Chapter 29: A dream abandoned

The Doctor held back the horde of abominations streaming from the Stairway. The host of this ritual must have wanted to see their siblings. Thus, every Mutants, even those who were long dead was brought here to raid again. He could fight them off, but at this rate, the ritual would consume the whole meadow. But if the Doctor went ahead, all of these abominations would collapse on End of the Line.

The citizens of that small town surely welcomed death, something Doc easily accepted. The only exception was the mayor, although he never knew why she chose to stay behind. Nevertheless, what he wanted for them was a peaceful death, not one fraught with horror.

“Just die already, all of you!”

Still, they kept on coming, their number seemingly endless. The Doctor went through revolvers after revolvers, drawing his knife to cut anything close with surgical precision.

In the sky, he could see the corruption spreading, the clouds shifting erratically. Thunder and rain raged only to suddenly stop, then back again. In the midst of the chaos, several rainbows could be seen, soon disappeared with flashes of lighting striking the ground. But even the bolts themselves were distorted, shifting before they could even reach the earth. Then came the ice falling from the sky, each shard teleported around randomly, surely killing anything that it shifted into.

At this rate, End of the Line would be obliterated by the lightings and hail before the Mutants could even get to them. Even normal raindrops were deadly due to their erratic displacement.

It was truly hell on earth, but within the realm of the Stairway to Heaven, everything was serene and calm. At least compared to outside, as a new wave of abominations came crashing down like a violent wave. But from behind them, thunder struck, a shot was fired blowing out one Mutant’s brain.

The Doctor gazed up, that crimson shadow in front of him, but alas, it was just a mirage.

“If it isn’t Doc!” There the Kid stood, twirling her revolvers.

“What the…” It took the Doctor a while to fully process the sight in front of him. The Kid suddenly shot and blood spilt out from an abomination standing right next to Doc. The man calmed down and asked. “And why are you here, young miss?”

“I should be the one asking that, I am here first after all.” The Kid cracked a joke, seemingly unaffected by the hell playing out around her. Her wide smile soon turned into a subtle one, she said with her tone strangely somber “I have reached an epiphany that this is my home, and I will stay here until there is nothing left.”

The girl knew that by the time the last of End of the Line bit the dust, her youth would be long gone. But she also knew that the final to go will be her mother.

While Alessia never spoke of her past, little Claudia could tell that she had gone through a lot. Her family was all gone and her previous one before that, when she was a just a small girl. How could Claudia leave her mother behind, knowing that? The girl felt bad for even deciding to escape the meadow before.

Thus, she hoped off and bided farewell the deformed medic and his Knights. But on her way home, the girl noticed a hill rising in the distance. Knowing that was the danger lied, the Kid made her way there.

Now, her mind had been made up and nothing could change it, even the Doctor himself.

They stepped to face one another, surrounded by death and destruction. But even in the face of doom, Doc still made his intention clear. “This is not the place for you…”

As a reply, the Kid simply plugged her ears with her own finger saying “La la la la la.”

The Doctor grabbed her hand and said grunt. “Stop that, I am being serious here!”

“And so am I.” She snapped back. “Look at what’s going on around you, if I am not serious then I wouldn’t jump into this place. I was here first and there’s nothing you could do to change my mind.”

The Doctor stepped back, shocked at being yelled at by his ward. The Kid smiled once again and joked lightly. “Besides, have you looked at what is going on out there? I can’t even leave if I want to.”

Once again, that crimson image flashed over the Kid in Doc’s eyes. He smiled of defeat, ‘a bird will eventually leave its nest’, the man told himself.

“Alright, I give up.” He said raising his hands up, only to quickly pull down and shot an incoming abomination. Another wave was coming for them.

Taking a deep breath, the Doctor knew what he wanted to do. He gave the Kid the job of holding back the Mutants while he entered further, the girl agreed. Doc gazed up into the darkness above, there the cosmos waited, ready to consume him whole. The Kid placed her hand on his shoulder, startling the man.

“If you don’t return, I will go up there and drag you down myself!”

“Hmm.” The Doctor place his hand on her hat. “Of course, I have to take this back after all.”

The Kid pulled back and laughed. “Just give up already, this hat is mine.”

Smiling, the Doctor left his bag of revolvers and stepped up the Stairway to Heaven. He kept on walking and walking, giggling as he remembered fragments of the past. Of how the little girl asked when she would grow a beard like him. Frustrated to learn that it was not possible to get a moustache, she would try to ambush him with a razor to take his. That was five years ago, yet it felt like yesterday. He also remembered of when the girl was a little baby, of how she would cry non-stop, her energy seemingly endless.

Frank ‘Doc’ Holliday entered the cosmos, standing tall with his hand still above the big iron on his hip.

___

Meanwhile, the Executioner had to hunt down her target, a shame, she really wanted to see the famed Stairway to Heaven. Perhaps there was enough time for a sightseeing trip, she just needed to be quick and efficient. Invigorated, X tracked down her mark like a woman possessed.

She soon encountered him not far away and the two clashed without a single exchange of words. The Executioner had fought with the Ghost before and she knew that, while his draw was fast, he was not in contention compared to the other western legends. Every of their previous bout would end with him finding a way to escape.

This time, X would not let him speak a single word.

“Die!” She yelled out in glee.

Overwhelmed, it did not take long for the Ghost to have his head cut clean off. With one stylish swing, X flicked the blood off her blade and sheathed it.

The fight did not end there, however, as the Executioner soon found herself surrounded by… Ghosts. “I was wondering why that was too easy.” He must have brainwashed some prisoners and made them into his doppelgangers. The real deal must be hiding nearby, observing with amusement.

“No matter, I will just have to cut you all down!” X announced.

They were prisoners? More like acceptable casualties.