Shepherd smirked when he saw the chains as sudden flash of lightning appeared as he teleported behind her.

"Figured you would probably be able to sense me. Not alot of creatures could unless they were of a very high rank and their magic was powerful enough."

Shepherd had left Ron a message to let him know he was going after the Contessa in case he was interested after the lives she took that night when Sin was helping him retrieve the orb.

"You have to pay for your crimes and I am gonna take you in. Normally I would just slay you, but that isn't how things are done in this world so taking you to the proper authorities will have to do."

Just as the Hellhounds attack a silvery white streak could be seen as what looked like a bipedal wolf dressed like shepherd with matching silvery white fur and glowing blue eyes appeared with a katana drawn

"I know full well what you are capable of. I have dealt with others like you in the past myself. During my time away, I decided to bring my furry friend with me. Figured your dogs would wanna meet mine if you decided to bring them with you."

Shepherd's dog Samson growled at the hellhounds as he held on to his sword. ready to strike.

Shepherd had left the base with Samson without saying anything to Isis and the others since they were to stay there and wait for his best friend and love of his life Luna to come from his reality but he wasn't without a plan which is why he sent Ron a message and told him to bring Jeremy Along if he so chose to. Shepherd and his buddy Samson stood back to back as the Ghostwalker smiled at Contessa. Shepherd telepathically gave Samson the signal he needed as the bipedal dog let out an earth shattering howl that shattered all the windows and shook the building by the force of his sonic attack. Both Shepherd and his partner went for the attack with their sword in hand surrounded by lightning

"Did you actually think I would come here unprepared? You are sorely mistaken."

The 2 charged the creatures that surrounded them

And that when the shadows shifted pooling together in the air forming one of the shadow portals through the neatherworld and sure enough Rotten comes charging out. "A surprised party? And here I didn't think you cared. Lets open up my presents from Hel shall we." The portal closed if someone came through behind him it was their choice. As he charged his fists bursts into the dark neatherworld energy and he slammed into the Hellhound with a right hook. Around him the darkness seemed to grow flowing from his body like a cloak.

There was something else something even Rotten failed to notice. The air got colder as a figure dressed in a black suit walked through the door.

"She's doing fine. Heck she sends her regards and an invitation she has a nice room for ya." With that he growled matching the unseen beasts. "Ya afraid that we beat your pets? Hiding them like this a cowards move and somewhat ineffective."

He let out a yell and drew on the neatherworld powers reaching out the dark essence grab hold of any thing around him he didn't recognize as a friend and drew on and adding to his power. Sometimes the move was called soul drain. "Lunch time! Come get me ya rejects from a B horror move!"

"Tis tis Mr. Bolton you were always a bit of a mannered brute." came the voice of Jutan Frost from the corner he went to. "My Dear Contessa, don't let me intrude I'm just here to watch the show. That is if you don't mind a little company." The look on Rotten's face hearing that voice was something odd for anyone that knew the man, it was fear.

It was at that moment that a dark form dropped from the rafters, gleaming broadsword drawn. The armored form landed atop one of the hellhounds shoulders and the rune-enscribed blade was driven neatly between two of the vertebrae in its neck, severing its spinal cord with one precision strike. As the hound whimpered once and collapsed to the ground bonelessly, the attacker's other hand drew a SIG Sauer P226 etched in holy runes from a quick-draw holster on her gunbelt. She emptied the 15-round magazine into the brain pan of the other hellhound, the .357 SIG bullets turning its head into unrecognizable mush.

The armored female yanked the sword from the neck of the hellhound and gracefully flipped off its back to land in front of its recliner-sized head. She slid the sword into its back scabbard and smoothly reloaded her pistol, before sliding it back into its holster. The skull-like mask looked over at the Contessa, then she depressed a button on her left gauntlet. With a quick beep, an M181 Claymore mine attached to the rafters above the Contessa's head detonated, filling a sixty-degree arc beneath it with 700 steel ball bearings traveling at nearly 4000 feet per second. "How's that for direct?"

Okay time for those rare moments when Ron has to use his brains. Power wise the Contessa was indeed stronger, but she was also arrogant. "If you were half as powerful as your ego thinks you are. You wouldn't be fighting in a warehouse and trying to make us think your all that. Your right your not a witch what's the word... Oh Diva maybe witch with a B more to the point."

Anger the first weapon you give to your opponent now Ron just hopes that he could use it. He slams down his fist channeling the neatherworld energy and sending a blast along the ground opening a portal to the neatherworld and summoning dark tendrils to grip at the Contessa.

Frost smiled under the mask "So that's where you hid it this time." Now he knew where the power of the orb was he turned "When your done playing with them Contessa look me up I have a business offer for you." Then he mildly strolled out of the building.

Shepherd agreed as he telepathically told Samson to hit them with his sonic howl. Shepherd's companion then began howling again knocking away the attackers as Shepherd smiled at Contessa and launched a dozen crossblades made of unstable spiritual energy that would explode as they hit their targets.

"Contessa you should never underestimate an opponent, but you are not a warrior so I wouldn't expect you to know that. All this time I was just biding my time until the others came since there were a few that wanted a piece of you."

The Ghostwalker smirked

Shepherd had suddenly teleported in front of the blast as he summoned his shield of faith and a forcefield surrounded his allies but got hit with the blast himself trying to protect the others as Samson went charging after the acolyte and managed to slash her across the chest. While Shepherd sat there regenerating in intense pain.

Eventhough shepherd was in pain as his regenerative abilities tried to keep up with the damage the hellfire was doing he knew he had to do something fast as he started muttering in aramaic as runes began to appear around the acolyte and portals began to appear around her with chains. he rarely ever used the chains of damnation but he needed to send this creature back to hell before anymore damage could be done as they began to wrap themselves around her. He had hoped it would send her back and keep her there.

Shepherd smirked as he was fully healed.

"Just as the flames of hell bend to your will the heavenly flames of the ether bend to mine."

That was when he sent a fireball made of blue heavenly flame towards her direction as the portals began to close. She was still an infernal creature and just like the rest of her kind she was suseptable to the heavenly flames or anything of heavenly nature like the swords he and Samson weilded. She had two choices. let the chains drag her back in or be consumed in heavenly fire.

He looked up cracking his knuckles. "Fire fire burning bright. Making music in the night hmm? You forget there more then one Hell and the one I serve have given me a few abilities as well." With that he sent a torrnet of negative energy at a wall aiming to both blow out the infernal flames in the way and blow out the wall. "Oh one more thing... ever read a ghost rider comic? Remember his stare..." He then gazes at Contessa a blast of netherworld magic going up to paralyze her.

"There is always a catch isn't there. Never realized the price you pay when you trade ya soul." He looks to Anne "Think she can trade one Hell of another?" "Ron! You know the rules." He laughed "Rules darling naw I never learned the rules."

He looked to Shepherd "What ya think Spook I can't free her not really. But I am a channel to another realm of the dead and I bet a Norse Goddess trumps a duke of the infernal. Even Odin couldn't bully Hel."

Shepherd looked at Ron and shrugged.

"Only one way to go and that's down"

With said he threw some crossblades on he floor the exploded causing them to fall into the underground tunnels.

A flaming body would fall through the hole behind them, hitting the ground hard and rolling across it until the flames were out. As she stood up and chucked her mask, Nightstrike's face was revealed, or at least the burned, bloody ruin of her face. But as the group watched, her eyes reformed, her muscle and skin regenerated, and her hair grew back out.

Nightstrike began coughing hard and bent over, vomiting ashy sludge and mucus. Once finished, she stood back up and slugged some water from a canteen, gargling and spitting it back out while looking up at the flaming hole. "Bitch, please. Fire, even magical fire, is a trifling annoyance. I lived through the Black Death... twice."

He looked up through the hole in the floor. "Hmm a lot of trouble to set up that trap. What was the gain?"

"Or more direct me. They wouldn't need me alive to harness the power that now within me. I know Frost would need me or at least my skull so he can perform the rituals to destroy them all." He shakes his head "Fraid we need to step up our game and be more careful of traps like these."

Shepherd looked at Nightstrike.

"My base. We should be able to reach it through these tunnels. It's secret enough that only close friends know where it is and since it's a church with an undrground bunker beneath it, It is holy ground."

Shepherd started walking down the tunnels. His base was near by since this was the part of town with the abandoned buildings which made having his base here perfect. Part of town left abandoned after hurricane Atlas.