Warriors way chapter 9...bad Penny part 1

So what will happen now, the story goes on!

New story in the growing Hekawi universe!
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Meagan's Tail

Nuuan's
“Necessity is the Mother of Invention” and “Déjà vu”

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Penny slowly rolled herself out of bed with a long yawn as she pawed the sleep from both eyes and thought back to last night. 'I had that strange dream once again about finding a sword that would fit right into the backing my small shield. But this time I remember what the place looked like, the building itself and it reminded me of a museum I saw as a kid, like the one in Chicago or near similar in building style to that old ass one?'

This was the third night in a row the same dream came and seemed more waking dream than terrible haunting nightmare, like the sword was calling to Penny in the night via the dream and maybe Penny should talk to mom more about this specific dream and the few others this week!

After leaping up from her bed too quickly, Penny almost stumbled over a few extra boxes left sitting on the floor next to her bed as she walked into the bathroom and taped her favorite settings on the control panel for the shower to start up, "Gonna miss having a cool shower like this one, but mom said she'd see about getting me one in our new house!"

Penny stepped into the huge shower feeling it out with her fingers to make sure its water was up to the proper temperature and found it was. So she slid into the waves of water flowing from over a dozen jets or nozzles covering the walls and ceiling of the shower stall.

The showers hot water danced across Penny's body as she spun around in the large space of the finely titled shower, then the water's flow slowed down to a very light simulated rain as the program ran from the control panel allowing her time to suds up and clean her body with a wash cloth, "God I going to miss this thing and taking a shower as a girl is far better than a guy ever was!" she sighed out as the water renewed its flow.

After exiting her refreshing shower, Penny swiped at the shower's very complex control panel and sent all of those personal settings over to her desk top computer to be saved or used as a base for a shower system her mom would be installing in the new home.

Penny shook and fingered at her long hair with a towel, then applied a blow dryer on low so as not to harm it and painfully took her time trying to dry the mess of hair she gained from changing only a few weeks ago. Her now much longer hair was beginning to become a daily chore or annoyance that Penny was not enjoying much and she was seriously leaning towards getting a styled very short pixie cut that her mom did not like even the suggestion of! But the newly minted girl was personally wanting it, because all of this hair would dry much, much faster and still look great in a shorter cut!

With her hair now dry, the teen wiggled on an athletic top to keep her 'top' in check, not wanting a bra for such a busy day of packing for her trip to see a school out in LA and making sure that this was the place she wanted to end up schooling in for four more years!

Over the last few weeks Penny had pretty much left the old Marcus behind by keeping a part of that magical armor on her person all day, every day and all night. Thus even if she broke contact with its magic right now, it would be several months before she changed back to the old normal teen boy she was in the now growing past.

In the mean time her mom Sophia, had taken the teen down to the local testing center so that she could at the very least obtain a Department or Exo-human Affairs, DEHA federal mutant or possible 'other' card then get the local Metahuman Control Agency ID, MCA that California issues within their state that as long as one stays within the state supersedes the fed one!

Also during the past week or so, Mary Adams AKA 'Pole Dancer' a street heroine that just happened to live down the hallway took to teaching Penny her limits as a teen and how to improve her fighting skills and subdue without harming the criminal or outright killing them with the teen's new far greater strength!

To the newly changed Penny, the training sessions got a little to personal for her tastes because for some strange reason or mental hang up, Mary only became more resilient, stronger and faster in her Pole Dancer persona as clothes came off. The more skin Pole Dancer exposed, the greater powers she had in strength and speed, no one knew if it was really her power or just a mental quirk she personally had!

During some of the practice fighting sessions Penny would become more than embarrassed by one of Pole Dancer's fighting moves or when the street heroin would pin the teen down to loud giggles from Erin or "Euryale" who was watching the show... "Euryale" was Penny's mutant snake girl friend from school and she became involved in the training to learn herself. Only this past week Euryale had chosen to follow her friend Penny and her mother to LA to view, plus tour the campus and see if the place fit the growing needs of a mutant teen like her too!

The Erin or "Euryale" relationship had grown closer over the last few weeks when Euryale told Penny that she was going to ask the old Marcus out on dates very soon and become an item, but the new Penny was just as fun to the very open minded snake girl!

Penny stood at her dresser pulling needed items for the LA trip over to her bed and thought about her dreams last night, then started to pack them away in to her travel bag. when she filled it, she hopped down the hallway into her mom's room, "Mom I had a dream last night and the last three nights of the exact same thing."

"What honnn?" she asked from the master bath while she freshened it up a bit for the week.

"That I found a short sword that matched my shield and my armor I think in that museum you worked in Chicago when I was about ten I think? It was in the Greek section, in the long case of blades third from the left on the bottom row." Penny said thinking back to the many dreams and the real exactness that those dreams had held!

"Okay?" Sophia questioned and thought back to classes on the subject at her old school for mutants, "Did this dream or the other dreams seem more memory or one that said that you walked or were actually there last night or over the last few nights?"

"More like I was there and 'BANG' here is the blade you need to complete me...like the armor was talking to me?" Penny answered trying to convey the deep feelings she had over the last three nights.

"Humm...hop on your computer and look up this museum. I think they now have a 3D virtual tour of all the main halls and see if you can find this sword?" Sophia thought of the museum and was very sure it had such a service even while she was personally working there.

"What was the place's name, I don't remember it?" the teen asked turning on her main computer and taking a place sitting at the small desk in the teen's bedroom.

"Chicago Hellenic Museum on the upper east side dear, that is the one I worked at for nearly a year and then we moved to France after that." Sophia said closing her door and walking into her new daughter's room, that was being packed away for a coming LA trip and move to come beyond and finally to a new family home.

Penny found the link with ease, then scanned the long list of 3D walk-throughs of the small museum and found one on weapons of Greece. Next she put in a search for swords and the museum showed her links to four display cases that matched the limited input so far. The first two listed and shown were not what she thought the display case fro the dream should look like, but the third matched EXACTLY to the one from her dreams!

Next she waited for the 3D program to load up and then scanned that bottom row display from the dream and found the blade from that very dream hovering in a clear plastic holder within the display AND right were it should be!

When her mom looked over her shoulder, Penny pointed out the blade to her, "That one is the one!" she said more than excited at finding the blade with such ease!

"Please click the links for it?" Sophia asked instantly intrigued that this sword was actually there, exactly as her daughter described and right where Penny dreamt it would be!

Penny clicked the link next to the blades 3d pic and Sophia read over the most basic information that the webpage provided, more detailed information would be available to scholars that knew how to ask for it. Sophia pointed to a date at the bottom part of the listing, "There ya go, that is why I never saw this sword while I was working there...Discovery found in Greece and only two years ago!"

"So what do you think mom?" Penny asked as she clicked through the sword's many pictures.

"It matches the style your armor has and the apparent age from what I can see! I'll contact them about this and see what I can work out?" Sophia thought and started thinking about how to gain the blade, trade, buy if she could, or lastly steal the darn thing if it was a match!

"I hope it does, because I need some sort of weapon besides my fist or a kick to the head to be a good fighter!" Penny smiled.

"I really did not want to hear that you 'need' or 'want' a sword to fight with anyone!" Sophia barked to the teen and her embarrassment!

Penny closed the link after sending all the needed info over to her mom's computer frame for later and smiled, "Well lets get back to packing I guess?" she tried to change the subject from the sword...fighting and anything!

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In Los Angeles that night

Two dark female forms appear out of nowhere on the dimly lit street to start pushing their way through a small but growing crowd of concerned neighbors and a few news crews setting up for their shots for late night news TV. The crowd was being held back from a darkened home by yellow glowing police tape and a few uniformed LAPD, plus a few LACO sheriffs in the mix.

One of the darkly dressed women finally made it to the police tape and lifted it up for her partner to get under. An LAPD officer quickly placed his hand on her chest to stop her progress into the cordon, "So where do you think you are going!" he barked without actually looking at her.

The woman on the cop's side of the tape looked down at the officer's hand on her chest, "Either remove that hand or I'll gift wrap it for your kids as a reminder of manners!"

"You said what to...." the young officer started to say, then just as quickly stopped when noting that he was talking to an ELF! And not your normal everyday elf, but one of the few Drow known!

In Los Angles, elves or Fae in general were a VERY rare sight around the area for the most part and a little more common inside the more affluent areas like Beverly Hills or Malibu! But down here in a South Central LA or Compton they were never seen at all! (At least that the cops or general population knew of, because most Fae moved among humans wrapped in magical dinguses or glamour's to remain unseen and unnoticed, but most of all unhampered!)

But one thing all Fae had in common was a reputation of not being something regular humans should ever messed with unless you were one of the few super mutants or had a death wish...even cops learned that at the academy!

At a glowing flash of her blood red eyes, his hand leapt back then he lifted the tape and waved both of the woman past his cordon line tape, "Sorry you might want to see the group already in the home or in the basement I hear ma'am or ladies?" he gulped as the second Drow passed by him without a care that he even existed.

Both women passed through the crowd of law enforcement with ease once the officers noted that both were Fae by either very evident pointy ears or their very striking and unusual dark skin color....or it could be how dangerous both appeared to be, all dressed in matching leather armor and with very decorative swords hanging at their belts!

At the home's door they passed by one detective who seemed upset at having to wait for the Fae investigation to finish up first before his even could begin, "When are you forest finger wigglers going to be done, I have a dozen crimes here and a few bodies to process!"

"When we are done and not one day sooner!" the first Drow woman growled implying that the process could take several days! Then started to stare at the man, like he was unworthy of her time while she barred the door with an arm and kept from him entering the home while her twin walked in!

A human woman standing at the door dressed in a 'Ministry of Paranormal Affairs' marked jacket passed a clipboard to the Drow not currently growling at the detective, "Humm a pair of Drows," she puzzled out at the strange sight of the pair, "well sign in please and I need to see an ID to let ya both in."

With a small flourish of fingers one Drow passed an ID over to the agent who noted the name off the ID shown while she wrote it down, "Rohanna Leigh....as in 'THE' Leigh twins?" she asked in a suddenly wavering voice.

"Yes and this is my sister...." she thumbed over her shoulder to a twin still angrily eyeballing the human detective.

"Rehanna!" the other barked after finally staring the detective into submission!

"Nice to meet you and I was told that none of us Humans are to go past this point until you Fae are done with your part of the investigation." she gulped at the idea of the Drow pair being so close to her, two very famous and yet dangerous Fae it was said to her very often around the office. It was one thing to see them in action in a movie, but a whole other when you have been told legends of their more bloody real world work and now they are standing right in front of you! Only inches away and too close for somes comfort.

"Hummm...strange, never heard of that being done before. Let alone us being called in by the royal council and the council of elders." Rehanna questioned why we were even here, us Drow are not exactly what you would call to track down someone within the huge city of LA!

Both Drow walked into the run down home, passing several rooms filled with what appeared to be drug labs and processing equipment for making illegal drugs to sell. Rooms filled to the walls with dirty beakers, bottles, heavily used bunsen burners and pill presses covered in who knows how may layers of old chemical dust from making illegal pills. Some of the rooms had bunk beds with arrays of seized weapons laid out on them and other belongings including stacks of cash, most of the floors were covered in layers of trash. For the most part the house was just one huge mess and had the looks of always been that way!

"Over here, down the stairs," an elf waved over to the twins to follow him.

The stairs leading down were well hidden at one time by a bashed in door and walking down those few stairs, the twins noted a huge difference right away. This level of the huge home was clean, very clean and immaculately so...like a real lab in fact would be!

Rohanna tore away some of the silver-ish paper that covered the walls of the staircase leading down, as she felt and sniffed the strange but tough paper it came to her, "Mithril and Excelium bonded to a paper and cloth backing?"

"Let me see that!" Rehanna reacted to hearing the words and held out her hand for the sample.

"Looks like somebody did not want any magic leaking out of here or people like us teleporting inside here!" Rehanna finally said after taking the small piece from her sister and noting the properties of the material to block teleports and the flow of essence for magic.

"That's not all!" a familure voice said in ancient Elvin from a part the basement just now coming into view of the pair, "This smaller section of this basement is covered in 'Gossamer', on top or in place of all the other parts,"

"What human would blow this much on material bonded with Mithril and Excelium, then blow even more on 'Gossamer'. A metal that is like a one way mirror to Fae magic and magical essence!" Rohanna asked the voice in the same old language to keep humans from knowing what the three are talking about.

Rehanna was the first to spot the Fae who was talking and he was standing next to a body laying on a bed surrounded by medical contraptions and runes that covered the wall and floor....the speaker was Arl Qinceran, who had known the pair since their school days back east.

"Good day Arl and why does the council, through you need us here?" Rehanna asked in greeting.

"A good day to you guardians and protectors, this is something I thought was just a passing fad among the silly humans. But this is the third one of our kind found dead, that we have seen over this last eighteen months and this problem does not seem to be going away like it did in the past, but instead seems to be growing faster!" he added in a sad voice.

"SO what is going on Arl?" I had to ask as Rehanna examined the quickly decaying Fae body closer. Most us Fae after we died, our bodies would decay into nearly nothing but dust or dried bits within a few hours and that is why humans never found the skeletons of dead elves or Fae before us Fae reemerged from hiding. Even now our numbers are just starting to show growth in numbers.

"Humans years ago figured out a way to siphon HIGH magical essence off us Fae and even more essence as they kill us or we finally die of the results of being drained so. Then they harvest into a elixir form for drinking and gain supercharged magic for a temporary time. In the past it was an extremely expensive process and very hard to hide from the rest of us Fae finding out and reacting...but now...this mess!" he barked while pointing out the metallic paper covering the whole lab's walls with a finger and then ripped some of the fabric glued to the short ceiling.

"So they are hiding behind this stuff and using Gossamer to filter the magic aura, thus it flows in past Gossamer into here, but not back out to be detected by us Fae?" I asked and theorized on the spot as I ripped my own piece of fabric off a wall to examine closer.

"Yes...But they are stepping up their operations now that some silly human found a way to make even more potion from us Fae and FAR more if they are killing us while doing it. THEN add when we Fae die, they get a small amount of supercharged potion that is crazy powerful!" Arl said getting even madder if that was possible.

We Drow had heard that there was something like this on the streets for sale, a drinkable magical essence for humans and human mages that used it became super powered nuts for about an hour. But this new potion gain on our deaths was a new thing to me.

"What is this new potion or process Arl?" Rehanna asked noting how young the dead Fae was, barely a teen!

"The old normal potion is called 'alakazam' on the street and by a few other just as strange names. But this new potion is a game changer, it can make a very normal person into a mage temporarily and very untrained mage at best...but still a very powerful one that can be devastating if they lucky and not to blow themselves up with their first spell attempts!" Arl told us.

"What is that potion called," I had to ask.

"That one is 'Death blossom', and is made in very small amounts only when one of us Fae die or is killed during the process. It is created during the body's last gasps to remain alive, life making any tries it can, clutching at straws, anything to remain alive!"

Rehanna pulled a wallet from a pile of clothes just under the table holding the body and flipped through it to an ID, then comparing the ID card the body's face on the table for a few seconds, "This kid was human at one time, but seems he was well on the way to becoming a Elvin changeling!" she gasped out.

Arl visibly sagged when he heard that discovery, "I had heard of this, that they search out humans becoming our changelings and do this process on them. The potions they gain off a changeling's transformation process and finally death are wickedly more powerful than the best 'Death blossom' they would ever gain from a normal Fae's death!"

"How much so?" I asked while I felt Rehanna stewing in anger, I barely kept my own in check!

"Enough to permanently change a normal human into a mage and light that internal well to gain essence forever like one of our kind does and if a regular human mage took this crud...they would be a danger to everyone and a nearly world class danger."

"Why have not we heard of this till now?" I had to ask for both of us, feeling that rage grow off Rehanna via our mental link and mine was not far behind it!

"Well till this last year or so it was not cost effective and we might see about two or maybe three of these cases in a year to eighteen months. But some mutant techy or maybe with a mage joined in and figured out how to get even more potion out of one of us Fae. Then even found a way to get huge amounts out of a changeling in comparison to the old process and all of that new tech made the whole process cheaper and cost effective!" he sighed out.

"Cost effective...one of us dying?" I shouted back at him, hating the choice in words. Us Fae were not a simple commodity, that humans could spend or waste!

"Yes and you hid this from us? Hide it from those of us that defend our kind and would hunt these monsters out!" Rehanna roared at the now cringing Arl.

"Hey both of you..." he shouted back, "Like I just said...only in the last year or two did this process jump up in numbers enough to be even noticed and we are reacting right now. This place was only found because the leadership was cheap" Arl barked while sweeping a hand across the rooms around us. "AND tried to combine making regular human street drugs above, with all of this hidden in the basement!" Arl barked while sweeping a hand across the rooms around us.

"Yes I understand, I did notice coming in that the neighborhood might look a little run down. But this house on the outside at least, was well taken care of and it seems that everyone entered through the back or the new attached garage leading to the alley?" I shrugged to Arl.

"Yes it is, they tried to hid in plain sight and used a 'crack house' across the alley to sell product and distribute into the hoods from." Arl said pulling out a computer frame to show us the layout of the area and the glowing home outlines of the homes involved.

"So how did this place get found out?" Rehanna asked covering the body once again and placing the ID on its chest for the detectives to come.

"Simple cops doing their job for months of undercover work. All in all they got real lucky and someone in here messed up and the undercover agents figured it all out. One way or another some humans are going to die over this...all this Mithril, Excelium and Gossamer impregnated or coated fabric cost millions...someone will pay for it!" he tried to chuckle.

"Well you feed us the info and us Drow will handle whatever you find OUR WAY!" we growled in stereo and Arl nodded back his agreement.

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Shadowsblade here.

But I have to thank, Both Branek and Nuuan for their vast input and the ability they both have to 'bounce' off ideas and improve them!

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