Advent Of A Gunslinger

From within the clouds, an all-too familiar airship would emerge as triumphantly as an eagle through a tornado. It slowly made its descent which caused Gatto and his crew to stare upwards in a state of bewilderment.

“...What in the gyatdamn…?” muttered the tom.

Kora turned her head around, and flicked her tail out of a mix of panic and curiosity. “More trouble for our cause? Have we earned no reprieve…?”

Axel meanwhile, knew what it was and who the vessel belonged to. “...Dammit, boy.” But what he didn’t know was just how or why it showed up. As well as the fact that he was unsure of what it was capable of. Could this really save their skin?

Well they were about to find out.

Eventually, the steam-powered airship stopped and began to hover just above everyone. A voice would call out over a speaker right after. “THIS IS THE GFS ALBATROSS! YOU HAVE THIRTY SECONDS TO FORFEIT THE HIPPOGRIFF AND THE...who is that? THE CAT WOMAN ON HIS BACK!”

Gatto, not so quick to be intimidated, beckoned towards one of his fellow gangsters. Another tom would pass a megaphone over to him to which he shouted into in order to reply. “OH YEAH? AND WHAT IF WE REFUSE?”

In a matter of a nanosecond, a button was pressed. Two cannons that looked to be loaded with bullets appeared from both sides of the vessel. “THEN YOU’LL LEAVE ME NO CHOICE BUT TO MAKE MOLDY CHEESE OUT OF YOU AND YOUR BUILDING.”

“...Boss, what should we do?” one of Gatto’s fellow toms looked to him for an answer.

Gatto attempted to not look intimidated, but a single bead of sweat that ran down the side of his face told all. He balled his fist, and holstered his weapon. “...Let ‘em go. They’ll be back for Maxine at some point, anyway.”

With that, he hid his face beneath his hat, and turned to leave through the door back into the building. His fellow gangsters would follow suit not long after.

Once they were gone, the weapons on the airship retracted.

“...Do you know the owner of this here gal?” Kora asked in reference to the ship.

Axel sighed as he flew up towards it. “...Probably. I got myself a bad feelin’ here. Mix’a guilt ‘n regret.”

The door to the airship flung open…

And Vido was at the controls. “Hola, amigos! Get in, quick before they change their melodia!”

Kora hopped off of Axel and scampered into the airship. She marveled at the view of it from the inside. “...Meeeewowww…”

Axel landed within, his wings folded back into their normal position, and he closed the door to the vessel. “I have...so many damn questions it ain’t even funny.”

Vido gave the wheel of his ship and quick spin. “Save it for when we’re above the cloud line, hombre!”

The turn of the wheel caused the ship to rise directly upwards. Eventually, it would fly high enough to rise above, and become hidden by the clouds.

“There we go,” Vido said as he put the vessel into autopilot, “We can’t be traced from here. Now…” he got up from his seat, and addressed his passengers. “What in the living infierno happened back there?!”

Axel had taken a seat at the same table where the both of them played cards the previous day, and looked out of the airship’s window at the sun. It had just begun to rise. As it turned out, Axel was knocked out and captured for a full twelve hours before he was rescued. It was now a new morning entirely.

“...Have a seat, son.”

He would go on to explain what he had endured while down there over the course of the previous day. At the end of the explanation, Vido responded with a grim, shaky tone in his voice.

“...Putas. Todos las putas!” he leaned against the table with his claws balled into fists. “Apologies, sir. That...that really set me off in more ways than one. The gato bastards are really housing pony slaves and harvesting their parts, hm?”

Axel nodded as he rolled a coin between his left set of claw-fingers, “It was the most horrific thang I ever dun witnessed. Wish I coulda throttled ‘em all, but I ain’t...I ain’t got enough bullets for that.” The reality was that Axel knew he was outnumbered vastly in that situation. To get the vengeance he sought, he would have to play it much smarter going forward.

Vido leaned forward on the table, and shot a sideways glance towards the Abyssinian on the floor. “...And what do you make of the chiquita over yonder? Can you trust her?”

Kora sat with her back against the wall of the ship. Her whiskers twitched erratically, and the light reflected off of her glasses just enough to hide her expression from them both.

“...Absolutely,” Axel said, “She’s the only reason I’m still standin’.”

“Say what?” the griffon tilted his head, and looked in Kora’s direction before looking back at Axel, “You serio? You think she’s on the right side?”

Axel got up from the table. He had had enough of speaking as if she wasn’t in the room. “...Kora, yeah?”

The she-cat raised her head up, and allowed her eyes to become visible again. “...Yes. But are you certain that you’re willing to save my sister? It’s a family matter, you know…”

“She got me there. That’s exactly what I was tellin’ other folks. And yet, she went outta her way to help me regardless. Can’t just overlook somethin’ like that.” Axel broke eye contact, and shifted his eyes downward. They were pained from his lack of sleep, but he wanted to be as honest with her as possible and show that he was just as humane as she was. He removed his mask so that she could see his face proper, and knelt down to be on her level. “Listen. I wanna help ya. There was too many of them dingos for you to tango with on yer lonesome. Ya did me a solid when ya broke me outta there, so I wanna return the favor.”

Tears had welled up within her eyes, but she didn’t want to succumb to emotional weakness so easily. “You…” Kora removed her glasses, and wiped away the tears before they could fall. “You’re serious, aren’t you, Remington?”

Axel removed his hat, and held it against his neck. “Deadass scout’s honor,” he replied, “I won’t let the same thing happen to her. What do you think she’ll be put through?”

“...I’d wager that we have, at the most, 72 hours before her execution,” Kora explained, “Gatto’s boss has a sick sense of merciful dread that the entire gang likes to instill in their victim’s hearts. Ya’ll know what they say: The fear’a death is worse than death itself.”

“...That depends on the context, but ya have a point,” Axel stood upright, and placed his hat back on his head. “That’ll give us just enough time to formulate our plan of attack.”

Vido remained silent throughout their entire discussion. There was a hurtful look of sympathy on his face, as if he knew exactly what they had felt. This is what ultimately led him to make a suggestion. “Alright, compadres,” he began, “I have an idea. But we’ll need to cooperate.”

Kora finally rose to stand up on her paws. “What’s the cheese, mac?”

“Me llamo, Vido. Anyway--I recommend we fall back to me madre’s inn, get some good food in our systems, stock up on ammunition, and return when we’re mentally prepared. You said we should have 72 hours total, si?”

“Uh...yes?” Kora replied.

“Perfecto,” Vido said, “We’ll only need a good 16. Sound good?”

Axel had to concede. He knew that place would act as a good safety net of sorts while they figured out what to do next. His only concern was what Kora thought about it. “I suggest we leave it up to the little lady,” he said, “It’s her family that’s on the line.”

“...They won’t kill her right away and we need to take our time so we don’t end up worse than dead.” She folded her arms, and eventually came to an answer. “Let’s head to the inn and rest. Remy has endured quite a bit here.”

Vido sat at the controls to the airship, and began to pilot them towards the tavern. “Alright, then let’s bring it back home…”

Meanwhile, back within the confines of Klugetown, the boss held a meeting within the gang’s base.

The chair the boss sat in remained facing away from the doorway. “You what?! How did you let them get away?! Ugh, you’re useless…”

“Hey!” Gatto snapped in his defense, “My ass coulda been shredded six ways to Sunday if I had fought back! It was a whole damn airship, boss! An airship! A frickin’ cannon-totin’ bombardier of destruction!”

The voice from within the chair didn’t give him any sympathy. “You were the one who allowed them to escape in the first place. Can’t believe that pussy smoked you and managed to set our boy free.” The voice would sigh in a huff. “Hmph….but we do have leverage here. Maxine is still alive ain’t she?”

“That’s right,” Gatto said with a more relaxed tone, “They’re gonna have to come back within three days if they wanna see her alive.”

A hand protruded from behind the chair and tapped on a cigar to get rid of excess ashes. “Then we still have a leg up on ‘em. However…I think someone else should take control here.”

“What?!” he hissed, and slammed his claws on the desk which caused everything upon it to rattle, “Why?! I do my job right one-hundred percent of the time and you decide that I just shouldn’t be a part of it anymore?!”

Another sigh came from the voice. “You bonehead tabby. This is exactly why I’m takin’ you off the situation. You dun went and got your neck damn near cut open. Now Kora’s pissed at you. The very minute she sees you, she’s gonna wanna exact her revenge. Think with the correct head for once.”

“Grrrrr…” As much as he didn’t like it, Gatto knew his boss had a point. Kora knew him to well now, and things would only get worse between them should he continue to act upon this scenario. “Alright, alright, fine. Who ya gonna put on this?”

“The one who managed to subdue him in the first place,” the boss said.

Right on cue, the doors to the officer opened up, and Mio would enter. “At your service, my liege.”

Gatto would scoff at his fellow tomcat. “Seriously? You’re trustin’ the saloon boys with this one? C’mon, boss he ain’t even that strong. His arms are like day-old pasta noodles.”

“Tch.” Mio scoffed right back, and pushed up the bridge of his red glasses with his right paw. In his left paw, he would suddenly reveal a card between his index and middle fingers from out of nowhere, akin to a magic tick. The card? Two of hearts. “I don’t recall asking for your input. A good soldier isn’t just a yes-man. He’s a well-oiled machine with his own thoughts and emotions. So I suggest you fall right back into place, cogwheel, lest you go up in flames…” The card would disappear in a small flash of flame and into nothingness.

Unimpressed, Gatto would mock the attempt at a threat. “‘Ooh, lookit me, I can do magic tricks like a lil’ circus clown. Ain’t I the cutest?’ Want some peanuts with that, clown?”

The voice from behind the chair interrupted them both. “Enough, gentlemen. I specifically want him to follow through on this because I know he’ll take care of it with the utmost discretion. Isn’t that right, Mio Thuong?”

“As right as a full deck,” he replied, “I’ll make sure things are handled with more grace than before.”

Gatto folded his arms and leaned against the wall with an annoyed scowl. He was slightly envious of Mio’s capability with card tricks, and found his ways of speech distasteful.

“And you, Gatille,” the boss’s voice spoke out again, catching the attention of the seething tom.

“Oh--yeah?”

“...Go send our little marefriend a letter. Tell her that we’re ready for her assistance.”