Twelve.
They say that you will be judged by the company you keep. The problem with that saying was that sometimes, you had little choice in who you would be associated with. Or be forced to be associated with.
Merilee Doe, as she might have been called in other times, Merilee Velt as she was recorded on some records, the name of her first foster home, now just Merilee, having discarded last names as none really belonged to her, having thought she was already pretty tough, she'd live through the Blue Hills Disaster where so many hadn't, had survived for months before she'd been absorbed back into the system, had handled the less than optimal new circumstances which could have been so much worse, but they weren't for her, so she'd gone off on her own, she'd handled living on the streets, she thought she was ready, she had some friends and she thought she knew...
She knew nothing.
She wasn't really sure how it had come to this. They'd been told to be a lookout for some older, rougher folks. Easy job. Then said folks had gotten into a scuffle with others. Others who were far rougher than them. They hadn't survived it. And as Merilee and her friends, Cecilia and Rudolf, and Manny, swift little Manny, the only one to get away, the only one of them who might see another sunrise...
He called himself Fast. He certainly looked like he lived it in every way. He was nearly skeletal, grim in stance and visage, fingers like long, twisting sticks as he aimed with the gun. An uncommon weapon in her world, rarely seen outside of Hemel-based clusters and intense war zones. They could be difficult to repair and keep operational, something more traditional weapons like swords and bows were easier to handle. Fast wore a filthy dark yellow coat, pants, and hat, or maybe it was some odd shade of brown, but not as brown as his teeth, long uncared for and doing their best to exit such neglected territory as his mouth was. But there was a spark in his eye, a flicker of something truly awful that both the good and the bad would take note of...
"Now look at me...see something worse."
Blood running down his chin, Rudolf stood on the barrel, the rope loosely knotted around his neck. Cecilia was on the ground, crying, held by Fast's lackies, the usual gaggle of scum and nogoodniks that gathered around his like. Merilee was the same, but while Cecilia couldn't bear to look, she couldn't look away as Fast lazily took aim.
The gunshot was like thunder.
The bullet chipped a bit off the barrel, and the men gathered around chortled and cackled, one wheezing like the effort of laughter was something notable. Fast just smirked briefly, before he gestured and Merilee was yanked up. She thought she was next on the barrel.
Instead, the gun was tossed down to her.
"Well, I had my three shots. So tell you what, kid. You cut down the rope, your friend can live."
Merilee stared at the gun.
"Come on now! I'm not a patient man!"
Merilee scrambled to the gun. It didn't just feel heavy in her hands, it felt hot, too hot, a low burning pain that echoed behind her eyes and began running up her arms. She'd never fired a gun. Hell, she'd barely held a weapon at all. She could barely hold this one, her hands shaking so hard...
"Verne, give her a little motivation, could you?"
Verne let out one more cackle, and then he drew out a knife, yanked Cecilee back by her hair as she screamed, placed the keen edge of the blade on her forehead, and started cutting.
Her agonized scream sang in twin with Merilee as she raised the gun and fired. The shots became her world.
And Rudolf tumbled off the barrel.
As the tree branch the rope was tied to let out a weird low almost whining sound and broke, badly damaged by Merilee's wild shots. She hadn't hit the rope, but she'd managed a booby prize, of sorts. There was a dark silence.
And then the laughter returned, a roar that seemed deeper than the gunshots. Merilee was vaguely aware of the gun being taken away from her, and Cecilee being released, she was grabbing at her head, she was alive, but there was so much blood.
"Well, let it not be said that you didn't get it done!" Fast said, pressing his spurs into his horse as he trotted it around. "Let's blow this one wheel town, boys. Before something else pisses me off."
He rode past Merilee, who managed to look up.
"But problem, little worm. I said three shots. That was five. Now I just have one shot left and I hate wasting good ammo."
And he aimed at Rudolf.
"So he'll just live."
The gunshot swallowed her scream.
---
Fourteen.
And rang into the sound of the door as she was thrown out of the tavern, crashing down onto the copplestones, and it hurt but it also felt good, and her head rang but in turn her senses sang back. A certain crazy assassin would have seen, in that moment, a kindred spirit, before she was followed out by the nearly seven foot mass of ropey muscle who had slammed her upside the head and tossed her out. Her fault. She'd made fun of him for losing the die roll. Not gentle enough, she'd lost the gentle touch somewhere these last years, and he'd objected.
"Now. Considering your age and your clear lack of ANYTHING rattling around that clay bowl you have for a skull...why don't you just..." He reached down, picking her up by the head, his fellows having followed him out to see what happened. Ihmensel’jk were not all sadistic, violent brutes as propaganda, prejudice, and general misinformation would present them as, but they did have a bend towards aggression and dominance, even the good ones. If you mocked an Ihmensel’jk, you'd better be ready to get back their retort. Merilee hadn't, and Hagu, "The Stone" to his battle fellows and enemies that survived him, hadn't held back because of her size, age, or gender.
"Give back the money."
"Wonitsquare."
"How little that matters. Now." His hand squeezed. "I know this hurts. I also know what hurts a great deal more."
Merilee mumbled something.
"Pardon?"
Another mumble. Hagu leaned in.
"IHAVEYOURWEAPON."
And so she did. He had a large dagger on his belt, and now Merilee had it, drawn out with its keen edge right up against his codpiece, ready to cut deep.
A standoff.
And then Hagu released her, as he roared with laughter. But this wasn't an ugly cacophony. This was general, genuine amusement. Hagu had a score of scars of a score of people of all stripes who had never had him at a disadvantage, and this young girl has sussed out an opening even in her badly disadvantaged state. A folly on his part, but not entirely, and he was not so proud that he couldn't laugh at himself for it. Not having been subjected to an amateur gelding probably helped with that.
"I do hope you live beyond the next twist or so of these lands, girl! You could be quite something if you don't get yourself killed first. My weapon, please."
Merilee gave it back. She knew, somehow, deep down, that this was not a bad idea. That she was safe, that he would not turn on her for her success. And he didn't. He went back into the tavern to continue his dice game.
The surprise came when she, a touch unsteady but with her head mostly all the way to clear, followed him back in.
"I wasn't done winning yet."
The laughter was a little quieter this time, an undertone of warning, don't push it child. But as dumb as Merilee was, she wasn't that dumb.
She'd never be that dumb again. And not really by her choice.
----
Fifteen.
She was going to die. Three years spent heading towards this only to trip and fall on her face at the last step.
Fast had nicer clothes this time, most anyone looked good in black, but the rest of him seemed as decayed and as rotten as ever. Surprisingly, he remembered her. She'd grown in many ways, but when he'd looked into her eyes when she'd tried to walk over to his table, disguised as his waitress, and he'd stood up and knocked his food away before she could draw her weapon and plant it right between his eyes, kicking her in the stomach before his men stomped her into unconsciousness, and now here she was, tied to this chair, as he sat in another one behind a table, slowly turning his gun over and over in his hand. No normal gun. A Remnant, a Malison, the curse of the Godslayer's victory over Xaxargas, dozens of pieces, each with a foul power to do harm wherever it went, whether it was driving wars to kill countless people or just shooting a harmless boy in the gut...
"The boy lived, didn't he?"
"Fuck you."
"Young fool, don't think you know what bad living is." Fast got up, walking over to her and kneeling down to look in her eye. "Maybe he was never the same, but don't think you understand things that are lost."
She spat at him. He somehow managed to dodge it, leaning back up.
"When the Twilight happened, my father decreed that he would not let his family be forced to see the end of the world. What he meant, of course, was that nothing was going to crush what was in his iron fist except him. So he pulled us all into one room, and told us to watch, so we'd understand, as he strangled my mother in front of me. Then my older sister. Then my older brother. Then my other older brother, my best friend...and he was the one who fought, who smashed a window and carved open his throat, but my father's grip was truly strong and his throat had been crushed, and he still gasped and wheezed out his last breath. That left just me and the baby sister of the family, and I lost her too, in the end, to the world, anyway. And while my sister and brother fought, just not as hard, my mother just sort of...let it happen. Like she'd been so long resigned to such a thing that she was already dead.
"THAT is loss, little worm. After that, there is NOTHING you could do to try and kill the likes of me. To truly kill a man, you need them to fear you, in one way or another. And after watching my father kill us all so a god couldn't, there is nothing in this world that can scare me. Not any more."
He turned around.
"But I suspect you won't stop..."
He turned and fired. He'd heard it. The sound of Merilee getting up, tied to the chair but not by her legs against its own, but she wasn't lunging at him, she was going to the side, the bullet going wide, the deadly shot of the Malison, which Fast called the Willow's Wail, missing as Merilee dove out of the window, glass shattering as she fell, her chair and body breaking as she landed, and oh it hurt, but she could run, she was ALIVE, and she ran, she ran...
---
"I do not shoot with my hand. He who shoots with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I shoot with my mind."
---
Sixteen.
She couldn't run, not this time. She was tied more securely and why, why...
Rudolf had never been quite the same after being shot by Fast, shot in the stomach, a cruel shot but one that had allowed her to drag him to medical help, but help was as expensive as life was cheap, and the repairs had kept him alive and not much else. He'd never really healed right. Pain followed him everywhere. It made him leave her side, like Cecilia had, having entered herself back into another foster home. She and Merilee had professed the same dislike of them, that they would be better off by themselves, free, but she had been badly disabused of that notion. She was still there, her head had healed and her heart was healing, but scabbed over and no longer one to beat in twin with Merilee's...
And Rudolf...
He'd come back into her life. He'd made it better. He'd sparked something in her she'd never have expected. And now she was tied on this slab, his captive.
She'd find out all the details later. How the pain simply never stopped. How it had soured his soul. What he'd ultimately turned to to stop it. And what else he wanted by the time he'd gone that far down the road. Anger. Resentment. That ever-shrill call that it wasn't fair to suffer, so share it for having the gall to not be suffering. All she knew was she was more shocked and terrified than she'd been since...well, since he'd been set down this path. Ever since then, she'd mostly been angry.
And despite it all...she'd never been hurt. In pain, in many kinds of pain. But never hurt.
But as he took the curved knife, as she tried at the last second to yell around her gag that he could stop, they could fix this, don't do this, don't...
Then he hurt her.
And she screamed, connecting with herself back down the years, all the good things washed away under that tidal wave, she was sixteen and he was cutting out a piece of her SOUL, she was twelve and they were killing Cecilia by scalping her, she was eight and some asshole had gotten his hand on another Malison and was wrecking everything including the only home she had because damn it, the world owed them, and when the world had told them otherwise they had thrown a temper tantrum and kicked over everyone's blocks, if they couldn't have them NO ONE COULD...
There were good things to come. Damn good things. They'd need to be, to balance this out.
And even with all of them, things would never be the same.
----
Ash Marsello was poorly equipped. He'd brought the proverbial knife to the proverbial gunfight. Worse, he hadn't brought any friends.
And he wasn't as young as he used to be. He'd weathered the duress like a well-tanned hide did, well but with inevitable cracks. Fast was not dumb enough to get lost in the rush of the idea that he might be the one where a fair number of others had failed. The slayer of the Godslayer. But even if he could manage a pseudo win, a bad wound, a retreat, it would be something, the weight of Willow's Wail was bearing down on him too, it had turned a thin scarecrow of a man into a semblance of a grim reaper, the cost of a weapon that pierced any armor, brooked no defense.
"The TALE, is in the telling." He'd gone through a fair number of people in his life, none of the ones at his side during that hanging, or dinner, still with him. This one was called Bernt, which he insisted wasn't because he misspelled Brent on something important and went with it, and he was a poor fighter but he could talk the birds down from the trees, and talk up the people he kissed ass for something fierce, so Fast kept him around. "This man, this godslayer...he's not invincible! He's not always destined to win, like he's made the world his storybook! He's just like me. A good hype man. Oh I'm not saying there's nothing to back it up. Maybe ten, hell, five years ago he was one of the most dangerous men on the planet...but he had to keep proving that. Time and tide waits for no man. Not even him. He's not as good a man as he was five, three, one, a week ago. And while some may say Fast looks far closer to the grave than him, believe me...he has far more pages on his storybook left than the man in front of him."
"You're not wrong." Ash said.
Not many had remained in the town to watch this showdown. Probably best. Fast had dug in like the proverbial tick, and trying to run him down for his crimes had had more obstacles and potholes than it was healthy for innocents caught in the crossfire to have. And so now he was here. He wasn't winning this. If he outdrew Fast, his people would just gun him down. They were all in the best position for it. Maybe he'd survive it, but that Bernt fellow wasn't wrong. Time waited for no one, and eventually, his checks in the win column would stop.
It was silent. With Bernt done and off 'the stage, all that was left was the signalman. He'd toss a ball into the air, and when it landed, it was draw time, in any way the user wished. Unfortunately, high noon was five hours ago. Well, can't have ALL the dramatic touches.
The rat-faced signalman stepped forward. He held out the ball. Normal ball? Rigged for Fast's benefit? Who knew. Fast was confident enough to not cheat. And he might be totally on the ball-that-may-or-may-not-have-been-rigged to be so.
Then it was in the air.
It soared up, a decent upward arc. It paused, and then gravity embraced it.
One hand flexed onto a hilt, as another eagerly squeezed his own.
The ball landed.
And Fast recoiled as he drew his gun and the town exploded, every building going up like a volcano had spontaneously appeared beneath each of them. Men flew, screamed, and burned. Debris cut others down, including Bernt, who caught a door to the face to his detriment. Fast didn't escape unharmed, pelted with shrapnel, but he kept his feet, unlike Ash, who'd immediately gone to a knee and, as the smoke and dust filled the street, ran away.
The buildings burned. A flame that danced in Fast's own eye as he settled back down, looking around at the ruins. He idly wondered if his hostages had been taken or if Ash Marsello had finally gotten so far up his own butt he'd rather blow up innocents than lose. It was the former, of course. Ash was alone in the street, but not alone.
Never alone. The lone wolf was a myth. Strength was in a pack.
But sometimes, you did have to stand by yourself, as the sound of clinking spurs reached through the smoke, before wind finally blew enough of it away to clear Fast's vision.
Eighteen.
"...like a poor coin, always." Fast said, looking at Merilee. No longer a scared young girl, nor a ragged scrapper with bits and pieces mashed together to make herself as tough as possible. It had been as greasy as poorly cooked food, but the potential seen in her years ago had finally been fully seized and made her own. That was the secret of achievement, the one few talked about. Potential, hard work...and networking. The hands that guided you.
"He wasn't right, either." Ash said, off to the side now. "That speaker of yours. But this is a fight that my claim is a distinct second to. But don't worry. Had to REALLY drive the point home..." He gestured to the destruction, having had to literally blow all of Fast's men out of their ambush sites and murder holes. "But from now on, all fights are fair."
"Liar." Fast said.
"Speak for yourself. I won't."
"...your speed still won't surpass mine, young girl! And even if you try and peacock, there's nothing you can wear that can stop death from coming for you!"
"I don't hear death today." Merilee said, as she slid aside her coat. This was a nice gun. She'd need to give it a nice name.
Fast put his hand on his own weapon. Dust swirled around them.
No signalling here. Just the eyes of two killers, eyeing, assessing, listening.
The sound of metal clearing leather seemed as loud as the bullets that followed.
Fast fired, and Merilee jerked as she was hit. Once, twice, three times, four times, he was right, his bullets from the piece of a dark god just went through her armor, five times, six. He stopped.
She slumped...but stood. Blood ran from her wounds. Pain. Such pain. But it didn't dim the fire as she looked up.
"...impossible." Fast said. Ash wished he could tell him. Yeah, no armor could stand against Willow's Wail...but the human body was an impressive engine in and of itself. You could shoot it six times without fatal results, if you hit the right places. And if the shots, if they couldn't be blocked, could be...nudged to go in the right places. If you could handle the pain.
Joy slowly drew what would become Hazardous. Yeah, he'd outdrawn her. She suspected he would have if she'd actually tried to match him. But now he was out, and she wasn't.
The only shot that mattered was the one that killed you.
"Are you afraid now?" Merilee said.
And she blew the answer, along with his face, out the back of his head as she took the aim she'd endured for and made it count.
Then she collapsed, blood spilling from her mouth, weakness settling on her. She was vaguely aware of a form running for her, Christine emerging as she knelt down to tend to her blunted, but still immensely severe, injuries. Merilee faded away for a time, something that would have once terrified her. Would she come back?
But now, if she was drifting away...
A hand reached out, pulling her back, Merilee retching as she coughed clotted blood up, Christine finally getting her specialized armor chestplate off to make sure she fully got the wounds closed. There was silence, save their breathing, as she worked.
She couldn't call this woman her mother. It almost seemed like an insult. But you don't rub off all the rough edges in one day, or deed. But it helped when she finally felt strong enough to stand up, with Christine's help, and Ash stepped forward, holding Willow's Wail.
"Would you like to do the honors."
Ash tossed it into the air.
And while never the most amazing shot, this time Merilee was as dead-on a fresh corpse bleeding into the dirt...
---
Into the sound of a door as he was smashed through it, falling down the stairs and into the mud, rain pouring down onto him as he gagged and spat, trying to claw up from the filth and what lay behind him, trying to get up and run and losing his balance and falling down again, the rainfall covering up the sound of the spurs as she walked out.
Nineteen.
"It wasn't PERSONAL!" Verne Whateverhislastnamewas had never seen good days, but he sure as hell had seen a long stretch of bad ones, his face pocked with craters from an old wound that had never really healed, his main arm withered from a similar wound, his breath smelling fouler than most of what came out the other end of a person. If anything, the mud was an improvement to his looks.
"You think that matters?"
"I'M NOT ARMED-!"
"Well, shoulda done somethin' about that. Too late now."
"PLEASE-!"
Hagu was dead three years gone, having finally found a foe that he couldn't slay. Much like Fast, the group had cycled its people over those years, but there was still one or two of them who'd been there at the start, and bled into the cup along with those that had come after. And as Merilee added her own, boiled the blood in the flame, and then hoisted the cup, she knew that if he'd moved on somewhere else, he was watching, in some way.
Then she drank.
It didn't really matter what happened after the person being honored drank. If you spat it out, if you got sick, there was no pride or sense of strength and weakness in this. Merilee was hardly stoic, gagging horribly, her gorge rising, but she kept it down. That got some extra hoots and applause.
"What am I?" She asked. And was told, that even if her name had been anything in the world, there was only one title for her.
"Please and thank you are long in the dust, rotter." The Joy said. She found herself already tired of this, but when she sped up and stamped on his wounded leg to pin him down, she found herself feeling oddly bad. It didn't last long, as she kicked the man over onto his back.
"I didn't kill her!"
"No. But you made her live with you. Maybe she can stand that, but that's a bridge too far for me."
She raised her gun.
"This is MURDER!"
"Nope. Had a fresh bounty drafted up. Ink's still wet, but it's still valid. You should have hid worse, rotter. There's less dignity in slowly wasting away here away from good doctors and a longer, better life, even if it's in a large cage, until someone who couldn't stands no more put you down."
"...please." Was all Verne could say.
She looked down at him.
At the little fried dough cake, the only thing Sunny could make with any degree of accuracy, the frosting a mess and her name misspelled as MARY-LEE. But the last name was spelled right. It should have been: Sunny knew it well.
And like the cake, it was hers now. It had been a long hard path, and she'd fallen and gotten hurt a lot. Some things she'd lost for good. But you had to take the bad with the good. The bad helped measure the good, really.
No real room for candles. So Athena had just jokingly lit two normal ones and was waving them around the cake in a "OHHHHH LOOK AT THE CANDLES" faux-fancy nonsense. In years past, she'd have waved them off. Snuffed the flames between her fingers. Rolled her eyes.
They went out in a quiet, genuine breath.
Merilee raised the gun. Tilted her head away a bit. Thinking, as the rain poured down the brim of her hat, down the shoulders of her coat, glistened on the spurs of her boot.
"...my dad said something once. To men who represented something. He considered mercy, and he considered possibility based on what he'd seen...
"He said, I value their tomorrows more than your todays."
And she put the gun back down and aimed.
"Nothing personal."
"I do not kill with my gun; he who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father.
"I kill with my heart."
BLAM.
