Advent Of A Gunslinger

“Ah!” Chang gasped with a wide grin as he fired his shot which caused the black cats to disperse. “They run scared like flies on frog’s lilypad! Lord Magpie!” he shouted up to the griffon, “Fling me downwards! I shall cover Lady Kora’s advance!”

“I concur,” Kora added, “Are you in agreement with--”

Vido had already planned to dive-bomb them in anyhow. So this worked out perfectly. “Oh-ho yeah! Vamos my friends!”

“Wait--” Kora tried to comprehend what he had meant. “Just what are you--aah!”

But it was too late. With a mighty fling of his arm, Vido tossed Kora down towards the sand.

Luckily, cats always land on their feet. And this was true for Abyssinians as well. Kora brilliantly flipped onto her paws, and ran towards the group of black-furred catfolk on all fours, claws out…

Upon seeing her glasses and particular style of gym shorts, those catfolk immediately knew who they were about to deal with.

“Isn’t that Fa Ying? The dojo instructor?” one of them asked.

“Nope! No way am I taking her in a fight!” another one protested.

The mage leader of the group scowled. “Are you serious? You outnumber her by a large margin. You should be able to--”

“RERRR!” With a hiss of hatred, Kora leapt out, and pounced upon one of those gang members. They wrestled for a second in the sand, and by the time the dust cleared, she stood above him with a paw on the back of his head and his arm in a lock, threatening to twist, and break it. “...Stand down or I snap his limb clean off.”

The others were understandably afraid, and looked to their mage leader for guidance.

“Wh-what should we do?”

“Can we even deal with her?”

The mage sighed, and took a step forward. “And what makes you think we should surrender to you?”

Click.

Chang had appeared behind that mage. His rifle was now shortened to the length of a short-range pistol. “This is why. Great toss, Lord Vido.”

“Gracias, amigo.” From above, the griffon had some dynamite loaded into his wrist-launcher, prepared to use it at any second. “Now make your decision, magia-gata.”

The mage stopped for a second, not responding to anyone. She hung her head beneath her hood to hide any semblance of emotion beneath its shadow. “...Today is a difficult day. But tomorrow...we all win.” She raised her paw, and her book started to glow a hue of purple and black as she prepared to fire off another spell in Roseanne’s direction.

The dark, almost alien aura of the spell caused a small panic within them, and in turn…

PSHOO!

A bullet went right through the mage’s head. She flopped to the ground, and oozed blood into the sand.

"Not you." Chang blew the smoke off of his gun, and looked down. "She was about to cast a dark magic spell known as Banshee-Theta. A gravity spell that can reduce one’s innards to paste. I had no choice but to dispatch her instantly.”

“...Yuck…” Rose commented with a disgusted shudder, “Thanks, JC,” she said, referring to Chang’s full title, “You saved me from becoming some kinda beef smoothie. Not how I’d wanna go out.”

Unfortunately, while they had been distracted by the intimidating aura of the mage’s magic, the rest of the Abyssinians had tactfully made their escape, running off into the distant desert.

"Damn," Vido cursed under his breath, "They got away..."

“There’s more important matter of Sir Remington’s safety,” Kora pointed out, “If he wasn’t here, then he’s probably somewhere nearby. We have to make sure that nothing bad has happened to him.”

“In that case, we need’ta check out Madam Martha’s place,” Roseanne pointed at the brick building that was just down the hill. “That was the last place I saw him go to. Here’s hopin’ they fared much better inside….”

“What do we do about this body?” Chang asked, “Can I use it for--?”

Rose cut him off. “No. Celaeno said no more fresh carcasses. Ya remember she flipped her damn feathers when she saw a heart in the main fridge next to the onions.”

“That’s only because my personal one was--oh yes...I see my problem now.”

Vido eyed something on the dead mage’s person, and would volunteer to dispose of it. “I got this. Give me a second. The rest of you head inside--I’ll catch up.” He grabbed up the dead body in his claws, and flew off to get rid of it.

Kora, Rose, and Chang would all glance at each other for a moment before silently making their way down the hill towards the brothel…

Meanwhile, in Klugetown…

Mio had finally worked up what he needed to say to Tony, and decided to pay the older gentletaur a visit.

“Alright. Time to get this over with.”

He walked up the steps that led to his house, and knocked on the door. The tom made sure that his blue suit was on straight as he heard heavy hoofsteps approach the door.

“Hang on. I’m--” The minotaur opened the door and paused mid-sentence. When he saw Mio, his heart dropped, and he hung his head. “...So you know, don’tcha?”

Mio didn’t want to play his hand too early. He tilted his head with a rather convincing, confused expression. “Pardon? Sir, I don’t think I know what you mean.”

Too bad Tony saw right through it. “Don’t play dumb with me, boy. I know what you’re here for.”

“Hrm…” Since it would be fruitless, Mio chose to drop the act of feigned ignorance. Instead, he chose to be a bit more direct. “I am not here to fight you.” He held his arms up. “Nothing up my sleeves or in my pockets. I simply wish to speak with you.”

The large brown minotaur could potentially overpower him without much effort. However, he wasn’t foolish. “Hm…” he snorted, blowing steam from his nostrils. “Leave yer coat at the door, and come on in.” With that, he backed away from the door to allow the Abyssinian to enter.

Being a practitioner of sleight-of-hand, it was only natural for such a request to be made. Mio was no stranger to it, and accepted. As soon as he stepped inside, he turned to the right, and placed his suit on the coat rack. He wore nothing underneath this suit, which exposed his thin, average figure.

Tony closed the door behind him, and led him to the living room. He sat down on an accent chair, and invited Mio to take a seat on the couch.

To which the tomcat obliged, and sat down. “Alright. So I’m sure you’re aware of what happened on that day, correct?”

"I am…” he grimly replied, “That friend of yours got what was coming to him.”

“He was not my friend,” Mio protested, “I absolutely abhorred the way he did everything. The same can be applied to my boss.”

For Tony, this was unexpected. The last thing he would have imagined was that there were members of a gang who disliked the way it operated. It rubbed him the wrong way. “...Really now? So why are ya still with ‘em?” he asked with a judgemental glare, “Why not just kill ‘em? Or run off and find yer own way, boy?”

Mio took his glasses off his face. “Because…” he proceeded to polish them with a handkerchief he had in his pocket, “I can’t simply run away from an obligation. However, they would certainly kill me if they knew what I was plotting.”

“...Slow your roll, son,” Tony leaned forward, “And back up a spell. What sorta obligation could you have to a group of murderers and thieves. Ain’t no better than them so-called Innocents from a few years back.”

“I’m fully aware of the griffon known as Gary Plummer who claimed to be a lawman and ran a criminal organization through deceit in the pursuit of gold and other materials. Not unlike what my boss is doing right now…” Once he had finished cleaning his glasses, he put them back onto his face. “That griffon was sentenced to death by hanging--and I’m sure my boss would suffer the same if our work got out to the public. Unfortunately, my paws are tied on the subject.”

Unsatisfied, Tony would seek a less cryptic response. “That didn’t answer my question, boy. What sorta obligation to these folk do you have? If I’mma die in this crossfire, I at least wanna know what the purpose of the crossfire is in the first place.”

There was no getting around it. Mio was forced to offer a more detailed explanation. “...I suppose I owe you that much, given how much has gone down as of late. Alright, here it is…to make a long story short: I grew up on the streets of Tabbytown, Abyssinia with no one to look out for me. So my boss and the rest of the gang took me in. They saved my life, essentially.”

“But I thought Tabbytown was a beautiful, well-off area with lots of buildings and shops,” Tony said curiously, “Your folks really didn’t care about you at all?”

Mio leaned against the arm of the couch with his paw resting against his forehead. “As far as I know, they lost their lives in the chaos of the Abyssinian Civil War a while back. When the regions of Siam and Catskills were both annexed by the rulers at the time. Shortly after I was born, I was placed into foster care...but it was horrible.” He sighed, and shut his eyes as he lamented those parts of his childhood. “I felt alienated within my own hometown...no one cared for me, and I was attacked on a regular basis. It may have something to do with the fact that the area of Tabbytown I lived in wasn’t on the same level as Panthera. It was a very run-down, underdeveloped landscape that had lost its resources because of that war.”

Tony looked down at the floor in silence. Yet another scenario in which someone had lost their parents. But in Mio’s case, he had lost them before he even properly knew them. It was hard to wrap one’s head around and it left the minotaur speechless.

“...I’m sorry for your...well…”

Mio shook his head. “Save your sympathy. I didn’t know my parents, so there was never really a connection lost. However, I was more than willing to join the organization that I’m currently involved with. That was about 13 years ago--I’m 28 now.”

“...Runnin’ with a gang at the ripe age of 15? Boy’s got stones, I’ll give him that.” After hearing that, Tony was able to piece together Mio’s plight. “So that’s why you don’t wanna abandon this group, huh?”

“Not yet. Not if I don’t have to,” he pushed the bridge of his glasses up, “I want to reform this troupe of ours. Make them something...better, more efficient. Something that isn’t solely focused on...well, I can’t go into too much detail. But you get the idea.”

Tony nodded. “That I do. But anyhow...what’s the reason you came out here to see me in the first place?”

“...To give you a warning.”