"Are we there yet?" whined Jeff.

My right eye twitched. "You know, I've put down lame horses before. I reckon it won't haunt me to do it again."

Jeff scoffed in an odd way that only a horse could. He piped down. He would surely be back at it again soon enough.

We've been riding for about a week now, and he, mercifully, is mostly quiet on the road. Or lack thereof, as I have yet to see a single actual road. That was before we saw smoke in the distance. Now he has spent the last hour talking my damn head off, worse than any overexcited foal I've ever wrangled.

"Gettin' barn sour?" I asked.

"Come on, Buckaroo! We're only an hour out from meeting other sentient beings! Do you want to live like a hermit for the rest of your life?"

I didn't have to think about my answer. "Yup."

Jeff didn't really have a comeback for that.

Honestly, he was a good horse. Best I've ever had. Loudest too. He was swift and strong, more so than any other horse I've ever seen, much less ridden. He's just a little better at everything.

Much like myself, recently.

We rode for a while. "You wouldn't happen to be able to read, would ya?"

He snorted. "Remember the part where I mentioned I was a horse?"

"Most horses don't speak English either."

"I'm not speaking English."

I gave him a withering look. "You speaking horse?"

He stepped around a particularly large rock and continued to canter excitedly towards the smoke in the distance. "More or less."

"I like horses, but I never could quite grasp the language."

Jeff snorted. Again. "Your tiny mind-"

We both heard an explosion, soon after, the telltale report of gunfire. Obviously, it came from the source of the smoke. It was close, now, 10 minutes at most.

"Giddy up!" I yelled, digging my spurs into Jeff's side.

Jeff said nothing, as he suddenly decided to behave like a proper horse. He then went and proved my estimate dead wrong.

I estimated ten minutes. He made it in three.

Jeff can haul ass faster than any horse should be able to. I would need to find out why, but I have more pressing issues.

We burst through the treeline, jeff dodging trees and branches effortlessly while I hugged my body as close to him as possible. We were at the top of a hillside, so Jeff skidded to a stop, overlooking the river.

The sight wasn't quite what I was expecting. Actually, it was, but the imagery was all wrong.

There was a small town on the riverside, surrounded by poorly constructed wooden stakes, lined with a platform, dug into the ground. It was a mockery of a wall. The town wasn't all that big, only 20 buildings or so, but it was the buildings that confused me.

They weren't made out of wood, brick, or even concrete. They were forged entirely out of what seemed to be some kind of metal, like black steel. The construction was all efficiency, boxes, and sharp edges, though as to how these buildings were created, I cannot fathom.

It should have been obvious then, that the inhabitants would not be human, and they weren't. I could tell in an instant that the residents came from the same place as the insectoid monsters I've been dealing with, although, if what I was currently seeing was any indicator, they haven't exactly domesticated them.

There were around twenty 'people' manning the uneven wall, shooting down towards a swarm of encroaching monsters. There were some with metal spears, poking at the closer monsters, and some corpses on the ground, having been pulled from the wall. I say 'people', but they looked like what would happen if somebody fell in love, settled down, and made a beautiful family with an oversized cockroach.

They looked like walking insects.

There was a lot of variation, though I reckon there is a lot of variation between humans too, so meh. You can more or less file all their appearances down as -'human with insect bits strapped on in various uncomfortable ways'. Some had bug eyes, some had an antenna, I even saw one with bowed legs like a frog...

I could still understand body language and expressions, though, somehow, even if they had mandibles or compound eyes.

They were afraid and desperate.

If I had to hazard a guess, it probably had something to do with the aforementioned swarm of encroaching monsters. It was mostly the same as the usual dog-like creature, but with a few stand-out's in the crowd. Much like the people, there was too much variety for any all-encompassing description, but suffice it to say, they all had sharp protrusions and no mercy.

The insect people had guns. That was nice. They did not know how to use said guns, as they had the accuracy of a child shooting his father's stolen revolver at scuttling rats. The guns themselves looked like they had been thrown together via random parts, every one different from the last. If the sounds of gunfire were anything to go off of, they had a god-damn incredible amount of gunpowder packed into them. Might be why they miss so much.

"Do you want to help?" asked Jeff, voice calm and all-business.

"Do you?" I asked, mirroring his cadence.

"I do."

"Why?"

"Do I need to justify it?"

I thought for a moment. I did. Everything risk vs. reward, always. That's how I've stayed alive for as long as I did. Sticking my neck out for...people, who very well may just shoot my ass too. I ain't no bleeding-heart young boy, toting a naive sense of justice, asking to get a dose of reality in the form of a .45. I owe them nothing.

Then again, I've died once already.

"No," I said, drawing my Peacemaker.

Jeff reared up and neighed loudly, drawing the attention of the insect people on the wall, and a few of the monsters outside of it. The people on the wall turned to look, and the bigger monsters stopped to assess the threat.

The sun was behind us, outlining us against it. Jeff was damn near vertical, and I could hear his muscles flex between my knees. I've seen enough pre-battle jitters to know he was psyching himself up, but damn if it wasn't working. I could smell the smell of gunpowder and bodily fluids, and feel the heat in the air.

The moment passed.

Jeff went down the hill in a full gallop, and I was already shooting. They were still hundreds of feet away, but some of the larger monsters made easy targets, and I was more than used to shooting on horseback.

One of them had big, bulbous eyes, and was looking directly at us. It stood five feet tall, bowed legs, and scythed arms. I put a bullet in it, and a second shot followed immediately behind, just in case. Green blood and organs spurt out through a small hole in the back of its head, and it collapsed.

The insect people on the walls looked quite surprised. Some of them even stopped shooting due to said surprise. Amateurs.

"KEEP SHOOTING YOU GODDAMN FOOLS!" I roared through the lull in the gunfire, as I took another target. They clearly understood me, as the volley continued all at once.

Jeff was moving fast, the wind making my eyes sting like hell. Not enough to disturb my aim, and besides, we were so close I would have been able to see the whites of their eyes, had their eyes been white. I emptied my Peacemaker, every shot taking a high-value target.

The last one failed to kill it. Apparently not every monster had the decency to keep their brains unprotected. It went through the soft spot eyes and accomplished absolutely nothing but pissing it off. It turned to me, pulled it legs taunt, and leaped.

Time slowed for me. Literally. It flew towards me, its legs clearly being designed for the sole purpose of leaping. It's head split open and two mandibles unfolded in an instant, sharp enough that I could feel the edge from here. It was aiming to cut me in half.

I slid along the side of jeff, drawing my shotgun in one smooth motion. I was now hanging from the side of the saddle with nothing but my knees and one hand.

I held out my shotgun as it sliced through the air where my torso would have been. It didn't even have the time to recognize that it missed before I pulled both triggers, putting both shells directly into its open mouth.

I decapitated it. The jaw portion was obliterated into wet chunks, and the rest of the body kept flying, momentum carrying it quite the distance. Jeff, unfortunately, chose that moment to make contact with the group of smaller monsters.

I've seen horses trample smaller creatures before, but Jeff took it to the extreme. He simply went through the damn creatures as if they weren't there. I was splattered in even more viscera as I climbed back up the saddle, and Jeff took it upon himself to grab a few chunks out of mid-air with his tongue, and have himself a mid-battle snack.

I was close to the wall now, and I could hear cheering. Luckily, they didn't stop shooting this time and seemed to get even more accurate. I suppose accuracy came with morale.

"It's too early to celebrate people! Focus!" came an old-sounding voice from the wall. The voice was odd, as if it was coming through a tunnel.

There were a dozen or so dog-like monsters left, and they all seemed to rally around the final big one.

It looked mean. It was covered in armor and had arms as thick as a man. It also happened to be charging towards me, and I couldn't see a single spot that looked squishy enough for bullets. I drew my Walker anyway, not having time to reload my Peacemaker.

It didn't make it all the way towards me. Someone threw a bit of metal from the wall, and it landed near it.

And then proceeded to explode violently.

I could feel the wave of heat and pressure from here, about 70 feet away, and the creature's legs buckled from beneath it, causing it to crash into the ground. It was still intact, the explosive having landed too far way to do severe damage.

The volley of gunfire intensified on the creature his posse, gunning the last of the dog-like creatures down. The bullets that hit the armored monster did nothing, simply plinking off its armor.

It was halfway to its feet when another explosive came from the wall. I saw a glint of intelligence in its eye, and I knew it was going to be a problem.

With agility you wouldn't expect from arms that thick, it caught it out of mid-air, letting momentum carry it as far as possible and pivoting in order to slow it down gradually, so it didn't explode in its hand.

It wasn't on a fuse, it was designed to explode on impact. The monster made to pitch the damn thing right back.

Impact-based? I could give it an impact.

Time slowed again.

He threw it. I watched it's engorged, black fingers unwrap around it. It was just an inch away from its hand, and on a trajectory for impact against the wall.

I shot it out of mid-air.

The impact set it off immediately, causing an explosion directly in its face. Its arm was torn right off, and it's entire front half was cracked and cooked like a lobster. It fell to its knees. It glared at me, resentfully.

I fanned the hammer and put the last of my five shots into it's now ruined armor. The shooters on the wall joined in and riddled it with bullets, it's body jerking with every shot, its torso turning into beef jerky. The gunfire lasted for a solid 10 seconds before everybody decided enough was enough. Or they ran out of ammo.

It collapsed forward, a huge puddle of green blood pooling below it.

It was silent for a moment, then somebody cheered. The rest joined in.

"WOOOOOO" cheered Jeff, prancing around happily. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.

-Combat Over-

-Assessing Performance-

-Skills gained - Penetrating Shot I. Fan the Hammer I. Single-Action III. Dodge I-

-Core Progress 27%-

Skills gained? Is it quantifying my progress, or giving me new capabilities? Whatever, I'd think about it later.

"Have fun?" I asked Jeff.

"THAT WAS FUCKING CRAZY! THAT WAS AWESOME! THAT WAS TERRIFYING!" he said, working the fear and adrenaline out of his system.

Definitely his first rodeo.

I patted his flank. "There, there. I know the feeling. What's say we meet the locals?"

"HELL YEAH!"

The gates opened. There was a posse of insect-people waiting, some nervous, most thankful.

No way to make a better first impression than saving their sorry hides.

WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE

Buck Jones

0 CHIPS

Bronze Core Occupation: Vagabond

Stats:

BODY- 1.3

SPEED- 3.3

MIND- 0.8

Skills: Quickdraw III, Take aim III. Penetrating Shot I. Fan the Hammer I. Single-Action III. Dodge I.

Traits: Deadeye V.

Unique Skill: Outlaw.