Dawn breaks in the wasteland, the silence of a town deserted echoing forth the howling of distant winds. And beneath the five suns of a ruined world, a Gunslinger stands to face it. Weapon at his side, the mere shade provided by his wide brimmed hat hides the barest of expressions. The preparation of conflict, a war for the very soul of the living body.
Watching within windows, townspeople speak of prayers. Salvation from a single man, appeals to dead gods embodied by flesh and steel.
Worship reflected by the Gunslinger himself, the prayer of gunfire is whispered beneath deep breaths on approach to a final end.
Sister Destri and Father Mar, creators of justice and law, ease my soul in the taking of life today.
To the twins of Stratos and Strata, guide my hand against the enemies you have placed before me.
And to mother Alina: guide this one to a land that flows with water and honey. Bring them above the suns and through the walls so that they can soar in endless winds. Give them the grace from this desert and bring them to the Garden you have prepared for them.
Formal prayer ended, the Gunslinger stares up at the sky. The bearings of divinity against him, he sighs as he speaks to the world. “If there’s anything you can do to stop this, do it fast. I never wanted it to end this way, not like this.”
An answerless world, the young man taking a final breath of dust and wind.
Steps crunching on wasteland dust, the Gunslinger advances to the town square.
Forms watching from rooftops, a town’s militia armed for a hopeless war watching the soul. Weapons held in ancient, aged hands, their hope put into a wanderer of this endless desert.
A rusted light machine gun held in hand the Doctor-in-Training stands with the guardsmen of an era long past. A young man brought to war from raw desperation, faith tested now with weapon in hand.
Kneeling deep within the clinic, lives against boarded up windows and barricaded entrances. Behind them, stashed deep within the bowels of a basement below, the souls of youthful children and hope of a future ahead.
“You ready for this Dan?” An old man whispers as he loads the final slug into his pump action shotgun. “You’re shaking.”
“Yeah…” Daniel nods as he tries to stabilize the monstrous weapon at his disposal. “I don’t even need this thing. With the Vigil, we’re going to be fine.”
Bound by blood the old woman behind him speaks. A doctor’s experience and expertise matched with the love from blood. “I swear Daniel put that gun away and help me prep the coagulant.”
Turning, the young man speaks with impatience. “Ma I…”
“Your mom told me to take care of you when she sent you here.” The old woman bites back. “I want you to listen to me. If this goes bad and the shooting starts you're going into the basement with the rest of the kids, understand?”
“You don’t trust me with this?” The grandson heaves the bulk of the machine gun, nearly dropping it from thin arms.
“I love you Daniel.” The old woman takes a deep breath, honest words spilling as she stops filling a syringe of medicine. “If you die today… you can not die today, not when I’m here. I’d rather damn my own soul than drain your corpse dry. Promise me… now!”
A sigh, the conditioning of blood enough to draw wisdom to the inexperience of a young man. “Alright Ma. I promise.”
Within an empty bar the old man tosses the final table onto the doors; an attempt at security executed with barricaded furniture and faith. Hands dusted off from work, he raises his voice. “Clee?!”
Silence without an answer, Old Joe taking the steps up towards the second floor of the building as he repeats the call. “Clee where are you?”
A single door leads to her domain; converted from guest quarterings to a personal room the bartender pulls at the handle.
Unlocked, he opens it as he makes the final call. “Clee, are you…”
An empty space, only remnants remaining.
The suns blare onto the dust of Old Spring’s central square as the Gunslinger approaches.
Six damned souls leaving shells behind.
Hung from the central administration building, eviscerated forms of the once living bandit garrison rock silently in the heated wind. Gray eyes open in mortis, flies feasting upon exposed organs as black blood drains over the walls and falling into pools beneath the bodies.
In front of him, scattered around the synthesis tower, the cobbled together walls of hard cover. Taken from brick and salvaged steel, the structures were placed haphazardly across half the square. Jagged edges waist high match to those of shoulder length, hidden behind them the remaining members of the gang.
Armed with an array of firearms, the Gunslinger immediately identifies the threats at hand. Two assault rifle wielders, four sub-machine gunners, and a smattering of semi-automatic handguns and shotguns along the rest.
At the center of it all: the form of a Collective Mage.
Standing before her gang the thing wields unquestionable authority beneath the rage of gods.
Beautiful in design, her thin and angular body against the blinding sunlight is broken only as her hair is picked up barely by the light breeze. She stands in utter focus, eyes filled with the singular goal of sadistic excess.
The gang raises their weapons, lethal ordinance leveled on the singular frame of the Gunslinger as he stops thirty feet away.
The Mage stands taller as she sees him. A curious look, then realization. A smile without emotion, ice cold words spoken. “You have come, Alto Carrin.”
Raising a hand above her head towards the Five the creature continues. “May the gods you beg to protect you watch as you die.”
“It does not have to be like this Naro.” The Gunslinger speaks, a hand slowly hovering over the weapon at his hip.
The Mage chuckles, a surge of augmentation sending a wave of force behind her and throwing a few of her subordinates to the ground. “Your words are tainted with lies. You believe the key to your survival lies within the weapon you weld. However, your mistake is in trusting dead gods.”
Removing her weapon from her waist holster, she holds the thing up towards the five suns. Gunmetal blue shining in the grim light, the handgun held the hallmarks of a master’s work. Beautifully crafted, the fragile piece of hardware produced from a civilization across an ocean of sand reflects a work of art more than a weapon.
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A square barrel machined to a perfected integration with a carved receiver, the entire semi-automatic weapon a single, solid piece of creation without comparison on the frontier.
“I don’t want to do this Naro.” The Gunslinger pleads as he stares at her. “Please.”
The Mage blinks curiously. “And yet the Vigil begs for his life when faced with a power beyond his own ability.”
“Take your people and go.” The young man offers, an emotion tearing itself from the soul. “By the Five, this does not have to end in either of us killing each other.”
“You plead to the Five, but do you hear their replies?!” The Mage states as she stares at her weapon, an annoyance hinted with rage. “Those who once ruled me believed in their guidance. I do not. Their wills are irrelevant to the fate you have carved from this world. Today, you die.”
The weapon is reholstered, gaze returning to the hero that stands before her. A tasteless breath of dust and air heated from the roar of the suns above, blue eyes shimmering with divine power.
Across her body reality warps. Waves of distortion expand outward as the Mage thins the layer of gravimetric energy around her, magical armor traded for pure reactionary power. Her limited pool of resources redirected to a foundation of victory built upon augmentation.
The Gunslinger readies his stance, hand held near his weapon as he watches her form.
A moment of remembrance from a seared memory, recognition of that singular emotion hidden behind layers of inhumanity, augmentation, and brutal training yet barely expressed upon the face of the Mage.
The absolute surety of victory.
In a single motion the creature draws her weapon. Lightweight materials crafted to destructive purposes aimed right at the Gunslinger with an otherworldly grace.
Hesitation, the roar of guns withheld as information rushes through processor chips. Confusion as she sees Alto’s draw unexecuted, the weapon still holstered upon his waist.
The young man before her standing with absolute stillness against the fury of a demi-god.
Eyes cold in calculation, the man stares down the guns of mortal ideology without thought, the voice of the Mage barely reaching to him in comprehension.
A thin chuckle rising to a laugh, a smile stretched across the Mage’s face as she glances her gang behind her. Unrealized enlightenment upon their focused faces, the thing speaks up towards the Gunslinger. “Intriguing, you understand the basis of the arcane. Alto Carrin you seek to fire when opportune, to wait until my point of vulnerability. When I fire this weapon the shield I have projected will falter, and in that moment you will attempt to shoot me.”
His plan revealed, the Gunslinger barely reacts.
“However, there is but a single flaw in your certainty.” The Mage notes as she smiles.
Dead gods watch the final moments of a life, the weave of fate twisting upon the desert wastes of a dying world.
She finishes her statement, closure to a life. “You are not faster than a bullet.”
Cold execution as a delicate finger squeezes a machined trigger.
The universe slows to absolute stillness as the single action springs forth conflict, a snapshot in the eternal passage in time held still through immense measure.
Augments flaring in the ecstasy of killing, a rush of flooding emotions completely consuming the mind of Naro. Eyes wide as she watches the stalwart frame of the Gunslinger before her, hand still hovering above his holster.
The rusty, barely functional semi-automatic action begins its process, hammer sent towards its fated position. A terminal sequence crossed, death guaranteed in execution. An expectancy, clenched springs loosening as metal plating shears together in imperfect precision.
A firing pin hurtling into the bullet loaded in the chamber. Ears open for the metal strike before absolute destruction, the glorious ring of brass and steel awaited with immense panic.
Augmentation brings forth the warning.
The bullet reaches the mind; an incoming fire alarm blaring every fiber of neurons and silicone chips. Reactionary combat activates, from her right flank the single projectile is given immense classification; a body moving on pure instinct as her form moves with unobtainable speed.
A single handgun round is caught in mid-air; its perpetrator standing deep within the alleyway.
Naro Siddim, the augmented monster turns towards the creature in her moment of hesitation.
The little girl stands with rage in her eyes, the weapon within her grasp cycling through its sequence. A soul built towards vengeance, pure and utter rage in the embodiment of a singular sleeping savior deep in the world.
A decision made, the soft flesh of the child to be destroyed by a single movement of the hand. To crush her into pulp, to destroy the very foundation of souls upon the abandoned youth of resultance. To watch as this worthless soul dies, to exterminate life through this immense power.
Beyond the City of Two, underneath the ancient suns and city of steel, on ancient sands her purpose is found… as the god of the Collective adverts her gaze from her wandered daughter.
Emotions rise with rage; augmentation falters as focus is lost within an imperfect mind.
The Gunslinger doesn’t hesitate.
Five .357 magnum rounds tear through armor and augmentation as the roar of divine ordinance echoes forth, craters of shattered metal blasted into pieces as the bullets arrive near simultaneously at their target.
Points of impact targeted at learned weaknesses, rounds liquifying hearts, lungs, and shattering vertebra. One single bullet finds itself crashing through bone and armor plating, layers of lead peeling away as metal gives way to the very foundation of souls.
Gore splatters onto ancient dust and sand, the dead woman stumbling back as half her cranium is blasted into a spray of metal and blood. Backup processors carry with them the functions of a ruined biology, systems failing in a cascade as a wave of excess energy is released through destroyed bio-capacitors.
Still standing, the Mage’s final vision is seen in broken eyes. A lone Gunslinger traveling across nations, her last moments in a wretched world left in the discovery of her true purpose.
Nothing more than a footnote in the avenue of a destiny laid out by ancient gods.
The last breath chokes on blood, the form collapsing onto the ground.
Weapon raised, the Vigil remains absolutely still in the application of divinity. The draw incomprehensible in speed, the Gang before him unable to even react at the death of their sole leader.
There is no gunfire, no more conflict in a dying world.
With slow footsteps the Gunslinger approaches the corpse, a deep breath taken as he stares into the very souls of the remaining bandits.
Several fall onto their knees in terrified worship, reverence for a divine mechanism; witnesses to a last hope in the dust and rage.
Others stare in absolute silence, raw fear echoing through mortal minds.
Stopping before the body, the Gunslinger kneels down. Hands held in prayer, the taking of a life weighted upon beings other than himself.
A purity of soul brought by the Five Gods above him, ancient texts of wars and wisdom long past brought to heel in a single prayer for the departed. A passing of guilt to divinity, a wielder of their item responsible for the lives that it takes…
The Gunslinger stops at the thought, watching as within the Mage’s dead body artificial systems still attempt to sustain life. A tertiary heart pumps pale blood onto the ground, a shattered synthetic lung whirrs against open air, and the twitches of exposed muscle break against broken bone.
Weight upon his shoulders still, the prayer a formality for a dead soul as he holds five fingers upon his chest.
Alina, guide this one to a land that flows with water and honey. Bring her above the suns and through the walls so that she can soar in endless winds. Give her grace from this desert and bring her to the Garden beyond.
Standing from the dusty earth beneath him the young man stretches, a messy yawn echoing across the township. A new day dawning, a journey just beginning.
“May your gods guide you Naro, through the life after this.” Alto sighs, turning over to the small girl within the alleyway. A quiet prayer, to himself only. “I pray for her, for her sake.”
Watching as Gang Members scatter, the Gunslinger stares up at the Five Suns above. A fragment of divinity brought forth into the realm of mortals, carried upon the hands of a man; flawed and broken as the rest. “And now I need to deal with… all of this.”
A single hero, destined to wander the desert wastelands. One part of a greater destiny, a prophecy and promise from an era long past:
Bring together the five pieces of a broken god.
Unite them, to birth a weapon that will save us all.
THE GOD GUN.