Peering around the corner into a darkened alleyway, Super Collie quickly spotted the large dark shape of her quarry of the last half hour slowly moving through the darkness, coming to a stop near a glowing sodium streetlamp. Without a moment's hesitation she broke into a run, powerful legs propelling the bikini-clad superheroine over the rough paving and asphalt as she closed in for the attack!

But even as Super Collie rushed into the dark narrow passageway, her trusty shepherd's crook in hand to ensnare the stranger, a growing sense of unease started welling up inside her and turning her blood to ice. Something was wrong, terribly wrong here - the huge lumbering figure bore no resemblance to any being she had previously encountered, with a complete absence of any muzzle or hint of tail as regular people had. Super Collie slowed, hesitating for a split second as the figure, obviously now aware of her presence, turned to face her -

- then without warning, as the figure's glowing eyes locked onto her face something suddenly touched her mind, tendrils of thought probing Super Collie's consciousness, causing her to gasp with shock and nearly tripping over. Never before had she experienced something like this, not even in the worst encounter with Daughter Night had something so horrifically alien touched her mind, and the part of Super Collie that was Esmerelda shrieked in terror. Recoiling from the psychic touch, Super Collie summoned every last scrap of will to bring the screaming Esmerelda under control, desperately calling on the Spirit of the Shepherd to shield her mind from the relentless mental onslaught from the stranger before her.

"What - what are you?" Super Collie managed to gasp...

Smegog's prize picture of his character Psyker encountering Our Heroine in a dark urban alleyway... it took a long time and a lot of practice / experimentation!

Psyker's pose and the picture background was composed in ArtRage, while character linework, colouring, shading and picture composition done in GIMP.