Advent Of A Gunslinger

CRASH!

Another loud crash from a window being broken followed by a series of bovine moos that were more akin to demonic roars.

Axel pulled out, and got off of Clara. He reached for the nightstand drawer, and grabbed his six-shooters, their sheaths, and his ammo belt. “I really don’t like sayin’ this, but ya might wanna get back, Ms. Clara.” Worried thoughts started to creep into his head as he inched his way over to the door of their room. “What in the devil’s name could make noise like that? That don’t sound normal…”

Clarabelle quickly put her sweater on, and looked into one of the nearby closets. She grabbed some lassos and a small, snub-nosed revolver of her own. “Here,” she chucked one of the looped ropes over to Axel, “We could probably use these.”

He caught the rope upon his wingtips, and wrapped it around his wing. There was a bit of hesitation in his voice as he asked her a question. “...Wait a sec. Ya’ll are prepped?”

“Of course, Axel,” she replied with a more focused tone as she checked the cylinder to make sure bullets were loaded. “We all have to protect ourselves from the occasional idiot that thinks they can try’an trick us or kill us.”

With one look at the snub-nosed six-shooter, Axel could already tell the exact use for it. “Concealment. Easy to keep in a case of self-defense if needed. Lady’s on the right trail.” He nodded. “I respect that--and I’ll admit I kinda like it. But now, we need’ta be careful.”

He didn’t want to give away his position, so he used his wingtips to gently unlock, and pull the door open. With the minotaur woman close behind him, the gunslinger turned his head left--looking down the rest of the hallway, then right--looking down the entrance of the hall where the front desk was.

There were no immediate signs of danger, which left the gunslinger nervous. Of course, he was good at hiding this fact as many of his ilk were. “...Nothing yet,” he whispered to Clarabelle, “Cover my six, darlin’.”

Surprisingly, despite her motherly demeanor within the bedroom, she quickly snapped into a tense state of mind when danger was afoot. “I gotcha. That sound was awful creepy, I will say…” she whispered in return.

They both quietly poked their heads out of the hallway and into the main foyer of the building. To their right was the theater stage where the minotaur ladies would normally perform for the audience. Except...there was no audience. In fact, there were no gals either. Tables and chairs in the theater hall had all been toppled with windows broken from all angles. Shards of glass lined the floors, and there were streaks of blood all over the place.

“...” Clara covered her mouth to prevent herself from gasping audibly, and retreated behind the corner to the hallway. “...What could’ve…?”

Axel kept his eyes steeled, and focused hard on the room. His hippogriff senses allowed him to scan the area with the utmost precision. That’s when he found that there were large, minotaur-shaped hoof-prints in the carpet and the wood of the stage.

“Ladies must’a gone crazy,” he pondered the situation before him, “But wait a sec. Them noises I heard tweren't natural at all. Could there be some sorta sorcery in play here?”

It wasn’t that strange to imagine. Axel had dealt with his fair share of the supernatural and magic in the past. After all, he was part pegasus pony, and was no stranger to such things. But whatever this was completely eluded him.

That’s when he realized that the desk lady minotaur was no longer present.

“...No sign’a struggle or blood. It’s possible that she’s still alive.”

He also noticed that all of the doors were untouched, meaning that whoever was here hadn’t escaped. At least, not as someone as big as a minotaur. “Where in the hell could the source’a that noise have gone?”

“Psst!” Clarabelle called for him from around the corner, “Axie. I think I found something.”

With no other options, he took flight, and hovered over to her direction. The minotaur woman was at the other end of the hallway on bended knee. “Tracks,” she said as she inspected the floor. “Our target most certainly went this way.”

Sure enough, there were more, large minotaur hoofprints embedded into the carpet that led towards a back door.

“Think it could be yer taur friends?” Axel asked while he looked ahead of the trail of tracks. “Certainly possible. What with that roarin’...”

“I ain’t got an idea, hun,” Clarabelle stood up, “But I’mma certainly find out for myself.”

The gunslinger wasn’t satisfied with that, and insisted that he go along with her. “Hang on. I’ll follow. Somethin’ ‘bout this just ain’t right…”

But before they could take another step, they started to hear a faint set of muffled cries for help.

“...MM! MMM!”

Axel’s ear flicked, and he got ready to draw his weapon. “Ya catch that?”

The minotaur lady did, in fact, catch wind of what Axel heard. “Yeah. Sounds like it’s comin’ from the supply closet down the hall. Think we should check it out?”

“...Could very well be a trap,” he noted as he spun his gun in his claw, “But I can’t just ignore it. You got my back, right?”

Clarabelle nodded, and started to follow Axel once more.

The hippogriff would continue to hover silently to avoid making any sort of noise as they made their way down the hall. Clara followed as quietly as she could possibly step whilst also keeping her gun raised and watching the other side of the hallway that they came from.

The muffled yelps would get louder and louder the closer they got.

“MM! MMM-MMM!”

And soon, they would arrive at the sole door upon that wall. The supply closet.

To be safe, Axel and Clarabelle would stand on both sides. He was on the left, and she was on the right next to the doorknob. They made eye contact with each other, and nodded in unison. They were ready to breach the door and find out what was inside.

After a mental count of three, Clarabelle placed her hand on the doorknob, twisted it carefully...and promptly flung it open.

Both she and Axel aimed inside of the small closet with their weapons drawn. But all they found were brooms, mops, and…

“MMM-MMM!”

...An albino minotaur with her arms tied behind her back, and her entire head stuck in a mop bucket filled with murky water. Her head was stuck in there due to a layer of chains that had been used to cover her and keep her down. They were tied to ball weights nearby that were fifty pounds each, preventing her from escaping.

“...My goodness,” Clara mumbled shakily, “Who could’ve--”

BANG!

Axel shot the chains to destroy them, and set the minotaur free. Upon closer inspection, he was able to discern that it was the desk lady. “Get ‘er outta that mess.”

Clara pushed the rest of the chains off of the desk taur’s body, and pulled her out of the mop bucket. She then untied her hands, to which the captive expressed her formal gratitude through a series of coughs.

“Ack! Thank you...both,” she took a deep breath, and rubbed the murky water off her face. “I...I don’t know what…”

Axel tried to calm her down. “Relax, madam. Take yer time and collect yourself. Ain’t no rush.”

After about five minutes, the desk lady would be ready to speak. She addressed Axel first. “...Alright. First off, Axel, my name is Sheila. Secondly, all I can remember before being put in here was seeing the girls on stage go crazy. Then I was knocked out…”

“We were still in the room together,” Clara commented, “So we had no way of knowing what could’ve happened out here. Do you think it could’ve been caused by magic?”

“Maybe?” Sheila replied with uncertainty, “Whatever the case, it was some deadly ass magic that caused the girls to go nuts and muck up the audience. But like I said, after that I was out plumb cold.”

Clara and Axel looked back at the hallway, and towards the tracks that led outside.

The minotaur concluded that it’d be best if someone stayed behind. “One of us needs to keep Sheila safe while the other--”

Before she could finish that sentence, Axel had already offered. “I’ll go. If I hafta hurt any of ‘em, they won’t hold a grudge against me since I probably won’t be returnin’ back here no time soon.”

“...Are you sure?” Clara asked.

But Axel had already started walking away. “Yer rep is too good here to go’ta waste over a misunderstandin’. Keep watch over the lady. I’ll be back.” And he quickly spread his wings, and flew onwards…

As he left, Sheila would comment. “...That’s him from the posters, huh? Looks mighty different without the getup...”

“Make no mistake,” said Clara, “That’s still a Remington.”

Axel followed the trail of hoofprints to the back door. That’s when he noticed that the door was somewhat busted and off of its hinges. This meant that there was a struggle and that someone had come through this way.

“Ah, I see. Now I’m gittin’ somewhere…”

He opened the door, and found himself face-to-face with a fence that surrounded rows and rows of greenhouses equipped with solar panels to harvest sunlight. These were those white buildings he had seen from earlier. There was also a row of corn stalks in between the fence and the first building.

And off in the distance, he could hear it against. The same demonic, beastly roar…

“RRRRRAGH!”

With his guns at the ready, Axel steeled himself in preparation to deal with this unknown threat.

“Time to rustle up some cattle.”