BOLT THE SUPERDOG: SHOCKING - CHAPTER 2
"Calico was a tall, gangly man. His sinister appearance was accentuated by a dark British voice, a long black suit, and one mutated green cat eye, giving him the nickname animals called him by—'The Green-Eyed Man'."
Summary[]
The fiendish Dr. Calico has always been after Penny. How else can he convince her kidnapped father, a brilliant scientist, to do his evil bidding and help him conquer the world? But each and every one of his schemes is foiled by Penny's best friend and beloved pet, Bolt the Superdog. At the end of his rope, Calico hatches a bold plan. After all, who better to bring down a superdog than ANOTHER superdog?
Chapter 2: "Like Lightning"[]
Bong!...Bong!...Bong!
The sound of the bells clanging in the wind made the harbor seem eerie and haunted. The mournful crying of the gulls flapping to stay on course overhead and the sight of the white boats bobbing like ghosts in the smelly saltwater added to the creepy feeling.
But the young girl, dressed in black, couldn't be bothered with fears that other teenagers her age might succumb to. She had a father to save, and nothing was scarier than the thought of losing him. Her only parent was a scientist, a brilliant man, and had been taken by the nefarious Dr. Calico because of his unparalleled research. Among his other epic inventions, he had found a way to give any creature super powers; blinding speed, indestructibility, laser and heat vision, incredible strength, and a sonic voice.
Calico, a crazy, cat-loving billionaire mad for power, with one mutated feline-green eye, had heard of these accomplishments. Desiring such abilities for himself, and having limitless resources to get them, he kidnapped the Professor, leaving Penny alone…
Except, that is, for her dog.
Bolt was a White American Shepherd, fiercely loyal to Penny, his Person. There was nothing extraordinary about him before the Professor altered him. Now he had all of the aforementioned superpowers: laser and heat vision, smashing strength, indestructibility, awesome speed, and best of all, his sonic Super-Bark. All of these new qualities had been given to him to protect Penny, who was the only thing the Professor cared about, and therefore the only thing Calico needed to force the poor man to give up the secrets of his research.
Penny should have run away. Far away, where the wicked Green-Eyed Man and his henchmen couldn't use her against her father, but instead she traveled ever closer to Calico's main base, where the Professor might be held.
Armed only with her wheelbar scooter, a stealth suit, and a bike helmet that doubled as a smart computer, Penny peered out from behind a stack of crates at the boardwalk lining the harbor. Henchmen clad in black with the yellow cat-eye insignia of Calico stitched onto their uniforms stood helmeted in the wind, some helping to lift crates onto the huge cargo ship that was preparing to leave, and others guarding the cargo itself—dangerous new weapons on their way to the Green Eyed Man's latest headquarters.
Penny twisted the scope on her own helmet. The miniature screen flashed before her pretty brown eye, showing enlarged images of the huge black boat. It scanned over the cargo the men were carrying, and zoomed in on a notice paper flapping in the harsh breeze that would have been too far away to see without the help of the computer.
The red-haired girl retracted her computer, reading the sign aloud to herself. "Ship to Base 3, Coalers Mountain, Tennessee… Huh…" she lowered her helmet. "The Coalers Mountain Base is one of Calico's minor hideouts…"
Penny leaned back behind her stack of crates where she could think without being seen. The girl tapped her chin with a finger thoughtfully, holding her helmet under one arm. "What's in all those crates that he would need so much of in such a small base?" She glanced down at Bolt, who was standing on one of the single crates behind her.
He growled quietly in suspicion and put his ears back. Penny didn't understand him when he spoke, but his body language spoke volumes. "I know," she said, "I don't know what they're up to, but we gotta find Daddy first. If Calico has all this cargo headed for one base, it must be pretty important. Maybe if we follow the crates, we'll learn something about where they're keeping him."
Bolt nodded and hopped down from the crate as Penny leaned out for another look. "We just have to get past the guards. Bolt," she pointed across the boardwalk to the boat just as the henchmen finished loading the last crate onto a platform. The platform was being lifted by a crane on the deck of the boat. "…zoom-zoom!"
Penny unfolded her wheelbar into its scooter form and hit a button on the handle. A cable with a small silver gripping piece shot out of the front of the wheelbar, and Bolt, using his super speed, shot out and grabbed it in between his teeth, a white blur as he pulled Penny out of hiding on her scooter and over to the platform. He didn't hesitate as he leaped onto it, with Penny hopping her scooter up and rolling behind the cargo. The guards they had passed on the deck were almost bowled over by their momentum, but when they looked up, they couldn't see the two sources of it and assumed it was just a particularly strong burst of wind. Bolt had been moving too fast to be seen.
The henchmen aboard the ship dragged the crates off of the platform, one by one, wheeling them off to the cargo hold. Penny was smart enough to stay hidden until only one crate and three henchmen were left on deck.
A dumb-looking brute in the black armor of Dr. Calico reached down to lift the crate away…and dropped it again in surprise as his helmet-shielded gaze was met by Penny's big brown eyes. "Huh?!"
One of the other men flexed his electro-clawed gloves. "Hey! It's the girl!"
"Grab 'er!" shouted the other. The big one was closest. He dove at Penny.
The orange-haired girl neatly sidestepped, and the huge henchman's lunge was met in mid-air by Bolt, who leaped from behind where Penny had been standing, teeth bared.
The white dog's hard skull knocked the large guard backward clean off his feet and into the smaller henchman who had been running up. A normal dog's bonk would have barely unbalanced the guard, but for Bolt the Superdog, knocking a fully grown man clean on his back was child's play.
The Shepherd dog pounced onto the brute's chest threateningly, growling with his hackles raised and brown eyes glowing green with laser vision.
Before he could punish the guard for threatening his Person, her scream came from behind him. "Bolt…!"
Bolt looked back over his shoulder in surprise. The third guard had grabbed Penny while Bolt was distracted, dragging her in front of him as he edged towards the cabin of the ship.
With a growl, the dog used the super strength in his legs to make a soaring leap, crossing the space between him and the remaining henchmen in one jump. When he came down, he slammed his paws into the deck of the ship in a ground-pound. Wham!
The mini-quake he had caused rocked the ship, big as it was, and caused the man to lose his footing, helmeted head hitting the deck as he fell and pulling Penny down with him. She quickly scrambled away from him. Bolt grabbed the unfortunate villain by the boot in his teeth and spun around, swinging the man and gathering momentum, until he released, flinging the guard overboard.
"Good boy," panted Penny, "Come on! We've gotta get to the captain's deck."
The guards in the cabin room had no clue anything unusual had happened out on deck. They were completely oblivious to the fact that they had two stowaways on their ship…
Until Bolt broke down the door, that is.
Wham! It crashed down on the first man.
The second, uniformed man leveled his gun at Penny, who was standing behind her dog. "Bolt, stare!" she commanded.
The white shepherd immediately froze and strained his brown eyes on the enemy's weapon.
The gun exploded, knocking the bewildered soldier into the wall. He pressed a fist to his shiny black helmet and coughed behind it. Before Penny or Bolt realized what he was doing, the man began typing quickly, panic behind his speed, on a keypad in the wall next to him.
"Bolt!" yelped Penny as she rushed forward.
The soldier scrambled back as twin green lasers flashed from Bolt's gaze, hitting the keypad and causing another mini-explosion.
Too late! A terribly loud alarm that the guard had triggered made Penny cover her ears.
The goon lifted a walkie-talkie to his helmet. "Intruder alert! I repeat, intruders! It's the dog and the—wha-?!" His communication device burst into flames and melted.
He looked up just in time to get a face full of white fur, and then Bolt's wide doggy head knocked him unconscious.
"Quick!" called Penny from her place at the computer. "There'll be more guards coming soon! Maybe there's some information on this about where they're keeping Daddy."
She typed quickly. There were too many files! How could she find what she was looking for before the other men—
Too late, again.
"Hold it!" shouted a voice dulled behind a helmet. The broken door frame was crammed with guards. The first two had guns, and from the sizzling and popping noises, Penny judged that the others were armed with the electric-claw gloves.
Penny crouched readily. "Bolt, sic' 'em!" she commanded grimly. Then, confident in her dog's ability to handle it, she turned back to the computer, fingers flying.
Bolt lowered his head below his shoulders and growled menacingly. The henchmen couldn't understand him, but he spoke to them anyway. "Who's first?" He accentuated the challenge with an even louder growl.
"Here, doggy doggy!" taunted the man in the lead, aiming his gun. Either he hadn't heard of the 'doggy doggy's' superpowers, or he was just really stupid. Must be a new recruit.
First he had to get rid of the guns; they were the only thing that posed a threat to Penny at the moment. The guard had time to take two edging steps forward before Bolt's heat vision caused the weapon to combust. "Huh?" The man stared uncomprehendingly down at the smoky remains of his gun, and looked up to see….was the dog smiling?!
Bolt was indeed grinning confidently at his foes, long white ears tilted back. His eyebrows were pinched in determination.
The lead man took a step back, but there was nowhere to go—his comrades were trying to cram their way into the small cabin behind him.
The white dog pounced, hitting the guard with all four paws straight in the chest, shoving him stumbling back into the crowd of henchmen behind him. He fell into the electric claws of two of the other guys, electrocuting him and off-balancing others.
Meanwhile, Bolt had knocked into the next man, grabbed a thick crate someone had left in the cabin between his jaws, and spun around, throwing it into the enemies.
The other guard with the gun fired. Bolt ducked under the shot and lunged at the man with a woof of anger.
Penny spoke quietly to herself, frustrated, as if there were no groans of pain and cries of fear or growls and barks going on behind her as she searched the computer for answers. "No….no…Ugh! Come on, there's got to be something here about my father." She squinted at the screen and hastily read something printed there. "Top secret…what would he need all of these explosives for? Wait…" Codes flashed and a high-pitched beeping sound burst from the computer. Images of long, thing metal tubes and blueprints popped up and disappeared, beaming information at high speed across the screen as Penny tried to keep up. "Lake Michigan, Artic Hover Base, Egyptian Pyramid Hideout…" read the girl. Her eye's went wide with excitement and she quickly paused trhe playback she had triggered. "There! Coaler's Mountain, Tennessee Base! Shipping plans, bomb structures…" Her fingers went to work again.
Bolt's green laser vision flashed, lighting up the cabin. The last guard dropped to the ground, and the white dog turned as his Person's gasp filled the small room.
"Daddy!" Penny sounded both overjoyed and horribly worried. "Calico's gotta be keeping him in Coaler's Mountain! No wonder we couldn't find him." She turned to Bolt, who wagged his tail and smiled at her. "He knew we wouldn't think of his smaller bases. We're gonna get my dad back, boy!"
Bolt's long white tail wagged even faster. "Don't worry, Penny." But all she heard was a sympathetic whimper.
The alarm kept blaring. Penny backed away from the computer. "Now all we have to do is wait for the boat to reach its coordinates, and it'll take us right to my father."
"Calico won't know what hit him." Bolt growled, ears back. "I've got a superbark with his name on it."
******
The dark room was only lit by monitors, which took up one wall of the room. Three chairs sat by the desk underneath this wall, which contained so many flashing lights and tough-screens that just looking at all of the switches and levers made you dizzy. In one chair sat a guard in full uniform.
Two more of his kind guarded the door. The man at the desk alternately looked from the screens to the keys his fingers tapped, concentrating. He froze as the door opened in the wall behind him, and stood to attention like the other two henchmen as his master entered.
Calico was a tall, gangly man. His sinister appearance was accentuated by a dark British voice, a long black suit, and one mutated green cat eye, giving him the nickname animals called him by—'The Green-Eyed Man'.
As Calico entered, his black Egyptian Mau cat paced across his shoulders, tail-tip twitching. He meowed, hopping down to land in the villain's arms. Calico stroked the feline. He always had about three cats following him wherever he went. There were dozens of the pets in every base.
Another person entered behind the Green-Eyed Man. He was short, nervous, and bald. He wrung his hands and slunk in behind his boss. He wore the standard Calico uniform, but no helmet, and glasses. He was considerably older than his master.
"Well?" purred Calico in his British accent.
The guard who had been in the chair saluted. "Sir! Everything is going according to plan. The girl has boarded the ship."
"And the dog?" asked the villain.
"Uh…He took out our men and is with the Penny girl inside the captain's deck cabin, sir."
"Hmph." Growled Calico, not looking happy. He turned to the bald man who had come in with him. "I'm still not convinced this…plan of yours is in my best interest, Mr. Ferahgo. That dog has defeated my henchmen easily."
"Er, yes sir, but, um, if you recall, that is exactly the reason we decided on this strategy." Answered the man, Ferahgo. He was Calico's consort, an advisor, if you will. He did not fear his master as much as the rest of his dark employees. He had an air of speaking to the Green-Eyed Man as if he thought he was smarter than his boss.
The Egyptian Mau cat lowered his eyelids and meowed disapprovingly. Calico stroked his pet's back as if he understood what the feline had been saying.
Ferahgo continued nervously. "You remember the plan, don't you sir? We agreed that the henchmen would never be enough to capture Penny if her dog was arou—"
Calico's body language exploded with impatience, causing the cat to leap from his angry arms with an indignant yowl. "Yes, of course I remember the plan! 'Lead the dog into a trap and use what we have of the Professor's technology to duplicate his powers!'"
Ferahgo held up his hands, placating. "…And…?" he prompted gently.
Dr. Calico rolled his green eye. He did not like to be patronized, but he recited the plan sulkily. "And we'll use Penny to persuade the Professor to reveal to my scientists how to make a machine that will give us the dog's abilities."
The guard at the desk forgot he was supposed to be quiet and lowered his saluting arm. "Huh? W-wait…who are we gonna give his powers to?"
Calico turned around and narrowed his eyes at the henchman. "Look at the screen, lieutenant." He grabbed the guard by the shoulders with his long, thin fingers and spun him to face the monitors. "What do you see there?"
Calico's spy cameras were trained on Bolt. "Uh…the Superdog, sir…?"
"Precisely." The Green-Eyed Man spoke as if he were talking to a child. "Now, what do we need to make the Professor give us access to all of his plans?"
"Um…the girl." Responded the man.
"Exactly. But we can't get the girl, because none of you worthless lackeys can seem to get past that dog, correct?" Calico didn't give his servant time to answer. "So, if human henchmen can't take care of that mutt, even with my superior technology, than I need a different approach."
The Green-Eyed Man stepped up to the screen, shoving the henchman aside. The cat leaped back onto his master's shoulders and purred. "You see, lieutenant, if you want to catch a human, you send humans. If you want to get the girl's dog out of the way…if you want to get a Superdog, you send… a Superdog."
Dr. Calico's fiendish cackle mingled with his feline's purr and echoed through the base that Bolt and Penny were sailing towards.
About BtS[]
This is the second chapter of the FOURTH story in the Bolt the Superdog AU timeline that I started, but it is the first I have written. The other chapters will be up soon, but if you're impatient, you can look for them on deviantART, where you can also find more art for this story, or you can look on fanfiction.net, where there's a little more insight to my process in writing this story. Comment and tell me what you think!