As the afternoon waned, the heat grew more and more oppressive. Lucky’s tongue lolled as he paced up and down the street, four pawfuls of steps in one direction, four in another. Back and forth. He couldn’t help but wonder where everyone had gone. Surely there were more people still in the city? More than one dangerous and dirty man in a subdevelopment. Girl sat quietly on the curb, watching Lucky and his restless pacing.
“Hey, Luckarillo.” She waited until his pale eyes met hers before she continued. “Did you ever do the identifying thing on my belt and stuff?”
His head tilted to the right as he thought about it. “No, I don’t think I did.”
“No time like the present, eh?” She said.
He padded over to her and sniffed at the belt that was wrapped around her waist. Leather, oil, gunpowder and the subtle scent of magic. He focused in on the magic, opening his mouth to pull the air over his tongue and taste it. The flavor was vastly different from the flavor his bags gave off. There was a hint of a tang that reminded Lucky of a snake.
Exquisite Gunbelt of the Lizard
Made by a master [Leatherworker] this belt has been enchanted in a process no longer known to those on Earth. Weapons holstered slowly are returned to the state in which they were first placed in the holsters. Ammo is replenished and the weapon is cleaned and oiled.
This item is soulbound to Isobel “Girl” Lachlan and may only be claimed by another in the event of her demise.
He nosed the box to turn it toward Girl and watched as she read it. One of her brows drifted upward, “Infinite ammo?”
“Sounds like it.” He said. “Sort of. Eventually there will be more ammo. We should probably find some extra ammunition to use in a pinch. It means you only have twelve shots at a time though, right?”
“Right. Which could be bad. I bet there’s probably ammunition somewhere in town.”
He sniffed at the guns themselves, but they gave off such a complicated scent that it made him sneeze. “Still nothing on the weapons themselves.”
“I bet you’re not skilled enough yet. We need to find more things for you to identify.”
“Easier said than done. If Ishtara hadn’t given these to me, we still wouldn’t have seen anything we could identify.” He said.
“Maybe we’re thinking of it the wrong way? What if you can identify things other than magical items?”
“Like what?” He said, cocking his head to the left.
She shrugged. “Like anything.”
His head tilted in the other direction as he studied her more closely. Sniffing deeply and trying to identify her like he had the items.
Isobel “Girl” Lachlan
Granny Lachlan’s Farm - Ally
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Interesting.” He mused, nosing the box so she could see.
She frowned. “Why does the System call me Girl?”
Lucky’s head dipped slightly and his eyes turned away from her. “It’s probably my fault. Before the grass-words, you were always Girl. I didn’t know you had another name. I’m trying to remember to call you your name.”
She reached out and ruffled the fur on the top of his head, flopping his ears around a bit. “It’s okay. I don’t mind you calling me Girl. I mean, it’s a little odd, but it’s not a bad thing to be called,.”
“You’ve been my Girl my whole life.” He said.
“Just most of it,” She corrected, scratching behind his ear gently. “You were about four months old when we got you.” She toys with his floppy left ear. “I remember you in the shelter. A happy little ball of fluff with this one floppy ear. Do you know what happened to it? I’ve always wondered.”
The ear twitched under her fingers. “I don’t remember much before you.” He admitted. “I think another dog chewed on it.”
“I can see that. There’s not scars in your fur or anything, the cartilage just gave up.” She said.
She scratched at his ears and he leaned into the touch with a groan. A loud, echoing bark shattered the quiet. They had planned on the forward scouts coming back in the event they made any contact. The booming bark was Axel’s gruff voice. “Val’s pinned down. We need backup.”
Not a word was spoken, they moved seamlessly into a lope. Lucky almost skidded as the road curved and then opened up. They had found the likely heart of the blast zone. Every building had been flattened and charred. Everything was various shades of gray, black, and white. The grasses were a strange, brittle color and the trees had been charred nearly beyond recognition. The blast area was much larger than Lucky had expected, encompassing several city blocks. In the center was a deep and ragged hole, perhaps as long as three school busses. Val, one forepaw held tight against her chest, was crouched at the very edge of that hole. She was surrounded by a pawful of glossy black machines. They rolled on tank-like tracks that clattered against the concrete and stood almost as tall as Wickett. In place of hands, they had simple three-pronged graspers. Those graspers were impossibly sharp and there were several cuts on Val’s flanks and her injured paw was deeply cut.
Axel’s teeth left gouges in their wake, but the damage he was doing didn’t seem to have much of an impact on the machines. As soon as they tumbled into the debris-filled open space, they all went into action, Girl drew her revolvers and fired off two quick shots at the dark machines. Sugar slid to a stop next to Girl and focused on getting Val healed. Intrepid and Lucky launched themselves at the machines. Lucky slammed into one of them with all four of his paws, shoving off with force and changing direction. The machine, its tracks whirring futilely against the street, slid over the edge.
**DA-DING!! You have gained +1 Parkour!!**
They could hear the machine clattering against something a couple of times before the fall went silent. Intrepid bit down on an arm that was reaching for Val and braced himself against the machine’s strength. There was a glugging sound as something came pouring out of a perfectly circular hole that Girl’s shot had bored into the back of one of the machines. The liquid was the color of the kind of throwup you make when you have to eat grass. A vile and lurid color that made Lucky’s stomach clench just by association. Whatever it was, it was so hot that it steamed, despite the summer weather.
The leaking machine made a sound like a motor tearing itself apart and slumped to one side, slamming into Axel and sending him toward the edge. Lucky tried to lunge forward toward Axel as he skidded toward the edge of that foreboding hole, but one of the machines sunk its terrible graspers into the soft skin of his flank, just before his hind leg. A keening whine escaped Lucky as he helplessly watched Axel’s slide toward oblivion.
Val, all four paws on the ground now, charged into the fourth machine, aiming toward the top section of it. It went down with a screech of metal on concrete. Lucky couldn’t take his eyes off of the catastrophe at the edge. “Axel, NO!” Girl’s voice broke like a dropped glass. She started running forward, racing toward the brindle mastiff. That she knew before she started she would never make it in time was written clearly on her face.
He was a gray streak, hurtling through the air. As the mastiff’s hind end slid over the edge, Intrepid sunk his teeth into the loose skin at the nape of Axel’s neck. He was yanked forward a step, his paws spreading wide and his stance lowering as the weimaraner braced himself against the much greater weight of the mastiff. Blood bloomed in his mouth and his ears flattened in response. Two more shots rang out and the last of the machines fell still. Lucky and Val were immediately at Intrepid’s side, helping him to pull Axel fully out of the hole. All four of them flopped on their sides, panting heavily once Axel was on solid ground and all of the machines were still.