[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/6bK49TU.jpg[/img][/center] [b]”The Ranchero of Miracle Mesa” - Strings: Part Three[/b] [center][i]“The Cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man, or take unfair advantage.”[/i][/center] [center][indent]-Anonymous[/indent][/center] [hr] [indent][b]Warpath, Texas[/b][/indent] [hr] [color=#f92a0e]”How’s the news treatin ya?”[/color] Vig asked. Jonah Hex sat with his feet up on the porch of the Crossroads Saloon, L-Pad in hand. For an old world cowboy, he’d caught on to the new technology quick. He didn’t much prefer it to newspapers, but those had stopped coming a long time ago. “Some Silver-Surfboard hooligan been sighted in Central City. Given Flash n’ Superman the ol’ runaround. No word from Frank or the others.” Hex said. Vigilante nodded slow and pulled his hat off his head. He ran a hand through his sweat slicked hair. The sun was high in the sky, he and Hex and just spent the last six hours using horse teams to drag in old car husks from the nearest junkyard to bolster the outer lines. Gunn was down by the Town Square, trying to teach the townsfolk what he could about gunplay. Much like The Crossroads, Vig reckoned that Warpath was damn near impossible to kill. Three years real-time with only Gunn and and handful of other gunslingers to protect it and the town held out like it was the Alamo. In Hell, it was impossible to defend a single location. If you tried to lock down any one spot, the demons would be itchin’ to bumrush you before you could proper take your boots off. Maybe it had something to do with the magic of the spot. Or maybe Gunn was a better sharpshooter than anyone realized. [color=#f92a0e]”Well, they better git back soon. More and more Fatboys coming to knock every day. Saw three or four fixin’ to breach while you were just readin’.”[/color] Vig said. Fatboys were entities of plague. Demons wearing human skin, gone turgid with puss and disease. They were low level scum, but usually packs of Fatboys meant somethin’ a whole lot bigger and meaner was around the corner. Hex gave a slow nod and set the L-Pad down on the porch railing. He leaned back into his rocker. “Whaddya think they’re after?” Hex didn’t look at Vig. He just stared into the sky, tracking the rising sun. [color=#f92a0e]”Man to man?”[/color] Vigilante pushed his hat up and locked eyes with Hex. [color=#f92a0e]”I got a couple ideas, n’ both of ‘em scare the shit outta me. This didn’t start til’ [i]I[/i] disappeared. Which means one of two things.”[/color] “Either you jes got real unlucky…” Hex started. [color=#f92a0e]”Or Mephisto’s playin’ a real long game on us.”[/color] Vigilante set his hat down and hoisted himself up onto the porch railing and looked up into the sky. Hell makes a man yearn for things you’d never have batted an eye about when you were piddlin’ away your time in the land of the living. On the few quiet nights that Vigilante could really lay his head down and rest in that place, when the screams of the damned were quiet, and when the demons lay dead in droves around them, all he could see out the throat of Hell was the underbelly of the world. It hung from the sky like it was a Fatboy’s stomach. The sins of the Earth, bubbling and popping and depositing damned souls into the place of their worst nightmares. Garlands of bones and viscera hung from it, sometimes low enough that he could touch it. But now Vigilante was back in Texas town. Seemed like he could spend hours just kickin’ his spurs up and gazing into that sky, just enjoying that lucky old sun. First time in a long time he had somethin’ to [i]protect[/i]. For what felt like a thousand years, he was just a cowpoke trying to get out alive. But now? He was a real goddamned Vigilante. On the edge of town, Vigilante picked up a gentle groan of steel. He might’ve mistaken it for the car hulks settling, if it weren’t for the fleshy smacks that accompanied every protest of the metal. [color=#f92a0e]”More gotdamn Fatboys. I’ll mosey on over n’ handle it. Hows about you see what kinda progress Gunn’s making?”[/color] Vig hopped off the rail and fished a pistol from one of his holsters. “Holler if you need me.” Hex stepped down from the porch and headed towards the town square, while Vig started the brisk walk to the edge of town. [hr] As walls go it was a squat thing, but it’d more n’ have to do. What was once a long thoroughfare stretching into town proper was now blocked off by rusted out cars stacked two high, with sheets of corrugated metal and plywood filling in the gaps. Wooden pallets formed a makeshift gangplank up to a haphazard guard post made from PVC Pipe, repurposed fence lumber, and a whole lot of hope that the damn thing wouldn’t fall apart the instant you stepped on it. Walking up, it was hard to hear the creak of the pallets over the low moans of the Fatboys. The poor little bastards weren’t smart things. They had just enough of the demonic in ‘em to animate ‘em and motivate them to kill, but that was where it began and ended. What little brain was probably left in those corpses had to be workin’ a thousand miles a minute to even think about smashing into the barrier to try and break through. It was dirty work that Vig didn’t much like doing, but it had to be done. He’d stopped looking at them as he did it. Seemed too much like shooting somethin’ livin’ and breathin’. Fatboys were one of the few demon types round these parts that still looked human. Disgusting sacks of shit that they were, it never felt right puttin’ a bullet in the face of somethin’ that looked like that. Usually he just fired until the moaning stopped. [i][b]BANG![/b][/i] [i][b]BANG![/b][/i] [i][b]BANG![/b][/i] He suffered it quietly, just focusing on the recoil in his hand. The rawhide of his gloves rubbing against his skin. Suddenly he felt a tug -- and he gun wasn’t in his hand anymore. [color=#f92a0e]”What in Sam Hi-”[/color] Suddenly there was something around Vig’s ankle, snaking up into his jeans and wrapping itself around his calf. He could feel liquid running down his skin. It burned. There was a pull and he was in the air, flung a dozen yards through the sky before crashing into the sand beyond the wall. Vig felt his right shoulder crack on impact. Before he could push himself to his knees the thing started dragging him to its source. He was facedown in the sand, his hands dragging behind him as he tried to bring himself around to bear. He managed to turn face up. He coughed the dust out of his lungs and saw the thing that was trying to make him dinner. Astride the corpses of the Fatboys was a demon with its chest cavity hanging open, full of endless rows of gnashing teeth, waiting for the tongue that stuck out of the void where its heart should’ve been to bring in the latest catch. A Digester. [color=#f92a0e]”Hex! Backup!”[/color] Vig’s other pistol was in his hand in an instant. .38 rounds tore through the thing’s tongue like tissue paper and it hissed in an inhuman language. Vig scurried backward across the ground, keeping his gun up. Bullets cracked into the opening in its chest and bourns of blood sprouted from it, running over the closing teeth. Its insides sealed and now it was a raw mass of chitinous armor. As disgusting as its open form was, a closed Digester was durable as a tank. The rest of the revolver’s clip dented the beast’s hide, burying itself in the chitinous material. The chest armor rattled as the thing let off a roar from behind closed lips, dropped its shoulder, and charged. Vig rolled out of the way as it barreled past, annihilating the turf where his head would have been. Its momentum carried it through, and it started to careen to stop itself. Before it got a chance, Vigilante’s hand went to his lariat and the whip snagged around the beasts thickly muscled thigh. [color=#f92a0e]”Dangnabit!”[/color] Vigilante hadn’t had rugburn in his life quite like getting dragged along by a speeding slab of demonic muscle, trying to shake him off like all get out. The one thing that made fighting Digesters survivable was their joints. Only way they could move so quick was if their joints were free of armor and ripe for the shooting. Vig nearly broke his hand wrestling another revolver from his chest holster. He took aim and the monster banked a hard left, Vig’s shot went wild and dinged off the carapace into the desert beyond. [color=#f92a0e]”Stay still you gosh darn--”[/color] The gun cracked in his hands and the monsters kneecap exploded in a fountain of blood and sinew. It slammed into the ground with a sickening crunch as all of its momentum was delivered into its chestplate. Greg staggered to his feet. The monster wheezed, trying to compensate for its completely shattered rib cage and trying to push itself up. Vig wiped the dust from his chest and limped to the creatures side. He shoved a boot under its chest and flipped it over. It squirmed like a beetle. It’s chest armor was cracked, and what there was of a ribcage below that had been powdered. Its tongue snaked up, trying with its last gasps of energy to devour Vigilante. Vig pulled another revolver and emptied it into the beast. It stopped moving. Vigilante let loose a heavy sigh, and turned his attention to the horizon. Way out in the distance, he could see a dust cloud starting to rise, as high as three or four men. [color=#f92a0e]”Hope this feller’ weren’t the best you boys got...”[/color] Greg started slotting more bullets into the guns he’d emptied. Time for round two.