Here ya go guys. the next chapter. had some fun writing this. All those Sophia haters out there, Prepare to hater her a little more. Mwahahahaha. I love to hear you readers suffer the pain of Sophia's existence. Now, Suffer some MORE!
Turning back to the others, Sophia smiled with satisfaction and pride. She was looking at Skulduggery like a child awaiting praise, and it made Valkyrie sick. She just managed to stop herself from looking totally confused when Skulduggery nodded approval to Sophia.
"We were in a hurry, were we not?" Skulduggery said, and Sophia smiled with a cocked nod.
"Yeah, sorry. But you know me. Just needed an excuse to hit something."
"I'm well aware. You quite finished yet?"
"Yup, let's head."
They stepped over the squirming China and continued on in the night. They stayed in the shadows, and walked silently.
"So why did you-," Valkyrie started, but quickly got two hissed hushes at her. She openly glowered, although Sophia wasn't looking at her, and even if she was, the stupid daughter of a bastard with serious anger management issues probably wouldn't have seen it in the dark anyway. Soon, Sophia was leading them, both revolvers out and was crouched, moving like a cat, with Custos pacing slowly next to her, as silent as the others. At a line of small olive trees, Sophia laid on her belly, so Skulduggery, Custos and Valkyrie did the same. Ahead of them was the old Warehouse. There was no movement in the dark at first, the street lights around it long since burned out. They waited patiently and Valkyrie barely breathed. Then a humanoid shadow paced slowly and cautiously round the corner of the abandoned building. Well, it appeared abandoned. Valkyrie looked up to the roof, and there was another shadow moving around above. Valkyrie looked at Skulduggery but he nodded before she could whisper anything. Her jaw clenched as she noticed Sophia was gone, but Custos remained. Skulduggery was watching the Warehouse carefully. Valkyrie knew exactly where Sophia was. She reluctantly watched as the shadow on the roof was silently taken out first, then the one on the ground. Custos suddenly leaped from where he was and ran towards the warehouse. Valkyrie was about to follow, but Skulduggery put his gloves fingers on her arm. She snatched her arm away, but didn't emerge from where they laid. She watched with horror as another guard came around the corner, but Custos made quick and surprisingly silent work of him. Then Skulduggery stood and strolled calmly towards the warehouse doors, putting his revolver away. Valkyrie didn't even realize that he'd gotten it out. She followed with a dark expression, hands in the pockets of her coat and shoulders hunched. She avoided walking near any of them. She was mad at them. She was mad at Sophia, at Skulduggery, hell, she even glared at the dog, who pulled its lips back in a silent snarl. Sophia was perched on the sill of a long ago shattered window high above the ground. Skulduggery flew up to the window and landed just as gracefully as usual. Now there was no room for Valkyrie to land. Sophia was scanning the area around as Skulduggery disappeared into the darkness of the warehouse. Now Valkyrie had room, so she booted herself with air and landed reluctantly next to Sophia, who seemed not to notice. That was until Valkyrie's boot slipped on the mossy wood of the sill, and would have plummeted noisily through the rotting boards (that made a walking platform crisscrossing above the ground), had Sophia not grabbed her coat and arm in time. Sophia pulled Valkyrie back to a balancing position and once Valkyrie was secure, Sophia looked at her with annoyed disgust, and Valkyrie was sure Sophia would be able to feel the heat coming from her face in embarrassment. Sophia looked around one more time before she turned and looked back inside. Below them, through the holes and cracks of the boards, they saw Skulduggery turning slowly, scanning the warehouse. It unnerved all of them that there was no-one here. Sophia looked up, at the beams parallel to the roof. Scarily like a lemur, she leaped with strong legs, and landed lightly and silently on one. She crawled along it on all fours, and Valkyrie shivered, creeped out. She looked out the window, seeing Custos pacing outside the huge doors, ears pricked and no doubt teeth prepared. Valkyrie decided she'd make her own mark. She put one booted foot on the board walk, but it creaked when she gave weight, so she retreated her foot. Instead, she predicted how far it was to the ground, which was a fair way. The roof of the warehouse was probably fifteen meters off the ground, when a roof of a one storey house would be a little over five meters. Valkyrie saw the opening in the boards where she could simply drop silently to the ground. She leaped, proudly judging right, and she descended straight through the opening. But she was falling faster than predicted. Panicked she threw her hands below her legs, and the air particles connected, but fast and noisily. There was a loud Whoosh as she landed, blowing Skulduggery's hat away.
Sophia sighed under her breath as she looked behind and down at Val, as the girl blew Skull's hat away. She'd never predicted that her annoying Valkyrie would cause the girl to become this stupid. Val obviously wasn't like this all the time, otherwise Skull would have rejected her easily. The warehouse they were in was huge, and the darkness hid the far end of it. It sat on the water in the old industrial area of Dublin city. It had recently been bought, by known magical peoples, who seemingly followed the Religion of the Faceless Ones. Sophia had managed to get one of their little servants to tell her whether it was being used as a hideout, and he'd cried and stuttered and begged, all the while giving her the answers she'd needed. She'd obviously killed him, no pity needed. He had been annoying. Now here she was, knowing that they were being watched. She didn't know how, but somehow they'd known that she'd been here the whole time, otherwise there would have been voices, tracks, evidence. They could hide all that physical stuff, but they could never hide the scent. The scent of other people, candles, fresh metal and cheap deodorant. Skull wouldn't pick that up, and neither would Val, but they weren't used to that. Weren't used to using every single scent they possessed. Skulduggery hadn't moved. Hadn't even flinched to get his hat. Neither had Val, but was still looking guilty from her noisy entry. Skull just stared at the darkness, then slowly, ever so slowly, raised his revolver and steadily held it in front of him. Something had been wrong the whole time. And Sophia was right. Why was she always so right? The deep laugh rumbled through the warehouse. Growing louder and closer. Sophia grumbled, and turned back, going along the beam until she was right above Skull's hat, where it sat lonely and dirty. Sophia swung down and picked it up as she landed. Walking towards Skull, (who was still pointing his gun at the source of the laugh) Sophia dusted off the hat.
"A little to the left Skull," Sophia said, knowing Skulduggery didn't have just as precise hearing as she did. He moved his gun ever so slightly to the left. Sophia nodded. "That's it. Here, it was getting so sad looking I thought it might cry," Sophia said as she positioned the hat on his skull. She made a few adjustments before she got it perfect, then nodded at her work. She then turned just in time to see the man in black robes step out of the shadows into the little light there was.
After Valkyrie stopped glaring at Sophia perfecting the position of Skulduggery's hat, she turned and saw the strange looking man with black robes. He'd stopped laughing, and now was just smiling at them with a malicious grin.
"Look who it is. Pythios Vanquish." Sophia said with a hint of sarcastic excitement.
"Greeting Dear Sophia! You're looking well. And you two," The man named Pythios opened his arms wide as if actually welcoming them, "Mr. Pleasant, and Miss Valkyrie Cain, I have never personally met either of you, but your deeds are legendary." Mr. Vanquish had eyes that unnerved Valkyrie. She soon realised it was because he had slits for pupils.
"I imagine our deeds are not too you're liking." Skulduggery said, not lowering his gun. Pythios laughed, before turning a seriously dangerous glare upon them.
"Not so much. You've killed some of my Gods, some of the best leaders of our religion, and you expect me to be grateful?"
"Actually, we didn't expect that on any accounts." Skulduggery said.
"Well frankly they should be a little grateful," Sophia said, "I mean, you did save the world from being destroyed."
"Um, which was mainly me, just to point it out." Valkyrie said.
"Shut up." Pythios suddenly spat.
"Yeah, shut up." Sophia said mockingly.
"Bitch." Valkyrie openly hissed.
"Says you."
"Fight me."
"Gladly."
"You know you'd lose."
"You just saw me beat China's ass. You really wanna fight me?"
"I'm not China."
"Yeah, you're Irish." Skulduggery stifled a laugh and Pythios snickered, but it took Val a while for the joke to sink, before she growled and spat,
"I've killed Gods."
"I've killed god killers."
"I'll kill you." Valkyrie whispered.
"I'd like to see you try." Sophia sneered back.
Pythios, composing himself of enjoying the tall girl's joke, he looked at Mr. Pleasant.
"Are they always like this?" he asked, as the girls continued.
"Not as of yet, but I was expecting it soon enough." Both of them watched the argument for a time before it was getting ridiculous. The Dark eyed girl's insults were getting worse and she was even starting to stumble on them, while the other had kept her pace and the comebacks were always just as good as the last, if not better. Suddenly, halfway through one of the Dark haired girl's bad insults, the Tall one pulled a gun and pointed it at the dark haired girl's head, who immediately stopped talking. Pythios took a step back, and even the Skeleton flinched.
"Sophia, what are you doing!?" Skull said, surprisingly shocked and had lost his composure, but Sophia ignored him, and moved her arm up higher and shot the man in robes who was in half-leap from the boards. The dead man fell in a heap of black robes as blood seeped across the dirty concrete floor. All of a sudden there was gunfire, elements being thrown and curses coming from everyone, as men and women in black robes that leapt from the darkness. Valkyrie was still in shock from thinking she was about to be shot by a hit woman, but managed to avoid an attack from one of the robed people. She threw a fireball at two approaching women. She got one, who screamed and fell, but the other ducked and ran at her. Valkyrie didn't have enough room to shoot again, so the woman crashed into her, but grabbed Valkyrie by the neck before she fell. Strangling and lifting at the same time, the woman sneered up at Valkyrie. Valkyrie was about to use her ring, but somebody smashed into the woman's side. Valkyrie dropped to the ground, quickly trying to clear her head. She looked to her right to see Sophia and the woman tumbling and wrestling. Sophia eventually got her knee in the woman neck, and knelt on her chest, pinning her down, before…Valkyrie wasn't exactly sure what Sophia had done, but the woman was good and dead. She wasn't ripped apart, there was only a little blood trickling from the woman's nose and ears. Sophia turned and raced back into the main fight, where Skulduggery had already dropped his gun and was using all the elemental power he could possess to keep the dozens of Servants at bay. Custos suddenly burst through the doors, but he was no longer up to Sophia's waist. It was half-way to the roof! Custos had grown into some gigantic monster of mayhem, taking half-a dozen of the servants in his jaws at a time. Valkyrie shook her head, not bothering to try and figure it out, and rolled away just in time, before a huge axe came down. It stuck in the ground for only a short while, before it was wrenched out again. Valkyrie only stared. The man was Tiny! How on earth could a man like that wield that monstrous weapon? The man screamed a battle cry before coming at her again, but she simply sidestepped and sent him flying after snapping her palms open. She kicked another woman in the stomach and tripped up a lanky guy with outrageously coloured eyes. He must have been wearing contacts. She tried not to notice how many Sophia was taking out at a time.
Sophia slid between the legs of a servant, then snapped her palm and he went flying straight forwards, right into Custos jaws, where several others had met their fate. She tripped two and shot another as she landed a back-flip that had kicked two in the face and she punched another unconscious as she rolled to a stand. Then she shot another guy. One held a gun to her head, but she ducked and got hold of his arm, making him shoot two of his own before she flipped him over her back and snapping his wrist. She then shot him in the head to shut up his screams. Another came at her with a sword which she leaped over as he swung it, and her boot met his shoulder, making him drop the sword. Then she trapped his head in her knees as she fell again, and took him with her. She violently twisted, and there was a resounding *crack* as she broke his neck and he died painlessly. The sound of fighting had slightly lessened behind her, so she turned and looked at the scene. Her jaw dropped and she couldn't help yell,
"Come on! Are you serious? That's just fucked up, man." For before her, was Pythios Vanquish, in the form of a massive snake.
