(Neither me nor Grimm Gun own any of the characters featured here...even though a couple are OCs but in truth we don't claim ownership to them because we don't care.)
Ladies and gentlemen, we understand that you have came here tonight, to hear the sound of drum, and...bass.
We regret that this is not the case, and that we do not have the sonic recreation of the end of the world. So instead we bring you Chapter 5.
Ladies and gentlemen. Prepare. To hold Your Color!
(50 boondollars to the first joe to figure out this reference. And without further ado...)
Rockfort, Oklahoma, 11:43 pm. Two weeks later.
A little more than three weeks, nearly a month had passed since Yen Sid appeared in her room, changing her life into something quite different and confusing, and Bolt into something that she couldn't recognize. She would've chocked it all up to a bad dream, if not for the fact that every time since that night she commanded Bolt to change, he morphed into the horse sized monster and guardian from her dreams. But that didn't explain why she was where she was now, dressed as she was.
Where she was by the way, was on top of a five story building, psyching herself up for what she was about to do, with Bolt as his other self, laying down and biting at an itch on his left forepaw, an itch which Penny felt as well, which was another issue unto itself. Ever since meeting with Yen Sid, Penny would feel longing from whenever she was eating dinner when Bolt was watching, or excitement at the prospect of taking the dog for a walk, and even a few times when she'd stubbed her toe she heard the dog yelp.
Regardless, in the time since that night, nearly a month ago, Penny hadn't seen hide nor hair of the wizard since, nor had she met with the white-faced-tall-man-in-black. She was promised adventure, yet nothing had happened, and there were more than a few practical uses for a mystically enhanced attack dog the size of a cow. This brings us back to where she was, and what she was doing.
Rockfort was in trouble, it was a nice city in the day, no doubt about it, but at night it was a completely different story. Drug dealing, some corruption, and even a little bit of gang warfare were all par for the course. Of course Penny and her mom lived out in the suburbs, but even then the occasional gun shot was heard to wake her up at night. Granted, with all the money she made from acting, she and her mom could easily get up and move to just about anywhere they wanted and live more than comfortably, but that wouldn't be right either. She grew up here, her mom grew up here, it was torture to have to go out to L.A. to do the Bolt show some years back, but that was then, this is now, and now, things had gotten bad. Penny had been wanting to do something, but was never able to due to a fully rational and well reasoned fear of death. But now, well, I think we've already mentioned how there are more than a few practical uses for a mystically enhanced, blah, blah, blah.
"Okay," Penny stated, "You ready boy?"
The dog perked it's ears up at the question, answering not with a bark, but with an excited panting, it was ready. Penny walked over to Bolt, and grabbing handfuls of the dog's extremely durable fur, she hiked herself onto his back while he was still laying down, pining herself low so as to lower wind resistance, since typically falling from anything several stories up, moving roughly 70 miles an hour or so usually proves to have adverse effects on one's health.
Bolt got up and took off like a streak of white lightning, the night air howling into Penny's ears as Bolt bounded almost effortlessly over the rooftops, he found it exhilarating, to her it was terrifying. The chill of the night crept in to touch Penny to the bone, while spring being the season on paper, winter still ruled the night. She started to contemplate possibly wearing a sweater on top of everything she wore, but then she'd look way too ridiculous, not that she could really claim she was wearing what was chic in the crime fighting racket. She was originally going to wear a swim suit of some sort along with a mask or something, but decided against that because she figured that she'd be too worried about her ass hanging out to fight evil doers and what have you effectively.
Regardless, she was proud of what she was wearing, maybe not the most stylish, but it worked for her. She wore a yellow long sleeve under what she always wore when gardening, that being some overalls and brown work gloves with matching boots. The fact that they were loose fitting, durable, had enough pockets for all her crap, and baggy enough to keep anyone from IDing her by body size and shape, almost made up for the fact that she looked like Ellie May Clampett, almost. The only part of the get up she was even remotely proud of, cool, and even marked her as anything remotely superheroish was the crap on her head and neck. That being the purple bandana-mask with yellow swim goggles underneath, along with purple cape. The mask and goggles hid her eye and hair color, while her cape hid her bat, flashlight, and her mom's stun gun, since it'd look kinda conspicuous having that stuff jutting out her front pocket, not that she didn't already look conspicuous. But frankly capes look cool.
Penny was surprised actually, at the ease in which one could take up being a superhero. There were more than a few tweaks at her school, tailing them being way easy, it was like 21 Jump Street, only with less Johnny Depp and more trash that smelled like cat urine. After following her less than intellectual class mates, she'd have a word with their dealer, not the friendly kind of course, but the kind of word that'd involve gunfire, and Bolt taking the brunt of that gunfire while Penny came in from the side, then after that more words, such as "who's your supplier" and "fuck you". Fortunately, while most are less than inclined to talk to Penny, almost everyone was more than willing to talk to Bolt. Rinse, wash, repeat.
And it was these talks that finally lead her to where Bolt was rushing to now. While a lot of the small fries mostly bought up some distribution that came in from Dallas, one guy had his own manufacturing operation that supplied the entire city and a lot of the state. Weed, meth, even a little bit of cocaine, cutting out the Mexicans. The guy being some Damnation fool.
In all honesty, bust drug peddlers and gang bangers wasn't really the sort of thing she wanted to be working on. What she really wanted to be working on was a missing person's case, or several of them rather. A girl she knew at school, Maria Aldonza, went missing, she'd been a bit down because she was afraid that her father might've been deported while he was out at work. As it turned out, after talking with a few vatos she knew, and asking a bit here and there with Bolt in some of Rockfort's ghettos, a lot of people had been going missing, their disappearances unreported, because frankly those who knew that missed them weren't even supposed to be here, most of them anyways.
However, that was a problem she couldn't solve right now, and Damnation was one she could. That's the reason why she was dressed as she was, on top of the cities roofs, moving at over 70 miles an hour, not even the dog's top speed, hanging on for dear life and imagining how much more pleasant it would be to say screw it and go home to watch TV. Ah well.
Not much was known about Damnation, and what was known wasn't exactly flattering or charming. The guy was a creep, not that that was surprising, and apparently a Satanist, but that was probably made up to spook any of the superstitious lowlies who might be thinking about muscling in on his territory, which was everywhere. According to some of the hoods she questioned, the guy was so committed to the act that he carved himself up, and that at least proved he was at least crazy, which stood to make the other thugs who weren't superstitious think twice about crossing him.
From what Penny could gather from the guys she could get Bolt's jaws on, the guy rarely showed himself, and liked to play wild card, showing up in unexpected places, daring a few times to make collections himself to scare the crap out of his boys, not that he needed to do that, some of the things he did to both enemies and betrayers was more than enough to quell dissention amongst the ranks. Torture and murder were par for the course, but this guy also targeted family, and that's what really got some guys.
Bolt slowed down as they neared their destination, forcing Penny's stomach to lurch at the sudden change in momentum. Pickup's for pay and drop-offs of supply were erratic, so as to throw off people like the feds, or say someone with a dog the size of a rhino and twice as strong, this is all in theory of course, it's not like we're talking about anyone specific. Anyways, the guy who usually make's the pick up was one guy; Johnny Royal. And word through the grapevine (rather the punk who's car was now missing an engine) was that Johnny was making a pickup that night. She didn't know where Damnation was holed up, but if anyone knew, it was Johnny boy.
Johnny was getting out of a flat at the time they got there and was heading to his car with a bag. She didn't know who this was for certain of course, but a few key indicators helped her come to such a conclusion, such as the way he clutched the bag to his chest, and the fact that he had a nice car in a bad neighborhood (frankly you don't let something like that out of your sight unless you wanted to find it propped up on cinderblocks, unless of course there were to be consequences for touching it). Regardless, on the way to his car, his cell phone got a call and, after some juggling with the bag, he answered it. Penny crouched low, with Bolt along with her as they spied their mark below. She couldn't hear what the guy was saying, but she could at least see him mouth the words, "On my way", actually it looked more like "Un me waa," but it was probably better to assume the former over the latter.
Leaning to the ear of Bolt, Penny whispered "Bolt, we gotta tail him but for the love of all that's good and holy please make sure he doesn't see you." The dog nodded slightly in confirmation and proceeded to take off in a run for the second time that night, becoming a white blur as he plodded along the city rooftops after the car. While most would call the rush and the feeling of the night air slide along their skin exhilarating, all Penny could concern herself with was a reminder to possibly get barf bag, and a silent prayer that the wind wouldn't mess up her hair.
It took a while and some doing for Penny and Bolt to keep up and out of sight, it's not exactly as if Bolt were inconspicuous. Especially when the trip took them out of town and into the burbs, and it got even harder once they reached the dessert. However, by whatever miracle, they remained unnoticed, at least Penny thought they remained unnoticed, Johnny kept under the limit the entire time so that's all she really had to go on. Suddenly, and unexpectedly, Johnny veered off the pavement and into the dirt. It startled Penny at first, for a second she thought the jig was up, but then it occurred to her if the guy wanted try and escape her, he'd try to drive like hell off down the road, where he could go the fastest. He could've known they were there, and was just leading them into a trap, but the open desert, while great for getting rid of bodies, wasn't exactly the best place to stage an ambush. Unless of course the ambushers were using sniper rifles with night vision scopes, but that was just over thinking it.
Regardless, Bolt continued to follow along, being careful to keep his distance. As he followed some ways, more tracks appeared in the dirt, while the ground closer to the road had been swept left and right, it soon became apparent that they were getting close. From out of the darkness came an old abandoned train yard. And as it turned out, Penny knew what this place was, the old W&D Railroad Company. She had to do a report on it for town history week at school a year or so back. They used to build and sell boxcars, and it was the town's main bread and butter, excluding the lake. It went under during the great depression and was primarily used as a place for kids to screw and party at their own peril At least that's what she'd been told, obviously things had changed a bit.
Bolt and Penny came closer to a low, crumbling brick wall that protected a small yard littered with decrepit and forgotten rail cars surrounding a forgotten old warehouse. Or at least that's the appearance someone tried to have the place give off. As they neared, Bolt, and Penny thereafter, could see several cars, not at all old or decrepit, reflecting just enough moonlight to betray the look of abandonment. Who ever was inside was looking to get out of here in a hurry if they got spooked. Penny wasn't planning to do that, at least not yet. Johnny's car passed through a gate which was pulled closed by someone else, Bolt stopped dead in his tracks before he got spotted.
They circled around, getting some ways away from any potential prying eyes before trying to jump the wall, Penny took note of and shuddered at the fact that there was some rather new barbed wire along the walls top. New, but used, the small flecks of some dried gore attested to that, something bad was happening here, beyond that of simple drug running. Bolt reared back, and charged, leaping the wall flawlessly and, more importantly, soundlessly. Penny got off the dog and whispered into Bolt's ear.
"Take 'em out," Penny said, jabbing a thumb towards the entrance, "and do it quietly."
Penny crept down low and fast, shifting past rusted boxcars, resisting the urge to swear every time her pant leg caught on sagebrush or tumbleweed. She came upon Johnny who was just getting out of his car parked next to the entrance of the old railcar warehouse. Penny eyed the upper windows of the place, trying to discern if anyone could be watching her from the boarded up windows. Feeling satisfied, she ran in fast at Johnny while his back was turned and he most certainly didn't notice Penny was very close until…
CRACK!
She knocked him out, his body falling like a sack of potatoes. She set to the task of throwing the punk in his own trunk when the heard the crumpling of brick from behind her. She swiveled around to see Bolt trotting up to her with some dude in his mouth, like he was playing fetch. She looked past him to see the wall by the gate with decent dent in it. "Subtle," Penny said sarcastically, before helping the mutt deposit the second body in the trunk and slamming it shut.
After doing so they crept in the building, hoping to spy more playmates, the man of the hour being Damnation. The air in side was musky and humid, forcing her to perspire in the warm night air. It was like being pushed into an oven that'd just started to heat up, though she was certain that the place's number one squatter was looking for a more biblical reference to the heat. Inside the two walked out onto a catwalk, the design being that the area the building was built on was dug out, allowing for two levels of boxcars to be stored. The two looked out onto the expanse of boxcars on old rails, there was no real indication as to whether there was anything inside, nor was there any indication to the location of their enemies. "Well, nothing ventured," Penny quipped to herself as she hefted onto the dog's back. "Down boy," she ordered.
Grasping the order, Bolt leapt over and down into the graveyard of boxcars, the pads on his feet silencing the sound of their fall. Penny got off and beckoned Bolt to follow her. It wasn't easy, fumbling around with only the dim light that trickled in from outside as they crept along the boxcars, jumping at every noise. For some reason, Penny couldn't shake the feeling that they were being watched, the sound of breathing.
Slump.
This paranoia was proven to be justified as a noise emitted from the boxcar that Penny and Bolt were stalking next to. Taking out her flashlight, Penny illuminated the boxcar, soon finding a very new looking pad lock holding close a rather old metal boxcar. Penny gave a telling nod to Bolt, crouching low as the dog twisted off the lock with his teeth, unlike Bolt, Penny wasn't bullet proof. The door to the metal compartment creaked open, and…from the lack of gunfire, Penny figured it was safe to poke her head up and take a look.
She turned on her light to take a look, and was horrified at what she saw. Inside the cramped metal space were people, actual people, starved and malnourished, and they'd been here for weeks from the smell of it. The stench which poured from the place was enough to make her gag, these people hadn't the facilities to wash or go to the bathroom that, and she was fairly certain that perhaps not all of them were alive. From among the faces she saw came the gaunt and blinking stare of Maria, her sweat soaked shirt clinging to her and her normally pristine hair now tousled and group together in clumps.
It was a strange moment, the group of people instead of making a break for it stared, blinking, uncertain, their eyes trying desperately to adjust to the light.
"¿Qué es esto?" came a voice from within the boxcar, breaking the silence.
"What?" came Penny's reply.
"He's asking what's going on," Maria said, stepping forward, "Are you with them?"
"No."
"D-do you have a gun?"
"No," Penny repeated, silently vowing to bring the hammer down on the creeps who were behind this, "Uh, look, I took out the guys in front, you all should try and make a break for the road, I'll deal with the guys here."
"We're not the only ones," Maria said in earnest.
"Don't worry about it. Hey" Penny said, turning to Bolt, not using the dog's name to give away any clues to who she was, "I need you to go with, uh, this girl here and get everyone out, quietly if you can. I'm going to go and see who else I can find here."
And with this they parted. Penny crept silently amongst the old rail cars, using her hands to guide her since she left her flashlight in Maria's hands. She needed to get to the offices of this place, since that's probably where these punks set up shop. She crept to the door of this warehouse and saw that there was a couple of guys wandering around a yard strewn with rusted and disused rails, but across the way she saw a building with a light on inside. She needed to take these guys out quietly, if not quickly.
Penny carefully observed them from the cover of the rusted doors, the goons were moving in a very obvious pattern. A second glance sweeped the yard and it became clear that while she could make out more than one opportunity to sneak up on the two, the rails in the yard could give her away if she didn't take her steps very carefully. And her current lack of a literal superdog would mean a simple misstep could cause things to get nasty.
There wasn't much else in the yard aside from the rusty rails being pretty much everywhere. And from what Penny could tell, there weren't really any buildings over by the construct she actually wanted to get inside, leaving her with no real cover. But cover can take many forms, and for this Penny needed not a physical barrier, but rather something to bring these people over to her point of view, in a quite literal sense.
Penny bent down and felt around in hopes of finding something she could use, in this case a large hard object that most would call a rock. Silently creeping up behind one of the half opened warehouse doors for cover, Penny held the rock in one hand, while the other one wrapped itself around the stun gun kept within her pocket, her bat was carefully leaned against the side of the wall.
The novice vigilante took a deep breath, what she was about to do would require nerves of steel. One false move could get her killed and she knew it. Penny reached back her arm and hurled the rock a few feet away, and right into a pile of metal scraps that was close by. To say the noise the came was quiet would be saying that the Moon gave off it's own light. Because neither of the stated facts are true.
She barely had enough time to grab her bat up again (and with speed swifter than the fastest of pissed off rattlesnakes) before she overheard the thugs moving over to the building, one of them giving a cliché "What the Hell was that?" Unoriginality at its finest.
As the thugs entered, Penny pressed herself against the wall in hopes of not being noticed, and as she practiced the recently invented yoga move of 'Vertical pancake' the thugs moved right past her and were busy investigating the rock. Given the chance she needed. Penny swiftly lifted up the stun gun and fired it off, sending the taser's probes straight into the back of the closest thug, who let out a short yelp as he hit the ground convulsing from the voltage.
On the spot, the other man spun around with his gun up, but his surprise was ended swiftly as Penny swung her bat right into his face. The man stumbled backwards, stars in his eyes and a broken nose, he even dropped his gun in the confusion, but he still wasn't out of the picture. Penny gritted her teeth and drew her arms back, her bat pulled back like it was the bottom of the ninth and she was calling her shot. Fortunately for her, unlike any of the unfortunate players trying to beat a certain star pitcher for the Metroville Meteors, her target was moving much slower and was a lot bigger than a little ball.
Penny's swing was more powerful than the previous blow and as her potentially bone crushing blow struck the man's skull, the fool stumbled backward and was clutching his aching head in pain…but was still conscious. "Oh come on!" A frustrated Penny groaned as she drew her arms back again, and on this third strike to the solar plexus, she finally succeeded in throwing this guy down into dreamland.
As the goon tumbled over onto the ground, Penny groaned underneath her mask. This guy had a head like a rock, and this little diversion took longer than she wanted.
She turned towards the building across the street, but as she was about to move, she noticed the light in the upper level had gone out. Realizing she might have lost her window of opportunity, Penny sprinted right out and zoomed towards the door with her bat in hand.
Penny burst through like a shark bursting into it's prey, a scene she wasn't entirely unfamiliar with. The door smashed open with she choosing to ignore the pain in her right foot from kicking it open, her bat ready to smash Damnation's face in.
The room she'd entered was very dark, with the only light coming from a…moving candle?
Roughly about ten feet away was a candle, which was being moved through the air like some form of will-o-the-wisp. The holder wearing some form of black robes.
The holder moved up the candle so it was level with his face, revealing to Penny a sight that honestly she wasn't quite ready for and really didn't need to see, a fact that her upended stomach could attest.
The man's face…wasn't there. The man's cheeks had been slashed clean off with a knife, his nose looked like it was torn off, leaving just a hole where it used to be. His forehead bore a pentacle at the direct center. Dude was a friggin ghoul. Penny had seen worse looking mugs in horror films. It was the kinda face that said, "Hi, I enjoy internet dating, long walks on the beach, waiting for horny teenagers to come around so I can rip out their throats and make bongos out of their skin." It wasn't hard to ID the man as Damnation, drug lord, murderer, all around creep.
The man tilted his head in a manner befitting a curious dog. "Who…are you?" he slowly groaned out in a voice.
Despite the lump that had been growing in her throat, she pointed her bat towards him accusingly and growled at him in a voice that didn't give away her unease at seeing a man like him. "Somebody who's here to take you out, you think you could have taken all those people and gotten away with it?! What were they doing here you Satan worshipping asshole!"
The accused Satanist's head slowly went up straight again "those people are important to my real master, ignorant sow, and I am not a Satanist that is merely a façade to frighten the rabble."
"Says the guy with the pentagram carved into his head," Penny retorted skeptically, gripping her bat tighter.
Damnation and Penny were locked in a stare down, and the realization that while her bat had done right by her thus far, if this guy went for a gun, things could get bad fast. Then Damnation started to slowly back away into the shadows his eyes illuminated by the light of the candle, until it went out suddenly, leaving the room blacker than before. It took a moment for Penny's eyes to adjust to the gloom, but when they did she realized that the guy had seemingly vanished, leaving Penny confused.
The heroine shouldn't have let him speak at all, and she cursed inwardly for giving him a chance to spring some kind of trapdoor or something and leave. She moved forth, and had the sense to feel around the floor with her bat for the trapdoor she would have otherwise fell into like a dope. As she figured out just where the hole was, she carefully lowered herself down, and noticed that this hole was the opening to a tunnel just tall enough for her to fit in. At the bottom remained the candle Damnation had been holding, to Penny's bewilderment it was still lit, could he...
"Nah" she muttered to herself "If I start assuming every single whack job has magic backing them up, it won't be long before I start lining my room with tinfoil or something. Still though, we can't be too careful here."
Penny held the candle up to light her way and carefully moved forward, a careful eye looking out in case Damnation had any plans to ambush her or set off some kind of booby trap.
No such trap was there, but what Penny found a little weird was the tunnel itself, the walls were perfectly smooth, and the thing was a perfect circle. It was like the whole thing was formed by the rock literally getting up and going.
In the distance, Penny could see a faint light at what she presumed was the end of the tunnel. Damnation had something up his sleeve and she realized this was likely a trap. However, if she turned back there was also the possibility he'd get away and then even more people would go missing.
Penny attempted something she hoped would work 'Okay Bolt' she thought, hoping that if she had a link to the dog as far as touch and emotions went, she could summon him through thoughts alone, 'I don't know if you'll get this, but could you come find me?'
As our hero sent out (hopefully) a means of getting Bolt to help ensure that Damnation wasn't planning to sacrifice a superhero to his 'master', she inched forward towards the opening.
As Penny emerged from the opening, the candle went out, and she found herself looking into a room unlike anything she'd seen before in this evening. The room was large, and well decorated, with a large number of candles providing the light, with several large drapes placed throughout the room.
It appeared to look like something out of some Hollywood depiction of a gypsy fortune teller's shack, lace and beads and other fineries were hung about the room. There was a table on the far end of the room she guessed was used for tarot card reading or something.
Penny cautiously stepped into the room, walking lightly in order to make her best efforts to mask her steps. Damnation came out from behind one of the drapes, only now holding a curved dagger. Penny held up her bat defensively and stared down her opponent, only for her hopes of success to sink after she noticed several people in robes similar to Damnation. That could be a problem.
She could count seven people, five of them male, two of them female, and each one seemed to have torn up their own faces too, though not nearly as much as Damnation did, they could still pass for looking…well, humanish, ugly to be certain. They all held the same kind of dagger Damnation himself held, and formed the position of a half-circle, standing directly in front of her.
There was silence for a minute, Penny could feel the tension in the air, somebody had to make the first move, but it was unknown just who it'd be. She figured hers would have to be towards the door.
Damnation spoke again, slowly as before "It was two years ago, we were mere servants of the shadows from the other side. We were in new Orleans, trying to perform a ritual to bring us good fortune and the aid of the Shadows themselves. We did this in a graveyard where one of the greatest of us died because he failed to live to his word.
"Our ritual was heard by them, but their answer was not what we expected, instead of a boon or an artifact, they freed the charlatan from his stony prison, and sent him unto us. It was he who led us here, and he who helped us establish our foothold, he was the one who showed us a means to twist the desires into the weak and feeble to our benefit. And it was he who advised I play the part of a Satanist to further intimidate our…distributers.
"Our money was used to make this magnificent temple to our friends on the other side, and our leader, our…Shadow Man was very pleased. What is more, for the past several months our alter has been finished, and it is with this alter we shall pay our respects to those on the other side."
Penny had a foreboding sense of dread, she wasn't too certain if these guys were the real deal, but she did know that the boxcar didn't have everyone who'd gone missing, and it didn't take a rocket scientist to realize what Damnation was talking about. The people have been disappearing for months now, and it was clear to her, based on Damnation's comment about the alter, where they went. They were being used as human sacrifices.
Penny was repulsed and disgusted at this, this man was no man at all, he was just a fanatic killing maniac. What made this even worse was how she was positive somebody was instructing him on what to do, somebody smarter than him. If she got out of this, this so called Shadow man was next on her list.
In fact there may have even been no Shadow Man at all, it was very obvious something was wrong with Damnation. But then again, once you've had a wasted opportunity to pitch the Moon like a baseball three weeks ago and seen your dog sic a hungry shark and win due to sheer, magic induced strength, you tend to find that skeptiscism is not really the best way to approach magic.
So regardless of whether or not the Shadow Man is a delusion of Damnation, and regardless of who the sorcerer in here really is, one thing she couldn't deny is that a magic powered attack dog would be really good to have around at the moment. And so she hoped the attack dog in question would come soon.
Regardless, it might be a good idea to stall Damnation until either Bolt showed up, or the maniac presented an opportunity for her to head back down the tunnel and get the dog, it's not like he couldn't have caught the man's scent or anything.
Penny leaned up against her back and made a motion with her head to suggest she was rolling her eyes at the cultist "Well that's all well and good, but you've got several holes in your little origin story here, because I can't see hide nor hair of this 'Shadow Man', and if he's so frigging great, why doesn't he come out himself?"
"Be careful what you wish for, little girl." came in a new voice Penny didn't recognize. Some of the cultists parted ways as a new figure came out from one of the curtains.
He was a very skinny black guy who had a small mustache, a gap in his front teeth, and a pair of purple eyes that gave off the feeling of a charismatic predator, like a lion so confident in it's own charm that it could convince an antelope that it'd be better off in it's mouth than running through the Savanna. The man wore a dark crimson undertaker tailcoat with a black collar, a pair of black pants, a pair of tall shoes with white spats on them, a black top hat with a skull and crossbones, long thin feather, and a red band, and a crocodile tooth necklace. He leaned on black cane as he looked Penny up and down.
The man had a sort of…aura about himself, this guy was some kinda king and he knew it. And this wasn't the world above, it was his world, and he had his own 'friends' here...and given her luck tonight, he probably did have friends on the other side.
The man moved to the head of the group and looked right at Penny "Why I'll be damned…took long enough for one of you to come up here."
Penny was mildly confused "One of you? What the Hell is that supposed to mean?"
The shadow man waved his hands idlely and began to pace back and forth "You know…a superhero. A lot of cities have them, in Go City you've got Team Go, in Anaheim you got the Mighty Ducks, in Metroville you have the Incredibles. I even heard a rumor about crime fighting gargoyles up in New York!
"This really is an amazing time. You people are as common as candy bars these days. Guess that's why I set up shop here. There wasn't so much as a cape to be found…until you showed up."
The man's voice possessed the same unnatural charm his eyes radiated, and Penny almost let go of her bat…had she not remembered that he was the same man behind the drug ring and all the human sacrifices that have been going on here. She gripped her bat tighter than before and stared down her enemy "Who are you?" She cautiously asked.
"Ah yes, I should have introduced myself first" the man said, as if he were apologizing for something he'd forgotten to do, removing his cap as he explained himself "My name is Facilier, and I am a doctor, of sorts, and my most fitting alias…the Shadow Man." Facilier placed the hat back on his head, Penny was beginning to feel tiny pangs of fear for no particular reason, the name Facilier sounded familiar for some reason.
The witch doctor pointed his cane right at her "No then, since I've introduced myself, how about you tell me what you're here for…was it my product that drove you here? Or the sacrifices perhaps?"
Penny's eyes narrowed at him, she needed to stall, "I was here for the drugs first; I was here to drive Damnation out of town and into prison…but that was before I found out about the sacrifices, and before I found out about you. I'm gong to take this whole damn thing down. So why don't you make this easier for both of us and just come quietly."
Dr. Facilier let out a hearty laugh at this "Oh man…I was surprised to find a hero had shown up, but I never expected to find a dumb one, much less one with horrible taste!"
Penny figured the 'horrible taste' remark was likely a jab at her outfit, perhaps she wasn't the sort to go around in an outfit that would make strippers embarrassed to be seen in. Where the Hell was Bolt? He should have been here by now.
"Well then little girl" Facilier began, yawning "Since you seem to be the only person here, and I don't need your company any longer, it's time I...disposed of you."
The Shadow Man snapped his fingers, and Penny's blood ran cold at what she saw. Facilier's shadow began move away from it's master, somehow cracking it's knuckles despite the fact it's master wasn't. Its intended victim had grown very frightened indeed.
Penny made a run for the door, but it was upon her like a snake in an instant. The felt the cool shade wrap around her form, and start to squeeze. She tried to throw it off but it was like fighting against a trash compactor. She should have taken the chance Damnation could have gotten away and just got Bolt, but now, she was going to die by dark magic, and it was all-
"ARF!" echoed a truly massive bark that was clearly heard even through the rock...and it was just as easy to tell it was directly above them.
Facilier was quite surprised and he jumped a little at the noise, even his shadow jumped, turning it's umbra head up towards the ceiling. It's attention diverted, Penny fell through its grasp and scrambled back. The cultists did as well, with Damnation the only one that didn't show any fear.
"That's interesting," The doctor let out cooly, his wide eyes staring right at the ceiling as dirt began to leak onto the floor, indicative that something was digging through the ceiling. Penny's courage returned and a grin had grown under her mask. That was a close shave, and now the boot was on the other foot.
In a matter of seconds, the sand creeping through the ceiling very quickly turned into rocks and portions of the above building's wooden floor, assorted furnature and very soon, a very familiar looking, white furred dog the size of a cow, with teeth drawn and a very menacing growl being issued towards the paling shadow man, and his entourage.
"Huh," Facilier muttered in a flabbergasted voice "Mental link to a giant dog…so that's the magic I sensed. A strange time indeed."
Penny rushed to Bolt, now with reborn courage after her near death, glaring right at Facilier as she made a mental note to think her plans out better so nothing like this ever happened again.
And so, as she looked towards the pack of dope peddlers and murderers who'd just tried to kill her moments ago, she uttered the three words that were about to give Facilier and Damnation a really bad day.
"Sic 'em boy."
Bolt growled again and bounded right towards the cultists.
Facilier's eyes widened and he ran off to the far end of the room "Get 'em! Stall them!"
"We shall, o master" Damnation chuckled as he sized up Bolt, his insane and deluded mind making him believe he could actually challenge Bolt.
Penny rushed forward with her bat held like it was a long sword, perhaps she'd frozen up earlier, but now she wasn't, she was going to fight alongside her partner in this battle. Bolt had already reached them and Penny felt a tingling sensation as two of the cultists thrust their daggers onto the dog, and stood by in shock as they saw them shatter like icicles before Bolt responded by spinning around to bash the pair hard enough to throw them into the walls with enough force to smash down various caskets, trinkets, and Samedi icons.
Damnation and two others noticed that attacking Bolt wouldn't work and rather chose to slash her instead. The first one had a slashed open nose and most of his teeth were gone. Penny's reflexes were faster and she quickly swung her bat right up into his face. Her wooden club hit a home run and the little freak fell down into slumber, and it was a shame he didn't believe in the Tooth Fairy, because she'd unintentionally knocked out the rest of his molars.
The second fiend instead attempted to pounce on her, which proved quite stupid as Penny swiftly side stepped him and struck him out like a light mid-flight. But just as she turned to Damnation, he quickly punched her right in the face.
Penny fell over and hit the floor, knowing just what was about to happen, Damnation would try to stab her and she could see him prepare to dive down and do the act.
Penny's bat had fallen just out of reach, but she still had more speed as she swiftly got out her stun gun and pointed it right at him.
But just as she was about to fire the device, she heard a familiar rumbling begin in the throat of Bolt's large form.
"ARRF!" The superpowered canine roared as he released a superbark, much like the ones he gave while he and Penny were on the show. Only in this case the blast was very controlled and the only person got in it's blast was Damnation.
The shadow worshipper couldn't even turn to look at Bolt before the blast smashed him right through the wall, and into another room that looked a bit like what Penny assumed was Facilier's bedroom.
The former actress stood up and looked at her superdog, who was giving her a quizzical look. Penny quickly moved over and gave him a pat on the nose "Good boy."
Both master and pet gave a shared glare as they turned in the direction of the table, where they last saw Facilier run. The pair of them ran off, the goal being to finally catch Facilier and keep him from continuing his reign over Rockfort's drug trade.
Behind one of the curtains, Penny found an open door and she ducked inside, Bolt following her closely behind as she moved through the hallway she'd found.
There was a crossroads within it, but while there were three ways Facilier could go, she noticed directly across from her was a room with an open door and a dark glow emminating from it.
The pair of heroes moved right into it, and found both an old bronze alter that Penny guessed was where the sacrifices were held, and Facilier using his cane to make something out of shadows, seemingly oblivious to their presence.
Penny cleared her throat and the witch doctor turned around with a start.
"Whoa! Now you startled me…I gotta say, you two are full of surprises, you know? I honestly never thought anyone would catch me."
"Flattery will get you nowhere, Shadow Man, put down the cane or else my dog gets a brand new chew toy" Penny growled, her eyes focused purely on him and whatever weapon he was likely making.
"He'd certainly need one" Facilier agreed, his skin paling as he saw Bolt ominously lick his chops "But you might want to see a pet store about that…see you on the other side."
Before either the superheroine or her cow sized attack dog could respond, Facilier turned around and bolted right into the shadows, which vanished near instantly afterwards.
Penny groaned "Shit, that wasn't a weapon at all…that was his getaway vehicle."
She turned up to her dog, who had his ears drooping as he grew very sad about their failiure. Penny began to stroke Bolt's head "Its okay Bolt, we didn't know about his magic. Next time, we'll be ready, and then we'll get him for sure."
The master turned her head to just where Facilier had been, she didn't know how, but this time there'd be an end to Facilier and his schemes, she swore on it.
Soon the two would leave the room and find out that the police had began to show up, and since their work was done, they left the area before they were seen.
A while later she'd have turned on the news and found out that the police came because they were called by a motorist who found some of the people Penny and Bolt had rescued as they were heading back towards town, they told the man what had happened, and the police were called.
The police found both a meth processing plant and evidence that Damnation and his followers have been ritualistically murdering people for months, but no sign of save references in a couple of journals to a person known as the 'Shadow Man.'
It was in the morning that Penny had began to look into martial arts classes, and for new equipment online, she had a special interest in some really good firecrackers she'd been hearing about from some guy at school.
Facilier was out there, and so was whatever world threatening danger Yen Sid alluded to were still out there, and she didn't care how, but when either one surfaced, she'd be ready to kick their asses.
But while she was sure she knew how to handle Facilier this time, she had no idea just what she was getting into with the latter…
Oklahoma borders, 10:43 PM, two days after the raid on Facilier.
Jack Skellington walked along the road, his hands in his pockets as he focused on the sense of dread he'd been feeling ever since he'd landed there.
His skeleton stomach rumbled "My word, I haven't eaten for a while now."
The skeleton could see nothing around for miles, just the desert and assorted wildlife.
"No roadkill in sight" he sighed "Well, it's not like I need to eat anyways."
Jack looked up and noticed a sign dead ahead, the long legged skeleton bounded over and took a look at it.
The sign read "Rockfort: 30", Jack may have been gone a while, but he knew full well what the sign meant, civilization was nearby, but he'd just have to walk a while to reach it.
"Splendid." The skeleton merrily chimed to himself "I should be able to reach some food soon, then perhaps I can sit down and sort all this out…"
Alright folks, we'll answer your reviews in the next chapter...we'd do it in this one, but unfortunately enough, we're just setting production of the story back up, so you might have to wait a bit.
