Chapter 6: A Portal To The City

After what must have been nearly fifteen minutes of slow crawling through the ventilation system, Charlie finally came to another air vent. He looked down through it, and saw a cleanly polished white floor. This must be the main deck, he thought.

Once he had prised open the vent, he manoeuvred himself over the gap, and lowered himself down. Once his hind legs were hanging freely, he let go, and landed on the floor, like a cat after righting itself during a fall.

Charlie then sniffed the air, and took a good look around him - he would need to get a good feel for his surroundings if he was going to survive.

Fortunately, there was no-one else in this section of the gondola. In the opposite corner from the dark room, there was a room with white outer walls, and red frames around the edges.

Charlie crept up to the front door of the room, and placed his ear against it. He could hear voices from inside, but they were too quiet for him to discern what they were saying - that was, until one of the speakers raised her voice.

"Then get to it, you numb-skull! We need to open the gateway in about five miles. Warm up the Cannon already!"

"But, Big Bawss... You can't call me a numb-skull - I graduated from M.I.D., you know."

"I can call you whatever I want, boy. Now, chop-chop. We've no more time to lose."

Charlie had to think quickly about his plan of action. He looked around for anything which could give him a chance to break in.

That was when he spotted a dull grey box on a nearby shelf. He inspected it more closely, and saw that it was a storage case of some sort. When he looked at its top side, he found that it was stencilled was the phrase 'Stielhandgranate.'

"Hand grenades?" Charlie muttered under his breath, as he open the case. Surely enough, the case contained six stick grenades. Charlie picked one up, and examined it. After that, he planned what he would do next.

Charlie walked over to the control room, with the grenade held carefully in his mouth. He set it down on the floor, and knocked loudly on the door. Next, he used his paws to unscrew the cap on the end of the grenade handle, and went around to hide behind the side wall.

"Who's making that racket?" Belladonna asked.

"It's... Charlie?" said Killer, as he stared at the CCTV display, which was pointed at the main control desk outside. However, the CCTV camera did not have a view of the outside of the door, where the deadly explosive was placed.

Inside the control room, Killer went over to the weapons shelf, where he picked up his tommy-gun. Carface went over as well, and grabbed a double-barrelled shotgun.

Killer went over to the door first. He pressed a large button to the side of the door, and it slid open with a whoosh. He was about to step out, when...

"Killer! No! Get back!"

"Wha... What the-?"

But it was too late. Before Killer could back away from the grenade, it detonated violently, and he was thrown away by the powerful blast. The explosion had torn the doorway wide open, leaving the front wall badly damaged.

Carface had been far enough away from the blast to not get hurt, but the same could not be said for Killer. The beige dog had had both of his hind legs taken off below the knee, leaving him with a pair of fleshy, bleeding stumps.

"Jesus..." Carface gasped, as he stood over Killer's injured body. "Shit! I knew something like this was gonna happen. I could feel it in ma' guts."

After that, he turned towards the damaged doorway, and saw that Charlie was now legging it back to the dark room. He had managed to find a special switch which opened both the doors and the chair locks, which meant that the other hero-dogs were now free.

"Get back here, Barkin!" Carface yelled, as he ran out of the control room, with his shotgun in hand. He tried to shoot at Charlie, but by the time he had pulled the trigger, the Shepherd dog had just entered the room, so the shot missed.

"Guys!" said Charlie, once he was inside. "Carface is outside, and he's got a gun. We're going to have to work together if we're getting out of this one alive."

In response to this, the dogs all crowded together, and planned what to do next.

Carface was now standing outside the room, hiding around the door on the side nearer the front of the gondola.

Riley Jr. decided to scout out Carface's position, while the other dogs waited behind. He went up to the left doorway, and sniffed. Next, he crossed to the other door, and sniffed again. By the difference in the perceived strength of Carface's scent, he deduced which door the villainous dog was hiding near.

However, Carface was smarter than he looked. He had heard Riley sniffing, and now he was creeping over to the other side to catch him.

Riley briefly steadied himself, before making a break for it. He tried to dash out through the open door, but Carface was ready for him. As soon as Riley came out, there was a loud bang, and Riley dropped to the floor.

"RILEY!" Sasha screamed, as she saw her brother collapse in a pool of blood. Carface had shot him directly in the face, and now his eyes, nose, and mouth were filled with lead pellets.

Charlie now had to act quickly. He went over to the corner of the room, where he found a rack of gas bottles. He picked one of them up in his arms, and made his way on two legs over to the door on the other side.

"Nobody move!" yelled Carface, as he walked into the room, before raising his gun towards Sasha and Itchy.

Charlie didn't stop moving, though. Just as Carface entered, he left at the other door, and waited until the moment was right for him to continue.

"Where's that Barkin?" Carface barked, at the dogs who he now had in his sights. Sasha said nothing, and Itchy raised his fists, showing that he was prepared to fight.

"Sasha!" the villain continued, as he trained the gun on her. "You're gonna tell me where that bastard is, or you'll end up the same way as your brother."

"You're going to have to try harder than that, fatso," she replied.

"Heh, heh. You're surprisingly defiant in the face of death, aren't you, Sasha? Even though I've got a gun pointed straight in your face, you're still not scared enough to betray that beau of yours. That really says a lot about you, doesn't it?"

At this moment, Charlie was right behind Carface, but his enemy was so focused on Sasha that he failed to notice. Charlie raised the gas bottle like a golf club, and, just before Carface could say anything else, swung it with all his might...

The bottle struck the side of Carface's skull, with such force that it cracked his cheekbone, knocking him out cold. He twirled around for a few seconds, before, like Riley, collapsing to the floor face-first, with blood streaming from the side of his head.

"Come on, guys," said Charlie. "Get out of there!"

Once Itchy and Sasha were out of the room, Sasha knelt down next to Riley, and tried to wake him up.

"Riley? Brother? Are you still alive? Say something, Riley!"

Several seconds passed, before the male Irish Setter finally opened his eyes.

"Sis?"

"Oh, Riley. I thought you were dead."

"I'm not dead YET," he commented, as his sister wiped the flecks of blood from around his mouth. "I don't t'ink I'm going to make it... Hack! Cough! Wheeze!"

"But, brother... if you die, I'll have no family left."

"Never mind about d'at. I could'a gotten that Carface, if I had just been a bit less reckless. If he hadn't had that gun, I would've mauled d'at son-of-a-bitch meself."

After that, he gave his dying breath, and Sasha began to cry as her brother fell limp in her arms.

"You'll have no family left? Well, that would be a lie."

Sasha recognised that voice. She got to her feet, and met Belladonna face-to-face.

"What was that you said?" she asked.

"My dear Fleur. Your parents didn't die when the Death Ray was fired. They escaped from the house minutes before. It's just that I didn't turn on the camera feed until they were out of shot. You know... to play a little mind-game with you."

Sasha was now glaring angrily at the demon-dog.

"You're a manipulative witch. Do you know that?"

"Of course," Belladonna replied. "In fact, I would consider that to be a compliment."

Suddenly, the room was filled with a loud booming sound, and everyone looked towards the front window of the gondola. All that they could see outside was a huge purple sphere, which was moving forward through the air.

"This is it!" said Belladonna, as the sphere began to expand. "The Portal Cannon has been fired!"

After that, she ran into the control room, and the team of hero-dogs followed closely behind her.

Once the shot from the Portal Cannon had reached its maximum size, it appeared to explode, forming a huge dark hole in the sky.

The Bellabee rocked and rolled violently as a strong gravitational force pulled it into the portal. Before they knew it, the dogs and the airship were now all inside a very strange world.

Charlie ran up to the front window, and took a look around. Up above, there was a canopy of thick red clouds, and below, a landscape of dark brown rock formations, of very irregular shapes - shapes which were perhaps even impossible in the real world, like Penrose triangles.

"This," Belladonna began, "is the Border World. Think of it as being like, say, a means of inter-dimensional travel.

"You see, the Belladonna Bumblebee is a very slow aircraft. To travel between countries normally, would take several days. Of course, I can't do with taking forever to cross to the other side of the world... so instead, we're travelling through the Border World."

"But where are we going?" Charlie asked.

"Take a wild guess, Chuckie-boy!"

Charlie waited several seconds, before delivering his response:

"San Francisco."

"Ding-ding-ding! Correctamundo, chuckle-nuts! And can you guess what I'm going to do when we get there?"

"You're going to use the Death Ray on everything?"

"Not only that - I'm going to drop something even nastier on the city..."

"But what is that?"

"... A nuclear bomb! Mwa ha ha... ha ha ha... HA HA HA HA HAA-"

Before Belladonna could finish her abominable cackle, Charlie lunged towards her, and grabbed her by the throat.

"Get your filthy paws off me, you obnoxious scrub! You're going to have to do better than that if you're going to stop me!"

She then threw Charlie to the ground, before stepping over to a small compartment in the side of the control desk. She placed her paw on a green scanner pad, and once it had verified her paw-print, the compartment slid open.

Killer had now regained consciousness, and he saw what Belladonna was doing.

"No..." he panted. "Not the serum... anything but that!"

Belladonna then turned around to face him.

"I'm sorry, Killer," she replied, "but I must. I cannot allow our captives to stay on the ship; they must be dealt with severely!"

Once she had finished her sentence, she reached inside the compartment, and took out from it a large syringe gun. The syringe it was loaded with was filled with a mysterious green liquid. Belladonna then positioned the gun over her left arm...

...and pulled the trigger.

Author's note: So, that was the sixth chapter. I'm sorry to end it on a cliffhanger like that, but it's all in the name of suspense. Next week, the final chapter and the epilogue are coming up in one part!