Advent Of A Gunslinger

The Dreaded.

Gatto put a hand on her shoulder, which only caused the she-cat to tremble violently. “Now now...Maxine. I’m sure you’re aware of the terms that we have agreed upon.”

Mynx turned her head away, but couldn’t move. Her heart started to race, the excess blood that pumped through her body kickstarted her fight-or-flight response, but she didn’t move. The overwhelming sense of dread caused her body to lock up. “I-I-I…”

“Hm?” he asked as felt the side of her face with the back of his hand.

Axel grit his teeth. Part of him wanted to leap in and save her immediately, but he knew that doing so would likely put himself at risk if Gatto recognized him. Which in turn, would lead to him having to kill the Abyssinian, which he didn’t want to do just yet. “Dammit. I need to--” He tried to push against the inside of the locker, but remembered that it was locked. “Son of a bitch! I can’t move, and I can’t get a clear shot from here either!”

In a word, they were both helpless.

Gatto would keep up his actions without fear of interruption. “You what? Do you have something to say to me?” His hand would move further downwards, and grab ahold of her apron. “Do I have to pull the answer out of you?”

Once again, she was silent. Mynx swallowed a lump of fear that had been stuck in her throat. Bullets of sweat ran down her fur. “S-sir...I don’t...”

“You don’t what?” With a swift flick of his wrist, he tore the apron off of her body. He would then reach beneath her tank top, and grab ahold of her breast to assert himself over her.

“...Ah!” she gasped, utterly shocked by the violation of her body.

Gatto would then lean forward and push Mynx down against her desk. Completely out of view of Axel now. Even if he could get a shot off, the lack of visibility prevented him from doing anything.

“May I remind you...that your sister is under our care. If you want her to remain safe, I suggest that you follow my orders.” Gatto had ripped her top off and exposed both of her breasts. His claws were dangerously close to her fur. “Do I make myself clear?”

Mynx had begun to hyperventilate softly. She bit her tongue to prevent herself from allowing a hiss or wail to escape her lips. Her eyes shifted to the left where a photograph was located on her desk. A portrait that contained both herself and a shorter, black she-cat with thick glasses.

With her hands metaphorically tied, she hurriedly answered. “Y-yes sir! Okay! P-please don’t hurt me!”

At last, Gatto would release her. “Oh please…” He stood upright, and straightened out his suit. “I have no intention of bringing you any harm. But you know how my boss’s policy functions. You will be paid in full at the end of the week. Until then, you are to focus solely on our order, and no one else’s. Is that clear, ma’am?”

Mynx stood upright, and quickly replied with a nod. “Y-yes sir!”

“Very well…” He delivered a quick slap to her behind, and turned to leave the room. “Don’t disappoint us.”

“Ah! I-I won’t!”

There was silence as the Abyssinian’s footsteps slowly faded away. The door to Mynx’s abode was shut, and she waited until she could hear the elevator travel upwards before she relaxed.

“...Whew...he’s gone.”

Mynx retrieved another top to replace her shredded one, and would proceed to unlock the locker that the hippogriff had hid himself within.

“ACK!” Axel had to remove his facemask, and take a deep breath. The enclosed confines of the locker made it difficult to breathe, so he needed a moment to recover. “...What the...who the…?”

The she-cat would try to downplay the scenario. “Erm...don’t mind him. He tends to get a bit touchy when he’s anxious.”

“Anxious my ass,” Axel snapped in response, “That slimy sidewinder violated you for his personal gain.”

“L-Listen…” Yet again, she would deny it. Mynx sat down at her desk and tried to reason with him and somehow manage to justify the behavior of what she just experienced. “My sister lives with his folks on the other side of town. I’m simply doin’ my job and repayin’ them.”

This was not going to be easy. Someone like this was convinced that such behaviors were acceptable and couldn’t be changed. Axel sighed. “Hrm…” He then took the conversation a bit more slowly. “My question is this: You didn’t have a problem with him touching all over your lady bits?”

“I can’t let him get involved in this. This ain’t his problem.” “...He was just fussin’ around,” she said, “Mr. G does it all the time. Whenever I doubt myself, he grabs me up and I feel all excited and ready to keep goin’, savvy?”

“So is it some kinda fling-thing? If so, then it’s not my place to judge.” Frankly, Axel wasn’t entirely convinced. Then again, he didn’t exactly have the best view of the situation since he was locked in a closet with very limited space. “...Right. Anyhow, that guy might have been involved in the destruction of my family. So whether you like it or not, I need to find a way to Abyssinia.”

Mynx nervously grabbed onto her tail. There really was no way to convince him otherwise, was there? “Alright, mate. Listen up. Me sister Kora is an instructor at the only academy in the entire region.” She let go of her tail, and pointed the photograph on the desk that contained the two Abyssinians. She then grabbed a map from one of the drawers in her desk. “Now...I’mma offer this to ye if ye promise to keep quiet about what you just saw and heard. Deall?”

Axel scoffed mentally. “Yeah. That ain’t happenin’. Next time I see that pussy bitch, I’m buryin’ him six meters under the dirt. Nobody should be out here treatin’ a woman like that.”

In order to get what he wanted, he had to put on a front of compliance with the she-cat. “Fine by me,” he responded, “But just so you know, I’m doin’ this for myself. Ain’t nobody else is gettin’ involved. So you can put whatever concerns you have in a barrel and toss it off a ridge.”

“Sounds swell. Just one more thing...” She handed him the map, and the hippogriff accepted it in his claw.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“...How much does your family mean to ya?”

Axel looked down at himself, then back up at Mynx. “You can see it for yourself, can’tcha? I’d go to the ends of the earth to avenge ‘em. Come hell or highwater. The folks who did this to ‘em--and to me--are gonna pay. Pure and simple.”

Mynx paused for a moment as she thought to herself. “...Hell or highwater, eh? This mug right here is somethin’ else. I couldn’t imagine bein’ spunky enough to raise a claw against Gatto and Big Boss. Could he actually do it? My life is already spoken for, but can he really set Kora free?”

It was almost as if the both of them knew exactly what they wanted each other to accomplish. The only problem was that vocal expression of such thoughts was too great a risk. Parts of them both still didn’t quite trust the other.

Axel would break the silence with a snap of his claws. “...Any particular reason why you’d ask that?”

“No…” she denied, “Just wanted to understand yer plight, sir. I hope you get what you’re looking for. Stay safe, yeh?”

“...No promises.” Axel would place his mask back on his face, and proceed to take his leave. “In the world of bounty huntin’, there ain’t no room for safety.” With the map now in his possession, he would most certainly have an easier time with navigation. All he could do was hope that this ‘Kora’ gal was actually capable of working with him. But there was something that he just couldn’t comprehend.

“This mucked-up place actually has education?”

Mynx was left alone, and had to rush back into gear to get started on her work. With no way to tell if she’d be done in time or not, a sense of dread filled her body as she got the metals she needed together.

“C’mon. Focus, ya corny lass. You can do this…”

Gatto had made his way through the marketplace in the epicenter of Klugetown. However, he was stopped partway by two individuals.

“Mr. G!” the raspy voice of a porcupine barreled out into the air behind him. “Mr. G! I found something!”

The Abyssinian hissed out of primal, defensive instinct, but dropped his guard once he turned around to look for the source of the noise. “...Oh.” His eyes drifted downward. “It’s you.”

“Ey, yo, don’t fuhget about me, partna,” the crocodilian resident joined his porcupine companion moments later. “We both gots ourselves some juicy info for ya. Both’a us. As in, we found it togetha.”

“I see…” Gatto folded his arms with an impatient glare on his face. “Well? Spit it out, you two. I don’t have all day.”

“Okay! Okay!” the porcupine went on, “You see...this dude came up into the town. He was all decked out in Wild West gear n’ shit. Lookin’ like he was gonna hunt somebody.”

Gatto’s eyes widened ever so slightly to convey muted intrigue. “Oh? Well then. Did you find out what he was? Was he a pony?”

“Not exactly,” said the croc, “He sorta looked like one, but had wings and opposable claws like one’a the hippogriffs. His parts wouldn’t be worth nearly as much as bona-fide pony bits.”

“Or I guess you could say...pona-fide?” the porcupine said with a raspy cackle. “Pona--get it?!”

SMACK!

The croc casually punched the porcupine’s snout, which sent him flying into a nearby wall next to a stand. “Ow! Gimme a warning next time, daddy!”

Gatto chose to ignore the pun entirely. “...Right. So did anything else happen or is this just another odd visitor?”

“As’a mattah of fact, yuh,” the croc folded his arms as well, “Yo girl Mynx suddenly came in and scared--” his eyes shot open, and he quickly altered some of the story, “I mean, ran off with him. Didja see him down in her place?”

“...A hippogriff with a Western vibe. Rings a bell indeed.” After some reflection, Gatto would answer. “I did not. Strange. This could prove most interesting indeed and it’s something that the boss could take advantage of.”

The porcupine would grumble as he stumbled back into view. “So er...what do you intend to do from here, sir?”

“Me? I’m going to pay a visit to one of our wards. If things are headed the way that I believe they are, then our boss is going to want to meet this hippogriff cowboy. You two should keep an eye on Maxine in the meantime. Understand?”

The croc cracked his knuckles. “Yeah, yeah. So long as we get them unicorn horns ya promised.”

“With the magic in those horns,” the porcupine’s quills stood up on end as drool fell from the side of his mouth, “Ohhh, the varmints we could take advantage of...”

Gatto would light up a cigar, and take a puff from it. “It’ll be all yours. Just don’t screw it up.” “Like you always do.” He turned, and started to walk into the inner administrative district of town. “Adieu, gentlemen.”

“Kora is going to love to hear this.”