Art-tillery

The lads nodded their heads though were less than optimistic about taking on these tanky boys. Never the less Ornlu picked up Tom ready to swing as hard as he could at the Goatman. Ornlu wondered as Dana approached the pig if the noise would attract any unwanted attention , too late for that though as she pulled the trigger and... SPLAT! It's head was splattered against a wall traced by black scorch marks. The goat turned fast with a shocked look, but no time to react as Ornlu, Tom and Bobby pounced on him. Ornlu bashed the goats face with rapid  and wild swings as Bobby did his best to be useful shoving himself in the goats mouth to stifle it's screams for help. The frantic ambush somehow worked as the goats head was finally turned into a chunky ground meat mess.

Ornlu's eye twitches as he wipes brain matter from his cheek, Bobby and Tom are much the same including an uneasy look. Seeing violence was a common thing where Ornlu came from, but this was different, a lot more... Real? Ornlu shakes it off fast and looks over at the blunderbuster and the charge fork. He picks up the charge fork and presses a button on the handle that makes the fork shoot sparks. He carries it as a new weapon for the time being so Tom can swing on his own. There also appears to be a strange bottle of red liquid and some American currency, about fourteen dollars that Ornlu picked up. He also pocketed the red liquid in the thin bottle, Ornlu in his odd ventures had developed quite a pack rat mentality. Things dropped by monsters around him usually seemed to be oddly useful to him but useless to them.

Not wanting to wait and see if there were going to be any reprisals the wolf boy skittered inside the bar. The place was full of people, survivors of the siege who have held up in this tiny refuge.  There are people on the top floor as well armed with hunting rifles, the windows are crudely boarded up from the inside as the curtains cove the woods. The people speak in only the most hushed tones when they address the group. "You're alive? What did you find out?" "Is there a way out of town?" "How many more monsters are there?" "Did you stop that machine yet?" "I need my heart pills." The crowd descended on the group with desperation in their eyes and Ornlu couldn't think of anything calming to say. "Hey hey hey relax, I found a real soldier lady person fox thing..." He slides away as the spotlight narrows on Dana. The wolf boy takes it upon himself to fill a pitcher with beer and take a break somewhere in the crowd. Once again putting it on Dana to do the heavy lifting, a repetitive theme with this selfish wolf.

The drop on the pig went too fast. To be fair, Dana wasn't sure whether or not she double-tapped the snubnose. Giving a good gaze to make sure the pig was truly dead, a waft of bacon mingling with the stench of ozone, she turned to see Ornlu, Tom and Bobby all gang up on the goat. Putting either boy in the line of fire was dangerous, and they overwhelmed the goat with the charge fork as Dana preferred.

In the end, the four of them brought the killer farm critters to the slaughterhouse in swift measure. Giving a relieved sigh, the vixen nodded to the three of them. Ornlu seemed to be as jaded to a brutal fight as Dana, sizing up the enemies' weapons and pocketing the loot. To the victor belonged the spoils, even if Dana was sure it also spoiled Tom and Bobby's appetite.

Wait, did the paintbrush and sledgehammer even eat? How did that work?

Right, she thought to herself as the wolf boy unceremoniously slipped into the bar. I'm going egghead again. Those finely-tuned ears of hers picked up on the survivors' game of twenty questions. Well, at least that there were questions; her ears weren't that powerful, between the whispers and the walls of the bar.

That sigh of relief turned into a surprised gasp. It wasn't a trick after all -- somehow there were people that lasted this long! By the time Ornlu announced the ranger of the wastes, she was already eagerly caught up to the trio. She was too relieved toward survivors that she didn't care about Ornlu's beer break. Besides, she'd follow him with a whiskey before long.

But first, back to work. The hopeful look on the fox's face returned to her resting bitch face. She didn't want to break keyfabe, after all.

"He ain't far off. Name's Dana. We were in the woods when this all went down." Right, don't wanna give too many details at first. Surely they were all panicked, and she'd rather ease their minds first. "That pig and the goat just bought th'farm. Me n' the boys are on yer side. If there's anything all y'all know that we don't, I'd like to hear it. But for the moment, all's quiet.

Good start, she hoped. "How many of you are left? Are there any injured? I could help patch folks up. While we're at it, anyone know who could've made that machine? Anyone as weird as us in town lately, or weirder?"

One of the townsfolk speaks up above the others as he steps forward from the crowd. "No there ain't much of us left, they pickin us off the second they see us." A frustrated and irritable tone to his voice. "Ain't you seen some way to stop these bastards? Ain't y'all suppose to be super powered er whatever?" Another voice pipes in equally as angry "People are gettin turned into blood and guts and we're no further to savin ourselves, might as well be no one left." Ornlu watches as all those people start piling onto her, there seems to be a few people actually trying to offer help but the mix of voices growing louder makes it impossible to make out everyone's voice. Bobby and Tom hop up onto the bar where Ornlu is and watch curiously at the commotion.

"They gunna bring out dem creatures if they get too loud eh?" Tom chimes in talking to Ornlu. Ornlu nods once before his right ear twitches hearing something outside, could be anything but he is on high alert. Ornlu clears his throat enough so that people take notice and turn to the Wolf boy, he slowly turns his head to the boarded up window still casually drinking his beer. A great shadow passes by followed by stomping like the sounds of a giant, the shadow easily being as tall as the building itself. The crowd of people hush considerably and forget their anger and frustration, Ornlu puts his finger to his lips making the hushing gesture.

A woman holding a toddler looks to Dana "I heard this all started in the junkyard, Peterson said some stranger came poking around one night and took a bunch of scrap and stuff from the yard. Whoever took that junk must have done some crap to it and made that machine, Iunno why they did this to us. Some sicko that watched too many cartoons, tell you what I'll never let my Jinny watch those evil things again. Should be banned off the TV." Ornlu rolled his eyes as he got himself another drink and munched on some nuts and pretzels, there was something on his mind clearly, his eyes darted left and right considering things.

Dana wasn't used to having such a big crowd to converse with. Add the panic and loss on the townsfolk's minds and hearts, and she was already antsy. Well, more antsy than usual. Too many questions and too much yelling to address it all at once, and she was beginning to lose her grip. Just as she couldn't take the accusations, already reaching for her blaster to fire into the ceiling, the crowd suddenly hushed.

Ornlu's warning and the great shadow rendered the bar silent at an instant.

Then a bit of useful information, albeit stuff she'd already heard from the boys, came to her ears. Ornlu's suspicions were true, it seemed: some sicko at the junkyard had pieced together a contraption that created all these killer cartoon creatures. Unfortunately, the townsfolk had as little knowledge about the situation as the fox, the wolf and the tools.

Well... maybe the townies and the fox knew the same amount of intel. Ornlu, Tom and Bobby on the other hand? Ornlu sure didn't seem to butt in when Dana took point to calm the huddled masses, or even help. In fact, he'd been awfully quiet since they got to the bar. For someone as animated as Loup and his buddies -- no pun intended -- passing the bill in silence didn't settle well with Dana. She didn't know how much was her innate paranoia, but she had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach about this whole thing. Her gut feeling wasn't always reliable, but there was a special kind of queasy that she got when someone wasn't telling the whole story.

That, or it was the rabbit from earlier. And the stress of having to fight its toonified skeleton. But a 50-50 chance seemed good odds. She'd need something to steel her nerves. Time to get nosy.

"Yo, hit me up with a whiskey", she muttered to those at the bar. Nah. If her sussing out info was going to go where she thought it would, Dana needed the good stuff. "Well, make it a Jack n' Coke. Money, money..."

She fished around her pockets and belt pouch. "Hope these'll do as pay for now" They were weathered and worn, but a few shotgun shells made their way from her paw-like palm to the bar counter. "That orange one's a Dragon's Breath. Scary good. Wouldn't use it indoors. All 12-gauge." Not like she had a shotgun on her to make the buckshot count, and the humans would need all the conventional ammo they could get right now.

Getting her beverage ready, Dana took a loooong sip as she sauntered over to Ornlu, Tom and Bobby. Real femme fatale stuff, eyeing up the wolf boy as she cautiously eyed the crowd. "Heyyyy", she greeted facetiously in a hushed tone. "Seems your story checks out. Townies are sayin' it's all comin' from the junkyard. Or that the infernal contraption spittin' out the paint was made there. I dunno."

She slips in a bit closer with another sip. "But I can't help but remember somethin'. Y'said you and the tool-boys are stuck here until we stop the paint machine earlier, right? Makes me wonder why yer stuck. The three of you could walk out at any time. And you three were arguing when I saw ya run by. But what do I know? I was having a panic attack because a wolf was crossin' my path."

She gets eeeeever so closer still. "I see ya lookin' about for prying eyes and ears. Is that all we really know, wolf? C'mon. It can be our little secret."

The crowd seemed relatively subdued if not satisfied for now, put back into quiet hushes and whispers amongst each other. As Dana approached Ornlu his eyebrow cocked and tail flickered "Mhm the junkyard that's the reason for all of this." A steely poker face was cemented on him as he sipped his drink. Bobby and Tom took their drinks over to a booth seeming to sense this might get awkward. Ornlu shifted uncomfortably in his seat either due to Dana getting closer to his face or the near accusational tone that she was taking on with her questioning. "Of course a fox would be on to me." He thought to himself as his gaze shifted all around.

"I... We weren't. I don't know what you mean, I was just walking along my merry way when all of this bullshit started." He gulps down the rest of his drink and poured another quickly, without a doubt not the greatest liar, or at least not in this situation for some reason. Of course this is the opportune moment for Tom to casually hop by "Oy Ornlu, you think your sister is on that mountain firing that artillery?" Bobby leaps from the table and tackles Tom to the ground silencing the big mouth moron, Ornlu facepalms in frustration as Tom gave his weak lie away. "Ok so this um, this might have maybe a tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiny bit to do with me maybe possibly, not guaranteed." Once again in a matter of less than a minute he down another full glass of beer which is starting to loosen him up.

"Errr so uh right. That machine might be here to try and get me, to make a real long story short some asshole drew me and brought me to life with a magic pen. His ass got cursed, his daughter died, he went nuts and so me and the boys noped the fuck outta there. He goes and draws some fucked version of his daughter and calls us brother and sis but fuck that, he can't control her so she goes nuts and starts a murder spree while also looking for my head. He decides if that's what princess wants then that's what she'll get. A whole bunch of us 'toons' escaped into this world to get away from him really. But yeah..." His head bobs a little with tipsy delight as his gaze first meets the Foxies chest, before he corrects himself and meets her eyes. "Ooouuuurrrrr seeeecreeeeet" His eyes bulge for a second before he hiccups. "Oy vey, the booze is talkin... Ha yeah you jumped and freaked out at the sight of me, I'm like five foot six hee hee hyuck."

"Th'fuck?!" Saying that a little too loudly when Tom let slip the awful truth, Dana quickly lowered her voice. "Sorry but yeah, the fuck?"

Seemed that her work would be cut out for her. Everything Ornlu confessed thereafter complicated things tenfold. Dana wasn't the other beastly person in the room who seemed to hail from another world. A cursed madman's animated world drawn from a magic pen with an evil sibling to boot, or an overgrown apocalyptic America filled with paranormal horrors and psychic psychos? What a world they were both trapped in now to accommodate both of these outsiders!

No rest for the wicked or weary, it seemed. The question that remained unanswered was whether it was Ornlu's sister or his creator who operated the mutation-paint cannon. Dana's empathy kept her from taking offense to the now-tipsy wolfboy's drawn-out whisper, remark about her phobias, and especially his gaze juuuust below her neckline. Either that, or it was the cola-and-whiskey. Maybe both.

One deep breath, long sigh and bridge-of-the-snout squeeze later, she replied to all the backstory she was given. "Alright. First off. Thank ya for the honesty. Really, you aren't th'only fellow to be related t' folks y'don't relate to. I sympathize. Second, I can't imagine you're fond of your alleged sister. This is good, because when I catch up to th'bitch if she's responsible, I don't wanna hold back until she's a puddle of purple splattered all over that goddamn gizmo of hers. Someone's gonna die for all this, Cu Chulainn help me, and it ain't gonna be me."

Kicking back the last of her drink, she clacks down the glass for effect. "So unless she ain't the culprit, or you do hold sentimental value to her if she is? Hey... at least I'm honest, saying yer the only reason princess won't face the firing squad. Now. Y'ask me, why're we holdin' back? Th'longer we wait, uh, the longer we... we, uh..."

The 94 proof rum had caught up to her? So soon? What a convenient twist! "I... uh, nothin' personal 'bout sayin' I'd do y'sister. I mean, not like that, mind. Well... shit, is she cute? Oh, uh. Weird t'say. But hey! Didja know I used to fuck fer-- ehhhhh, TMI. That ain' th'point. Wait, th'hell am I... uh..."

Her head tilted among all the words spilling from her liquor-loosening lips, rolling to the other side as she addressed Tom and Bobby. "Ey. Can y'two tools vouch for 'r agains' 'is sis? Is she, is she, or is sh'not, cute an' or-- uhhh... fuck. I'm uh... I'm bein' creepy. Shiiiiit, sorry Orny. She abruptly giggled as she realized her nickname for Ornlu sounded like a funny word. "Uh, Ornlu! I mean Ornlu! Heheh... ohhhhh, we're sooooo screwed if Porky Pig's fucked-up cuz shows up... ooh boy..."

Ornlu was honest for the most part, or as he would put it he was being "economical with the truth." Failing to mention how he used the town like a meat shield to try and hide from the pursuing monster toons. There was a lull in the commotion outside but that could just as easily be a trap with how quiet it got. Ornlu was a bit preoccupied though with the Fox and her really uncomfortable question. Tom and Bobby slowly shifted their eyes to each other before they both started snickering like a joke they were both in on. "Ehhh sure she's REAL hot, I mean if you're into gaunt lookin broads heh heh." Tom chimes in as he drinks away. Bobby scratches a crude image of a ghoulish looking girl, tall and plagued with some sickness. Her hai is frazzled and falling out while her limbs are inhumanly longer than her body. Her eyes are sunk in and dark with malice behind them, a rather accurate drawing for mere seconds of work.

"Mhm and I like to add that ve're not acshelly siber... sibla er brovther and shister. She just sm crazy cun. If you cn killer then more power to ya, likesly you'll be died though. Bish is fuckin powerful powerful. The wolf boy for a moment straightens out his slurred speech  and sits straight up, not any levity in his tone "I don't know what she is but she's not the creators daughter, she's something else in there. Something that really has a talent for misery and death... She corrupts things as well to force to serve her." It wasn't something Ornlu liked to think about too often as it made him think too much about his existence.

Sober Ornlu was a pretty cool and controlled customer, when he got into the drink he was much more "liberated" as it were. Enough so that he couldn't help watching Dana's chest jiggle as she bobbed around drunkenly. There was a lude gleam in his eye and a cheeky smirk, he spoke with a deeper tone that was almost not even his own, one like a late night Jazz radio host might use in an effort to be smooth "Orny? That's not wrong You know I never got the chance to thank you earlier for the help, you really handle a weapon good." Still with a bit of his own drunken bobbing. Bobby and Tom rolled their eyes, Bobby a little more upset Ornlu is forgetting what's going on around him because he's prowling.

If Dana wasn't drunk, she would've been a lot more fazed by the gangly, hideous form of Ornlu's 'sister'. And if she wasn't drunk, she probably would've offered some sort of quip about the resemblance of the toony monsters the four of them had been fighting and evading that day.

Instead she giggled as Bobby's skillful sketch materialized. "Well shit! If I goh wet fwr sum'un who'd make a wendigo look hot, welllllll... but yeh, no. S'long as there's no hard feelings o'er 'er, she's fuggin' dead. No prob, m'dude. I'll give 'er both barrels like th' fat pig".

The fox then laughed out loud as the wolf boy warned her about the creature's origins and corrupting nature. "Ahah! Well! Th' bish hasn' met me yet, 'as she?"

Clumsily she draws her blaster from its pleather , waving it around with the barrel pointed to the ceiling. Thankfully, the thing was designed with the power switch pulled back, so that holstering it turned the weapon off.  "This's a BH... uh, a BH-fourty... eh, screw it. This's to kill monsters, plain n' simple. Magic plasma n' the 40-watt range. Or sumthin'. An' like--"

By now Orny spoke up, uninhibited by his own inebriation. Dana's words tapered off as she listed to his advances, and that handsome tone of voice totally kept her quiet to admire it.

Giggling at the apparent innuendo, Dana paused and concentrated now, leaning forward as she set her gun down on the table. The hand that abandoned her signature weapon now held up her head as she looked dreamily into Ornlu's eyes.

That sultry voice returned. "Oh, I could show ya how well I can handle weapons, wolf. I'm fulla surprises and skills alike~"