Penelope on high

(A/N: there is some language in this chapter)

Penelope looked at the bar from her office, a floor above the main floor. After she had nearly felt like passing out in front of Alya when running down the stairs all the way from her office she decided that she wouldn't be out on the floor tonight, she wasn't worried about her workers they could handle themselves, plus the customers knew the rules; either you heard them from some one or you learned from experience, and learning from experience wasn't pretty.

The rules had evolved from when penelope first started the club; at first the rules were "don't harass the workers or else you'd get a stern talking to, and please no fights;" but when the club started to get noticed by shady groups more and more, enough to where those that frequented would see members of the rival groups and start fights or small skirmishes, both of those had caused penelope to start paying her security more so that they would be compensated for any injuries, but one night when a fight broke out, it was the first time a non-human had been involved with it.

Flashback

All penelope heard was screams and crashing before she saw the body of one of her security guards come crashing through her office window, when he had landed she checked his pulse, luckily he was still alive, but he was just unconscious, she had stood up and had hit the house lights on her way to the window, the whole interior was now lit up as if it were an outdoor setting, she saw two figure in the center of the chaos that had become her club, a red haired woman dressed in a suit and someone else wearing a mask. Unbeknownst to Penelope the security guard that was behind her had woken up enough to get to the phone and call the police. At one point the red haired woman had thrown the masked person far enough away that they decide to run out the door, leaving the woman among their shared destruction.

The woman looked up, right into Penelope's eyes, and Penelope recognized the woman as Bloody Mary, The Big Boss; she began blushing. Penelope briefly saw panic flash through the other woman's eyes and as soon as she blinked though the woman was gone. She heard the labored breaths of the guard behind her, she turned and had started to move towards him but he began to speak,

"Nah boss, go check on everyone else" he managed to get himself into one of the office chairs.

"Where did they go?" She moved towards where she kept her first aid kit in her desk, she retrieved it, and brought it to him.

"M-most of 'em ran out the door when the fight started, but I think plenty of 'em got down to the locker rooms" he pulled the pain meds out of the kit and ate some of them with no water.

Penelope spoke in a calm soothing voice "Okay, i'll be back, hopefully before the cops get here."

The guard physically relaxed and got a dazed look on his face when she began speaking. Penelope straightened her clothes, turned, and walked towards the door of her office, when she walked out she fully assessed the damage to her club, she'd have to be closed for a few weeks, the more she thought about it the more she disliked her situation, she'd have to not pay her workers for those week she was closed for rebuilding, she could barely afford to fix her club.

When she got to the locker rooms she knocked on each door and said that everything was fine, one by one herworkers left the locker rooms, some covered various alcohols others had splinters from the tables covering them, some were bleeding, a few customers that hadn't been able to get out in time scurried ahead of the crowd, anxious to escape the scene. Penelope checked both locker rooms, all of the bathrooms for anyone else, she found nothing. By the time she got back up to the main floor the police had gotten there and were looking around, and she looked up towards the stairs to her office to see some paramedics helping the guard from earlier down the stairs. She followed them out the doors, and immediately she was found by the lead officer,

"Hi, we are going to need you to answer some questions about what you saw." the officer began leading Penelope to their police car.

"Of course" Penelope was starting to pick at her nails, she always did this when around police, or other figures of authority. The cop noticed this.

"You nervous?" they asked.

"Kind of? I'm sorry i always do this in certain situations, like this, it's stressful and gives me a bit of anxiety" she partially lied, she didn't want the cop to know it was because of the them. She caught a glimpse of their gun, her anxiety rose, but the cop did not notice that.

"Did you see who cause the destruction in the club?" the cop had pulled out a notepad.

"I-...I did not the flood lights hadn't turned on in time for me to see anything but the door close" Penelope couldn't get the image of the fear in Bloody Marys eyes out of her head, so she lied to the cop.

"Are you sure that's all you saw?" the cop looked at Penelope as if they knew she was lying, but she saw the cop glance somewhere behind her shoulder and they seemed to immediately back off

"A-alright miss, if we have any questions we will call." the copped got into their car and just sat there. Penelope thought this was odd because the cop never stopped staring forward, they didn't glance around for the minute she was standing there trying to figure out what had just happened. When she turned to leave penelope could have sworn she saw a glimpse of red hair in the shadows of the alleyway next to her club,she looked around to see if anyone was watching her, she then headed towards the alleyway. She saw nothing.

The next day when Penelope had gotten to the club, to begin cleaning, she saw a rather large group of people in overalls and long sleeve shirts. They were going to and fro their trucks to the inside of her club, some had brooms, others had what she was guessing was buckets of plaster, some had paint canisters, and others had new tables and chairs, a few of the workers were carrying in a new countertop for the bar the were shortly joined by some others bringing in a new base and then they were followed by crates of alcohol. When penelope pulled jaw off of the floor after seeing everyone fixing her place, she walked in and truly saw everything that was going on, she could tell, even through all of the renovations, that this place was going to look fancy, much more fancy than she could afford, she began to worry that this was going to be a debt she couldn't pay off. Amidst her worrying she also happened to notice that the door to her office was open, but it didn't look like any of the workers were currently up there, though on her way up she did notice that the window got re-paned. When she walked through the door she get the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, before her sat Bloody Mary in a big plush chair; the very woman who helped to wreck the club.

"Hello Penelope. I'm sorry about breaking into your club this early, i'll get the locks fixed for you…" Mary seemed uncomfortable in her chair.

"I- I uh… thanks? I think? I'm still angry about last night, but uh… this is a step. How much is this going to cost me Bloody Mary? Mary? Bm? Fuck." Penelope could feel her nerves rising, she couldn't talk her way out of this now if she tried.

"This is my apology for what happened, also i'm not mad but please don't call me Bloody Mary it's mostly just a stage name, ya know how it is; call me Morgana. I also have a business proposition for you." Morgana smiled at Penelope and motioned towards her chair silently asking her to sit down while she explained.

"M-may I ask what the fight was about last night or was it a spur of the moment type of thing? What kind of business proposition?" she could still feel the hairs on her neck standing tall, Penelope guessed that it's the feeling people get when near non-humans. Penelope took a moment to study Morgana, and what she saw matched what she had heard and seen on the news; the woman had bright un-naturally red curly hair that went down to her shoulders, her skin was a dark tan, with a few noticeable scars here and there, there were 3 prominent scars going from her hairline to her eyebrow, they looked like nail marks from a fight with someone with long nails, she was dressed in almost the same clothes as she had yesterday, but these were clean and had no tears in them, Penelope finally noticed the other woman's eyes looking at her intently, they were strange eyes, they looked red one moment and then brown the next, Penelope just chalked that up to a change in light (even though she was barely moving and the lights inside the office did not move.

Morgana cleared her throat.

"I have a guess what the fight was about but, they also could have been tracking me, probably hoping to get the jump on me. The business proposition has actually been brought up with a few different establishment owners around the downtown, but I have a good feeling about you," she smiled again. "Me and the other bosses want a void space, a space where we drop everything and act like normal people, no business could be conducted here, nor any gang related fights, kinda like the hotel in John Wick," Morgana pulled out several papers from a bad beside her that penelope hadn't even noticed. "You would still gain all money earned, we won't take any of it, and you'll even gain new customers. I know this seems sketchy, you seem to know about my history, of course everyone probably does with the news and narks, but still. I don't want you to feel obligated to say yes to this because of everything going on outside, im going to leave this here though, and i'm going to give you a week, if you want you could discuss it with your workers, but if you do I implore you to make sure that you really trust them with this information." she rose from her chair, and fixed her button up. Penelope stood up as well.

"Why here? Why me? Im sure there are many other hole-in-the-wall type places where you could go to. I-I mean i'm happy with the idea of more revenue and new customers, but I just want to know why." The hairs slacked.

Morgana smiled again. "Because, last night when the cop was asking you questions, you didn't tell them you saw me, already that's much better than a couple of the owners of those hole-in-the-wall places"

Morgana left the office; Penelope jumped out of her chair to watch Morgana, Bloody Mary, The Big Boss, the most terrifying of the gang bosses leave her club in a cloud of dust, literally.

End of flashback

Nowadays Penelope's gotten better with being around non-humans, her hair doesn't stand up anymore, she's also gotten better about talking to and around Morgana. The club had been established as a null zone almost a decade ago, and she's enjoyed the peace of it, there were hardly any fights and if any occurred they were quickly shut down and separated. But as time went on Penelope learned that some members of the various groups had grown attached to the workers of the club, some were dancers, others bartenders or waitresses, some were even security. Penelope knew that there was only one person who seemed as attached to her as the others were to her workers and that was Morgana, Penelope was surprised about this when she had the revelation, but at first she worried that it was her voice that did it, it usually was a constant concern albeit it was usually in the back of her mind, sometimes her charisma spiked randomly without her knowing, but much to her eventual delight that was not the case Morgana wasn't under any sort of trance, she just liked being around her.

Tonight though Penelope observed the floor alone, Morgana had a meeting and wouldn't be able to make it that night to watch the triplets perform; but on the upside Ayla was working that night,

"At the bar" she thought to herself. She could just call the bar to bring her something, but tonight was a rather busy one. She didn't know why it was and it kind of irked her because she would usually have heard of something happening through her grapevine by now, but she heard nothing. She got up out of her chair, she noticed it made a rather loud creaking sound, she looked back to her chair and noticed that the fabric was beginning to rise and shrink around the seams of the chair, she shrugged the chair wasn't snapped in half or literally falling apart just yet, she didn't need a new one. She left her office.

On her way down she saw many types of beings enjoying the space in her club; monsters, humans, the gang members that were off that night, they were all partying with each other as if they were old friend. When she reached the floor it's as if the people that were obstructing her path parted like the red sea in whichever direction she looked, all she wanted to do was to get to the bar and hopefully have a nice break from the paperwork that was waiting for her upstairs. The bar was crowded as expected but she didn't have to wait; she lifted the counter door so that she could get through and started to make herself a long island. When she finished, and turned away to leave the bar, she was met with the faces of Veronica and T.S, they were her right and left hands.

"Oh! Hi girls. How can i help you? Do you want something to drink or…?"

"Boss wants you up in your office, apparently she really wants to talk to you. She's not panicked or anything so you don't have to worry, but if i were you i'd bring a bottle of booze." Veronica said, slightly smiling as she motioned her head up towards Penelope's office.

Penelope's Office

Morgana paced back and forth in Penelope's brightly lit office; she was nervous about what she was about to do, it's not that she didn't want to ask Penelope out, she did, but she worried about what the other bosses would think, she worried about them taking advantage of Penelope or herself. Amidst her worrying she noted somewhere in her mind that what she was doing was odd, she's almost never been nervous, rarely in her original universe, and even more rarely here, even when the vigilante attacked she didn't feel anything. Penelope was the first in a while to make her feel something other than her usual unwavering confidence.

Morgana was too absorbed in herself to notice the metallic sound of footsteps on the stairs, what she did notice though was the bright flash of light coming from the direction of the woods, more specifically the portal; she couldn't think much more about the light because the office door opened, causing morgana eyes to meet Penelope's. With the help of the light she saw Penelope blush a bit. She felt her confidence coming back to her, until she saw the bottle of booze in Penelope's hand.

"Fuckin Veronica, giving people my weaknesses."Morgana smiled as she thought this. She watched Penelope walk to her chair and sit down, she then pulled out two glasses from one of the drawers on her desk, shes sure she's heard Penelope call them her "crystal" before, they both knew they came from the dollar store.

Penelope felt nervous, it was the first time in a while; she hadn't felt nervous around Morgana since they became friends, but she also felt like something had changed along the way. Morgana seemed like she was on edge, like she was on the cusp of asking something, but before she could open her mouth a loud bang resonated throughout the building, it was louder than the music. Both Penelope and Morgana looked at each other, and looked towards the window looking out to the bar floor, when they stood up screams were beginning to be heard. When they both reached the window to look out to the floor they could see a hoodie clad figure, and they both saw a flash of yellow,she recognized it as the other being that fought morgana on the first night they saw each other. Penelope looked over to Morgana, her jaw was clenched, but Penelope noticed big differences in how she looked; her hair had turned an even more vibrant red, and her eyes, oh her eyes, Penelope hadn't ever seen morgana's eyes like they were now, the skin around them had turned dark, and her cheeks looked sunk in, her eyes were glowing a bright red. Penelope had known Morgana wasn't human, but she didn't know it went this far, she had thought that maybe Morgana was like her, where she had a few abilities like inhuman strength and speed, but she would have never guessed that she was a ghoul.

Morgana seemed to realize what she had just done and looked to Penelope, when she turned her head, she saw shock and worry across the other woman's face, causing her to unclench her jaw and snarl in the direction of the masked vigilante currently ransacking her, as far as she knew, unrequited crushes bar. She threw the door open and charged through it, managing to jump over the railing and landing on the main floor successfully attracting the attention of the vigilante. Penelope had run out of the office after her, stopping at the railing. Morgana stood, both of them were staring at the other, sizing the other up. Morgana noticed that her opponent had upgraded since their last struggle, she had metal knee pads instead of the black plastic ones, same with the elbow pads, she noted that the others gloves has metal tips on the fingers and the knuckles of the gloves were the same; while those details could have been missed the ones that couldn't were the two swords peeking out from behind the other, and the yellow smiling mask with glowing white eyes. Morgana gould see why that would be terrifying to be accosted through a dark alleyway by, but she felt no fear, only rage.

Penelope tensley watched the two beings watching each other, and she vaguely noted to herself that the occupants of the bar were flooding out with the help of her staff. When she looked towards the door she saw Ayla looking around until their eyes met, Penelope nodded in assurance, unsure if Ayla could even see her strained smile through the dust in the air, Ayla nodded back and ran towards the group of patrons and employees outside the bar, presumably to wait for either the police or the backup from the mobs. She looked back just in time to see one of the other figures swords coming straight for her.

"FUCK" she managed to move away from the sword just in time, her dodge had nearly caused her to fall down the metal stairs. She looked back to the sword and found it deeply lodged in the wall, a large crack was stemming from where the sword was buried.

Morgana dared not look back in fear of getting herself and Penelope killed, so she continued to stare onward trying to figure out her best course of action; or she would have if her foe hadn't decided to talk in that moment, causing morgana's thoughts to stutter in their tracks.

"Well, this is a new sight to behold. I've seen you angry, furious, sad, and downtrodden; I've seen you at your lowest points, but I've never seen you scared, let alone, scared for someone else." their head tilted as they spoke.

Morgana tensed, she never remembered her foes voice sounding so cold and robotic.

"I've been lucky enough to meet someone I can be worried about, what about you, Old Friend" Morgana sneered.

At Morgana's comment, the other went rigid. Despite their face being covered by the happy face mask, Morgana could tell that they were glaring at her thorough their mask. She prepared herself for the inevitable rage she was to be met with by the other.

She felt an impact. Had she not immediately grabbed on to the person, she would have been the only one on the floor. There were stars dancing in her eyes once her head hit the floor, but she managed to kick her opponent off and across the room. Morgana righted herself and lightly shook her head to get rid of the stars, the back of her head ached. And the skin under her eyes felt hotter, she could guess that she was starting to look more like she was crying blood, but that was just a guess.

Penelope saw Bloody Mary get tackled by the rude intruder, she also saw the front door open slightly and then quietly close. Penelope hoped it wasn't backup for the intruder, she looked at the sword embedded in her wall and decided she would try to help, she attempted to yank it out. It didn't budge, she tried again; if she hadn't been looking for any hope of it moving she wouldn't have noticed, so she tried again, and again, harder each time, when she started to feel exhausted she noticed she had, what she hoped was a majority of the sword out, she noted that these blades were more for function rather than fashion, which made sense. She felt the metal staircase shake, she looked down between the grating and saw that morgana had been thrown into the wall, Morgana looked up at Penelope. Penelope decided in that moment that if Morgana got through this fight, she was gonna smash that puss. Penelope yanked the sword free with one final tug, and threw the sword using both of her hands at the offending person, while they weren't stabbed, or slashed, like Penelope was hoping, but the sword did end up hitting the other in the face. Causing them to throw both of their hands up to their face and yell;

"MOTHERFUCKER" their voiced glitched, and finally the offenders true voice came through, causing Penelope to figure they were female, but she could be wrong.

"Just because they sound it doesn't mean they are Penelope" she thought to herself.

Morgana could hardly be seen in the next moment, she moved to quickly for penelope's eyes to keep up, but the next thing she saw was Morgana straddling her opponents and pummeling them, she thought that her knuckles would hurt from hitting the mask, but she figured it was the adrenaline. When Penelope realized that Morgana had stopped punching, she noticed her jaw moving like she was speaking, but no sound could be heard, almost like her brain was blocking out what was being said, she noticed the figure on the ground start shaking as if they were laughing, and then they both made eye contact, the person smiled at Penelope, and she realized she recognized the offender, Penelope's eyes widened as they lifted their free hand and held a single gloved finger in front of their mouth, shushing her. Morgana frowned as she noticed gold streak through her opponents eyes, then she realized whomst she was looking at, and whipped her monstrous looking head towards Penelope in time to see a golden line zig zag across her lips as if they were being zipped closed, then her own eyes widened as she looked back to her opponent, she was met with a smug smile,

"Bet you thought you could get rid of me easily now bi-" they weren't able to complete the insult before Morgana could knock them out, with one punch.

Penelope decided that was hot, and that she was officially a monster fucker after tonight. She decided that it was safe enough to leave the platform, she also needed to assess the damage done to her bar. Morgana met her halfway though, and they both stared at each other, and Penelope was about to speak, but not before a team of officers rushed in, a few had their guns aimed at Morgana until a voice rang through the room,

"Put down your guns officers, I've seen enough to know Bloody Mary here isn't the Initiator of this brawl" Morgana looked over to see Lieutenant Yue by the bathrooms.

Lieutenant Yue was a tall Chinese woman, who as far as Morgana knew could not be paid off. The lieutenant wore a black pantsuit and a pair of sensible black shoes. Her black hair was tied back into a tight ponytail, the only noticeable makeup on her was the black liner around her eyes. Her hands were on her hips , pulling her jacket out of the way of her badge on her belt. Lt. Yue looked at Penelope,

"I'm going to need you to take a few steps away from her. I know you're not in any danger coming from her, but it's the rules." Lt. Yue walked closer. Penelope rose both of her hands and took 1 step back, and looked at Morgana, and then back at Lt. Yue, at this point officers had let in paramedics in to get the unconscious body lying in the middle of the bar on a gurney and out the door, one of the other cops tossed Lt. Yue a blanket, she then handed it to Morgana, She looked at it questioningly, Lt. Yue sighed,

"You beasted out more than usually, so your shirt and pants are a little fucked." she said plainly; Morgana looked down and made a sound of agreement, she wrapped the blanket around her shoulders so that it looked like a cloak and Penelope grabbed her arm and started to pull Morgana towards the locker rooms saying that she thinks theres some clothes that would fit her in there.

Lieutenant Yue lightly smiled and shook her head, she headed towards the door. Once outside she saw the crowd of employees and patrons waiting to know about their boss, and the boss that were in there, she told them everything was fine and that they shouldn't worry, and to go home; everyone mostly dispersed, some stayed behind to either finish statements, or to get back in the building to retrieve some personals. Lt. Yue walked back to her car and got into the driver's seat, she pulled her cell phone out, selecting the Captains number and sending one text,

"Ms. Smiley had been apprehended"

It was roughly 3:30 am when Ayla got back to her apartment, at that moment all she wanted to do was collapse on her bed, there had been too much excitement this morning for her liking, her plan though was foiled when she felt a the presence of V behind her.

"Your back later than usual Ayla; Casie 'woke up' twice while you were gone"

"At least she didn't follow the rule of threes" her back was to V

"Ayla please; both times she woke up was within the same hour. And I swear both times it got so dark in there I was the source of light, that's bad, like really bad Ayla please, you need to tell her the rest of the story"

Ayla let out a heavy breath while she grabbed the heart locket from her pocket, she placed it back on her neck. Casie was getting to the same age Ayla was when she started showing signs of inhumanness, She just wanted Casie to have a normal childhood, she was hoping it skipped a generation.

The lights in the apartment flickered to life, brightened for a few seconds then dimmed to nothingness again, plunging the apartment interior back into blackness. Ayla sighed again as she gripped the locket in her hand.

"3… Ayla ple-"

"I know, and I will… jus- just let me sleep, and I'll figure something out, good morning V" she walked on into her room.

If V had any physical lungs he would have sighed, but he found no point in doing so, since Ayla would have been the only one to hear it. The lights flickered,

"4" V said to himself. He heard a light "fuck" come from Aylas room.