“I don't much care fer yer tone there, freeloader. I'll have you know my tally whacker's as fit as a fine fiddle!"

Nero snorted. Although it was an amusing response, he was beginning to think this pointless argument was never going to end. Mr. Bill's personalities were switching back and forth so fast that Nero was glad their heated discussion had nothing to do with him; because he had long since stopped trying to pay attention.

"Whut? Don't believe me?" The unmistakable voice that called itself Wild Bill continued to rant. "You can take a long gander fer yerself If'n my word ain't good enough, jus' don't go gettin' no funny ideas. You ain't my type, bein' a titless ghost 'n all.”

“I don't want to 'take a gander' at anything! I want to know why you haven't been USING CONDOMS MAN!!” The voice Nero recognized as Mr. Bill was suddenly back, practically screaming at himself as he limped around in circles, using the barrel of his pistol to prod at the crotch of his trousers. "Everybody knows you have to wrap it before you tap it!"

Nero seriously hoped that weapon wasn't loaded. At the same time, if things were as bad down there as Mr. Bill was letting on, maybe it wouldn't be much of a loss if he accidentally shot that tainted pecker right off his body.

Either way, this was getting mighty awkward. Although Nero was no stranger to being dumped into uncomfortable situations, he found that he was at a complete loss for words. Shifting his weight from foot to foot impatiently, he rubbed the patchy stubble on his chin and pondered his options. Realistically, what was he supposed to do here?

Leaving Mr. Bill behind was out of the question. Not only did he feel a strange sense of attachment to that unstable cowboy, but Nero was also in desperate need of an escort. Without the proper paperwork to prove his identity, freedom was no more than an illusion for a slave. Former, or otherwise. No matter what Mr. Bill said, Nero had no doubt that if he tried entering that town alone, he wouldn't make it three steps through the gate before someone had him back in chains. He didn't want that any more than he wanted to stand around out here in the open waiting to get gored to death by a bunch of stupid beasts.

Fleeing on the carriage was also off the table. There was no way Mr. Bill would be able to weather the hundred or more-mile ride to the nearest town. Not to mention, they were in the middle of some kind of a mandatory quest to defend the fort from some kind of monsters. On top of everything else, Nero still had a dozen different questions about his System Profile that he needed answered. Which should’ve been an easy enough problem to solve. Unfortunately, for the last several minutes his only source of reliable information had been too busy screaming at himself about his 'sexually transmitted diseases'—whatever those were—to provide any answers. The crazed look in Mr. Bill's eyes was worrisome, and Nero really didn't want to get himself involved until he knew exactly who he was dealing with.

“Well excuse the shit outta me there, partner! You want I should've left all my damn clothes on while knockin' boots too? Aw, Hell, Bill. You know jus' as well as I do that them pecker holsters ain't natural. I might as well go on ahead an' rub one out If'n that's the only alternative. Least that way I could feel my fist…”

Nero knew his best bet would be to let him—them?—settle this dispute between themselves. Had it not been for the risk of a stampede breaking out at any minute, he would've done just that. Unfortunately, he didn't have the patience to wait any longer. By the time he extracted the rifle from under Jupiter's stiffening corpse—doing his best to ignore the way the dead man's glassed-over eyes seemed to glow under the haunting light shed by the massive moon—Nero knew he needed to do something. Anything. This pointless argument needed to end before it attracted any unwanted spectators.

When clearing his throat failed to get their attention, Nero tried coughing into his fist. When that didn't get the desired results, he aimed the rifle up at the largest, greenest star he'd ever seen and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.

It took nearly a minute of prodding and pulling at random to discover how to reload the unwieldy contraption. Growing frustrated, he yanked on the metal hand guard around the trigger and the entire thing collapsed outward with a loud clack. When an empty bullet shot out of a slot on the side and pinged off his forehead, he realized this was what he was looking for. After working the lever one more time to ensure a fresh bullet was in the chamber, he took aim at his chosen star, clenched his eyes shut and pulled the trigger.

***

Bill was so furious with his other half for being a disgusting pig that he never even noticed Nero walking away. It was bad enough that he had to deal with his hip rotting out from under him, but to have gonorrhea, chlamydia, and syphilis all at the same time? It was sickening. And depressing. Worst of all, he needed to make some hotdog water.

“Good thing our pants are dirty. I'm about to piss in them.” Bill stated with complete seriousness.

Wild Bill wasn't having any of it. “Don't you even think about it! Might be dyin' but I've still got my dignity…”

“Pardon my French but fuck your dignity. I've got to go, like now, and there's no way I'm touching your dirty dick with my bare hands. Honestly, I'm afraid to even look at it.”

CRACK!!

Although he had a lot more to say while he was on the topic, a deafening blast of sound and fury coming from off to his left stole the opportunity from him. Bill moaned with a combination of pleasure and razor-sharp agony as warm urine trickled down his leg. An embarrassed roar broke the silence in his mind as his loaner body launched into a muscle-memory-fueled surge of motion. Dropping down on his good knee, Bill made himself as small a target as possible and stared down the sights of his unloaded pistol. Simultaneously, his left hand flashed to his holster and tore the sheriff's revolver free.

Kneeling in an asparagus-scented puddle with a gun in either hand, Bill scanned the surroundings with his arms spread out in a wide V. It didn't take him long to locate the source of his unknown assailant. It was… “Nero? What the hell man, I nearly had a heart attack!” Shoot him then! Do us both a favor an' kill him dead!

Judging by the expressionless stone mask that had taken over his face, Nero did not regret his actions in the slightest. Bill very much doubted that he was going to get an apology any time soon.

“I'm sorry to startle you Mr. Bill,” Nero said with a nervous grimace, immediately nullifying Bill's previous assumption, “but we should really get to movin'." he gestured towards the stationary carriage with the butt end of Jupiter's rifle. The team of malnourished horses behind him were frozen in place. They looked downright terrified.

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

I'm not finished with you yet. Bill nodded for Nero to lead the way as he sent out a silent warning.

Wild Bill wasn't about to let it go unanswered. So intimidatin! Got me 'tremblin' in my boots, he replied, his words dripping with sarcasm.

Now that he knew he wasn't about to be shot, Bill holstered his empty pistol, tucked the sheriff's junk heap of a revolver under his belt. After three failed solo attempts, he finally managed to get back to his feet with Nero's assistance. “I'm sorry too, Nero,” he offered with a tired smile, “I'm embarrassed you saw that, but I've kind of got a lot going on today,“ he glanced at his System Profile and shook his head.

There was a lot going on there too.

Lined up along the top of the screen were multiple selectable tabs. The first tab, labeled Statistics, was currently selected. Unsurprisingly, this one displayed Bill's Status screen, but that was only the start. There were a dozen tabs in total, but currently only five were accessible. Listed in order from left to right they were Status, Quests, Inventory, Party, and Map. The remaining seven were currently unlisted and inaccessible.

And he had Skills! Real Skills! The language Skill was simple enough that he didn't give it a second glance, but those others? It took everything he had to pull his eyes away from them. These Sigil things weren't in any videogames he'd ever played, but if they all provided (Rare) tier Skills and abilities then he wanted as many as he could get his callused hands on.

Whut's all this here!? Wild Bill broke his silence to ask, thankfully not out loud this time around. Who're they callin' Two-faced? Wait. I… I can read it? Bill, I can read it! I don't know what the blazes I'm lookin' at, but I can read it clear as day!

“That's good news.“ Bill replied calmly, yet on the inside, he was beginning to panic. Shit! How long can I keep this Riftwarden thing a secret? He casually dismissed every notice pertaining to his Riftwalker Sigil in hopes it would prolong the inevitable. Although Bill could plainly see that this Status section was barely scratching the surface of what was hidden within his profile—and wanted nothing more than to comb through each tab in search of information on the potential acquisition of new Sigils while simultaneously scrubbing away any trace of the word Riftwarden—now was not the time for casual editing.

As of yet, the oncoming buffalo herd was still plodding along at a snail's pace, in no apparent hurry to get anywhere. There was more than a football field's distance between them and the small town, but Bill had no idea how long that was going to last for. Even if they weren't technically the first beast wave, the damned things were massive. If the arrival of the initial beast wave came from somewhere behind them, there was no doubt Nero's warning would come to pass. A stampede would surely break out, and no way in hell could the three-foot-thick mudbrick walls around Fort Alamo withstand the immense strain of quite literally hundreds of tons of determined muscle slamming into it all at once. The whole town would be trampled into kindling before the residents ever knew what happened.

At Nero's impatient urgings, Bill pulled his eyes away from the thousand-pound behemoths and followed him around to the rear of the carriage. On the way by, he caught his first up close sight of Jupiter. From the neck down, Bill's would-be killer was a gruesome ruin of shredded clothing intertwined with sundered flesh. He shivered. There was something seriously wrong with the corpse's eyes. It felt like they were following his every step.

When seen from up close, the horse-drawn carriage was in even worse condition than he'd first assumed. It was little more than a termite-eaten wooden box mounted to a creaky metal frame with four worn and pitted wagon wheels keeping it up off the ground. The windows were boarded shut, keeping the contents hidden from prying eyes. The closer he got, the stronger the unmistakable scent of blood grew. It could've been Jupiter's remains wafting in the breeze, but Nero kept giving the sealed cabin door nervous glances, which led Bill to believe the contents were better left unseen.

Bolted to the rear wall of the cabin was a massive leather trunk. Judging by the decrepit carriage, and the poor condition in which Slavin' Dave kept his revolver, Bill honestly had little hopes of finding anything in there of any real use. Most likely it would be a bunch of worthless junk. Determined to scavenge whatever he could find to aid their upcoming struggles, Bill tugged at the rusted latch until it broke free. Tossing up a silent prayer to any deity willing to listen, he sucked in a deep breath and lifted the lid.

“FUCK ME!” He shouted. It was filled to bursting with dirty clothes. “Smells like stale ass in here…”

As Bill rummaged through the mountainous mound of luggage, he happened across a pair of muddy jeans and a musty shirt that Nero said belonged to Jupiter. He didn't feel all that great about stealing from a dead man. Neither was he convinced that the gray crust on his pilfered outfit was made entirely of dried mud. The unknown substance had a sickly-sweet stench that he couldn't quite place. Regardless of whether or not that was actually some kind of dried animal feces, it was still better than the pungent scent of death suffusing his current threads.

Changing was a pain in the ass—both literally and metaphorically—but with Nero's continued assistance and the use of a fold-out bench concealed beneath the storage box they managed to get it done. On the plus side, when he stripped off his rancid trousers, instead of coming face to face with the dreaded sight of Wild Bill's infected hog he encountered what had to be the biggest bush of pubes ever to have grown into existence.

“Jesus Christ!“ He snorted and shoved his legs into his replacement pants. They were a bit too tight around the waist. It felt like hot garbage on his hip, but they were close enough to his size that he was determined to make them work. At least until he could get his hands on something better. The button up red flannel shirt smelled like a sack of moldy socks but was otherwise a perfect fit.

As it turned out, Slavin' Dave kept all of the good stuff hidden at the bottom. Buried beneath layer upon layer of pungent clothing, Bill finally stumbled across a panel of wood that didn't seem to fit properly. Anyone with at least one eye and a functional brain could tell there was another compartment hidden back there.

Tucked away inside, Bill located a few large knives, a pair of lever-action rifles, a stockpile of grapeshot and gunpowder, and three cases each of ammunition cartridges in both .38 special and .40 caliber. Last but definitely not least, all the way in the far corner, he discovered a lone case of dynamite.

Well I'll be damned! That sumbitch sheriff came prepared to blow the whole fort to smithereens! Grab that box out of there would ya'? How many sticks ya’ reckon are in there? It ain't wet is it? If it's wet, for the love of God don't touch it!

“How the hell am I supposed to know if it's wet if I don't touch it first?..” Grumbling under his breath, Bill gently lifted the heavy wooden crate from the rear of the caboose and set it on the ground as gently as humanly possible. As far as he could tell, the box felt dry, so he held his breath and eased the lid off.

A high-pitched whistle drew his attention to his left. Nero was approaching slowly, his hands outstretched as if to shield his face from an imminent explosion. “Be careful Mr. Bill! Massa Murdock says that box kills anyone foolish enough to touch it!“

Retreating several steps, Bill surveyed the contents of the small crate from a safer distance. Nero's lingering warning had him wary of touching a single stick, so he counted what he could see and used that to guesstimate the total haul. “There has to be at least fifty sticks of dynamite in here!” he gasped.

Probably closer to a hundred of em' if'n you ask me. Wild Bill responded matter-of-factly.