "Merow?" the female whispered, and Mittens heard soft footsteps slowly creep towards the door. Again Mittens scratched the door, and meowed, sounding as if she were a regular cat. "It's just a cat leave it alone!" the man said. "I'm a cat if you hadn't noticed!" the girl said and the door opened slowly, revealing Savage, now in a white halter top and black jeans, "YOU!" Savage nearly growled.
"You!" Mittens growled back and jumped up to her, latching her paws to the alien's head. "You two are both going to get us killed!" Dustin said as he quickly shut the door, grabbed Mittens from Savage's face before she could pull out her claws, and tossed the magical cat halfway across the room. His dark purple t-shirt wrinkled at the shoulder as he threw her, and his loose blue jeans faded in and out as they were enveloped in shadow and light. Mittens used her old instincts, turning in mid air and landing on her paws. "I should set you both on fire!" She said as she turned towards the alien and human. "What? Why me? What did I do?" Dustin asked. "Oh yah, thanks!" Savage responded sarcastically. "It's because of you, Bolt's in this mess!" Mittens told them as she slid her crystal claws out from her paws. "Bolt? Did you forget that he's the one hunting us?" Savage asked. "Never mind, you wouldn't understand it anyways." Mittens responded and turned her head down, away from them.
"MITTENS?" she heard Holly ask from down stairs. Savage froze in place, lifting her hand to grab onto Dustin's wrist. Mittens could see the alien calming down, slowly, but still, the fear was leaving. "I'm up here Holly!" Mittens called back. "Are you crazy?" Savage asked, "What if it's Bolt and he learned how to disguise his voice?" Mittens simply rolled her eyes, "He couldn't even do the wicked witch voice when he read to our children!" she explained. "That's sad!" Dustin said with an air of disbelief. "Where?" Holly asked. "In here!" Mittens called out again. "If you're wrong and it's him, I swear I'll haunt your ghost!" Savage nearly growled. She waited with baited breath as the door handle twisted, then the door creaked open, and Holly entered the room.
"Oh, you found more survivors." the girl said. "Unfortunately!" Mittens growled as she turned her eyes up to Savage. "Leave her alone!" Dustin warned, "She's sorry!"
"I didn't hear it!" Mittens said as she passed by them. "Bolt's not here either way."
"How do you know?" Savage asked. "The dog's my husband." the cat growled at the alien, and then turned away and whispered, "At least, part of him is." Again she turned to them, "I can just tell, it's like…I can sense him or something, I can't explain it." Mittens turned from them, walking back down the hall with an anger simply radiating off of her, "Well?" she asked as she reached to end of the hall and turned back to them, "Are you coming or not?" Stunned for only a second the two humans and the alien followed her, careful not to say anything to anger her again.
Rhino looked up at the flying Angelira, her miniature wings somehow holding him high in the air. "Hey?" he asked. Angelira looked down, taking her eyes off of the sky for a split second, "Do you think we'll actually get Bolt back?" he asked. Angelira smiled as she lifted her head back to her route, "Yes, but I get the feeling that it's going to be harder than we think." she responded. "That's what I thought too." he said solemnly as he looked down to the ground below. He had done this many times before, and somehow it never seemed to frighten him.
"I don't understand!" Dark Bolt said as he sniffed the ground. "They were here not long ago, but their scent just seems to disappear!"
"Having trouble?" Bolt asked from inside his head. Dark Bolt closed his eyes, sinking into his own mind, and looking his other half square in the eyes. "I don't need to hear it from a weakling like you!" he said. "I'm not weak!" Bolt said, only to receive his dark halves teeth in the back of his neck. Dark Bolt slammed the white shepherd to the ground, even with all of the chains still wrapped around Bolt, he attempted to stand. "You're weak!" Dark Bolt reiterated, "You can't even stop me. Just look at all of the people you could have saved!" Bolt struggled a little as he stood up again, "How can I do anything while I'm wrapped up in these chains?" he asked. "Pah, those chains are of your own making!" Dark Bolt said. "My own making?" Bolt asked. "Of course!" Dark Bolt told him, as if it were the most well known thing in the world, "These are your despair, your misery. No one else suffers them but you!"
"I know what they are." Bolt said, "And someday I'll lock you under them for good!" Dark Bolt stopped, and laughed at his words, "How can you lock me in them if you refuse to get out of them yourself?" he asked. "You think I haven't been trying?" Bolt nearly growled. "You could have escaped them any time, the fact that you haven't only ensures me that you have been enjoying my little display of destruction." the black dog replied with a smile. "I haven't enjoyed a second of it." Bolt snarled. "Oh come on, do be honest!" Dark Bolt sneered, "Only a few of your chains are actually lying on top of you right now!" Bolt turned his head, and indeed, only a few of the chains weighed him down. Bolt turned back to his dark half, shock and awe dominant on his face, "You did this on purpose." he said and felt the weight of the other chains slowly pile on top of him, "Of course!" Dork Bolt said as he picked up another chain and tossed it on top of Bolt, "I wanted to see if you actually wanted to be free." and with a sick grin threw another chain atop his light half, "Poor Bolt!" he said and tossed another large chain on top of the dog, "So broken hearted," and threw another chain atop the white shepherd, "so helpless," and another, "so…" and the last of the chains was placed on top of him, yet Bolt continued to struggle against their weight, "…Pathetic!" Dark Bolt finished. Bolt struggled against the weight of the chains, only to have Dark Bolt wrap one of them around his neck, pinning him in place, "Once I'm done with these two, I'll hunt down the hamster, and after that the flying girl, and finally, I'll hunt down the cat. Your wife will either bow before me, or die fighting. She only gets one shot at either, I'm not the forgiving type!" Dark Bolt growled, and turned from Bolt. "WAIT!" He said as he struggled against the chains, "YOU LEAVE HER ALONE, YOU HEAR? IF YOU HURT ONE HAIR ON HER HEAD I'LL KILL YOU MYSELF!" he shouted, and it seemed as if a steal door closed on him, locking him away from Dark Bolt as the villain reemerged, his crimson eyes shining with even more malice than before. "Enjoy the show Bolt, it's going to get even better now!"
End Chapter 4
