[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/6bK49TU.jpg[/img][/center] [b]”The Ranchero of Miracle Mesa” - Glitter And Gold: Part Five[/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] It wasn’t like the other times. Wasn’t nothing that posed a threat to Warpath like that… Like that [i]thing[/i]. Vigilante was hesitant to even call it a man. For all the wrath of The Dummy and the number of The Bounty Hunters, wasn’t nothing that coulda stopped Black Star this side of the Mississippi. His power, his speed. He coulda turned Vigilante’s bones to powder by looking at him funny. Vigilante could feel the pain in his heart, watching The Spirit get thrashed. Black Star put ‘im through walls like they were made of cardboard. Everything fell away from him, then. The Theater all melted away into the background, n’ he was dimly aware of something behind him, tellin’ him to wrest control. Wasn’t no sense in fighting that thing anymore than there was in fightin’ Black Star himself. All he could do was what he’d always done. What his Pop had always done. Offer his hand and try to help. It was something different, [i]sharing[/i] his body. Wasn’t much like they were fighting, one man over another, wrestling n’ trying to decide what would happen next. They battled together, moved as one unit. Vigilante felt himself joined with the souls that made up The Spirit. He felt their anguish and their pain, pouring into him and putting strength behind each of his blows and the crackling power behind his words. It was closer than any kinda teamwork Vigilante could've hoped to describe. His thoughts all faded away until there was nothing left but his Enemy and his Mission. Fight Black Star. Save Warpath. Save The World. Just black and white morality, a cowboy and his gun, er, lariat. He could feel himself standing over Black Star now, vision tunneled, burning hands quavering. Looking down at his body, the subtle rise and fall of his chest betraying the monster’s life. Burns crisscrossing up and down his costume, asking for more. Itching to stretch his lariat around Black Star’s neck and pull. He imagined his hands around Black Star’s neck, boiling the flesh away, staring into the depths of his blackened soul and extinguishing it. Then his vision started to pull back. His breath was hot against his clothes, hotter n’ the Texas heat or the fire that raged in his belly. He could taste the smoke in the air, but maybe that was on account of his head being aflame. Warpath burned around him. They were little fires, nothing the stiff breeze wouldn’t take care of, but he could hear the crackling, waiting to turn into an inferno. But most of all, he saw the alien kid stood before him. His armor was cracked all over the shop, spider webbing up and down his form. He was meek in stature, now that Vig got a good, quiet look at him. Vigilante drew himself up. He could hear every click of his spinal cord as he drew himself to his full height, looking upon the kid. [quote=@Superboy] [color=7ea7d8]”Vigilante?”[/color][/quote] The kid’s voice felt a million miles away, something out of a dream. He was floating now, reaching for something to say in a cosmic ether that reached off and beyond into a great nothing. He could faintly make out the kid arguing to himself in the background, but all he could focus on was the pitch-white skull coalescing before his eyes. “[i]Gregory Saunders.[/i]” Its words seemed to shake the frame of the world around him, giving a sketchy distorsion to the darkness. [color=#f92a0e]”[i]Spirit.[/i]”[/color] He greeted it. He no longer saw the creature from his dreams. No, instead it was a bleached white skull like any of the cow skulls he’d seen out in the untangled desert before. A crackling black fire cooked in either of its empty eye sockets. It stared intently. “[i]You want to[/i] run.” It said the last word like it was poison. Flaming spittle dribbled down the bone. It sizzled away into nothing. [color=#f92a0e]”[i]What in tarnation gives you that idea? Come Hell or high water, I’m here for these people. You know that.[/i]”[/color] Vigilante tried to square his shoulders and step forward to the skull, but he found his movement locked, as if all control of his body had been stolen. “[i]Fool. You so obstinately refuse to ‘abandon’ these people that you bury your head in the sand. The Surfer must be fought. But you will hide here.[/i]“ The skull said. Every word felt like a stake being driven through his body, restraining him, pushing him further from control. [color=#f92a0e]”[i]What’s left for them? Huh? You expect me to leave good folks to rot?[/i]”[/color] Vigilante shouted back. He willed himself to move, contorting every muscle in his body. He’d give that thing a piece of his mind. “[i]This is bigger than us. It’s bigger than them! You cannot comprehend the enormity of this threat. The force that fuels that man carries behind it a path of carnage and bloodshed spanning eons. Incalculable death. Suffering. It will come here. And everything will end.[/i]” [color=#f92a0e]”[i]There’s others! There’s always gonna be others! The Flash! Superman! Warpath hasn’t got anybody but me![/i]”[/color] Vigilante could feel what felt like tears streaming down his cheeks. His muscles burned. His vision was starting to leave him, like he was being pushed down into some lower place, stifled before overwhelming force. “[i]You so obstinately refuse to ‘abandon’ these people that you damn the world entire. You sit here with you head in the sand, letting the sinners and the devils come to you. You act as if a hero of God, bearing your burden to ‘protect’ them. Yet all the killers have only ever come for you. Warpath sits on the brink and [/i]you[i], its ‘sole protector’ threaten to push it over with every passing day.[/i]” The skull screaming now, swallowing Vigilante’s vision up into a cloud of black fire, hiding everything from him but his pain. He saw images boil up and pop out of existence as quickly as they’d come. It was him, destroying a limousine thirty miles out of town. It was him, fighting Bounty Hunters through the streets of Gotham, The Batman at his side. Him, holding a man with a scar on a three-fingered hand out of a New York highrise, with Jonah Hex right behind him. Dueling Black Star in the middle of nowhere, shoulder to shoulder with The Soldiers. What could’ve been. What [i]should[/i] have been. [color=#f92a0e]”[i]God…[/i]”[/color] Vigilante’s voice felt small in his throat. As soon as he opened his lips, fire poured into him, probing his insides and burning him alive. He could not scream. Every muscle in his body felt like it was made of jello. He pushed himself up, muscles threatening to burst. He forced his lips open, [color=#f92a0e]”[i]God… Forgive me…[/i]”[/color] Vigilante beheld the skull before him, as it stared blankly down its nose at him. Vigilante forced his fist into the sky; it felt like he was trying to shove it through a cart of bricks. [color=#f92a0e]”[i]We do this... “[/color] He hacked out a cough. His skin was starting to melt away, obscuring his vision. [color=#f92a0e]”[i]Together. Only… Only way…[/i]”[/color] The Spirit cackled. “[i]Do you expect forgiveness? Redemption?[/i]” [color=#f92a0e]”[i]No.[/i]”[/color] Vigilante straightened up. He pushed the pain to one side, and set his jaw, and furrowed his brow. Sight up on target. Aim true. [color=#f92a0e]”[i]Vengeance.[/i]”[/color] [quote=@Superboy] [color=7ea7d8]”Right, so I'll...I'll explain on the way, but how fast can that fancy motorcycle-from-hell of yours move? 'Cause if we want to get to the Surfer, we're gonna need to head up to New York and I left my running shoes at home.”[/color][/quote] And then he was home again, the kid before him. [quote=@Superboy] [color=7ea7d8]”Oh, by the way… My name’s Jaime. Jaime Reyes. I’m from El Paso.”[/color][/quote] Vigilante tried to swallow, but he found his form could not. He extended a hand. [color=#f92a0e][b]”Greg. Greg Saunders… And this is Warpath.”[/b][/color] He turned to face the bike. It was like he was reaching out with his mind to something living and breathing. It responded to his touch, seeming to shiver at it. He could sense its saddlebags, crammed full of guns and munitions. He could feel the horsepower of the engine in his chest, pistons driving home to his core. [color=#f92a0e][b]”... And I get the sense that we can get goin’ pretty got-dang fast.”[/b][/color] [indent][b]New York City, New York --- The Raft Prison Island[/b][/indent] [hr] It takes commercial airliners six hours to get from El Paso to New York City. The humming engine between Vigilante’s legs had taken them there in a half hour. They screamed through the streets, exploding storefronts with sonic booms as they sped for The Raft. Jaime had locked himself around Vigilante with a series of alien-metal contraptions locked around his body. The boy blasted all of his suit’s engines full speed to get them the extra boost they needed to get there in time. Blue and red flame intermingled in the scorching trail they left across the pavement, heading for the Raft. Vigilante had spent the ride explaining the situation in Warpath to Jaime, if the poor feller could hear him over the roar of the wind. He figured it was his way of explaining to him that he was, under no circumstances, to enter this fight. He was hurt plum bad enough already, n’ the only reason he came along was to give ‘em the gas they needed to reach The Raft before the Surfer could skedaddle, or send out another round of goons. The kid was just supposed to get off n’ muster whatever military of SHIELD response he could. This was to be a fight between Vigilante and his enemy. No sense for that kid to waste his life n’ get hisself killed. [color=#f92a0e]”[i]Y’know. They all gave you a name. Every previous holder.[/i]”[/color] “[i]Yes. I was El Diablo. The Ghost Rider. Others.[/i]” [color=#f92a0e]”[i]I’ve got one. The Spirit of the Gun.[/i]”[/color] They were close now, seconds away. Vigilante saw The Raft before him now, rising up out of the bay like a great plateau out of nothing. Vigilante took his lariat in his hands and started to spin it, whipping up huge, street spanning circles, preparing for his first blow. He pulled back on the handlebars and the thrust from Jaime’s jets thrust the pair into the air, high over the New York Bay, screaming straight down for the deck of The Raft. [center][img]https://www.cgmagonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/8408-e1382130102700-1280x720.jpg[/img][/center] [color=#f92a0e][b]”SUUUURFEEEEERRR!”[/b][/color]